Elena (2011)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Elena (2011) – A. Zvyagintsev

A study of the contrasts in modern Russia with Nadezhda Markina’s title character caught right in the middle.  She’s a late middle-aged former nurse recently married to a very rich older man who she previously took care of after a hospital stay.  Both have adult children from previous marriages.  Elena’s son is married with two kids but jobless and living in a run down apartment building covered in graffiti.  Elena’s husband does not approve and seeks to stop her from giving money to her son.  Clearly, he wields all the power in their relationship and he brusquely asks her to serve him.  Director Zvyagintsev (The Return, Leviathan, Loveless) takes a long time setting up the characters and their lives and the juxtaposition between their wealthy upper class existence and the son’s relative poverty (but also their earthiness against his ruthlessness).  Eventually, the plot turns into a sort of morality play when Elena needs to come to terms with her husband’s disdain for her family (and herself?).  Perhaps she takes a leaf from her husband’s estranged daughter’s book (played superbly by Elena Lyadova, tough but human).  Similarly to his other features, Zvyagintsev gives no hints as to where the plot might lead, which ultimately creates suspense.  The denouement, though puzzling, can be read in multiple ways – it feels deeply ambivalent.  The film also looks beautiful with a quality of natural light (often bright sunlight) that makes each image seem like an artwork all its own. 

  

Early Spring (1956)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ 

Early Spring (1956) – Y. Ozu

Yasujirô Ozu offers a negative view of the salaryman’s life in 1950s Tokyo, following a young man (Ryô Ikebe) who is stuck in a daily routine with little promise of change.  Even his mentors remark “I hate my job” (Chishû Ryû, whose character has been transferred to distant Lake Biwa) or quit to run a coffee shop instead (Sô Yamamura).  His peers mostly distract themselves with mah-jong in the evenings and outings on the weekends and gossip about each other.  Most are married, as is Ikebe’s character, but he seems to be going through the routine at home too.  His wife (Chikage Awashima) is unsatisfied too and spends most of her time confiding in her mother or best friend, who offer different responses.  When Ikebe is targeted romantically by a flirtatious woman in his circle, nicknamed Goldfish (Keiko Kishi), he gives in and then regrets it.  However, it is impossible to hide from his wife.  Then each character reflects on how this affects the marriage.  Although atypically glum for Ozu, who usually keeps a moderate level of existential awe in even his saddest features (e.g., Tokyo Story, 1953), the film remains as absorbing as all of his best work.  Somehow the characters draw you in with their complex feelings and predicaments – as usual, they speak directly to the camera while Ozu uses unusual shot-reverse shot configurations during conversations.  This might heighten our involvement psychologically. Or perhaps it is Ozu’s focus on family relationships and the predicaments of the lower and middle class (typical of the shomin-geki genre) that makes his films feel relevant. Finally, even if you don’t feel sympathy for the central protagonist, Ozu’s expertise is such that he makes you feel the humanity of the situation from every perspective and allows us hope for the future.

Silent Light (2007)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Silent Light (2007) – C. Reygadas

At first, I found the film almost unbearably slow.  Its depiction of a Mennonite farm family in Mexico (speaking an odd-sounding German hybrid) was strong on observational detail but rather weak on narrative tension.  Sure, the protagonist, Johan (nonprofessional lead actor Cornelio Wall), had let it be known that he was in love with someone other than his wife and that he had told his wife (but not his six or seven children), so this should have created some momentum.  But even when he makes contact with his mistress Marianne and the situation becomes more palpable, the acting is so low-key (despite the crying) that it barely creates a ripple.  However, slowly slowly, about an hour in, that feeling of transcendence so familiar from other slow movies, such as those by Carl Theodor Dreyer or Bela Tarr, started to kick in.  A long car ride with wife Esther across a beautiful cloudy Mexican landscape that suddenly turns to drenching rain is the opportunity for that subdued emotion to break free, although director Carlos Reygadas still keeps things relatively restrained (it is the contrast between the stillness of everything and the dramatic nature of the events that heightens the feelings evoked in the viewer).  Then, as if to acknowledge his influences and to remind us that we are focused on a religious community dealing with transgression, Reygadas explicitly references Dreyer’s Ordet (1955).  To say that he steals the epiphany from the earlier film might not be too far wrong but the context is so dissimilar as to make this more of a repurposing than a plagiarism.  Thinking back then, you can see how some of the camera moves and other technical details of the film also evoke the Danish master -- but you need to put in the effort in order to secure this pay-off.  And finally, we are left to ponder whether some sort of spiritual alchemy has taken place, some mea culpa that secures forgiveness and, yes, transcendence. 

    

Fort Apache (1948)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Fort Apache (1948) – J. Ford

Monument Valley looks great (in B&W) in the first film in John Ford’s so-called “Cavalry” trilogy.  Henry Fonda plays an arrogant Colonel who arrives to take command of the regiment at the titular Fort and rubs everyone in the good-natured community the wrong way.  He removes an old friend of his wife’s from a leadership role, pushes troop leader John Wayne around, and tries to prevent his daughter (19-year-old Shirley Temple!) from dating a young lieutenant (John Agar, Temple’s real-life husband), the son of non-commissioned war hero Ward Bond.  Ford intersperses scenes of the community (dinners, dances) with comic relief (from drunkard Sergeant Victor McLaughlin and his mates) and the tense scenes with Fonda (there are no relaxed scenes with him).  Ultimately, when the Apaches, led by Cochise and Geronimo, escape their reservation to Mexico (after being exploited by the government-operated trading store proprietor), Wayne and Fonda disagree about how to best deal with the situation.  Fonda refuses to listen to reason and we are treated to an epic battle scene.  For what it’s worth, the portrayal of Native Americans is relatively benign, although Fonda spouts a bunch of negative stereotypes; since he is the bad guy (and Wayne opposes him on this ground), the stereotypes are theoretically rejected as well.  This probably wasn’t forceful enough to have any effect on the cinema-going audience of the time, however.  I’ve spent a lot of time avoiding John Ford’s westerns but they do have a certain warmth and sense of place.

The Devil Rides Out (1968)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ 

The Devil Rides Out (1968) – T. Fisher

Hammer Films hired Richard Matheson (adept in the horror/supernatural genre) to adapt Dennis Wheatley’s novel about Satan worshippers for the screen. The result takes for granted that evil powers exist and that men (such as Aleister Crowley) could tap into them and use them for their own purposes after much study of the ancient arts.  In this film, that man is Mocata (Charles Gray) but he also appears (called Karswell) in my favourite film of this genre, Curse of the Demon (1957), played by Niall MacGinnis.  The editing in The Devil Rides Out is tight and often cuts out the exposition – we jump right in to find that the Duc de Richleau (Christopher Lee) and his friend Rex Van Ryn (Leon Greene) are worried about a friend who has been keeping too much to himself.  They drop by his house to discover that he has recently joined a Satanic circle and then the plot launches from there, as Richleau and Van Ryn tangle with evil in an attempt to rescue their friend Simon and another girl Tanith before they are baptised on the evil Sabbath.  The film blends references to arcane rituals with spooky (though fake-looking) special effects with rip-roaring adventure story action.  Christopher Lee is his usual commanding presence – and fortunately he is on the side of good, rather than evil; otherwise, the Goat of Mendes might have won.  As usual, the Hammer production values are top notch (those amazing cars and mansions) and this is one of their best releases. 

A Touch of Sin (2013)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

A Touch of Sin (2013) – Z. Jia

Not quite what I expected from director Zhangke Jia but perhaps even better because of that.  I’d already seen Platform (2000) and The World (2004), which I recall as being character-driven realist dramas set in a China engaging with capitalism and all its problems.  That theme continues here but Jia has drawn four violent “true crime” stories from the news and dramatized them with a startling “in your face” quality that seemed absent in the previous quieter features.  The stories are interlinked by virtue of overlapping locations (and briefly glimpsed characters) but they don’t really come together to create a gestalt.  What they do share is the sense that China is now under the sway of a very powerful rich elite who exploit and subjugate those with lower status (particularly women, perhaps).  It seems surprising that Jia was able to express these problems openly from Mainland China or perhaps criticism of the effects of capitalism is still in line with government views despite the cultural changes.  Briefly, the events on display involve a man angry with his local village elder for selling out their community and taking bribes, a young man who freely uses a handgun for senseless violence (and to steal designer bags), a sauna receptionist who fends off businessmen demanding sex (with a martial arts wuxia styled attack), and another young man who is subjected to a number of low paying and degrading jobs (including in a brothel for rich elites) resulting in his total alienation.  Physical violence is present in all the tales, often shockingly and graphically so, but documenting the moral and spiritual violence that is done to the main protagonists may be Jia’s real aim.  He also has a great eye for Chinese locales, frequently showing his characters as tiny figures dwarfed in the face of giant factories or desolate rural landscapes, powerless as they also are in society.

    

Blade Runner 2049 (2017)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Blade Runner 2049 (2017) – D. Villeneuve

Capturing the feel and appeal of the original 1982 film (or perhaps the later “Final Cut”), this is one sequel that does not disappoint.  Ryan Gosling is suitably cool and affectless as the heir to Harrison Ford’s Deckard (evoking detectives of bygone eras, but notably Delon's hitman in Melville’s Le Samourai, 1967). He is a new version of the replicant, now built by Jared Leto’s Wallace Corporation, a model designed not to lie or to resist orders (supposedly).  His territory is the same desolate Los Angeles that we saw in the earlier film, perhaps a bit more burnt out, but with the same enormous animated neon signs and the logos for alternate reality corporations (such as Atari or the CCCP).  At home, he has his own A. I. girlfriend (Ana de Armas) who has no corporeal form but seems to have an independent consciousness.  As before, the film foregrounds the struggle with identity (are they real or not real?) felt by both Gosling’s “K” (later Joe, but not Josef) and de Armas’ Joi.  K recalls memories but feels that they are only implants -- until a politically charged case starts him questioning.  The plot slowly starts to come together with a few surprising moments of revelation that I won’t spoil but director Denis Villeneuve (and cinematographer Roger Deakins) takes more pleasure in evoking the ethos of Blade Runner slowly and carefully rather than putting flesh on the bare bones plot (co-written by original screenwriter Hampton Fancher, extending Philip K. Dick’s source).  Still, the themes are there for contemplating, if you like.  Seeing this in the theatre, with its massively boosted electronic score and noticeable surround sound effects, likely produced a more visceral impact on me than the home viewer would receive.  The occasional fight sequences, particularly with the chief replicant villain played by Sylvia Hoeks, also break the otherwise moody atmosphere.  In the end, what we have here is a carefully constructed evocation of the earlier film that manages not to screw it up and which uses the latest in filmmaking techniques to add value to the presentation; highly enjoyable, but let’s hope the franchise ends here.