The Holdovers (2023)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Holdovers (2023) – A. Payne

Director Alexander Payne and actor Paul Giamatti previously teamed up for Sideways (2004) where the actor played a similarly bummed out but know-it-all character touring California’s wine country. Here, decades later, he’s the misanthropic classics-spouting history teacher, unloved by students and colleagues alike, stuck baby-sitting students whose parents left them at boarding school over the 1970 Christmas break.  Payne and screenwriter David Hemingson do a wonderful job fleshing out the characters of those stuck at Barton School which also include Da'Vine Joy Randolph’s school cook Mary Lamb and Dominic Sessa’s troubled student Angus Tully.  As in Payne’s other films, the film advances via humorous episodes (a sporting accident, a Christmas party, a trip to Boston) and the characters’ relationships with each other deepen and they learn something about themselves too.  But Payne avoids the saccharine by ensuring that the proceedings are adult and authentic feeling.  He (and his team) also captures the time-period not only with perfect set-decoration/art-direction/cinematography (think The Paper Chase) but also in the social, race, and class relations depicted (amiably defiant of norms in some cases perhaps).  Bittersweet is the dominant flavour here but that’s not to say that your heart won’t also be warmed. So good.    

 

Anatomy of a Fall (2023)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Anatomy of a Fall (2023) – J. Triet

Having just watched Anatomy of a Murder (1959) with my Dad, I can definitely see the family resemblance with Justine Triet’s Oscar-winning Anatomy of a Fall.  Both films deconstruct a central death with exacting forensic/clinical investigations leading to high-profile court cases with fallible defendants (Ben Gazzara in the older film, Sandra Hüller in the newer one).  They differ in the way that Otto Preminger focused more on Jimmy Stewart’s lawyer, whereas Triet honed in on the relationship between Hüller’s Sandra Voyter and her blind son Daniel (Milo Machado-Graner) who is the sole witness able to tell the court whether his father was killed by his mother.  Court cases in France do not seem to follow the same rules as those in America, with the defendant (as well as the defense team) freely interjecting (and/or being asked to comment) while the prosecutor questions witnesses. Evidence mounts and seemingly supports a strong case against the defendant – or does it? Hüller, who was so good in Toni Erdmann (2016), is fascinating here, ably allowing us to doubt her while remaining hopeful that she didn’t do it.  Absorbing throughout. It won the Palme d’Or at Cannes.

Perfect Days (2023)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Perfect Days (2023) – W. Wenders

Japan’s entry for the Best International Oscar was their first directed by a foreigner, in this case, Wim Wenders (Wings of Desire, 1987).  Koji Yakusho (Cure, 1997; Shall We Dance, 1996) won Best Actor at the Cannes Film Festival in 2023 for this film.  He plays a cleaner for The Tokyo Toilet company who services restrooms in the Shibuya area. But these are no ordinary toilets!  The film’s idea itself apparently originated with these architect-designed toilet blocks that were created for the 2020 Olympics – after the pandemic overshadowed everything, the feeling was that the toilets did not get enough attention.  So, a commission was offered to create a documentary to highlight their uniqueness, but when Wim Wenders won, he decided to create a fiction film instead. (Wise choice).  We follow Yakusho’s daily routine in detail and learn that it rarely changes.  He is a man who clearly takes pleasure in the simple things of life and is conscientious about his work and his life. He also listens to cassette tapes of sixties music and reads classic novels.  He has a particular interest in photographing trees (or one particular tree).  Wenders takes a minimalist approach (this is slow cinema) with some experimental flourishes to represent the dreams of Hirayama (Yakusho), which unfold like abstract shadow plays. Gradually, we learn more about Hirayama as a result of his interactions with other people (although his routine shows him to be a loner who barely speaks). There is a mystery of sorts here although many will feel the movie to be virtually plotless. The final shot (or nearly final shot) is likely to be the one that garnered Yakusho his acting awards and Wenders holds it long enough for us to ponder the character’s motivation and emotions. After the credits, Wenders offers an insight that unlocked the film for me:  "‘KOMOREBI’ is the Japanese word for the shimmering of light and shadows that is created by leaves swaying in the wind. It only exists once, at that moment.”  I’m pleased to see Wenders’ success after a number of years when his documentaries outshone his narrative films. Highly recommended.  

Monster (2023)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Monster (2023) – H. Kore-eda

I’ve been following director Hirokazu Kore-eda since I first caught After Life (1998) randomly in London in 1999 (and soon after found his breakthrough film Maborosi, 1995, on VHS). He is probably best known now for Shoplifters (2018) which won the Palme d’Or at Cannes that year. He’s become an expert at the shomin-geki (family drama, or “common people” drama). In many ways, Monster, Kore-eda’s return to Japanese film-making after stints in France and Korea, falls into this genre too (but may also represent the classic coming-of-age story).  We begin by following Sakura Ando’s single mother who becomes increasingly concerned with the experiences of her son Minato (Soya Kurokawa) at primary school when he comes home with a bloody nose and hurt ear.  He tells her that the teacher hit him and called him “Pig Brain”.  She confronts the principal who instructs the teacher to make a formal apology to the parent, but without quite admitting everything.  This agitates the mum who takes legal action against the school.  But the truth is not so simple (as is often the case in Kore-eda’s films) and we are subsequently treated to two more versions of events before settling in to see things from Minato’s point of view. Without giving too much away, let’s just say that the film transforms into a story about societal norms, constraints, and prejudices – the way some people may be seen as monsters and may even self-stigmatise themselves as monsters. But freed from these shackles, in a separate reality, love can prosper. Although ultimately the film decides to move on from its promise of a Rashomon-styled tale of subjective perceptions, the resulting focus on primary human relationships (despite verging on the overly sentimental) offers a triumphant conclusion. Unfortunately, the world we know may not allow this euphoria to be sustained. 

Odd Man Out (1947)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Odd Man Out (1947) – C. Reed

One of the first DVDs I ever bought, but it has been ages since I watched it.  James Mason stars as one of the leaders of the IRA in Belfast, Johnny McQueen, who has been hiding out after escaping from prison but is now planning a payroll robbery in order to finance their operations. Yet from the start things don’t go right – Mason plays McQueen as tentative and uncertain and director Carol Reed (later famous for The Third Man, 1949) uses expressionistic touches to show McQueen’s wooziness as he gets into the car to head to the job.  Of course, the subsequent heist suffers as a consequence and McQueen kills an innocent employee during the escape while also being shot himself. He then falls backwards out of the getaway car, with his panicked partners leaving him passed out in the road.  From there, the movie depicts McQueen’s journey through the snowy night in Belfast, encountering numerous supposed loyalists and other friendly souls, none of whom assist him enough to help him back to safety. At the same time, McQueen experiences delirious hallucinations, as he is both dying and coming to terms with his crimes. There is a burning spiritual fever in Johnny as he attempts to avoid the police dragnet – but to what end? Kathleen Ryan is in love with Johnny and wants to rescue him, but neither she nor anyone else can see a way forward beyond Johnny’s pre-ordained fate. Reed and cinematographer Robert Krasker shot the film as a blend of postwar neo-realism (the slums of Belfast), film noir (the chiaroscuro lighting and dark themes), and expressionism (McQueen’s visions distort reality). To me, the film seems to share structure and themes with Jim Jarmusch’s Dead Man (1995), which also follows a man on a journey from life to death, offering a critique of society on the way. In both films, humans struggle with difficult moral decisions where right and wrong can confusingly depend on the eye of the beholder.  Yet, at the end of the day, as the police inspector hunting Johnny succinctly states, for him, there is neither bad nor good, only innocence and guilt.

 

Rebecca (1940)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Rebecca (1940) – A. Hitchcock

Less a thriller or a suspense film than a gothic melodrama (popular at the time: Wuthering Heights, 1939; Gaslight, 1940/1944, etc.) which stayed true to the novel by Daphne du Maurier (purchased for Hitchcock by producer David O. Selznick). Joan Fontaine is the awkward young woman (a paid companion for a boorish and matronly society lady) who meets wealthy Maxim de Winter (Laurence Olivier) at Monte Carlo where he is vacationing, trying to escape memories of his late wife, Rebecca. After a whirlwind romance, Fontaine’s character becomes the new Mrs. de Winter and takes her place as the head of the household at the beautiful and remote English mansion Manderley. From the start, she feels that she does not measure up to the beautiful and sophisticated Rebecca and this feeling is encouraged by Mrs. Danvers (Judith Anderson), the unfriendly and hard-hearted housekeeper who was overly fond of the previous Mrs. de Winter (some reviewers have suggested a same-sex attraction). Husband Max does not make things any easier for Fontaine’s character (who is given no first name), often reacting angrily and moodily when Rebecca comes up – and indeed, since there are monogrammed R’s everywhere in the house, this is very often.  In their excellent book about Hitch, Rohmer and Chabrol point out that pairing an emotional woman with an unemotional man in a two-shot became a trope of the director, something I never noticed before (but is clear in Notorious, 1946, too).  Fontaine impresses as she transforms from vulnerable and insecure to become a more confident partner to Olivier -- and both of them, as well as Anderson, received Oscar nods in addition to Hitchcock himself along with best screenplay, score, and a slew of technical category nominations. The film won Best Picture and Best Cinematography, which held true to the Gothic style and produced an air of mystery and ultimately suspense -- which Hitch injects into the film in its final minutes as a startling twist is introduced and foppish cad George Sanders almost destroys the burgeoning romance between Olivier and Fontaine.  When Truffaut suggested to Hitchcock that he developed his interest in the psychological dynamics of his characters when working on this film, the great director agreed.  A must-see.

Napoleon Dynamite (2004)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Napoleon Dynamite (2004) – J. Hess

Totally absurd and amusing, feeling sui generis or at least unlike anything else that I had seen at the time.  But also, I guess, a straightforward high school comedy where characters learn stuff and develop over time (maybe). As written and directed by Jerusha and Jared Hess, this is funny stuff but which doesn’t make fun of its characters, however ridiculous they may be. Jon Heder plays Napoleon Dynamite as a sullen teenage nerd (even if the actor was already well into his 20s), defiantly his own person, seemingly unaware that he might be perceived as different.  He’s got an older brother, similarly but differently nerdy, and they live in rural Idaho with their butch grandma (and later cheesy Uncle Rico) – it is hard to know what decade this is because everything seems very dated (furnishings, phones, vehicles) but then Kip the older brother is hanging out in online chat rooms every night and meets a girlfriend that way. The plot, as it is, centers on Napoleon’s new friend Pedro and his decision to run for class president (against popular girl Summer).  Pedro and another of their friends, Deb, are played expressionlessly, leading to some very dry deadpan humor (also typical of Heder who delivers ridiculous lines as straight as possible).  Amon referred to them as NPCs.  Essentially an anecdotal film, with the usual high school rites of passage (school dance, confrontation with bullies, class elections), all treated with disregard and irreverence – yet there is nothing here that smacks of mainstream attitudes or commercial filmmaking (not a teen sex comedy).  There is, however, one amazing dance routine by Heder that has to be seen to be believed.