As summer months approach, I find it harder to convince myself to stay in and watch movies. The sound of waves on sandy beaches and seagulls stealing my food fills my mind as I dim the lights and settle in. Even with these delightful distractions at hand I still find the time for my passion of sitting and watching. This month that includes…
Beau is Afraid
Beau is Afraid is an intense film, delving deeper into the demented mind of writer/director Ari Aster than his previous two efforts (2018’s Hereditary and 2019’s Midsommar). A film that feels much more personal than his previous films, we follow the titular character as he journeys to see his mother. A simple premise (which I am hiding some details of to avoid spoilers) that is told in as complex a way as possible, what starts off as an intriguing exploration of one man’s psychosis and anxiety quickly devolves into a frustrating and labourious puzzle box. While Aster has never been one to spoonfeed his audience, this is the first of his that seems purposefully obtuse, and at a three-hour run time, it left me feeling more exasperated than enlightened.
The first two acts of this film are wonderful in their execution. Joaquin Phoenix’ is phenomenal as Beau, and the first act showing the actualization of Beau’s fears is both delightful and hilarious. This is followed by a section taking place in a mysterious house, featuring Nathan Lane absolutely destroying in a small but scene-stealing role. Here Aster starts laying out more mystery, more puzzles for us to explore and entertain as the film progresses. But it is immediately after this section that the film loses footing, choosing extravagance over cohesion, and where Aster chooses indulgence over story.
What follows is an exhausting hour and a half where Aster is given free wheel to do whatever he wants. And while I am not one to want a vision limited, I do believe that innovation is sparked more creatively in the face of hearing “no”. By giving in to all of his ideas, the film suffers from being overstuffed with metaphor and not enough meaning. This robs the ending of any emotional juice for me, instead leaving me confused and baffled by the choices made. What could have been a wonderful exploration of the world as seen through the eyes of the severely anxious is instead a mess of artistic indulgence.
Blackberry
I don’t necessarily like to say it but I’m going to anyways: it’s really nice when a Canadian film doesn’t suck.
Blackberry tells the dramatic rise and inevitable fall of Research in Motion, the creators of the first ever smartphone. While this is a story you’ve heard before with characters you’ve seen before (the megalomaniac businessman, the creative genius, the dorky best friend) the execution here is impeccable. Shot in a documentary style, you are placed in the room with these characters, and much like them you only have a sliver of an idea of how giant this company is going to be. The pacing of this film grabs you and gives you little room to breathe, instead strapping you into a rollercoaster that was the early tech years of 2000.
The script is incredibly tight, placing in slight callbacks to previous scenes you only connect once the story has unfolded and creating full characters in the smallest of ways. Jay Baruchel shows why he should’ve been a bigger star, transforming from the tech geek to the ruthless CEO before our eyes and without us really realizing it until the closing moments. The corruption of integrity and the corrosive power of being on top makes this a contender for film of the year for me.
Bug
William Friedkin is not a quiet director. From The Exorcist to To Live and Die in L.A. Friedkin makes brash, bold films that refuse to lose your attention. When you combine such visceral filmmaking with the quieter, kitchen sink dramatics of American playwright Tracy Letts you’re bound to get something compelling. And, for any faults it has, Bug is certainly compelling.
Following Ashley Judd as she invites a lonesome drifter (Michael Shannon) into her lonely existence, Bug quickly devolves into an exploration of paranoia, toxic codependency, and what true loneliness can drive someone to. The relationship between Judd and Shannon changes course when Peter (Shannon) claims to find bugs in Agnes’ (Judd) motel room. What follows is a shocking and depraved fall from grace, as the two start feeding off each other’s paranoia and fear that outside forces are attempting to infect them and tear them apart. Judd and Shannon both give frightening, unhinged performances as two people on the edge of society being thrown into madness.
The issues with the film, unfortunately, stem from its origins as a stage play. Much like many stage-to-screen adaptations, the film lacks a sense of scope. While there is no issue with a film taking place in one location, Friedkins seems uninterested in exploring the space and using it to its full potential, instead relying on set design and performance. These elements, while fantastic, are left somewhat wanting due to the lack of imagination with the camera. The script suffers from the same lack of scope, relying heavily on monologue and broad gestures that play well on stage but come off as awkward and inept on screen. This makes what should be a dark tumble into the American underbelly into a somewhat melodramatic, forced affair.
Jeanne Dielman, 23 Commerce Quay, 1080 Brussels
There is always something exciting about getting a film wrong on your first viewing. Maybe you weren’t in the right mood or setting for it the first time, maybe your expectations were too high, or maybe it just wasn’t the time. But you just know that looking at how you came out feeling and how the majority of people did, there’s something you missed that can be explored if you are to ever rewatch it. For me, despite coming close to hating my experience with it, I look forward to rewatching Jeanne Dielman, 23 Commerce Quay, 1080 Brussels because I know I got it wrong.
The film, for me, was an exercise more than an art piece. Over three hours long and consisting almost entirely of long, static shots as homemaker Jeanne cooks, cleans, and goes throughout her day, the film would test the patience of even the most devoted arthouse lover. There is undoubtedly beauty and wonder within these static frames, carefully composed and maintained by director Chantal Akerman. And there is more to the story than a quiet life of a widower, as she also discreetly performs sex work as a way to keep her and her son financially viable. In the final frames, the story explodes, and all themes and the misery of the life shown are exposed brilliantly. Even writing here I can see that my memory of the film is more positive than my actual experience watching it.
The issue is with the watching, with the unending waiting for anything to happen. Dullness and boredom are major themes at play in the work, but it is heavily laid upon the viewer as well. It plays out its themes quickly, and upon realizing you’ll have another two and a half hours of monotonous scenes your eyelids are bound to start drooping. Obvious for hours at a time, this is one better experienced in retrospect than the moment.
John Wick: Parabellum
The third film in the franchise, and the most expansive up to that point in the story, Parabellum contains many of the successful trademarks of the franchise that I had discussed in last month’s newsletter. Fantastic action sequences, interesting new characters, new dimensions to returning characters, and lots and lots of dead goons. Parabellum does face one possible issue that Wick has not yet encountered, and that is story fatigue. Three films in the world is almost becoming too wide for what the film can provide, and some elements seem rushed and not as fleshed out as previous installments. But, much as I discussed in the previous newsletter, the film still is a powerful metaphor regarding what a man is willing to do to tear down the system that has held him hostage for his entire life.
The Killing Floor
Though this initially aired as part of PBS’s American Playhouse series, the scope of it is more than enough to be considered seriously as a film. Directed by Bill Duke (best known for his role in Predator and for directing Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit), The Killing Floor follows a young black man’s trials and tribulations in 1910s Chicago. After finding work on the killing floor of a meat packing plant, he is quickly enraptured into the complicated political world of unions, race, and the Great Depression. Damien Leake triumphs as the lead, Bill Custer, who is torn between his loyalty to the union and the reality of being a black man in Jim Crow era Chicago.
While the expansiveness of the story is somewhat stunted by the made-for-TV budget and direction, the heart is palpable. We follow Custer as he struggles with what the union is for him, for black men, and for his family. As the Chicago race riots loom, and the union begins to fall in upon itself, Custer is forced to choose a side. Will he stand with his beliefs or his race? How is this even a question he has to ask? An efficiently powerful story of the beginning of the American labour efforts.
The Last Seduction
The first of two nineties erotic thrillers I watched this month (in large part due to the newest season of the excellent podcast You Must Remember This) The Last Seduction takes the traditional film noir and inverts it. Instead of following our masculine antihero we follow the femme fatale (Linda Fiorentino as Bridget) as she cheats, screws, and cons her way through the story. After a successful drug run, Bridget steals the money from her doctor husband (Bill Pullman) and sets up in a small town. Here she seduces a local man (Peter Berg) and begins her long con into financial and emotional freedom.
The issue with following the femme fatale every step of the way is that there are no surprises, no shocks. We see the setup and the payoff and are never unaware of what schemes are at play. This, in turn, makes her seductions and manipulations less powerful, less convincing, and makes the men of the story exceptionally stupid for following into what we the audience see as obvious ploys. While I have no problem with men being played as fools on screen, their stupidity makes Bridget’s abilities seem less. Of course she will come out on top, of course she will win in the end, for she is dealing with the most dimwitted characters you are likely to see this side of a broad comedy. It robs her of the freedom she so strongly wants, and robs the viewer of any suspense. Add to that the unfortunate (if seemingly inevitable in the 90s) transphobic leanings, and this is a film best left in its time.
The Master
Unlike many other film fans, I have never fallen head over heels for Paul Thomas Anderson. I deeply respect his work, from Boogie Nights to Phantom Thread, but there has always been something that held me back from truly loving his work. There is a chill in his storytelling, a clinical distance he can have with his subjects. This is something other beloved directors can also struggle with (Christopher Nolan being a prominent one) and while it’s less pronounced in Anderson’s work, I still feel it. With The Master, PTA is able to take what can be a negative aspect and turns it into a powerful tool. The clinical nature of this film, and the distance we feel from Freddie Quell (Joaquin Phoenix, again putting in a wonderful performance) allows us to see both his struggle to conform and his struggle to be unique.
The Master is about platonic love, the need for acceptance, and the discovery of your soulmate (and how that discovery can tear you apart). Freddie Quinn and Lancaster Dodd (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) are destined to be together, are bonded over the need to control and the need to be controlled. It is such a powerful relationship and bond that it is impossible to hold together, and even the smallest fracture will cause it to explode. Like a warship, powerful and unmatched, can be sunk by a single hole in the hull, so too can the relationship of Quinn and Dodd be powerful and vulnerable in the same breath.
It is the compelling dichotomy that propels The Master. Not just a story of a cult leader and his devour follower, it’s the story of how a leader needs to be led himself and how a follower needs to be followed. Roles, expectations, and desires of man make this Paul Thomas Anderson’s best.
Paris, Texas
My favourite film of all time, and the film discussed in this month’s issue of The Favourites (available to paid subscribers here). A haunting, quiet exploration of love, choice, and the American South. A neo-western where our heart is the hero and our the villain at the same time.
Poison Ivy
Another dive into sultry nineties erotica, this one with a dash of Lolita and a heaping spoonful of trash, Poison Ivy is a sexy, fun romp that will make your skin crawl just enough. Starring Drew Barrymore as the titular Ivy, a nameless drifter who ingratiates herself into the home of a wealthy family before wreaking havoc upon their home, the film is a pulp novel put on film. A film that actively tries to fight back any claim to substance, instead choosing to ham up the trashiness and ickiness of its central premise.
Unfortunately, the only actor that seems fully on the wavelength of the film is Barrymore, and the fact she is actually 17 in the film makes the content stomach-turning but not in a good way. Sara Gilbert is completely out of her element as the wannabe teen rebel, and while Tom Skerritt does his best, his sleazeball dad is edgeless. The story runs dry about fifteen minutes into the film and doesn’t gain any momentum until the final thirty minutes, by which point it feels rushed and incomplete. Trashy fun at times but not enough to be worth your time.
Sisu
A grindhouse Naziploitation throwback, Sisu is a simple premise: what if John Wick was a Finnish man at the end of World War 2? If that question compels you, Sisu will be a suitable romp. If that question makes you roll your eyes, it’s unlikely to change your mind. The premise is exactly what it says, and the film doesn’t try and stretch into anything more. There are no moral greys here. Come to watch Nazis die, get to watch Nazis die.
And while there are some fantastic action setpieces here, creative kills, and some truly nasty gore, I was still waiting for it to go really big. The film has some moments that really break the illusion of film (which is fine for a film so obviously not going for reality) yet I was still waiting for something truly crazy. It’s telling that the most exciting part of a film where one guy goes on a Nazi killing spree is when someone else gets to go on a Nazi killing spree. Whether it is because the silent lead is becoming something of a tired trope, or the creativity on display doesn’t have enough juice to carry a two hour film, there is just not enough craziness here to make it something special.
The Virgin Spring
When you think of stoic, philosophical Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergmann, a rape-revenge tale is hardly what comes to mind. Yet with his 1960 effort The Virgin Spring he is able to bring his unique perspective on the act of death to the subgenre. The film which later inspired grindhouse classic The Last House on the Left, The Virgin Spring follows a young wealthy maiden’s ill-fated voyage into the forest, as well as her attackers as they seek refuge at her castle, unaware they have stumbled upon the home of the woman they had just murdered. What follows is a slow revelation, as the family discovers what happened to their beloved, and what monsters they have opened their doors to.
Unlike its bloody American retelling (and the countless other exploitation films that follow in its footsteps) The Virgin Spring is not a bloody affair, it does not relish in the act of revenge. Revenge here is painful and questionable, blind and fruitless. We question the actions of the father as much as he does, and at no point does he take joy in the act of vengeance. For Bergmann vengeance is a bitter, unfulfilling act, a desperate empty moment. It is not in revenge that healing occurs, and we must strive for forgiveness from those who wronged us, and those we have wronged. In a world that insists on evil, a good man is no better than that evil if he falls from grace.