Week in Film #3: 1/11/16-1/17/16
Film of the Week: TangerineYear: 2015
Director: Sean Baker
I don't know if it's the best film of 2015, there is much I haven't seen, but it is likely the defining one. Topical, electric, and funny as hell, this is a fire starter picture, the kind of thing that is bound to inspire a generation of filmmakers to pick up a camera, in this case an iPhone, and capture the times and lives of the world around them. It talks about the streets, the pimps and prostitutes, and the rest on the margins of society. Remarkably, it does it without a judging lens, instead bringing us into the singular experience of people trying to survive on the outskirts, and instead of inspiring disgust or disapproval of honestly repelling lifestyles, it creates empathy and comradeship instead, making us identify and sympathize with people far removed from that of most viewers.
It is a political film, but that isn't the best thing about it. The best thing is the characters and the situations they find themselves in. It may have heightened moments of drama and hilarity, but it never feels slapstick or goofy. It is able to maintain a realistic tone throughout, and the struggle seems real, along with the feelings, and of course the driving energy behind it. It's a comedy but it doesn't pull punches with the griminess of the streets and the hostility and brutality of a life spent working them. The characters here may initially come of as caricatures, but in they end they are rounded and three dimensional, and the audience has formed an attachment. These are real people with complicated feelings, and the director treats them as such, never exploiting them.
This is the kind of film that is a clear snapshot of the times. The kind of thing likely to be buried in a time capsule so people in the future can see what was going on in the year of 2015. There were certainly bigger and arguably more important pictures, but this is the one that captures the time. With glamour and grime, sexual and gender awareness, and modern aesthetic and style, it is the document of today, as it documents today. Much like 2001: A Space Odyssey for 60s space fascination, or Rebel Without a Cause for 50s rebellious youth culture, this is about a time specific to now and issues that shine in the spotlight today.
Rating: B+
The Rest:
Red Desert
Year: 1964
Director: Michelangelo Antonioni
If this is anything it is a beauty to look at. Industrialization and smoke excreting factories never looked so gorgeous and magnificent on film. The smoke itself pervades throughout the movie, and it is a powerful and striking metaphor for the main characters frame of mind. That and the use of out of focus lens really hammer home the psychological depths of our protagonist, and the way she moves across scorched and steaming vistas of industry and urban and natural architecture is poetic in its imagery. The movie is a state of mind, represented perfectly in its visuals and personified through its lead.
Rating: B-
Man Bites Dog
Year: 1992
Director: Remy Belvaux, Andre Bonzel, Benoit Poelvoorde
Early on, Ben, our resident serial killer, approaches two boys playing with a toy gun. He borrows the gun from the boys and playfully pretends to shoot them. Because of the previous scene, in which Ben brutally commits a cold blooded murder, this is absolutely terrifying. We as the audience know that the gun is a fake, but already having seen Ben as an incredibly dangerous and violent individual, there is a brief, horrifying moment where you think that he is going to blow this little kid away in broad daylight, right in front of the camera. It makes you flinch when you see it. This is, without a doubt, the blackest of pitch black comedies I've seen. Anything that features a scene where a family is murdered, including a young child, and still manages to pull off some humor, deserves some admiration in it's own right.
Rating: B
My Man Godfrey
Year: 1936
Director: Gregory La Cava
Considered by many to be the definitive screwball comedy, this is certainly a fun and care free excursion above anything else. In its dialogue and characters the humor is dead on throughout, with all of the performers giving pitch perfect portrayals all the best of the humor is in the delivery of the lines given to the actors. Everyone is great but the standout favorite for me is Alice Brady as the mother of the family, pretty much everything she says is performed just right so as to get a laugh, no matter how slight the joke. A light and easy affair well worth watching, and for those looking for something more a commentary on social class as well.
Rating: B
Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy?
Year: 2013
Director: Michel Gondry
Captivating and inventive cartoons help make complex philosophical ideas come to life. Not to say this isn't an interesting film, but it could have more going on. Essentially just an animation of a conversation, you can't help but wish there was more too it, something to add a little more meat on its bones. The conversation is indeed a fascinating one, and I couldn't say I was ever bored with it, but there is a feeling that it is just slightly lacking in its delivery, and it seems like there could have been something to give it more of a whole feeling. This would probably benefit from being much shorter, more like a half hour to forty five minute experiment rather than a feature.
Rating: C-
We Need to Talk About Kevin
Year: 2011
Director: Lynne Ramsay
This is hard edged and unforgiving, traumatic and caustic in its themes and delivery. No one is born evil, but sociopathy is certainly as close as one can come to being born that way. The movie asks a lot of interesting questions about love, and whether or not love can truly be unconditional. Tilda Swinton gives a powerful performance as the mother of her emotionally absent and immoral child. A dark and murderous character study of painful psychological plains and the dark corners of human nature.
Rating: B
Fruitvale Station
Year: 2013
Director: Ryan Coogler
This can be an emotionally merciless film, but it also an honest one. This is very much a document of the time, with the incredibly hot topic of unarmed black men being gunned down in the streets by police officers. It gives a face to a societal struggle and it humanizes the story of modern America. More than that though it is a rich character study, and is more than just its message, as all great movies should be. It makes Oscar a human being instead of another faceless martyr, and by building up with a day in the life it makes the climax that much more heat wrenching.
Rating: B+
The Shooting
Year: 1966
Director: Monte Hellman
An albeit unique western, it is also one that feels empty. That may have to do with the barrenness of the landscape, portrayed as desolate in a way I haven't often seen in the genre, but also it may have to do with the thinness of the plot and seemingly random and arbitrary aura of the film itself. The characters actions don't seem to make a lot of sense, and the the whole thing feels underwhelming and unnecessary. The director does a good job of characterizing the west though, making it a wasteland and a deathtrap instead of a place of hope, quite the opposite in fact.
Rating: D+
Brief Encounter
Year: 1945
Director: David Lean
I'm not usually the most romantic of movie goers, but something about the honesty of this picture really got to me. It doesn't fall into the usual classic Hollywood schmaltz, it feels organic and natural and real. There is a deep ache at the heart of this movie, and the narrator speaks with the kind of truth that isn't often found in romances. Yes it is a little sappy but it feels real is what it remarkable about it. When she talks about her feelings you feel them, and you sympathize and empathize because it connects with how love often goes in the real world: unrequited or cut too short. It's a movie about romance, but it's also a movie about life, and the lessons it teaches.
Rating: A-
Death by Hanging
Year: 1968
Director: Nagisa Oshima
What begins as a procedural depiction of Japans capital punishment system slowly but surely loses ever last one of its marbles in an absurd, comic perspective of the country's post-war socio-political climate. It does this through no more than a loophole in the execution process that causes moral dilemma and dark comedy. Being a straight on and blunt indictment of the country's treatment of Koreans, it savagely rips at the Japanese society of intolerance that influences the characters. I myself had stereotyped Japanese films as being a honed craft and one that is very controlled and precise. This however is unleashed, untamed and insanely inventive filmmaking.
Rating: A-
Man Bites DogYear: 1992
Director: Remy Belvaux, Andre Bonzel, Benoit Poelvoorde
Early on, Ben, our resident serial killer, approaches two boys playing with a toy gun. He borrows the gun from the boys and playfully pretends to shoot them. Because of the previous scene, in which Ben brutally commits a cold blooded murder, this is absolutely terrifying. We as the audience know that the gun is a fake, but already having seen Ben as an incredibly dangerous and violent individual, there is a brief, horrifying moment where you think that he is going to blow this little kid away in broad daylight, right in front of the camera. It makes you flinch when you see it. This is, without a doubt, the blackest of pitch black comedies I've seen. Anything that features a scene where a family is murdered, including a young child, and still manages to pull off some humor, deserves some admiration in it's own right.
Rating: B
My Man GodfreyYear: 1936
Director: Gregory La Cava
Considered by many to be the definitive screwball comedy, this is certainly a fun and care free excursion above anything else. In its dialogue and characters the humor is dead on throughout, with all of the performers giving pitch perfect portrayals all the best of the humor is in the delivery of the lines given to the actors. Everyone is great but the standout favorite for me is Alice Brady as the mother of the family, pretty much everything she says is performed just right so as to get a laugh, no matter how slight the joke. A light and easy affair well worth watching, and for those looking for something more a commentary on social class as well.
Rating: B
Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy?Year: 2013
Director: Michel Gondry
Captivating and inventive cartoons help make complex philosophical ideas come to life. Not to say this isn't an interesting film, but it could have more going on. Essentially just an animation of a conversation, you can't help but wish there was more too it, something to add a little more meat on its bones. The conversation is indeed a fascinating one, and I couldn't say I was ever bored with it, but there is a feeling that it is just slightly lacking in its delivery, and it seems like there could have been something to give it more of a whole feeling. This would probably benefit from being much shorter, more like a half hour to forty five minute experiment rather than a feature.
Rating: C-
We Need to Talk About KevinYear: 2011
Director: Lynne Ramsay
This is hard edged and unforgiving, traumatic and caustic in its themes and delivery. No one is born evil, but sociopathy is certainly as close as one can come to being born that way. The movie asks a lot of interesting questions about love, and whether or not love can truly be unconditional. Tilda Swinton gives a powerful performance as the mother of her emotionally absent and immoral child. A dark and murderous character study of painful psychological plains and the dark corners of human nature.
Rating: B
Fruitvale StationYear: 2013
Director: Ryan Coogler
This can be an emotionally merciless film, but it also an honest one. This is very much a document of the time, with the incredibly hot topic of unarmed black men being gunned down in the streets by police officers. It gives a face to a societal struggle and it humanizes the story of modern America. More than that though it is a rich character study, and is more than just its message, as all great movies should be. It makes Oscar a human being instead of another faceless martyr, and by building up with a day in the life it makes the climax that much more heat wrenching.
Rating: B+
The ShootingYear: 1966
Director: Monte Hellman
An albeit unique western, it is also one that feels empty. That may have to do with the barrenness of the landscape, portrayed as desolate in a way I haven't often seen in the genre, but also it may have to do with the thinness of the plot and seemingly random and arbitrary aura of the film itself. The characters actions don't seem to make a lot of sense, and the the whole thing feels underwhelming and unnecessary. The director does a good job of characterizing the west though, making it a wasteland and a deathtrap instead of a place of hope, quite the opposite in fact.
Rating: D+
Brief EncounterYear: 1945
Director: David Lean
I'm not usually the most romantic of movie goers, but something about the honesty of this picture really got to me. It doesn't fall into the usual classic Hollywood schmaltz, it feels organic and natural and real. There is a deep ache at the heart of this movie, and the narrator speaks with the kind of truth that isn't often found in romances. Yes it is a little sappy but it feels real is what it remarkable about it. When she talks about her feelings you feel them, and you sympathize and empathize because it connects with how love often goes in the real world: unrequited or cut too short. It's a movie about romance, but it's also a movie about life, and the lessons it teaches.
Rating: A-
Death by HangingYear: 1968
Director: Nagisa Oshima
What begins as a procedural depiction of Japans capital punishment system slowly but surely loses ever last one of its marbles in an absurd, comic perspective of the country's post-war socio-political climate. It does this through no more than a loophole in the execution process that causes moral dilemma and dark comedy. Being a straight on and blunt indictment of the country's treatment of Koreans, it savagely rips at the Japanese society of intolerance that influences the characters. I myself had stereotyped Japanese films as being a honed craft and one that is very controlled and precise. This however is unleashed, untamed and insanely inventive filmmaking.
Rating: A-
Another great job, only thing I would suggest is that you go back through now and edit the typos, this can serve as a portfolio of your writing, good idea to polish off the typos as you go.
ReplyDelete