Does African
Cinema begin here? (So said film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum in 1995). I haven’t
seen enough to know but it certainly seems plausible (notwithstanding the fact
that there should have been a half-century of African films before this
one). In this regard, this hour-long Black-and-White
feature from Senegalese director Ousmane Sembene (his first) presents a
microcosm of colonialism in the relationship between a Senegalese maid, Diouana
(Mbissine Thérèse Diop) and her French employers, using techniques also adopted
by the Nouvelle Vague (particularly a narrative structure that intersperses
flashbacks to Dakar within the scenes of domestic life in the flat on the French
Riviera) but otherwise characterised by social realism. With insights into the behaviour of both the
colonisers and the colonised, Sembene does not candy coat things for either
party. That said, the unabashed brutality and ignorance of the colonisers is unforgiveable,
whereas the reticence, defiance, and ultimate hopelessness of the colonised seems
a natural reaction. Clearly, Sembene’s answer is resistance and independence
and this is the path that Africa has followed in the nearly 60 years since this
film. But the harrowing legacy of colonialism continues to play out.
I was going to
write that the idea of this film is superior to its execution but waking up
this morning, I find that it has stuck with me more than expected. Focusing a fiction film on the murders of the
Osage people (women, especially) in 1920s Oklahoma as a way of calling
attention to colonialism’s effects on Indigenous people and culture more
broadly is laudable indeed. Lily Gladstone (a Blackfoot woman) plays the
central Osage heiress to an oil fortune, Molly, with powerful resignation,
never giving in spiritually to the white usurpers but also not overtly speaking
out, perhaps playing a long game or perhaps accepting her culture’s fate. We are told early on that hers is a culture
that speaks little but knows all.
Clearly, her situation is one of supreme powerlessness – and the plot
echoes other “women in distress” pictures, such as Gaslight (1944), which director
Martin Scorsese would be well aware of. But the film focuses less on Molly and her
family (her three sisters and her mother all die) and instead, perhaps for
commercial reasons or from loyalty to his stable of actors, the narrative spends
most of its time with the white characters (i.e., the villains in this story). In
particular, we follow Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio), a WWI vet who has
moved to Oklahoma to live with his rich uncle Bill “King” Hale (Robert De
Niro). Hale has a plan that involves his
family members marrying Osage women in order to secure the “headrights” to
their oil money (as oil was found on tribal lands). Not coincidentally, these
same Osage women soon die, either from the “wasting illness” or from
murder. About two hours into the movie,
the FBI (led by Jesse Plemons) investigates. I was also going to write that I’m not a big
fan of Leo’s but I’m willing to reconsider that statement as well. Here, he seems to be playing just a dumb guy –
or an unreflective one, driven to this lack of reflection by the way it suits
his own self-interest. Again, this seems
a metaphor for much of white America’s foreign and domestic policies: do what lines the pockets of the powerful
while somehow maintaining a complete lack of self-awareness about any ill
effects on the poor and people of colour. So, I have to hand it to Leo for
suppressing his natural instinct to be charismatic to play this evil man (if
evil can be represented by bad faith; see Sartre). De Niro, playing old rather than morphing
young, also disappears into his character, the much more crafty and overtly
evil boss. Scorsese takes his time
allowing the plot and characters to develop (running time = 3 hours and 17
minutes) but I really did not feel that things dragged (even if I believe
undoubtedly there must have been ways to cut this down). He pulls out a few directorial flourishes
that delight the eye and, in a moment of real panache, uses an unusual coda to
tell us the ultimate fates of the remaining characters, as these events are
based on a true story (from David Grann’s book). The coda seems to serve a number of functions
– homage to the days of storytelling of yore but also perhaps an acknowledgment
of the need to use artifice to present the tale. Naysayers may question whether the implementation
of the idea for the film has transgressed on the real lives and real issues of
the Indigenous people portrayed (or not portrayed) but I reckon Scorsese was
right to use his starpower (and that of DiCaprio and De Niro) and his bully
pulpit to focus our attention here.
I watched Conclave
for Easter but it barely triggered a memory of my Catholic high school past
(apart from the fancy dress, there’s little to no religious content here).Instead, I was reminded of Advise and Consent
(1962) where liberal Henry Fonda’s nomination to be Secretary of State is
subjected to game-playing and deceit by both sides of politics, in an effort to
block or confirm his appointment.Here,
there are more than a few rivals for the Popedom, including liberal Stanley
Tucci, conservative Sergio Castellitto, ambitious John Lithgow, and the first viable
African candidate Lucian Msamati.Ralph
Fiennes is the Dean of the Cardinals whose job it is to organise a conclave to
elect the next pope when the old one suddenly passes away. He’s ready to leave
the Vatican due to a spiritual crisis but commits to managing the conclave as a
sort of final act, even as he is drawn into the political intrigue, with
candidates jockeying for position and their dirty laundry aired by their
opponents (or uncovered via investigation by Fiennes). Although the film feels
grim at times (since this is “serious” business), as it proceeds and the tension
and speculation grow (with vote after vote unsuccessful – only grey, not white,
smoke sent up the Vatican’s chimney), it suddenly exploded for me into something
a bit more berserk.The director, Edward
Berger, plays the audience, letting the melodrama erupt into something more
absurd (unless you are willing to believe that God has sent a message to
Fiennes). To top things off, after the pope is chosen, there’s a surprise coda at
the end of the film, like the last chocolate egg discovered once the hunt has
concluded. This final offering reverberates beyond the final credits, a
remarkable curveball to strike out the last batter and leave the other team and
most spectators speechless. You can see why Peter Straughan’s screenplay
(adapted from the book by Robert Harris) won the Oscar, even though the acting
prowess on display did garner noms for Fiennes and for Isabella Rossellini as a
nun who intervenes at a key moment. The only question that remains is whether
the film’s contribution to political discourse could be read as
less-than-serious (given all that’s preceded it) when in fact it’s worth
genuinely absorbing.
Director Ryûsuke
Hamaguchi’s follow-up to his award-winning Drive My Car (2021) deserves close
scrutiny but a firm interpretation might remain elusive.Starting with that title, it is hard to fit it
to the events of the film which see the residents of a rural Japanese village (a
few hours drive from Tokyo) resisting a company’s attempt to locate a touristy glamping
site in their midst.You could argue
that the company is evil for attempting to exploit the natural resources of the
village and for trying to over-ride the concerns of the small community
(focused on water contamination and bushfire risk).Yet, the villagers themselves acknowledge
their own impact on the local ecosystem has not been entirely positive either
and count themselves as outsiders whose families relocated there only after the
government encouraged farming in the region after WWII.(Some, like the local Udon restauranteur,
arrived even later). Not all of them are polite. This pushes us toward a
reading of the title somewhere in the vicinity of Jean Renoir’s “Everyone has
their reasons” (thought to be the awful thing about life; from The Rules of the
Game, 1939). So, perhaps evil does not exist because everyone sees their own
actions as justified, even if to others they might appear “evil”. Yet, this isn’t even the main theme of the
film (or perhaps not a theme at all).Instead, there is a man versus nature or perhaps civilisation versus
nature theme that weaves its way through the film.Takumi, a local handyman, and his young
daughter, Hana, seem to be the main representatives of “nature” or perhaps they
are better thought of as people who live in harmony with nature; he chops wood
and draws water from the local stream for the Udon restaurant. In contrast,
Takahashi and Mayzumi, employees of a talent agency wanting to get into the
glamping business, represent Tokyo and the intrusion of civilisation on nature.Although Mayzumi seems the most sympathetic
to the objections of the villagers, Takahashi is the one who becomes fascinated
with the potential of a “back to nature” tree-change to his life and vocally
considers moving to the village to become the glamping caretaker.A side conversation hints that Takahashi, who
desires a family and has been using a dating app, is closer to the “traditional”
evolutionary behaviour of humans than Mayzumi who rejects the possibility of
having children.So, another reading
might suggest that evil does not exist to the extent that humans are simply
other “natural” creatures following their instincts, even if more recent
changes move us away from the more animalistic needs of our early
evolution.The film is slow cinema,
highlighted by Eiko Ishibashi’s intense score, and Yoshio Kitagawa’s mysterious
transcendental visuals.So, when anxiety
and conflict erupt at the end of the film (echoing many of the themes but
somehow still opaque and inscrutable), it’s a shock to the viewer who must
ponder this reverberating moment as the film abruptly concludes.
Based on the
memoir by Jake Adelstein, this two-season drama was executive produced by
Michael Mann (hence the “Vice” in the title).
Equal parts, All the President’s Men and Battles Without Honour and Humanity,
but brought forward to 1999 (those phones!).
I found the series entertaining and compulsively watchable (albeit with
occasional lulls) with the usual strategy of cliffhangers at the end of each
episode and a multifaceted cast: Ansel Elgort as Jake (American working as a crime
reporter for a Japanese newspaper), Ken Watanabe as Detective Katagiri (police
source/mentor for Jake), Shô Kasamatsu as Sato (up and coming Yakuza member
with honour), Ayumi Tanida as Tozawa (power-hungry and evil Yakuza boss),
Rachel Keller as Samantha (American ex-pat hostess with grit and a backstory),
and Rinko Kikuchi as Emi Maruyama (Jake’s supervisor at Meicho Shimbun). Other characters come and go. Tokyo looks mostly glitzy, sometimes grungy. Japan is Japan -- always fascinating. Worth a look if, like me, you can’t fit in
time for a 3-hour movie anymore.
In memory of David
Lynch who passed away yesterday, I pulled out my DVD of this film which I hadn’t
watched in years. My recollection, which may or may not be accurate, is that
this film was first brought to my attention by my mother who had either seen it
or read about it (I was 18 years old when this was released). This is fitting in that the film itself
features a protagonist, Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan), who is also poised
just at the boundary of childhood and adulthood, as I was. Nearly 40 years later, what leaps out at me
is that the movie is about those first steps outside of the safety of the
family home (or the womb itself, if you will) where things are more unruly and there
is freedom to follow any course of action, advisable or not, by following one’s
own impulses. There is inherent risk in
this. (Forty years later, I am also
thinking as a parent of a teenager). Not everyone is so unfortunate to run into
a Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper) but the risks are real and danger is out there
for the finding. Jeffrey and his
accomplice Sandy Williams (Laura Dern), daughter of the local police detective,
get more than they bargained for when he finds a severed human ear in a field
and they follow clues to the apartment of lounge singer Dorothy Vallens
(Isabella Rossellini). She is in serious
trouble and seriously warped/traumatised but Jeffrey makes the impulsive
decision to get involved with her – which brings him into the sphere of evil
Frank Booth. Most reviewers focus on Lynch’s depiction of a “dark underbelly”
of an otherwise normal looking white-bread America and that’s definitely a key
theme here – but the underbelly that Lynch creates is likely a lot weirder than
any real underbellies you could easily find. Dean Stockwell vamping to Roy Orbison’s
“In Dreams” is but one well known example. That aside, this film actually makes
more sense than most of Lynch’s other output in that the plot does not contain as
many non-sequiturs or befuddling jumps (such as in Lost Highway or Mulholland
Drive). Interestingly, it does foreshadow themes and choices that would
reappear throughout Lynch’s oeuvre (from sound design, music, and art direction
to characters, places, and that sense of the mysterious he achieves so well). Looking
back now, I remember my college dorm-mates quoting Hopper’s “Pabst Blue Ribbon!”
line – and even seeking out the brand in homage. For all the risks we ran back
then, ready to explore the unruly world, we were lucky that our impulses (which
might have been normal and psychologically, evolutionarily, biologically
motivated) didn’t lead us too far astray and/or that we were able to return to
safety, just as Jeffrey does. (I’m speaking for most of us). Thank you, David Lynch, for the deep thoughts
and weird images.
After watching a
few dud films in a row, I returned to Terry Gilliam’s classic time travel
thriller as a sort of palette cleanser, rejuvenating balm – and it did not
disappoint. Using Chris Marker’s La Jetée
as a launching pad, Gilliam and writers David and Janet Peoples, flesh out the
narrative, which sees a man, James Cole (Bruce Willis), sent from a post-apocalyptic
future (where a purposefully released virus has killed most of humanity,
sending survivors underground for decades) back to the 1990s to uncover clues
that scientists can use to create a vaccine and reclaim the world above. Of course, no one believes him and he is
immediately committed to a mental hospital where he meets psychiatrist Madeleine
Stowe and patient Brad Pitt (who become important to the plot later on). One undercurrent in the film focuses on
whether Cole is really from the future or possibly just really mentally ill –
and in true Gilliam-fashion, leads us to ponder our own understanding of
reality, truth, and the myth of mental illness.
But the real action follows Cole as he bounces back and forth from the
future to the present, perhaps accidentally changing the course of events (if
that is actually possible), and slowly piecing together clues that reveal the involvement
of the Army of the Twelve Monkeys in the events leading up to the virus’s
release across the world. The scientists
of the future need this information but Cole is also driven to understand a
memory that he had as a small boy (in the time just before the virus hit), of
seeing people die in an airport, a memory that returns to him in a recurring
dream and which is growing in familiarity the longer he stays in the 1990s. Director Chris Marker spent his career
pondering memory’s emotional sway over us, with Hitchcock’s Vertigo a
particular touchstone (so it comes as no surprise that we see a clip here, when
the protagonists escape into a movie theatre). Ultimately, even with all of the
Hollywood baggage that could have dragged the film down, Gilliam manages to
capture the same feelings, the pull of nostalgia, the pangs of lost times, and
he does it while still stamping his own style on the proceedings. Worth another look (and no, I haven’t seen the
subsequent TV series).
