Movie Review: The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches

The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches **** / *****

Directed by: Simon Lavoie.

Written by: Simon Lavoie based on the novel by Gaétan Soucy.

Starring: Marine Johnson (Ali / Alice), Antoine L'Écuyer (Frère), Jean-François Casabonne (Père), Alex Godbout (Paul-Marie), Laurie Babin (Juste).

 

The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches is a bleak, black and white drama from Quebec. It is a film that starts out mysteriously, and has those mysteries deepen over the majority of its runtime. Yes, it basically wraps everything up by the end – a little too neatly for my taste – but overall, this is a challenging film about sexual oppression, religion, misogyny and its lasting impact. It is also a stunning film to look at – shot in stark black and white, the film can be brutal and hard-to-watch, but it never crosses the line into exploitation.

 

Set in 1930s, rural Quebec, the film centers of Ali (Marine Johnson), a teenage girl, being raised by her father (Jean-Francois Casabonne), shuttered away from the outside world alongside her brother (Antoine L'Écuyer). They are so sheltered, that their father is able to raise Ali as a boy – telling her penis just fell off as a child, along with cutting her hair short, and binding her breasts. But the outside world can only stay outside for so long – as is set in motion when her brother rapes her one day in the woods (I honestly don’t know what to make of the rape scene in the film – it’s quick, and non-exploitive, but I’m not quite sure what to make of the “how” it came about. It almost seems more like it was necessary to the plot, and not overly thought out). When her father examines her one night, and figures out she’s pregnant, that’s when he loses it. He will end up hanging himself, naked, in their house – his body becoming a source of fascination to both teenagers (Frere wonders if his penis is where they came from). And I haven’t even mentioned the strange, Gollum like person chained in the barn that the father refers to as Just Punishment, which Ali will shorten to Juste.

 

The first act of The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches is mysterious, as it locks us into Ali’s perspective, so we only figure things out as she does. Obviously, we know a few things before she does – namely, that she’s a girl (because we have eyes) – and also that her father’s behavior is not normal – from the way he chases off outsiders, to the bizarre religious rituals, to Juste out on the barn, we are far more concerned about his behavior that Ali is – who sees this as normal.

 

His death really is the catalyst for the rest of the story – that will unfold from them, piling on one revelation after another. Johnson is great in the lead role. Her performance is urgent and animalistic, without going over-the-top. She maintains our sympathy, even as more secrets spill out. L'Écuyer is fine as Frere as well – although he perhaps goes a little too far as the film spirals towards it climax, and he tries with increasing desperation to fill his father’s shoes.

 

The film was adapted (apparently liberally, since you cannot hide Ali being a girl in a film like you can in a book) by Simon Lavoie, from Gaétan Soucy’s novel. Like Lavoie’s last film – Those Who Make Revolution Halfway Only Dig Their Own Graves (that one was co-directed by Marc Denis) – it is a bold, stylistic film, although in a much different style (that film called back to the Godard films of the 1960s with its use of color). Here, he has gone for something much more stark and unrelenting in his use of black and white, and handheld camera work. It gives the film a raw, animalistic feel that perfectly matches its content.

 

I do wish that the film didn’t quite feel the end to tie up every loose end. I was enjoying the ambiguity of the film as it progressed, and I don’t think that wrapping it up with a neat bow was really the only way to go here. On the other hand, the story certainly isn’t over when the film ends – and its anyone’s guess as to what comes next. Overall, I think The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches confirms the potential that Lavoie showed in Those Who Dig Their Own Graves, which is a film I liked, but at nearly three hours was WAY too long, considering it had no real story. Both are provocative and daring stories about Quebec’s past – and moving into the future. Canadian film needs some new blood to in it – and Lavoie has the potential to be great.

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Movie Review: Foxtrot

Foxtrot **** / *****

Directed by: Samuel Maoz.

Written by: Samuel Maoz.

Starring: Lior Ashkenazi (Michael Feldmann), Sarah Adler (Daphna Feldmann), Yonaton Shiray (Jonathan), Yehuda Almagor (Avigdor - Michael's Brother).

 

Foxtrot opens with a knock on the door – on the other side are two military men there to tell Michael (Lior Ashkenazi) that his son has been killed doing his military service. Michael is a successful architect in Israel – a military veteran himself – and yet once he gets the news, he seems to walk through the rest of the first act of the movie in a daze – paralyzed by indecision and fear, unable to figure out just what the hell to do next. Act 1 ends in a shock, and then in act II, the tone of the movie shifts. We are now with Michael’s son Jonathan (Yonaton Shiray) and his unit, who have been assigned a remote roadblock. Not much happens there, there aren’t many cars coming by, and the men are bored. This section is surreal, and more than a little bit funny, as these bored young men cannot quite figure out what they’re doing, or how things ended up so crooked. It’s funny right up to the point when it isn’t anymore.

 

Foxtrot is the second film by Samuel Maoz – coming 8 years after his debut, Lebanon, which was based on his own experiences inside a tank in that war in 1982. In many ways, Foxtrot is a companion piece to Lebanon – Michael is a veteran of the same war, and also haunted by it. He doesn’t suffer from PTSD in the way we would normally expect him to – but he is clearly not being completely up front with everything that happened, and he hasn’t dealt with it. He’s tried instead to become successful, and in doing so, thinks that will just excuse whatever happened in the past – and that if he just doesn’t talk about it, no one will know. He’s wrong.

 

Foxtrot is a more ambitious and better film than his debut – which others liked more than I did (I thought it was fine, but hardly great). Here, Maoz mixes tone very well – the first act is deep and dark, edging, only into its final minutes, into something slightly more absurd. The second act is surreal – a kind of waking dream that turns into a nightmare, complete with dancing, and absurd comedy. Its turn towards tragedy is the mirror image of the one at the end of act one. Maoz isn’t cheating here – but he’s going for something larger. This messed up Israeli family of men incapable of expressing themselves is something larger.

 

The third act of the film is more melancholy than the first two. You can probably guess where the movie is headed in terms of its plot, but it goes there with sensitivity and compassion. The final act is quieter than the first two, and more perhaps more thoughtful – maybe even optimistic, despite the price everyone has paid by that point. It’s really in this act that having an actor like Ashkenazi helps the most, as he’s able to bring a lighter touch to keep this thing from becoming depressing. This is a movie about several generations in Israel – from Holocaust survivors, to modern day Israel soldiers, all of whom are struggling in their own way. The film takes chances, and zigzags throughout – so even if you sense where the plot is going, it’s still fascinating to see it get there. This is a fascinating, bold, funny, tragic movie – and it’s amazing just how Maoz is able to make all those elements cohere together, so that the whole is even better than the sum of its parts.

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Movie Review: Loveless

Loveless **** ½ / *****

Directed by: Andrey Zvyagintsev.

Written by: Oleg Negin and Andrey Zvyagintsev.

Starring: Maryana Spivak (Zhenya), Aleksey Rozin (Boris), Matvey Novikov (Alyosha), Marina Vasileva (Masha), Andris Keiss (Anton), Aleksey Fateev (Ivan), Artyom Zhigulin (Kuznetsov), Natalya Potapova (Mat Zheni), Anna Gulyarenko (Mat Mashi).

 

Loveless, the new film by Russian master Andrey Zvyagintsev (whose last film Leviathan was even better) is many things at once. It is a film that deepens as it goes along, and becomes a portrait of modernity and technology and parenting, but also of a modern Russian society that is fully of apathy. The government institutions in the film are useless and uncaring – but then again, so are the parents. The film takes place mostly in 2012 – and the annexation of Crimea, and the rising tensions with Ukraine, play out in the background – on news reports, and TV – where they go half listened to or ignored. On one side there is an increasingly intolerant religious beliefs being forced down upon people, and on another side there is status and social climbing. All of these are contributing factor when a child goes missing.

 

That child is Alyosha, and his parents Zhenya (Maryana Spivak) and Boris (Aleksey Rozin) are the main characters in the film. Their marriage is all but over when the film begins – they’re trying to sell their apartment, and cannot wait to move on with their lives apart from each other. She’s found an older, richer boyfriend, and wants to move up the social ladder. He’s found a younger, more docile woman, who he has already got pregnant. They argue – loudly – because neither one of them want to take Alyosha – he’d be an inconvenience to them in their new lives, and would just get in the way. Zhenya is openly cruel to her son – saying he cries all the time to strangers looking at the apartment. IF Boris talks with him at all, we don’t see it. Alyosha knows very well he’s not wanted. When he does go missing, neither of his parents notice for two days – they’re busy off in their new lives, and forget about their old one. The police are no help at all, so they reach out to a group of civilian volunteers, who conduct the investigation themselves. This involves a lot of searches of cold apartment buildings, the surrounding forest, and an abandoned Soviet facility that has fallen into disrepair.

 

When the film opens, you think that both Zhenya and Boris are monsters – and to be honest, my opinion of them didn’t really grow more favorable throughout the film. Yet, what Zvyagintsev and his actors have done is to make more human throughout the film. The film doesn’t forgive their actions – but it does show how perhaps they became the people they have become. Boris works for a tech firm, in which he will be fired if anyone discovers he has had a divorce, so he is hoping that a quick divorce, and replacement of one wife and child with another will help. Zhenya is rarely without her phone, and takes many selfies throughout the film (she is hardly alone), and is in a world in which a woman’s primary economic power is still her body – which she uses for own security with her new partner, a rich, lonely man who tags along after her. When we meet her mother (played by Natalya Potapova in a memorable one scene performance), we understand even more why she married Boris in the first place.

 

Loveless is a heavy film – it is an emotional gut punch at times, including one of the most unforgettable shots of the year, where we see just how much Alyosha knows about his parents. It doesn’t get lighter throughout the film (there is only one minor moment of humor - a conversation about a fake wife Boris has with a co-worker). The rest of the film is a document of suffering – much like Leviathan was – and how easy it is for that suffering to go unnoticed, lessons unlearned, and for people to go back to their lives. The end of the film doesn’t off much in the way of way of hope for the future, or that anyone learned from the past. It is a film that once again confirms just how good Zvyagintsev is as a filmmaker – he’s one of the best around at combining the personal and the politic – with devastating results.

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Movie Review: Les Affames

Les affamés *** ½ / *****

Directed by: Robin Aubert.

Written by: Robin Aubert.

Starring: Marc-André Grondin (Bonin), Monia Chokri (Tania), Charlotte St-Martin (Zoé), Micheline Lanctôt (Pauline), Marie-Ginette Guay (Thérèse), Brigitte Poupart (Céline), Édouard Tremblay-Grenier (Ti-Cul), Luc Proulx (Réal), Didier Lucien (Vézina), Robert Brouillette (Paco), Martin Héroux (Demers), Patrick Hivon (Race driver).

 

I am constantly surprised by how durable the zombie genre is – how new directors find new ways of exploring the genre, and finding new notes to hit. I don’t necessarily think that Robin Aubert’s Les Affames (The Ravenous) is completely new or different, but I do think he is trying something interesting with the film that marks it as different from most of the Night of the Living Dead (or now The Walking Dead) clones out there.

 

The film takes place in the Northern Quebec countryside, and spends a long time bringing together its cast of characters. When the film opens, the zombie apocalypse has already began, and the film makes no effort to try and explain what happened or why. It also doesn’t waste any time explaining the “rules” of this particular zombie outbreak, because they are the same as every other one we’ve seen in the past 50 years – you get bit, you’re turning into a zombie, it’s only a matter of time.

 

There are a few things that make the zombies in Aubert’s film different from most. Like all right minded people out there, he knows zombies move slowly, but here they are quite the unthinking, unfeeling killing machines we have normally seen. There is something about them that remains at least somewhat human – when you kill them, they do in fact cry out in pain, which is somewhat different. They also seem to cling to some semblance of their former lives – one of the most haunting moments comes with the realization that they are building some kind of shrine out of their old belongings – chairs, toys, etc. They may no longer be “human” – but what are they?

 

Gradually we get to know the characters – including self-confessed nerd Bonin (Marc-Andre Grondin), who is somewhat lonely and regretful that he never had a family of his own in his life – aside from his mother, who is still around. There is Tania (Monia Chokri), who has found her way to this small town, clinging to her accordion – the one thing she has from her old life. The two form some sort of weird family unit along with little Zoe – an orphan who is there as well. There are more of course – a business woman realizing she has lived her life the way she was meant to, not the way she wanted, and a strange pair – an older man, and teenage boy, both of whom made the perhaps fatal flaw of not killing their turned families soon enough.

 

As with all zombie stories, Aubert is more interested in the living than the living dead – and using the genre to explore that. The characters in Les Affames are more downbeat and introspective than most. They do eventually decide to try and leave the ravaged small town countryside for the city – reckoning that the government would be active there (just one of many, small moments that imply a particular hostility between rural and urban areas in Quebec in particular – but also there in wider context as well).

 

We know where the story is going – and it doesn’t disappoint. There is plenty of bloodshed in the film, although tellingly, Aubert lets some of the more major events happen off-screen – we see what leads up to them, or the come down, but not necessarily the act itself. The end of the film, in its way, is both heartbreaking, and somewhat affirming. All is not lost yet.

 

I don’t think Les Affames truly breaks new ground in the zombie genre – but it doesn’t enough interesting stuff that it should be a zombie film on your radar. For those (like me) who eventually gave up on The Walking Dead because of its seemingly limitless nihilism, Les Affames offers something refreshingly different.

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Movie Review: Thelma

Thelma **** / *****

Directed by: Joachim Trier.

Written by: Eskil Vogt & Joachim Trier.

Starring: Eili Harboe (Thelma), Kaya Wilkins (Anja), Ellen Dorrit Petersen (Unni), Henrik Rafaelsen (Trond), Grethe Eltervåg (Young Thelma).

 

If you can imagine Stephen King’s Carrie directed by Ingmar Bergman, who can get close to seeing what Joachim Trier is going for with his film Thelma. This is a horror story, about a teenage girl with psychic powers in the first throes of love and lust, and who naturally loses control over everything, without really realizing it. The first scene in the film sets things up so we know this isn’t going to be a typical story, as a father and daughter (around 6) go plodding through the snowy forest. The father sites a deer and raises his rifle – his daughter is transfixed by the deer – and doesn’t realize that her father has changed his aim, and is now pointing the gun at the back of her head. Eventually, we will figure out why.

 

But most of the action takes place in the present – where Thelma is a college freshman, away from her parents for the first time. We assume that they are just a little strict – they get nervous if she doesn’t immediately answer their phone calls, and know her class schedule better than she does – and even comes down to stay with her, in her apartment, on a weekend. The whole family is religious, and while it doesn’t seem to be the fire and brimstone type Christianity of Carrie, it is quietly strict. Things seem to be going okay with Thelma – she’s lonely, but smart – until she becomes friends – and then more – with Anja (Kaya Wilkins). Whatever has been lying dormant in Thelma is suddenly not dormant anymore.

 

On the surface, Thelma is a genre film – a horror film going over some well-worn terrain, combining the coming-of-age, sexual awakening of a teenage girl, and unleashing of her power upon those around her. Trier, however, takes this story seriously (perhaps a touch too seriously – I’ll get to that), making a film that really does look at this young woman, her faith, her sexuality, her family, her past and letting it play out as naturally and realistically as it can, given Thelma’s powers. None of the deaths or action is played for thrills at all. The film ends up, perhaps, where you expect it to, but it takes a different, more serious route there.

 

This approach mostly works for me – but left a few nagging complaints for me. For one, I don’t think Trier needs to spend as much as he does showing Thelma playing detective looking into her family history – savvy audience members will get there before the film even starts, so move it along. As well, it always bugs me a little – just a little – when filmmakers making a genre film seem to think that theirs is “above” the genre, and therefore doesn’t want to offer any of the baser pleasures of the genre. Carrie is a masterpiece of its kind, has a lot to say about its subject – but doesn’t hold itself above the genre. Same with Raw. Thelma wants to cloak some of those genre trappings behind a prestige sheen.

 

Still, that’s a minor complaint – and something that didn’t bother me much when watching the film. This is an engrossing film, and one that is expertly directed by Trier – more than making up for his thuddingly dull English language debut Louder Than Bombs a few years ago. Eili Harboe is terrific in the lead role as well, delivering a sympathetic performance, even as the film goes along, and she starts making increasingly questionable choices. She slowly reels you in, as does the film. I just wish Trier had loosened the reigns just a little bit – and let the genre loose.

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Movie Review: On Body and Soul

On Body and Soul *** ½ / *****

Directed by: Ildikó Enyedi.

Written by: Ildikó Enyedi.

Starring: Géza Morcsányi (Endre), Alexandra Borbély (Mária), Zoltán Schneider (Jenö), Ervin Nagy (Sanyi), Tamás Jordán (Mária's doctor), Zsuzsa Járó (Zsuzsa), Réka Tenki (Klára), Júlia Nyakó (Rózsi).

 

On Body and Soul is a strange film – certainly one of the strangest to be nominated for a Foreign Language Film Oscar in the last few years. The Academy often appreciates foreign films that feel like Hollywood films, just in another language (this year’s The Insult is very much like that) – but On Body and Soul, from Hungary’s Ildikó Enyedi is one of the odder films you’ll see this. The film takes some weird tonal and narrative shifts as it shifts gears through its nearly two hour run time – not all of them work, admittedly – but you admire the effort that went into them anyway.

 

The film takes place at a Budapest slaughterhouse. Endre (Géza Morcsányi) is the de facto boss, although he’s really just an equivalent to a CFO for the place. When they hire a new quality control supervisor, Maria (Alexandra Borbély), he is drawn to her – she is a beautiful blonde woman after all – but so is so painfully shy and introverted that their conversations don’t go anywhere. But when some drugs are stolen, and it’s clear an inside job, the cops suggest they hire a psychologist to interview all the employees. The psychologist (Reka Tenki) discovers that both Endre and Maria are having the same dreams – that they are the pair of deers we’ve been seeing throughout – and thinks the two are mocking her. They aren’t however – they are somehow sharing their strange dreams.

 

I won’t go on more about the plot – it does some odd twists and turns throughout the runtime, not all of them convincing. In particular, I wish that Maria was a little bit more well-rounded than she turns out being – she gets off to an interesting start here, but in the last act in particular, the film tries to “explain” her issues more than it needs to, and makes her less interesting as a result.

 

But even if I wasn’t always sold on the narrative, you have to admire the filmmaking through, which is exceptional. This is Ildikó Enyedi’s return to feature filmmaking after an 18-year absence, but she has lost none of her chops in that time. The camera is slow moving, or stationary throughout the film, but doesn’t look away at anything that happens. The film does take place in a slaughterhouse, and if you don’t want to see cows being killed there, then this isn’t your movie (the end credits say that while animals were harmed during filming, none of them were harmed because of the film – meaning essentially, they were just allowed to film cows that were already going to be killed anyway. I’m not quite sure these scenes were necessary – they are there to shock after all, but it’s been nearly 70 years since Georges Franju’s infamous documentary short Le sang des betes (1949), and many other films in that time have showed basically the same thing. It’s still disturbing to watch sure, and it offers a contrast to the more subdued story, but still.

 

The film, is many ways, a rather subtle, subdued love story. Like Phantom Thread, it is about two damaged people, who make not make sense without anyone except each other – but adds in an interesting question if these two are right for each other only in their dreams. Ultimately, I’m not quite sure where all this ends up in the film – it almost feels like Enyedi writes herself into a corner, and can’t quite figure a way out. Still, the film is beautifully film, and very well-acted – and one of the stranger films of the year. Movies don’t need to answer all the questions they raised – they’re often better that way.

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Movie Review: BPM (Beats Per Minute)

BPM (Beats Per Minute) **** / *****

Directed by: Robin Campillo.

Written by: Robin Campillo and Philippe Mangeot.

Starring: Nahuel Pérez Biscayart (Sean Dalmazo), Arnaud Valois (Nathan), Adèle Haenel (Sophie), Antoine Reinartz (Thibault), Ariel Borenstein (Jérémie), Félix Maritaud (Max), Aloïse Sauvage (Eva), Simon Bourgade (Luc), Médhi Touré (Germain), Simon Guélat (Markus), Coralie Russier (Muriel), Catherine Vinatier (Hélène), Théophile Ray (Marco), Saadia Bentaïeb (Mère de Sean).

 

The French film BPM (Beats Per Minute) combines the political and the personal in a way that reminds viewer that the two are forever intertwined, and we should expect nothing different. The film takes place in the early 1990s, and focuses on the Paris chapter of ACT UP – the AIDS organization that, through various means, put pressure on governments and pharmaceutical companies to get treatment to the many people living with HIV, and dying when they got AIDS as a result.

 

The film starts out in macro, showing us the group as a whole, first at a protest when they storm the stage of a government spokesperson, and then in the weekly ACT UP meeting, where the various people involved dissect what happened, and disagree about its effectiveness. It’s clear from these scenes that not everyone agrees on what to do, or how to proceed. Various people start to stand out in the crowd. The group’s de facto leader is Thibault (Antoine Reinartz), who wants to take a more diplomatic approach – reaching agreements with the government and pharma companies in a non-confrontational way. Sean (Nahuel Perez Biscayart) is almost the exact opposite – wanting to push these groups buttons, and force them to do something, and rub their nose in the effects that their policies are having on real people. Sophie (Adele Haenel) is somewhere in between – seeing the value in both positions, but definitely willing to get her hands dirty. While most in the group are gay men – many living with the disease – that isn’t true of everyone. Among the groups other few female members is Helene (Catherine Vinatier), who is there for her 16-year-old who has the disease, which he got through a blood transfusion.

 

A new face, Nathan (Arnaud Valois) shows up, and will change the course of the movie. He gets more and more involved in the group sure – and has a voice – but at first he is relatively quiet. He isn’t HIV positive, which draws some suspicion, but he gradually gets closer to the action. He also falls in love with Sean, and the two men’s relationship forms the emotional core of the film. The last act basically abandons ACT UP to focus on their relationship, as Sean gets sicker and sicker.

 

The film is incredibly dense in terms of its dialogue – particularly in the beginning – and it takes a while to really find your footing in the film, to get to know the characters, and get on the films wavelength. In the earlier going, the film is built around the various meetings – most of which will grow contentious, and arguments are common – and the various actions the group takes. It’s quite impressive how co-writer/director Robin Campillo, navigates these scenes so that you’re not lost in them. I actually liked this part of the film more than the final act. When the focus on the movie switches to the relationship between Sean and Nathan, the film still works, but it’s also more conventional. The point here is to show that the politics in the film are personal – and have real consequences to those involved. It works, but it also feels like other films we’ve seen before – while the first two acts felt like something different, and more complex.

 

Still, BPM never feels any less than vital and important, and although the film runs nearly two-and-a-half hours, it never grows dull or repetitive – it earns that runtime throughout, and makes an important statement – not just about the past, but also the present.

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Movie Review: Happy End

Happy End **** / *****

Directed by: Michael Haneke.

Written by: Michael Haneke.

Starring: Isabelle Huppert (Anne Laurent), Jean-Louis Trintignant (Georges Laurent), Mathieu Kassovitz (Thomas Laurent), Fantine Harduin (Eve Laurent), Franz Rogowski (Pierre Laurent), Laura Verlinden (Anaïs), Aurélia Petit (Nathalie), Toby Jones (Lawrence Bradshaw), Hassam Ghancy (Rachid), Nabiha Akkari (Jamila). 

 

Austrian director Michael Haneke may bristle at the suggestion that his latest film – Happy End – is a kind of “greatest hits” package of his career – but it’s certainly easy to see why many critics have said something along those lines. There are elements here of films like Benny’s Video, Amour, Code Unknown, The Piano Teacher and The White Ribbon. I say this not as a criticism of the film – like some have – but rather an acknowledgment that Haneke is still addressing his pet themes, and doing it all in one, strange package. While Happy End doesn’t join the ranks of his masterworks (including The Piano Teacher, The White Ribbon, Amour and his best film, Cache) – the suggestion that it’s somehow a bad film from the filmmaker is silly. He is still trying to, and succeeding in, provoking a response from his audience – and technically, the film is quite different from what he has done before – simpler, more pared down and without the beauty that often accompanies his images. He has made a film for the Snapchat generation, and done so using the same kind of style – and odd for a 75 year old, he does it without coming across as embarrassingly out of touch (something the much younger Jason Reitman wasn’t able to do in Men, Women and Children).

 

The film revolves around the wealthy Laurent family who runs a construction business is Calais. The company has seen better days financially – and to top it off, Anne (Isabelle Huppert), who now runs it, has to deal with the fallout of an accident that killed one of her workers, which may have been caused by the negligence of her son, Pierre (Franz Rogowski), who she put in charge of the site. Her father, George (Jean-Louis Trintignant) used to run the company, but is now 85, and started to lose his mind to dementia – and his determined to die before that happens. His son, Thomas (Mathieu Kassovitz), is one his second wife – the painfully shy and quiet Anais (Laura Verlinden) – and they have an infant son, although he is cheating on his wife with an older woman – who we meet through her lengthy chats with him on Facebook – which are kinky to say the least. All of these people are already fairly messed up – and that’s before Eve (Fantine Harduin) re-enters their lives. She is Thomas’ 13-year-old daughter from her first marriage, who hasn’t been around in recent years. She has been living with her mother – who we see in the film’s opening scenes, in videos that Eve herself shoots on her phone. First, it’s just her mother going through her bedtime routine – but then it becomes darker, as she stumbles around, and Eve admits, in voiceover, to poisoning her mother with pills. Whether she meant to just make her sick, or kill her the film never states – but she does end up in a coma, and Eve comes to live with Thomas.

 

Happy End is a film that refuses to draw the lines between the dots that Haneke is placing throughout the film – you are left in the audience to do that, even more than in Haneke’s other films. None of these characters are innocent – but they are all completely self-involved. Their motivations are often obscured in the film (like, for instance, why Huppert’s Anne is marrying a British banker, played by the short, balding Toby Jones).

 

The film jumps around a lot – it’s not quite a series of vignettes like previous Haneke films Code Unknown or 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance, but it feels like that at times. All the characters are interesting, but the best performances belong to the youngest and oldest of the cast members. The great Trintgnant, now in his late 80s, plays a character very much like his one in Amour (we don’t realize just how much until late in the film). The film examines how someone like him can deal with the things he has done – and he is now looking for someone to essentially do the same thing for him. In Harduin, Haneke has made a real discovery, as Eve is the most complex character in the film. At first, you may feel that she is essentially a female version of the main character from Benny’s Video – a little psychopath, using technology as a way to keep a distance from the things she has done. But as the film progresses, it gets messier than that – she becomes a more complex character, whose motivations are not so clear cut. She would likely fit in with the kids in The White Ribbon, or even the son in Cache, who know the sins of their parents, and punish them for those sins.

 

Happy End has a fairly blunt visual look for a Haneke film – he almost shot it like a TV movie in many respects, from the aspect ratio, to the lighting. There are a few of his great long takes, he is going for something more direct this time. It works for this film, even if I hope he goes from something more akin to some of his other work in the future. Not everything in the film works as well as it should – Haneke’s ultimate point here seems to be that we are all so self-obsessed we do not see the larger suffering in the world, and to make his point, he uses the current refugee crisis. This comes to a head in a climaxing scene – but it doesn’t really work that well. Haneke’s point is stronger when it’s more focused in Happy End – after all, the individual Laurent family members are not just blind to the suffering in the wider world – they’re blind to the suffering within their own family.

 

Ultimately, if Happy End is a disappointment from Haneke it’s only because we’ve become accustomed to him making masterpieces more often than not over the past 20 years. Happy End isn’t that, but even lesser Haneke is better than most filmmakers at their very best.

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"Classic" Movie Review: Yourself & Yours

Yourself & Yours *** ½ / *****

Directed by: Sang-soo Hong.

Written by: Sang-soo Hong 

Starring: You-young Lee (Minjung), Kim Ju-Hyuck (Youngsoo).

 

The more films I see by Korean director Sang-soo Hong, the more I like his films. His last film, Right Now Wrong Then, is my favorite of his work so far – a film that he basically makes twice, with slight differences that completely changes our view on the characters and the events. To follow-up that film, he has made Yourself & Yours, a fascinating, amusing film that at first I thought was simply Hong playing around and having fun – and yet in the days since seeing the film, it has stuck with me more than I thought it would. It is a film that doesn’t really answer the question at its core – and is oddly stronger for it. That question is this: just how many Minjung’s are there in the film? 1, 2 or 3? And does the answer ultimately matter?

 

Like all of Hong’s film, it has a romantic (sometimes would be romantic) couple at its core. This time it’s Younsoo (Kim Ju-Hyuck), a young man who seems completely in love with his girlfriend, Minjung (You-young Lee) – until he starts to hear rumors about her. His friend tells him that he’s heard from others than Minjung likes to go out drinking with him – and when she does, she draws a lot of attention from other men. This information sends Youngsoo into a rage – and when he confronts Minjung with this information, she does not deny it forcefully enough to convince him. She storms out of his apartment, and tell him not to call her for a while. The film then follows the two lead actors after their separation – with Youngsoo regretting his actions, and trying to get back with Minjung - who seems to have disappeared, as he can never find her at work or home, and Minjung, as she seems to validate all those rumors about herself, as we do see her out drinking, numerous times, with different men. Yet, if she is ever confronted by anyone who knows Youngsoo – she acts as if she doesn’t know who they are, and that her name isn’t Minjung. Then late in the film, the first man we saw this Minjung with confronts another Minjung with another man (a filmmaker, of course, this being Hong someone has to be a filmmaker) – and again, she acts as if she doesn’t know him. It is this Minjung who will eventually come back to Youngsoo – but is she the same Minjung who left him in the first place?

 

The film is amusing to watch, as Minjung takes control of the narrative, and in many ways is the most honest character in the film – even if she is blatantly lying at times (if she is just one person, she lies constantly). Yet, the thesis of the movie may well be her line she tells to one of her boyfriend’s “I’ve never met a truly impressive man”. The line draws a laugh when she says – as does that entire scene, as she is breaking up with him so honestly and brightly that it almost seems cruel. Yet, by the end of the film, she may have found that man in Youngsoo – who because of their time apart actually has grown, and become, at least less of a fool than when the movie begins. The film may ultimately be about how we can never really know another person – that what makes them themselves is something that is only known to themselves alone – but at the end of the film, Youngsoo is smart enough to at least realize this.

 

Ultimately, I’m not sure Yourself & Yours rises to the level of Hong’s best work – I still prefer Right Now, Wrong Then and The Day He Arrives (although, admittedly, Hong has been one of the most prolific directors in world cinema, and he has a large back catalogue of films I haven’t seen) – but it’s more impressive than it first appeared to be. It’s made with his trademark style – lots of long, unmoving, unbroken shots, frequent zoom-ins, and lots of drinking (although, this time it’s beer not soju – the significance of the difference, and I’m sure there is one, is lost on me). Yet he pushes the film into some very interesting territory. The more films of his I see, the more films I want to see.

 

Note: I saw this film at TIFF 2016 and wrote this review then. The film still hasn’t come out in North America since – and at this point, probably won’t, so rather than sit on the review, I thought I’d post it.

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Movie Review: The Insult

The Insult ** ½ / *****

Directed by: Ziad Doueiri.

Written by: Ziad Doueiri & Joelle Touma.

Starring: Adel Karam (Toni Georges), Kamel El Basha (Yasser Abdallah Salame), Camille Salameh, Diamand Bou Abboud, Rita Hayek, Talal Jurdi, Christine Choueiri, Julia Kassar, Rifaat Torbey, Carlos Chahine.

 

The Insult is a movie that takes place in Lebanon, and is about the fallout from a seeming minor conflict between a member of the Christian party, and a Palestinian refugee. The Palestinian – Yasser (Kamel El Basha) has been hired as a construction foreman, and is supposed to fix all the building code violations in the neighborhood. The Christian, Toni (Adel Karam), has one such violation with a leaking drain pipe. Yasser goes to fix it, Toni doesn’t want him to – words are exchanged, and eventually Yasser calls Toni a “fucking prick”. While Yasser’s boss tries to broker peace, he ends up telling Yasser in no uncertain terms that if it comes to it, he will have to apologize to Toni – yet when that meeting is setup, Toni ratchets up the tension saying something insulting and incendiary – and Yasser punches him. Soon, a lawsuit is filed, and what start as a minor conflict, is now national news – a debate over who is right, who is wrong- not just in this argument, but on a grander scale.

 

The film was co-written and directed by Ziad Doueiri, whose last film, The Attack, took place in Israel, and was about a secular Palestinian doctor, who finds out that his Christian wife has become a suicide bomber. Like The Attack, his new film tries to look at things from all sides, and see that things are not as simple as they appear on the surface – there is years of outrage and victimization on both side, that feed into the actions everyone takes. Unlike The Attack however, The Insult doesn’t really work. The problem with The Insult is that it withholds too much information from the audience for too long, just so it can spring it on you at moments designed to shock you. Most of those shock moments don’t work because they either feel unnecessary (like the real identity of the two lawyers battling it out in the lawsuit) or come too late in the film to truly feel like things have been played fair up until that point (the revelation of an incident in Toni’s past). I also do not think that the film is quite as neutral as it pretends to be – while Toni is a fairly complex character, full of both positive and negative qualities, this isn’t extended to Yasser – who is portrayed far more one dimensionally good for most of the movie (really, almost everything after he punches Toni). While it’s certainly easier to sympathize with Yasser – making him a little less of a black and white good guy, could have helped.

 

Yet, while I do think this flaws eventually become too much for the movie to bare, I will say that the film remains an entertaining bad film from beginning to end. There is something comforting about an old school courtroom drama, full of the kind of pyrotechnics and shocks that Law & Order wouldn’t even try and pull off. The performances remain good as well. The whole subplot involving Toni’s pregnant wife lays it on way too thick – but even that has its moments. I can see The Insult becoming an art house hit – it’s the type of foreign language film that people who don’t really like foreign language films will enjoy – essentially, a Hollywood style film, in another language.

 

I do appreciate Doueiri’s approach to his films – trying to find the humanity on both sides – the villains and the heroes, finding they are often the same people. If the approach doesn’t work though, you ending up making the Lebanese equivalent of Crash – and that’s pretty much what happened here. You’re better off watching The Attack than this – far too few of you did when it was released anyway.

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Movie Review: The Wound

The Wound *** ½ / *****

Directed by: John Trengove.

Written by: Malusi Bengu & Thando Mgqolozana & John Trengove.

Starring: Nakhane Toure (Xolani), Bongile Mantsai (Vija), Niza Jay (Kwanda), Thobani Mseleni (Babalo).

 

The most difficult sequence to watch in The Wound comes right near the beginning. The film is set in rural South Africa, among the Xhosa community, whose young men undergo ritual circumcision when they are teenagers. They are taken into the mountains, where one after another, they are circumcised, and then spend weeks out there, with some elders, having the ideals of masculinity drilled into their heads. You don’t see much during the circumcisions themselves – but you hear it, and it’s a difficult sequence to sit through. But that’s only the beginning.

 

The film basically centers on three characters. Xolani (Nakhane Toure) is one of the “caregivers” – older members of the community, who help to oversee the boys in the weeks after the circumcision. He doesn’t much care for this ritual anymore, but he spends the weeks there every year, because it allows him to spend time with Vija (Bongile Mantsai), another caregiver. The two have a longstanding sexual relationship that happens every year – and Xolani wants it to be more than that. Vija does a better job at presenting the masculine ideal they are teaching, and doesn’t see Xolani the same way. He’s married, with kids, and does little more than use Xolani every year. The third character is Kwanda (Niza Jay), one of the boys undergoing the ritual. He’s from Johannesburg, and his father has brought him out here because he fears Kwanda is going soft. Even he doesn’t suspect that his son is gay – the worst thing he can be in this community. It doesn’t take Kwanda, who is the smartest of the boys out there, to read the situation, and figure out what is happening between Xolani and Vija. Kwanda wants to be more open in his identity – but it scares Xolani.

 

The tension in the film steadily builds, as the secrets and lies eventually start coming out. The film is about the damage these secrets do to those keeping them – and how a culture of toxic masculinity and homophobia, poisons everything it touches. You get to know, like and understand Xolani – you feel for him, because he’s trapped, and doesn’t see a way out. You don’t really like Vija – who is a user and hypocrite, or even really Kwanda – you admire him a little for his willingness to try and burn this system to the ground, but he’s also more than a little bit of a whiner.

 

The film builds to an unexpected but shattering climax – the kind you don’t see coming, but makes perfect sense when it does. This marks the feature directing debut of John Trengove – a white man, but one who has obviously immersed himself in this culture, and understands it from the outside in. The film is perhaps too obvious at points – too on the nose – but overall, it’s a fascinating glimpse inside a community we don’t see onscreen very often – and yet one whose themes are universal.   

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"Classic" Movie Review: Never Ever

Never Ever

Directed by: Benoît Jacquot.

Written by: Julia Roy based on the novel by Don DeLillo.

Starring: Mathieu Amalric (Jacques Rey), Julia Roy (Laura), Jeanne Balibar (Isabelle).

 

I have not read Don DeLillo’s The Body Artist – the short novel that was adapted by Julia Roy and director by Benoit Jacquot into the film Never Ever – but I can say seeing the film that there are some novels that just were not made to become movies. DeLillo’s book is said to contain a running internal monologue of the main character, which the movie completely forgoes – which doesn’t work at all in the film, because the main character is a complete blank in the movie. If we do not understand her, we cannot understand the rest of the movie – which is unfortunately what happens here, as Never Ever becomes a dull mess of a film.

 

The film opens with Jacques Rey (Mathieu Amalric) as a famed director, presenting his latest film in an art gallery. Having a few hours to kill until it ends and he has to do a Q&A, he wanders through the exhibits in the museum, before coming across Laura (Julia Roy) – a “Body Artist” doing her routine, which essentially seems to be moving her body slowly, drawing attention to different parts of her body. I, admittedly, know nothing about what being a “body artist” entails – and this film doesn’t really help clarify that much – because almost as soon as the routine is over, Jacques convinces Laura to run off with him on his motorcycle – abandoning the q&a and his longtime girlfriend/star. Isabelle (Jeanne Balibar) and whisking Laura off to his isolated, rented home. The two are quickly in love, and get married – even though there are already some strange noises in the house. Jacques abandons everything in his life – but after meeting with Isabelle one last time, he kills himself (or appears to) in a motorcycle “accident”. Most of the rest of the movie is spent with Laura in that isolated house – now with more noises – as Jacques either returns and haunts her, or as she slips into insanity, depending on how you choose to read things.

 

There are numerous problems with the movie that fatally hurt it – the biggest single one however is that there seems to be no real chemistry between Jacques and Laura while he is alive. Their relationship honestly plays like the kind of delusional fantasy older men often write stories about – where the older man falls in love with a young woman and is re-energized as a result. But even that reading would require there be some sort of deeper connection between Jacques and Laura that simply doesn’t exist – if he is draw to her youth and beauty, what precisely is it about him that draws her? Does Jacques have unfinished business with her, and that’s why he appears before her after he dies, or is she so in love with him that she cannot bear to not have him in her life, so she creates a delusional version of him for herself? If the movie knows the answer to this question, it isn’t saying – and it’s not in an ambiguous, open too many interpretations way – the main character played by Roy is such a blank slate for the entire movie, it’s impossible to get any read at all on her, or her feelings.

 

The film is pretty to look at. The house where most of the action takes place in one of the beautiful, older, rundown homes out in the French countryside, and Jacquot’s camera glides through it wonderfully. Yet, there’s a giant whole in the center of the film – and that is precisely who this lead character is, and why we’re spending so much time with her? What is she going through, and why are we watching it? The film never comes up with an answer to this question – so the movie just kind of sits there on screen, and we sit in the audience, bored.

 

Note: I saw this film at TIFF 2016 and wrote this review then. The film still hasn’t come out in North America since – and at this point, probably won’t, so rather than sit on the review, I thought I’d post it.

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Classic Movie Review: Woyzeck (1979)

Woyzeck (1979)

Directed by: Werner Herzog.

Written by: Werner Herzog based on the play by Georg Büchner.

Starring: Klaus Kinski (Woyzeck), Eva Mattes (Marie), Wolfgang Reichmann (Captain), Willy Semmelrogge (Doctor), Josef Bierbichler (Drum Major), Paul Burian (Andres), Volker Prechtel (Handwerksbursche), Dieter Augustin (Marktschreier), Irm Hermann (Margret).

 

One of the reasons why almost all of Werner Herzog’s best films of the last 30 years are documentaries is because when he lost Klaus Kinski, he lost one of the only actors who was able to match the level of insanity that Herzog needed in his fiction films (the one exception is of course Nicolas Cage in Bad Lieutenant:: Port of Call, New Orleans). The pair of them made five films together – of which Woyzeck was the third, and far and away the least, of these collaborations. There just isn’t very much here in this sleight film, about a man beaten down by life until he ends up murdering his wife. These two combined to make two of the all-time great portraits of madness – Aguirre the Wrath of God and Fitzcaraldo – but Woyzeck never comes close to matching them, and I cannot help but think that perhaps Kinski is even miscast.

 

In the film, Kinski plays the title character – a put upon soldier, tormented by those above him in the army, for reasons the movie never really tries to explain (he is on an all pea diet for example, but no one will say why). He is pushed around, abused, beaten and disrespected – but it isn’t until his wife cheats on him with a drum major that he really, truly loses it – leading to a slow motion climax, which is just about the only thing in the film that works.

 

Kinski was, of course, brilliant at playing insane characters – perhaps because he was kind of nuts himself (Herzog’s documentary on him – My Best Fiend is a better use of your time than this, and documents their relationship). Here though, his Woyzeck seems insane at the start of the film, so his descent into madness doesn’t really mean much – he’s already there. If Woyzeck is supposed to be an everyman, driven insane by the system, pushing down on the common man, than the film fails – because Kinski never really seems normal here.

 

Herzog is adapting a play by George Buchner, but his screenplay is odd, as many scenes play out without much in the way of dialogue, making the action confusing, and Woyzeck’s motivations unknowable. The film was made in the immediate aftermath of Herzog and Kinski’s other (and better) 1979 film, Nosferatu – Kinski using the fatigue of that film to his advantage here. Yet the film never really comes together. It’s only 82 minutes long, and that slow motion climax really is something to behold – yet the film is more of interest to Herzog/Kinski completest than anyone else. You’d be better off watching anything else the pair did together than this one though.

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Movie Review: My Happy Family

My Happy Family **** / *****

Directed by: Nana Ekvtimishvili & Simon Gross.  

Written by: Nana Ekvtimishvili.

Starring: Ia Shugliashvili (Manana), Merab Ninidze (Soso), Berta Khapava (Lamara), Tsisia Qumsishvili (Nino), Giorgi Khurtsilava (Vakho), Goven Cheishvili (Otar), Dimitri Oragvelidze (Rezo), Mariam Bokeria (Kitsi), Lika Babluani (Tatia Chigogidze).

 

Nothing plays out exactly how you expect it to in My Happy Family – a new film from Georgia (the country, not the state) in which a woman in her 50s, Manana (Ia Shugliashvili) decides to leave her family. We first meet her when her decision as already been made – although she hasn’t told anyone yet. She’s looking for a small rental apartment, and finds one. When she tells her family – including her husband Soso (Merab Ninidze), two grown kids and her parents (all of whom live in the same apartment), they are shocked. Over the course of the films, extended family and friends will all talk to Manana, and try and figure out why she did what she did. Was Soso abusive? A drunk? Did he cheat on her? No to all of these. It appears more than anything that after spending the first 50 years of her life as part of a large, loud family, always in each other’s faces that all she wants now is quiet and solitude.

 

If this were an American film, you could write the beats of this film by heart. Manana would have a new man by act two – probably someone kind, charming and good looking, and free from the shackles of an oppressive marriage, Manana would slowly start to shine. But that isn’t this film. Manana really doesn’t have any big plans for her life, and no new love interest enters her life. She also isn’t free from her family completely – she’s drawn back in for family occasions, and all this leads to more questions and accusations. Strangely, it is her husband Soso who appears most on her side than anyone – and it isn’t precisely because he wanted out of the marriage either. While Manana may have harboring this secret desire to get the hell out for years, he is harboring his own secrets as well. Like hers, they aren’t the kind of explosive ones you usually build a movie around – but the kind of melancholy, sad ones that we all have.

 

The film is directed by Nana Ekvtimishvili & Simon Gross (with a screenplay by Ekvtimishvili). The filmmaking on display is low-key, but in the best way – it doesn’t draw attention to itself, but the camera is always in the right spot, and flows naturally from room to room, place to place. The screenplay and the acting does the same thing. The film really is a gradual accumulation of details that builds to a powerful conclusion – not because anything is resolved, but because by then, you know everything there is to know about this family, and their lives.

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Movie Review: The Square

The Square **** ½ / *****

Directed by: Ruben Östlund.

Written by: Ruben Östlund.

Starring: Claes Bang (Christian), Elisabeth Moss (Anne), Dominic West (Julian), Terry Notary (Oleg), Christopher Læssø (Michael).

 

If Jordan Peele’s Get Out had not have come out this year, than Ruben Östlund’s The Square would be the year’s most “uncomfortable” film to sit through – and I mean that in a good way. Östlund’s point is to make us uncomfortable, to have us question our own ethics and morals throughout the film, while at the same time, providing a ruthless – and funny – satire of the contemporary art world. Östlund knows, of course, that The Square is itself an “art film”, so he’s poking fun at himself – and everyone in the audience watching as well. I’m not sure he has any real answers to the questions he asks – nor does he want to – he just wants to prod you into thinking about them. You likely already know if this film sounds like it would appealing to you – and you’re almost definitely right about that. If you don’t want that sort of experience, The Square would be excruciating to sit through – especially since it rambles around for nearly two and half hours.

 

The film stars Claes Bang as Christian – the head curator at a Stockholm museum of Modern Art – the type of place where they have an exhibit that consists of piles of gravel on the floor and a neon sign proclaiming “You Have Nothing” – but helpful guards who will tell you you’re not allowed to take photos of it. The film opens with a scene in which a reporter – Anne (Elisabeth Moss) interviews Christian about the museum and its philosophy – particularly about a night in which they hosted a talked about the difference between Exhibit and Non-Exhibit – and what art “is”. Christian unhelpfully babbles on and on, without really saying anything in a way that many do when talking about Modern Art – after all, you don’t want to appear to be “pretentious” is discussing these lofty ideals, but you also don’t want appear to be stupid and “not get it” either. This sets up the Christian we will see for the rest of the movie – who time after time has reality interfere with his lofty ideals, as he gets himself into more and more trouble.

 

It all starts on the streets when he hears a woman calling out for help – but who he ignores, until he is pretty much forced to react, because he’s physically pulled into the conflict by another man, shielding the woman, from what we assume is an angry boyfriend. After it’s all over, the two men congratulate themselves on a job well done – neither one of them realizing the woman is gone, and Christian only realizing later that his wallet, cellphone and cufflinks have been stolen. Instead of just letting it go, Christian will end up tracking his phone to a large apartment building – and it’s there where he really makes a mistake, that will end up haunting him the rest of the movie, and getting him in deeper and deeper trouble.

 

The film is largely episodic, which each episode operating both as its own sort of moral quandary, comedic set piece, and interestingly, a part of the larger overall picture. There are things that are never explained – like Anne’s pet chimpanzee for instance, who Christian sees one night when he’s over there, and we feel like he’s about to ask Anne why she has a pet chimp – but then again, she’s clearly ready to have sex, and he’s not going to stop that (the sex scene itself is funny, awkward, unerotic, and completely honest – and is followed by an absurdly long conversation about the condom that was used).

 

Basically the movie is about a man who has lived his life largely compartmentalized – he places the different aspects in his life in different boxes you could say – and throughout the course of the film, those boxes start to be mixed together, and he cannot function. The title of the movie comes from an upcoming exhibit at the museum, which is a literal square where inside “We all share the same rights and obligations” – a utopian idea that we all know what work in practice. There is a brilliant sequence late in the film at the museum during a black tie dinner, where Oleg (Terry Notary) a performance artist comes in and blurs the line between man and animal – at first in amusing ways, and then gradually in ways that start to annoy, and perhaps even endanger people. The sequence is perhaps a microcosm of the whole movie – the social contract works because we all agree to it – but it can be violated so easily, and then what are you supposed to do (and if you don’t know, do you do anything).

 

All of this probably sounds like it’s more a thought experiment than a movie – and there is certainly a danger that could happen here. But it’s grounded by Bang’s remarkable performance as Christian – who somehow keeps his character relatable – even charming – throughout, even as he does worse and worse things (Moss has the key supporting role – and she helps as well). The movie is also just outright funny. The film won the Palme D’or at Cannes this year – an irony not lost on anyone, as this film that wants to puncture the airless art world wins the biggest prize at the most arty film festival there is. That only makes things more interesting – and perhaps, proves its point.

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