Killers of the Flower Moon (2023)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Killers of the Flower Moon (2023) – M. Scorsese

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.

 

Conclave (2024)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Conclave (2024) – E. Berger

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.  

 

Evil Does Not Exist (2023)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Evil Does Not Exist (2023) – R. Hamaguchi

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.

 

Tokyo Vice (2022-2024)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Tokyo Vice (2022-2024) – J. T. Rogers

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.