What does it mean to 'do something'? High hopes is one of the most heart-wrenching takes on political consciousness I have ever seen. Political consciousness? How can that be hear-wrenching at all? Well, in Mike Leigh's hands, this tale about class society and its psychological tensions is rendered into a soul-searching odyssey. What is more: Leigh's film manages to be existentially penetrating and damn funny at the same time. I have a difficulty in putting into words how much this film moved me: something about its perspective on the two leading characters - a rather lazy thirty-something couple - trying to come to terms with their lives and society just hit a chord.
Cyril and Shirley: two people trying to figure things out. Should they have a child? But most acutely: what to do with Cyril's old, apathetic mother? This couple live in a dingy flat. They clearly love each other - the tenderness between them is moving (how unusual such tenderness is in films!). He's a motorcycle messenger. His sister, however, lives in a posh part of town with a bratty husband (he sells cars and has sleazy affairs). The two couples are very different, of course, and High hopes gears into high comedy when their realities clash. Cyril and Shirley are rather dreamy types who enjoy a cozy life at home. But then - the mother. She lives in a council flat and well, there's her neighbors, an outrageous yuppie couple. These neighbors are surely caricatures in the film, but in some way, that really works fine: the serious and reflective tone of some of the scenes nudge against a much loonier, crazier tone that brings out the absurdity of the seemingly ordinary and mundane.
The question being asked is often: how can we live in this society? Cyril and Shirley are people who are feeling a bit bad for not doing enough, not being active enough. Cyril makes fun of their friend's feminist-socialist speeches. She angrily retorts: so what do you do? He quietly blurt out: I sit on my arse [as a matter of fact, even thinking about this scene brings tears to my eyes]. In another scene - a sweet moment - we see Cyril bemoaning the state of the country standing before Karl Marx' grave. Then a group of buoyant Japanese tourists enter the scene and the serene spell is broken. What makes this film so good is that it is not pessimistic. Leigh does not set out to scorn a class of bohemian leftists who are too lazy to really care, nor does he set out to scorn the naivety of the well-to-do people who care more about creating the perfect flat than they care about society. The film focuses on lots and lots of dissonance and despair - but it also deals with people who care about each other and who cannot help caring, even though they perhaps would not like to. It also takes a look at people who like not to care - the posh people living next door to the mother - but who end up confronting these horrible poor people anyway.
This theme - confrontation as encounters - is brought to the fore from the very start. A young and inexperienced country boy arrives in London. He bumps into Cyril and Shirley. They try to help him finding his way, and end up taking him in for the night. They are hesitant about inviting the youngster to stay, but somehow that's the only thing they can do.
High hopes is not only good because of its dialogue and its acting. Let's not forget the way Leigh fills gray London with life: the shabby row houses and the dreary window-views are mediated with a loving eye. Then there's the satirical edge that works magic also with clothing and interior design. Simply: Mike Leigh also gets the details right for the mood of the film.
Saturday, October 31, 2015
Theeb (2014)
While watching Theeb, I couldn't help thinking of Lawrence of Arabia: the gleaming and dizzying images of the endlessness of the desert. Visually, Naji Abu Nowar's Theeb is a remarkable film. As for the story - I wasn't entirely convinced by this coming-of-age story about a Bedouin boy during WWI who goes out on a risky adventure in the desert. The central tension of the story is the young kid's enchantment with a British man who visits the camp he and his family live in. But this tension is soon lost: the film lapses into a rather conventional action mode where the viewer's attention is grabbed by an insistent will-he-survive. While the first few scenes of the film worked very well (establishing a form of life) the middle part about a boy growing into manhood crept forward rather predictably. However, one thing it did very well was to convey historical upheavals indirectly. There is the fall of the Ottoman empire, technical revolution and globalization, all of which figures in the film through the child's eyes. Even though Theeb has an interesting undercurrent - a pacifistic one even? - somehow, its presentation of innocence and struggle failed to engage me at depth. "The strong eat the weak" is delivered as a universal truth about what human life essentially is.
From What is Before (2014)
Static camera. Rustling leaves. The wind. Grass. The sky. The roaring sea. Lav Diaz' From What is Before is a film that sticks close to nature. During the 338 (!) minutes of the film I am entirely surrounded by these images and these sounds. Being a political film at heart, Diaz chooses an interesting path in making the viewing experience so sensual. The setting is an isolated village in Philippines in the seventies. Horrible things start to happen and the villagers' lives are torn apart. There is an almost apocalyptic feeling in how Diaz approaches the terror of the regime - a sense of apocalypse conjured up by an almost-static camera an sometimes extremely lengthy takes (Béla Tarr comes to mind for several different reasons). The 5+ hours of the movie makes us acquainted with the village and the routines of its dwellers. We see neighbors visiting one another's houses. A young woman takes care of her daughter who drifts from a coma-like state to a state of distress. A small boy believes he lives with his uncle because his parents are in quarantine due to leprosy. A lonely winemaker exploits the disabled girl sexually. A female merchant arrives to the village. She tries to sell goods to the villagers in a rather aggressive way (this character adds a comic aspect to this otherwise pitch-black story). A priest warns the locals about practicing the traditional rites. Worrying things happen. Cows are found slaughtered. Huts are burnt. A bleeding man appears. These events seem to intensify an already existing unease or anxiety that shape the villagers' lives. Paranoia among the villagers and as the villagers witness a suicide, we also learn about the many lies that are kept up.
The film is shot in black and white and from very early on, even the beautiful images of nature instills a sense of dread. Several scenes are set on a shore. A woman, the thundering sea, a rock. Later on, this sense of dread becomes more concrete as the army is entering the village: these are events of invasion. Martial law is introduced and some sections of the film deal with the hierarchy among the soldiers sent out to take charge of the village. The army men try to soothe the villagers - in a very bureaucratic way - by telling them that this is just an act of precaution, a way of rooting out communist rebels.
Diaz' use of long takes does not come out as an attempt to play with the viewer or as an attempt to appear 'contemplative'. His static camera gives you time to grow into a specific location. Some have talked about an anti-colonial method: time allows you to see a place, to be lulled into a specific rhythm.
Often, humans appear from within a natural setting as ant-like figures. A person appears from a distance, perhaps partly hid by deep foliage. This enhances the overall impression I got of the story. Here, there might be some open questions with regard to Diaz' perspective. Does he set out to depict how people are reduced to pawns in a cosmic game - the perspective being that whatever people do will remain futile. Or is he rather showing a historical situation - a situation of anxiety and terror in which people's sense of activity is radically reduced? In any case, the vulnerability of human life is strikingly underscored by means of this cinematographic technique. It is important to remember that the entire film is framed as an attempt to remember. Diaz seems to deal with national trauma through individual lives. There are extremely violent and horrible scenes in this movie that evoke a sense of acute trauma. These scenes have absolutely no trace of sensationalism or exoticism. Often, the horrible things done are seen only indirectly but for all that, they are shocking and heavy to watch.
The film is shot in black and white and from very early on, even the beautiful images of nature instills a sense of dread. Several scenes are set on a shore. A woman, the thundering sea, a rock. Later on, this sense of dread becomes more concrete as the army is entering the village: these are events of invasion. Martial law is introduced and some sections of the film deal with the hierarchy among the soldiers sent out to take charge of the village. The army men try to soothe the villagers - in a very bureaucratic way - by telling them that this is just an act of precaution, a way of rooting out communist rebels.
Diaz' use of long takes does not come out as an attempt to play with the viewer or as an attempt to appear 'contemplative'. His static camera gives you time to grow into a specific location. Some have talked about an anti-colonial method: time allows you to see a place, to be lulled into a specific rhythm.
Often, humans appear from within a natural setting as ant-like figures. A person appears from a distance, perhaps partly hid by deep foliage. This enhances the overall impression I got of the story. Here, there might be some open questions with regard to Diaz' perspective. Does he set out to depict how people are reduced to pawns in a cosmic game - the perspective being that whatever people do will remain futile. Or is he rather showing a historical situation - a situation of anxiety and terror in which people's sense of activity is radically reduced? In any case, the vulnerability of human life is strikingly underscored by means of this cinematographic technique. It is important to remember that the entire film is framed as an attempt to remember. Diaz seems to deal with national trauma through individual lives. There are extremely violent and horrible scenes in this movie that evoke a sense of acute trauma. These scenes have absolutely no trace of sensationalism or exoticism. Often, the horrible things done are seen only indirectly but for all that, they are shocking and heavy to watch.
Thursday, October 29, 2015
Under the Skin (2013)
Elusive. This is the description that best fits Jonathan Glazer's stunningly beautiful, at the same time stunningly ugly, Under the skin. A dry explication of the story would make most people squirm. The magic does certainly not happen in the story (that the film is loosely based on a novel is interesting, but a novel need not glow because of its story, either). This is a film entirely structured according to the associative logic of images. Scarlett Johansen's alien predator patrols the streets of Glasgow (is it Glasgow?); she's hunting for guys to ... well .... drag into a pitch-black romm - an eating-machine! Johansen, using her body as bait, lures them with her with her anonymous, steely gaze. They go with her in her van, sometimes reluctantly. An unknown figure seems to be stalking her on a bicycle.
The strangeness is enhanced by extremely absurd and stylized scenes being interwoven with ultra-gritty shots of rain-soaked streets and brightly lit malls. There is no safe distance between these two styles, the dreamy and otherworldly & the social-realist grit: everything is seamlessly sucked into the film's wandering gaze. (Many have talked about a Hollywood star plopped into the humdrum settings of pedestrian people. I am not too interested in that angle.)
I watched Nicholas Roeg's The Man Who Fell to Earth a few weeks before Under the Skin. The two films share a number of thematic and visual features. Both films' take on alienation works with humor in a way that makes the underlying sadness all the more present. Why sadness? Both Bowie and Johansen are detached from human emotions. They observe, and react according to some mechanical pattern. In a scene that drops all the satire and humor, we see Johansen's alien by the shore. She watches an accident. Or does she watch? What would watching mean for this creature?
An extremely weighty dimension of this film is the sound. The music (by Mica Levi): a throbbing, pulse-like score. Worrying dissonance, threatening tones.
Under the skin: in no other film has sex looked so abstract, a boring-beyond-boring activity to trudge through.
The strangeness is enhanced by extremely absurd and stylized scenes being interwoven with ultra-gritty shots of rain-soaked streets and brightly lit malls. There is no safe distance between these two styles, the dreamy and otherworldly & the social-realist grit: everything is seamlessly sucked into the film's wandering gaze. (Many have talked about a Hollywood star plopped into the humdrum settings of pedestrian people. I am not too interested in that angle.)
I watched Nicholas Roeg's The Man Who Fell to Earth a few weeks before Under the Skin. The two films share a number of thematic and visual features. Both films' take on alienation works with humor in a way that makes the underlying sadness all the more present. Why sadness? Both Bowie and Johansen are detached from human emotions. They observe, and react according to some mechanical pattern. In a scene that drops all the satire and humor, we see Johansen's alien by the shore. She watches an accident. Or does she watch? What would watching mean for this creature?
An extremely weighty dimension of this film is the sound. The music (by Mica Levi): a throbbing, pulse-like score. Worrying dissonance, threatening tones.
Under the skin: in no other film has sex looked so abstract, a boring-beyond-boring activity to trudge through.
Late Spring (1949)
Ozu's Late Spring is perhaps the most striking film I have ever seen about the relation between father and daughter: Ozu focuses on the quiet tenderness between the two. How often do films capture that particular closeness between members of a family? I mean: closeness that bears no hint of neurotic claustrophobia. There is also another unusual thing that sets Ozu's films apart. Rather than delivering a bleak, pessimistic image of modernization, his films show people dealing with rapid changes; even though he shows the lack of understanding that may occur between generations, he never seems to be inclined to force upon us a verdict on "the modern life".
Noriko is in her mid 20's and her widowed, professor father worries about her. She should get married, it's about time, he thinks. His scheming sister is also eager to marry her off. But the father also appreciates the life he has with his daughter. Both of them seem to thrive in their present situation. Many scenes chronicle their routines, their feeling at ease in their home. But there is this obligation, this social expectation. As a way of talking her into marrying, he tells a lie: he announces that he will re-marry. Through an encounter with a family friend in a bar, we learn that Noriko is extremely opposed to the idea. But why is she so disgusted? Is the disgust a rationalization of her grief? - Some has interpreted the film in psychosexual terms, so that an undercurrent of the tensions would revolve around repulsion and sex, but I don't know. A suitor, the professor's assistant, is presented to Noriko. They seem to enjoy one another's company (we see them on an American-looking bicycle ride), but Noriko does not marry him (the circumstances remain open-ended). A new suitor appears. He is said to look a bit like Gary Cooper. Like in Early Summer, we never get to see this suitor (very successful move).
Setsuko Hara, who plays in several Ozu film as a woman named Noriko, is brilliant. In one of the films, she goes to see a noh play with her father. The camera lingers on the play, the audience. Suddenly, Noriko notices something, the woman her father is supposed to marry. We see the sadness in her face; anger, perhaps, as well. That's a stunning scene.
Many of the central feelings in the film are only alluded to, shown in their indirect expression. The loneliness they both experience when their living situation changes remains a private thing: they cannot show it to the other. They put up a brave, smiling face and go through with what they see as the things to be done. So what is the film about? It seems wrong to say that it is about two people who do something they do not want because they want to comply with a set of socially accepted standards. The film seems to explore different meanings of 'family', what it means to take care of one's parents and that there might be a point in one's life at which there are certain things one has to let go of. Rather than working with dichotomies (traditional/western) Ozu gives us a nuanced pattern of emotions, decisions and perhaps also confusions. This makes it, I think, wrong-headed to label the film as a story about what somebody wants or does not want.
Noriko is in her mid 20's and her widowed, professor father worries about her. She should get married, it's about time, he thinks. His scheming sister is also eager to marry her off. But the father also appreciates the life he has with his daughter. Both of them seem to thrive in their present situation. Many scenes chronicle their routines, their feeling at ease in their home. But there is this obligation, this social expectation. As a way of talking her into marrying, he tells a lie: he announces that he will re-marry. Through an encounter with a family friend in a bar, we learn that Noriko is extremely opposed to the idea. But why is she so disgusted? Is the disgust a rationalization of her grief? - Some has interpreted the film in psychosexual terms, so that an undercurrent of the tensions would revolve around repulsion and sex, but I don't know. A suitor, the professor's assistant, is presented to Noriko. They seem to enjoy one another's company (we see them on an American-looking bicycle ride), but Noriko does not marry him (the circumstances remain open-ended). A new suitor appears. He is said to look a bit like Gary Cooper. Like in Early Summer, we never get to see this suitor (very successful move).
Setsuko Hara, who plays in several Ozu film as a woman named Noriko, is brilliant. In one of the films, she goes to see a noh play with her father. The camera lingers on the play, the audience. Suddenly, Noriko notices something, the woman her father is supposed to marry. We see the sadness in her face; anger, perhaps, as well. That's a stunning scene.
Many of the central feelings in the film are only alluded to, shown in their indirect expression. The loneliness they both experience when their living situation changes remains a private thing: they cannot show it to the other. They put up a brave, smiling face and go through with what they see as the things to be done. So what is the film about? It seems wrong to say that it is about two people who do something they do not want because they want to comply with a set of socially accepted standards. The film seems to explore different meanings of 'family', what it means to take care of one's parents and that there might be a point in one's life at which there are certain things one has to let go of. Rather than working with dichotomies (traditional/western) Ozu gives us a nuanced pattern of emotions, decisions and perhaps also confusions. This makes it, I think, wrong-headed to label the film as a story about what somebody wants or does not want.
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