Drive My Car (2021)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Drive My Car (2021) – R. Hamaguchi

Winner of the 2022 Best International Feature Film at the Academy Awards as well as Best Screenplay at Cannes.  It was adapted from a story by Haruki Murakami (who I like but I haven’t read this 2014 story). Director Ryusuke Hamaguchi co-wrote the screenplay and this is his breakthrough film and the first of his I have seen.  I hesitated because it is 3 hours long. However, unlike some other long films, this was worth it – it takes time for the mood and meaning to sink in and for the characters to develop. The first 40 minutes or so, before the credits (!), show us the life of theatre director Yûsuke Kafuku (played with maximum reserve by Hidetoshi Nishijima) with his wife Oto (Reika Kirishima) before the main events of the movie two years later. These first 40 minutes lock in place the emotional trajectories that continue to affect the people in the story and the pay-off that director Hamaguchi secures. Later, when Kafuku is appointed to a two-month residency in Hiroshima to stage Chekov’s Uncle Vanya, he is provided with a driver (who takes over his beautiful red Saab), Misaki Watari (played with equal reserve by Tôko Miura). We are treated, in relatively equal doses, to rehearsals of the play, which takes an unusual multi-lingual approach (highlighting the “communication effort” theme), and to the drives back and forth from the island hotel where Kafuku stays and the theatre. Relationships develop and there is a strong focus on grief, identity, betrayal. The cinematography by Hidetoshi Shinomiya is stunning, especially in the POV driving scenes and the music by Eiko Ishibashi assists with the emotional journey. There are ellipses in the plot and Hamaguchi occasionally chooses not to show us everything in a scene or holds back until the right moment. This creates suspense, but the viewer is rewarded by gradual reveals and there is a sense of an intellectual puzzle slowly fitting together. Chekov’s play is a major piece of the puzzle, with the dialogue of the play juxtaposing against the events of the film and reinforcing our perception of the characters and their internal states (often unspoken). Those who know the play may find different insights here. But those who do not are also in for a rich, meditative, and rewarding experience.   

The Souvenir: Part II (2021)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Souvenir: Part II (2021) – J. Hogg

It isn’t just the music, or the hair or the fashion, that evokes the 1980s but something else uncanny that director Joanna Hogg has captured in this sequel to (or continuation of) her 2019 film: a feel (and I should know because I was there – although not in London where the film takes place). Honor Swinton Byrne again plays Hogg’s former self (renamed Julie Harte), who we find back at film school, grieving for her ex-boyfriend who died at the end of the first film, revealing a dark and secret life.  She’s shattered – living with her parents (played by the actress’s real life mum Tilda Swinton and James Spencer Ashworth) but slowly ready to face the world again. In this way the film feels uplifting, as Julie begins to find her feet again, deciding to focus her graduation film on her tragic relationship as a way of processing and moving on from the past. (Indeed, Julie’s decision echoes Hogg’s own decision to focus on these events of her past in The Souvenir Parts I and II, even though her own graduation film, starring Tilda Swinton pursued a different topic). But you can’t escape the moodiness that underscores the film’s arc and the choice of period music highlights the moods (and change in mood) in Julie’s life – I felt this film as much as watched it.  For those interested in the art of filmmaking, Hogg also provides a (sometimes scathing) look at the behind-the-scenes world of film school and, in the final scene, reminds us that The Souvenir: Part II is artifice rather than reality, created from memory by someone who has survived and since prospered.

 

The Beatles: Get Back (2021)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Beatles: Get Back (2021) – P. Jackson

Growing up in the 1970s and ‘80s, the Beatles’ music was all around me – even though the band had been long broken up.  My dad owned the red double album and my sister and I memorized every word.  Classic rock radio played the hits from the blue double album anyway. Over the years, I heard all of their most famous works.  Recently, the library gave me The Beatles: All the Songs by Margotin and Guesdon (which I checked out when it was already “out of circulation”) and my stepfather gifted me four Beatles CDs (I already had Revolver) since he streams everything now.  Let It Be wasn’t among them – in fact, I never had much time for that one and I never watched the original movie (Let It Be, 1970) directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg that included footage from the making of the album (and which incidentally reinforced the narrative that Yoko Ono had broken up the band by driving a wedge between John Lennon and the others). So, when I had the opportunity to watch Peter Jackson’s three-part (468 min) mini-series drawn from the 60 hours of footage shot by Lindsay-Hogg, it came as something of a revelation. Here were the Beatles, around age 28 in January 1969, sitting, first in Twickenham film studios and then in their own Apple building studio, seemingly making up songs on the spot.  We see the gestation of Get Back and its final recording. Other songs seem to have been made up at home and brought in for workshopping with the others. It’s an occasionally tense (George quits the band!) but mostly relaxed affair, with a lot of goofing around by John and Paul. They play their own past hits with ridiculous voices or slow tempos. They work on songs that would later feature on Abbey Road or on solo albums (All Things Must Pass, and a fragment that became Jealous Guy). There are some intense jams involving John, Paul, and Yoko (with her unique vocal style), suggesting that the reported ill will between these three was over-stated by the earlier film. This is not to say that The Beatles weren’t nearing the end of their time as a group – they recorded Abbey Road about six months later and then broke up for good about six months after that when Paul objected to Phil Spector’s production techniques on the Let It Be album. It had been originally conceptualised with a back-to-basics approach, no overdubs or studio trickery, in effect the four Beatles (plus Billy Preston who happens into the studio at just the right time to add electric piano and ease some tensions) playing live again. And to top it all off, after much debate, they finally do end up giving a 42 minute concert on the rooftop of the Apple building (some songs played twice) and a few of these songs, recorded live, ended up on the album. Listening to it now is a much richer experience having seen the genesis of the songs and the working process of the band. Peter Jackson’s presentation of the material, with each day crossed off on a calendar as it passes, including plenty of full-length performances, extended “candid” conversations, some drama, some nonsense, and masterfully edited snippets, is explicitly noted to have been designed to be true to the actual events and everyone involved (Paul and Ringo are executive producers). A must see, if you’ve ever loved the Fab Four.

Memoria (2021)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Memoria (2021) – A. Weerasethakul

This is only the second film by Apichatpong Weerasethakul that I’ve seen, even though the Thai director has been making features since 2000.  The other was Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010) which won the Palm D’Or at Cannes that year.  It should have prepared me for the slow meditative pace of his new film, Memoria (which won the Jury Prize at Cannes in 2021), but somehow the presence of Tilda Swinton and the suggestion that this would be science fiction lured me into expecting something different. However, the opening scene, which takes place at night in the near dark and shows only Jessica (Swinton) hearing a loud earthy metallic sound and waking up somewhat dazed to slowly look around, quickly reset my expectations. Once I got myself in tune with the film’s thoughtful pace, I was mesmerized by its mystery. What was the sound? Why can only Jessica hear it? She begins an investigation, first consulting a sound engineer who manipulates an effects library to try to reproduce the exact sound. This is Weerasethakul’s first film outside of Thailand – it takes place in Colombia and Jessica soon drifts from the city into the countryside where she meets a fisherman who declares that he is a hard drive who stores all memories and she is an antenna who can read them. They experience a connection. The film does not attempt to provide answers to its mysteries but instead shows us a series of incidents and encounters, primarily ambiguous, that allow viewers to reflect, think, and expand their consciousness. I was reminded of the art of Jeff Wall while the camera paused for lengthy amounts of time on clearly staged shots. What motivated the artistic choices? Colour and composition are a highlight here and, given the plot, sound design as well.  This must have been wondrous on the big screen.  

A Hero (2021)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

A Hero (2021) – A. Farhadi

Asghar Farhadi keeps the spirit of the Iranian Third Wave going with another complex drama featuring multiple perspectives on an event and slippery judgments about what is right and what is wrong. Or who is right and who is wrong.  A Hero follows Rahim (Amir Jadidi), serving a 10-year prison term because of a debt he cannot repay, apparently contingent on his creditor’s willingness to keep him in jail (a feature of Iranian law that we no longer have here – although one is reminded of Dickens’ debtors’ prisons). On a two-day furlough, Rahim’s new girlfriend produces 17 gold coins that she has found in a lost handbag; they consider it a miracle and approach a gold dealer with the aim of paying off the debt.  However, Rahim’s conscience won’t let him do this and instead he decides to find the owner of the handbag and return the money. I won’t spoil what happens next but there are cascading repercussions of this prosocial action which raise a number of tricky questions about moral behaviour. For example, is refraining from doing something “bad” equal to choosing to do something “good”? And is a charitable action still worthy if it is done for public acclaim rather than anonymously? Has the ascent of social media changed the way we behave, now that our every action can be documented for public consumption (and judgment)? Farhadi started with a “true story” but characteristically uses it to explore the justifications that people use for their actions (“everyone has their reasons” as Renoir would say). If there is a critique of Iranian society here, it is quite guarded – instead, Farhadi has a much bigger target in mind:  human nature itself. Cinematically, the film looks great and employs grand (and symbolic?) locations such as the Tomb of Xerxes and avant garde techniques such as small jump cuts to advance the action. I am sure it warrants a much closer inspection and deeper analysis than I have been able to provide (even the setting in the city of Shiraz was chosen purposefully for its cultural meanings). This film and indeed all of Farhadi’s oeuvre deserve your attention.

 

The Velvet Underground (2021)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

The Velvet Underground (2021) – T. Haynes

Probably my favourite band – and therefore their history is overly familiar to me (from the Up-Tight book by Malanga/Bockris; the Under Review DVD; and countless other sources). So, what could director Todd Haynes (e.g., Safe, 1995; Dark Waters, 2019; and a bunch of Sonic Youth videos) bring to this tale? For one thing, he adopted Andy Warhol’s split screen technique (used prominently in Chelsea Girls, 1966, which I saw years ago at the Walker Art Center) – often showing one of Warhol’s screen tests (Lou Reed, John Cale, Sterling Morrison, and more but maybe not Maureen Tucker) on one side, while the other includes rare live recordings, an interview subject, or other remarkable found footage and period ephemera. Haynes is clearly more enamoured with the Velvets’ early days, spending much time with denizens of the Factory and the Village more broadly (the film is dedicated to Jonas Mekas). Of course, this is one key to their sound – Tony Conrad, Henry Flynt, and La Monte Young all provide necessary backstory about the drone influence, as does Cale himself. But Pickwick Records and poet Delmore Schwartz are not forgotten, as inspirations or contributing factors in Lou Reed’s development as a songwriter and lyricist. Naturally, we hear some of the early demos and formative noises that accompanied the Exploding Plastic Inevitable and foreshadowed the first album (with most of its songs on the soundtrack). Nico is introduced (with footage from La Dolce Vita) but we move fairly quickly past her, then touch on the California tour (Moe really hated the hippies), and the firing of Warhol. The subsequent albums whiz by, each given progressively less coverage (Cale is given a chance to reflect on his departure but Doug Yule is barely introduced). Then, it is time for the finale at Max’s, where Lou’s walkout is recounted by Danny Fields. No mention of Squeeze but we do get footage from Le Bataclan. A coda offers a scattering of moments for each of the principals in the decades to come (and a glimpse of the 1993 reunion).  This sort of documentary always rises and falls based on the quality of the talking heads and they are pretty good here, particularly Jonathan Richman (who says he saw VU sixty or seventy times!). To Haynes’ credit, there’s precious little gossip here, with the focus primarily on the story of the band at the time it unfolded (and no irrelevant future stars recounting their later influence). As such, two hours seemed too short – I wanted more detail, more depth, longer music clips, more more more!  But as music docs go, this is definitely all killer/no filler, perhaps best particularly for the uninitiated (if any such people exist), as an entrée to the music itself, of course.

Licorice Pizza (2021)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Licorice Pizza (2021) – P. T. Anderson

My first comment about Licorice Pizza was going to be that Paul Thomas Anderson has done a pretty good job of recreating 1973 Los Angeles, considering that he himself was only born in 1970.  But then I read the trivia on IMDb about the film which reveals an amazing number of interconnections between Anderson, the actors in the film, and elements of the plot. As the writer-director, it now seems clear that he’s created this tapestry from his own memories, knowledge, and experiences. No need to be aware of any of this to enjoy the film which follows its own internal logic and feels real in a way that many narratives about young love do not.  But for the record, Alana Haim is from the band Haim and her mother was Anderson’s elementary school art teacher (he later did some music videos for Haim). She plays the 25-year-old object-of-desire for 15-year-old Gary, who is played by Cooper Hoffman, son of the late Phillip Seymour Hoffman, a good mate of Anderson’s and star of many of his films. Apparently, Gary is based on another Hollywood figure from the 70s (Gary Goetzman, a producer now but previously a hustling kid, it seems) and so too are characters played by Sean Penn (channelling William Holden) and Tom Waits (channelling either John Huston or Sam Peckinpah). For some reason, Jon Peters (hairdresser and Hollywood producer, in a relationship with Streisand in ’73), played by Bradley Cooper, isn’t given a pseudonym – perhaps he doesn’t mind being portrayed as something of a psycho!  There are a lot of rabbit holes to follow if you want to: Anderson’s dad was an announcer on the Carol Burnett Show and there are some nods to that show and its cast here, there are references to a Clint Eastwood-directed film called Breezy and probably also to Taxi Driver. But again, none of this really matters because the love story itself feels genuine, full of the kind of wacky anecdotes and incidents that pepper your own life (especially in your teens and twenties). There’s an infectious joie-de-vivre here (sparked by a great use of period music) that makes this one of the best films in recent memory. Highly recommended!

 

No Time to Die (2021)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

No Time to Die (2021) – C. J. Fukunaga

Clearly, I’m not a big enough Bond fan – I had to look at my blog to figure out whether I had actually seen the previous film (Spectre, 2015) a full six years ago (I had and didn’t like it). Poor memory may have put me at a disadvantage because the current film seems to pick up where the last one left off.  Another reviewer has remarked that the Daniel Craig series features a Bond that does not exhibit chronic amnesia, he actually remembers the events of previous films. We shall see what happens next, because this 25^th “official” outing for 007 is seemingly Craig’s last. And despite my own failure to remember either Vesper (lost love) or Madeleine (current love, played by Léa Seydoux), I still enjoyed this film (perhaps splitting it across two nights helped as well). Somehow the yearning melancholic themes – everyone here has lost someone violently (including the villain played by Rami Malek) – rise above the specific details of the plot to provide an emotional impact. Mixed with these poignant moments are the expensive action sequences for which Bond films are renowned and they don’t disappoint. True, most of the characters besides Craig and Seydoux don’t have enough to do and it is hard to feel interested in them (including the villain played by Rami Malek) and this may be why some true Bond fans seem to have felt that this film is a letdown.  In fact, it is more of a downer and there’s a difference.   

 

Judas and the Black Messiah (2021)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Judas and the Black Messiah (2021) – S. King

A history lesson masquerading as a bio-pic masquerading as a political thriller, Shaka King teaches us about the Black Panthers’ role in the civil rights movement via the short incendiary life of Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya) and the car thief (LaKeith Stanfield) blackmailed by the feds into betraying him. (Thus, that title is a bit too “on the nose”). Not being as familiar as I should be with these events, I found the plot turns hard to predict (a good thing) and the re-creation of late ‘60s Chicago felt about right. Although Kaluuya is persuasive as Hampton (a community-focused collaborative leader calling for revolution), the real center of the film sits with Stanfield who needed to portray the guilt and fear that Bill O’Neal must have felt as he became more and more entrenched in the Panthers’ hierarchy even while he was meeting regularly with his handler (Jesse Plemons) who himself seems sometimes more sympathetic to the movement than to his nefarious bosses, including J. Edgar Hoover (Martin Sheen). Real footage of O’Neal and Hampton and Hampton’s girlfriend Deborah Johnson bring home the reality of the events – knowing that she sued the federal government for his murder and won means this story can’t be brooked. Of course, there’s a reason this film appeared now, as the number of Black Americans dying at the hands of the police has not decreased and a revolution may be all that turns the tide. Black lives (and stories) matter indeed.