VIFF 2023, pt. 3: Gods and Monsters
Kidnapped From the Red Brigades to Signora Mussolini to the Sicilian mafia trials of the 1980s, Marco Bellocchio has in his later career become Italian cinema's greatest national historian. Here, at 83, he charts the progress of the Risorgimento in the construction of the modern Italian nation-state (culminating finally with the 1870 taking of Rome, formerly a papal possession, as the new country's capital), but in an inspired stroke of historical storytelling, Bellocchio keeps the complicated politics of the nationalist movement in the background while placing at the fore the Church's abduction of Jewish children who have (supposedly, often surreptitiously) been baptized as Christians. It's a fascinating, and horrifying, chapter of ecclesiastical and Italian history, vividly recounted by a sure-handed old master.
The performances (with the major exception of Paolo Pierobon's Pope Pius IX, who is by turns menacing and magnetically charismatic), however, are rather one-dimensional. That 'dimension,' as it were, is High Melodrama, heightened further by a histrionic score that leaves no room for subtlety. Yet this is, after all, a genuine historical tragedy, and it's powerfully presented and sumptuously envisioned; melodrama has its place, to be sure.
Monster A third of the way in I was confused. Two-thirds in I clued in to what Koreeda was up to here and thought this might be a great one. The last third or so crosses the line from poignant, humane, and sensitive (i.e., Koreeda at his best) to obvious, overly neat, and sentimental in the extreme. And once Monster had crossed that line, near-constant use of a supremely treacly piano score certainly didn't help matters. That said, there is a lot here that is good and interesting, and it's all very heartfelt. But it's a middling addition to Koreeda's oeuvre.
The Birthday Party A memory piece, ca. 1999, wherein a kids birthday party somewhere in Alpine Italy is recalled as a disturbing menagerie of indelibly strange and disturbing sights and sounds, adding up to...well, what exactly? The young protagonist (/presumable adult rememberer) isn't quite sure what he witnessed, and it's that hazy uncertainty and lack of full intelligibility, despite the sharp and vivid quality of the memories themselves, that lend this 17–minute short a surreal, oddly haunting quality. And so now I too will continue to wonder in vain whatever happened to that wheezing, wandering nonna!
Bitten What an amazing surprise! Knowing nothing going in apart from that it sounded potentially pretty fun from the festival programme blurb (and that I was going to be out tonight anyway, after seeing what turned out to be a kinda minor and 'meh' Koreeda film), I found myself totally under the spell of this weird and wonderful debut feature, a kind of French gothic Ghost World meets Trouble with Angels (!) meets Serra's Story of My Death, with some Giallo and early Polanski and Rob Zombie tossed liberally in to the pot.
Although the ingredients and influences are, bite by bite, easy enough to identify, Bitten is far more than the sum of its parts; finally, this is quite an original and distinctive concoction (okay, belaboured cooking metaphor done now!). *Everything* here works terrifically: performances large and small (although the lead turn by Léonie Dahan-Lamort, who will surely be a star very soon, is on another level entirely), production design, cinematography, editing, musical choices, mood and atmosphere – all superb! I would say that horror debuts don't get much better than this, but, more to the point, horror movies (one of my favourite genres) period don't get much better than Bitten.
[addendum – viewing #2: A great coming-of-age picture. A poignant, unexpectedly touching reflection on female friendship. A perfectly realized horror(-adjacent) movie, propelled unhurriedly by dream/nightmare logic. Definitely a knockout. Definitely my favourite film of VIFF 2023.]
VIFF 2023, pt. 2: Summer, Fall, and Riot Revisited
Last Summer I was a bit confused when I heard that for her first film in a decade, Catherine Breillat, now 75, decided to remake a very recent Danish movie (which I haven't seen). Huh?
Then I watched Last Summer and all was made clear. This premise has Breillat's name written all over it. Rather like the underrated Fat Girl meta follow-up Sex Is Comedy, this is an essentially pornographic premise turned inside out, reduced to its basic elements, and narrativized as an inconvenient mess of emotions, bodies, and Real Life. It's all pretty icky and squirmy, willfully prurient and perverse – but that is, after all, precisely Breillat's comfort zone.
Anatomy of a Fall This has been an exceptionally strong year for films thinking through, patiently and seriously, the challenges, rewards, and peculiar emotional mysteries of marriage: Past Lives, You Hurt My Feelings, in a cringier mode Last Summer, and in a darker, murkier sense Justine Triet's Palm d'Or-winning domestic drama cum legal thriller.
In the former respect, this is a searingly specific case study, brilliantly acted and staged; Sandra Hüller's performance will surely stand as one of this year's very best. In the latter respect (i.e., as a courtroom procedural), it's highly engrossing, yet, upon just a bit of post-screening reflection, rather too dependent on some far-fetched plot contrivances – essentially the kinds of intricate twists that would immediately precede "To Be Continued" at the end of a multi-part TV episode.
I'm Just Here for the Riot Although this documentary was made, presumably, with television in mind, it was even better on the big screen – the riot scenes more visceral and intense, the emotions on faces filmed in tight close-ups more poignant and affecting. And with the boost of theatre-quality sound, the recurring use of Handel's stately and majestic Sarabande – such an inspired soundtrack choice (though one can't help but think immediately of Barry Lyndon, a decidedly very different film!) – felt powerful and appropriately mournful, rather than ironic or parodic, as I'd initially (mis?)judged from small-screen viewing.
With the topic of sports rioting a 30 for 30 Trojan Horse, this is ultimately a film about Cancel Culture avant la lettre, as it developed in real time and not just to the famous and high-profile but here to ordinary kids or young adults who got drunk and/or stoned and caught up in an irrational, adrenaline-charged public spectacle, very publicly screwed up – to a serious degree to be sure, though not quite planned-insurrection-attempting-to-lynch-the-Vice-President-and-Speaker-of-the-House-level serious – and then had the next dozen years of their lives very significantly altered, with impacts extending far beyond the official legal consequences of their specific actions.
I'm Just Here for the Riot is about hockey fandom the way Tar was about classical music. All that is there on the surface, but just below that there's more difficult and thorny topical matter with which the filmmakers are reckoning. Is the Wild West vigilante justice of the social-media age – sometimes seemingly well-intentioned, other times laced with misogyny, racism, hateful vitriol, and threats of violence – justice at all, the film asks its audience? In a more truly just world, the film carefully and cautiously suggests, there would be room for context and measured consideration. In a more just world, there would be some recognition of grey areas and individual circumstances. And in a just world too, Kat Jayme and Asia Youngman would follow Ezra Edelman (OJ: Made in America) as the next 30 for 30 directors to win the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature.
VIFF 2023, pt. 1: Local, Global and Points Between
Ken Burns, Auteur
It is an odd mystery why, when film critics and serious cinephiles discuss the most significant American filmmakers working today, and particularly the best documentarians, one rarely if ever hears mention of Ken Burns. Over four-plus decades of expertly crafted work, Burns has aided us tremendously in better understanding and appreciating his subjects, ranging widely from Jefferson and Franklin to the US Civil War to jazz to baseball to the creation of the National Parks system. Stylistically and thematically, his filmography is thoroughly cohesive and uniformly solid. Burns' signature style is as instantly recognizable –– and ripe for parody –– as any filmmaker ever.
Yet while Burns' stylistic approach has seemingly changed little over his prolific career, his extended explorations of what is distinctive and peculiar and interesting and inspiring and troubling in America's cultural and political history have become more incisive and provocative in his excellent recent work, especially Ernest Hemingway and The US and the Holocaust. The former (directed with longtime collaborator Lynn Novick) is both a rigorous deconstruction of one of American literature's most (self-constructedly) "mythic" figures and a very timely reflection on how to deal with "problematic" public figures who produced brilliant, vital art but also said and did some pretty terrible things. The latter film (with Novick and Sarah Botstein) seriously challenges much of what we think we know about what (and when) the United States and its leaders knew and did during the years of the Third Reich and the Second World War.
At what appears to be nearing the end of the age of US global dominance, with the "genius" and "dream" and purported exceptionalism of America more embattled or rejected (within and without) than perhaps ever in its tumultuous history, Burns is creating patiently drawn portraits at once wistfully elegiac and soberly critical.
'Eras,' ranked
At the risk of some unpopular opinions...
Stolen from Our Very Eyes
Sinéad O'Connor meant as much to me as any person whom I've never actually met.
And from spending many hours listening to her music plus reading her excellent recent memoir, I feel in some sense like I know her better than many of the people with whom I'm personally acquainted.
That extraordinary immediacy is a tribute to the raw power of her voice, her words, and the tremendous (personal and political) courage of her art. She was – in my subjective estimation – the greatest singer of our time and one of its most distinctive and expressive songwriters. If your familiarity with her work doesn't extend much beyond "Nothing Compares 2 U" and the Saturday Night Live incident, please do watch these video clips, above.
O'Connor's first two albums, The Lion and the Cobra and I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got, are two of the finest ever recorded. "Troy," off the former album but best in its more austere live form (e.g., the video posted at top), was written when she was a teenager, inspired by a Yeats poem engaging with Homer and shot through with memories of profound trauma and abuse. Yet it is resilient and cathartic, invoking the Phoenix as its central image –– a decidedly haunting image on this very sad day.
"Troy" was already, quite arrestingly, the work of a fully formed and singular artist of the highest order, while also that of an emotionally fractured and troubled young person who would spend her adulthood trying to seek out stability and peace. Such solace of spirit, at which she was grasping from her earliest songs to her last and from Catholicism to Rastafarianism to Islam, seemed tragically to elude her, save perhaps for brief, fleeting periods of her life.
If pressed to choose, "Troy" is my favourite song – not just from O'Connor's catalogue, but of the whole pop/rock era. Its lyrics are given in full below.
On Oppenheimer
Oppenheimer is an unwieldy mess of competing styles and incongruous technical flourishes.
Oppenheimer is overly tidy and schematic.
Oppenheimer is a three-hour movie without a single scene that is allowed to breathe and not propel the film's convoluted plot.
Oppenheimer is a biopic that seems to think someone's whole life can be neatly styled as a 'thriller.'
Oppenheimer is JFK directed by Ron Howard.
Oppenheimer is A Beautiful Mind directed by Oliver Stone.
Oppenheimer is a wholly superficial imitation of late Terrence Malick.
Oppenheimer is a fairly dumb movie about exceptionally smart people.
Oppenheimer is a few truly spectacular sequences, several appallingly bad scenes, and lots of 'blah' and 'meh' in between.
Oppenheimer is a marvellous actors' showcase done a rude disservice by pointlessly frenetic editing.
Oppenheimer is a tediously over-scored throbbing headache.
Oppenheimer is history as a series of okay-ish Wikipedia pages.
Oppenheimer is a very long trailer fruitlessly in search of a much better movie that might have existed but doesn't.
I sure as shit do love you / And I cuss because I mean it
Magistra vitae
I cannot recommend too effusively nor unequivocally this beautifully crafted, thoroughly engrossing, often funny, and sometimes very poignant book. It feels as if one is spending many hours (~700 leisurely paced pages) in the privileged, intimate company of one of the world's greatest living historians and, surely, one of the most learned scholars (still, at 87!) active in any field.
As it turns out, Brown's life experiences, far-flung travels, and surprising encounters have been every bit as fascinating and singular as his path-breaking, prodigious scholarly output. A career initiated with the finest modern biography of Augustine of Hippo (arguably the finest modern biography of any premodern person) is now aptly bookended –– though not to say concluded, one hopes –– by an autobiography that (loosely and unpretentiously) follows the shape and structure of Augustine's Confessions, also pointedly terminating well before the author's present and on an echoing note of loss and love.
FILMS
