Oh Léa Seydoux

On the strength of the scene in House of Tolerance (2011, Bertrand Bonello) set to “Nights in White Satin” alone I am way in awe vibing the moods this guy builds. How are there so many great contemporary French directors? And although I much prefer House of Tolerance over Nocturama (2016, Bonello), it’s just as satisfying and exemplary of his style that’s constantly distinct enough a blend of these fully realized places in the cinematic landscape unique unto themselves. 

     The perils his characters face are savage, yet our pathos for them is tender. These films avoid ever coming off melodramatic. Well, he is French. But they’re not too bleak either. I’d feel like a sap if I just threw around the term existential too lightly, but still.

 

Léa Seydoux in The Beast (2023, Bonello) is the Marilyn Monroe of our times. On screen her plentiful curvature and cherub star face engulf any frame she inhabits. But this isn’t garbage Hollywood product. 

     The Beast is about tangible emotions accessible as set pieces. It's everything art cinema should be: something in the realm outside of conventional three act structure where inspired creativity replaces plausibility. And no, I don’t think it’s pretentious.

     It’s like going somewhere outside of our own reality yet isn’t spoiled by being too trippy or whatever. The emotional stakes guide us. If anything GABRIELLE (Seydoux) is searching for something she’s lost; and that’s what’s most pertinent and relatable to our own modern society where nobody ever seems to have enough. I’m not just talking about ennui. Gabrielle exhausts her very being through every conceivable effort to track down this feeling she’s missing. And on her way we get something like the romantic bliss of the 19th century along into 2010s detached coldness and well into sci-fi AI future where all the streets are empty, sharing the same narrative plane.

     Bonello’s characters' plight is a matter of bottomless emotional introspection. So in The Beast,  the sounds, editing and moody cinematic sense of place with such moments as the thrill of first love couple being drowned alive while trying to escape through their only way out, and the nonchalant strangling breaking the neck of the housecat, the junkmail attack and searching your own name and finding only Trash Humpers (2009, Harmony Korine), and all that stuff about the pigeon are all I need to know I’m all in for this; and like its characters I can’t escape.

4/14/2024 Plaza Theatre

Atlanta, GA

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Elephant

Remember how when Elephant (2003, Gus Van Sant) won the Palme d’Or film journalists had said it was inspired by the 1989 Alan Clarke BBC tv movie Elephant; then later others would say Van Sant hadn’t even seen the Clarke film? The Alan Clarke film is a powerful commentary without words that depicts 13 separate filmed murders to convey the senseless nature of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. 

     But the Van Sant film is powerful too, in its own way. Maybe does it have something to do with the way we get to know the victims first? The Columbine coded students had no reason to be in the crossfire. They weren’t fighting a war. They were just navigating the turmoil and carefree terrain of being a teenager. What both of these films seem to have in common is their basis on contemporary tragedies related to gun violence in their respective regions. Or like you know, stuff that really happened.

 

Civil War (2024, Alex Garland) isn’t so much a depiction of senseless violence as it is a pointless exploitation of violent aggression. Like Clarke’s Elephant there’s an ambiguous quality to how the factions’ purposes are never revealed, nor is there any apparent meaning behind any of it in the end. It might be chilling if it wasn’t so ugly horrible; and well, unlike Alan Clarke's film, all made up. Am I missing something or what was the point of all this? 

     It just seems like it’s one drawn out sequence: Americans are killing each other for no reason. My other problem with this movie is I don’t really think there’s anything glamorous or cool in the way the film romanticizes war photographers. It hero worships them to the point of being redundant. Like how many times do we need to see someone skulking around with their Leica in danger zones? It’s like how I hate how stupid photos of directors framing something with their hands or pointing at something with their mouth agape is supposed to be cool.

     I don’t know I just have a distaste for what I deem people wanting to film or create works of depravity for their own sake. Yeah it’s a fine line I guess. It’s subjective. Free speech, art, blah blah blah. When it comes to horrific combat journalism I need nothing more than that Time cover of the aftermath of the Corto Maltese revolution by Vicki Vale in Batman (1989, Tim Burton) for my imagination to do the rest; there are some things it’s not necessary to show to convey the idea. 

4/13/2024 AMC Phipps Plaza 14
Atlanta, GA
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Soft satire

What was it Robert Altman said about his 1992 film The Player? It was a soft satire or something? 

If Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World (2023, Radu Jude) is a satire then what is its target? Globalization, capitalism, commercial filmmaking? That’s what I thought, but no. That seems too easy. Unless this is some kind of soft satire thing. 

     The film’s third act climax shows the subject of the interview to be manipulated and duped into getting exploited by the film crew. Or so I thought. But afterwards I thought about it some more. Isn’t it just an industrial training video to be shown in the workplace, so does it even matter whether or not it adheres to journalistic integrity? And he applied to be selected for the video, and got paid. I’m tempted to laugh at all of this, except that he was in a coma and can’t walk and everything. Now I’m trapped. 

     Same with the PA. Is she actually overworked and underpaid? I thought so. But afterwards I thought about it. I don’t think her having to wake up at 6:00 in the morning is that bad. She seems to have cool clothes, her own car, phone, laptop, apartment, so is she really that underpaid? I don’t wanna sound like a scab or anti-labor, but I hope these are fair questions. I think she might represent a type of victimized phony or misguided morality and that’s the target of the satire here. She complains of being overworked but how much of that time is she making her tiktok videos? She sleeps in the office. And when she has to go pick up the client from the airport she’s late, and denies any accountability about it, which is all because she met up for that parking lot quickie. This is one of several instances where we get these contrary ideological or moral nuances. I don’t think any of these characters are supposed to be that bad; they’re more like relatable. Oh and like she complains all the drivers in Bucharest are idiots but she honks, flips off, and cusses out the other drivers all the same.

     I like the tone of part 16mm grainy black and white indie slacker vibes, with a dose of we are all doomed to it. But really how doomed are we? I’m talking here about the cross montage. It makes a great point and hits hard. What’s her mother say something like we’re suffocating each other because there’s too many of us? That hit me the hardest. Something like all of the carelessness on the busy roads and all those dead because of it. Maybe the best thing about Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World is it totally got me reflecting and ultimately loving life and people a little bit more. Okay maybe my last thought is like are her jokes so bad no one laughs at them another subtle indicator of maybe her craving for attention and not really picking up on how while on the job maybe no one else thinks she’s funny? 

04/13/2024 Tara Theatre

Atlanta, GA

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Something to chew on

The films of Jessica Hausner are cold petri dishes where we may observe a live specimen of romantic idealistic passions yearning for purpose. And it usually doesn’t end well for them, but at least they maintained their own sense of individuality or remained true to themselves.

Club Zero (2023, Jessica Hausner) is an eating disorder comedy. Okay no it’s not really that exactly I know I can’t say that. But it does open with a trigger warning due to its depiction of eating disorders. And eating disorders are no laughing matter, yet there is something uncomfortably funny about human behavior and the extremes we’re sometimes capable of.

     The zeitgeist of Club Zero is social elitism; and in a most wonderful way it doesn’t pathologize it in a manner that explores its causes. Instead, we see its symptoms. So, what’s the premise? Something like a small group of high schoolers enroll in a class where their cult leader-like teacher indoctrinates them into not eating anymore. As in ever.

     And I point this out as social elitism because what’s the biggest movie right now? Dune: Part Two (2024, Denis Villeneuve) is and just happens to be sold based on its 2 leads Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya neither weighing over 100 lbs each. Skinny isn’t the new sexy, but it’s back again. In Club Zero the aim of the class is to stop eating because your body doesn’t need food. So is the resultant being emaciated the underlying reward: thin as attractive a way to achieve being better than everyone else? 

     ELSA is the ringleader. She’s the most dedicated; but also has a history of being bulimic before she’s enrolled in the class. And her mother seems to subtly approve of it maybe, and even seemingly at times herself believe weight loss is worth an eating disorder. Elsa has these rich parents where for her not eating is also a form of rebellion, which suggests this dynamic where someone who has it all goes on a hunger strike for her own convictions she’s fully dedicated to but not for us to comprehend. That for me says it all. It’s about the modern struggle for individuality. And I’m not just talking about food here. 

     But Hausner’s other kids in the class don’t all fit into a mold. There’s the kid from a working class household who wants a scholarship and doesn’t buy the core beliefs; the girl (with dyed punk streaks and combat boots) who says she’s all in but secretly eats behind everyone else’s back; the guy whose family keeps him at a distance (also the neck tattoo and possibly latent twink) hint at other examples of the search to define or create one’s own identity or indicators of individuality.

     Anyway Club Zero isn’t exactly a comedy, although it is obviously satire. At first I thought these kids were something to laugh at, but I realized that wasn’t the case at all. And I’ve too often already encountered the narrative about how a cult can occur so gradually as to be totally unbeknownst to the few in it before it’s too late, but this is more than that. I think it’s about how youth and its requisite currency as means to being ahead of anyone else in knowing what’s cool or chic or whatever comes with its own cost, as some kind of moral lesson. Either way I gotta say it’s kind of lame the way they ripped off the Barton Fink (1991, Joel Coen) ending though. 

04/03/2024 Plaza Theatre

Atlanta, GA

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2023 Year End List of Favorite Movies Seen in Theater

 

1.   Napoleon (2023, Ridley Scott)

2.   The Zone of Interest (2023, Jonathan Glazer)

3.   The Killer (2023, David Fincher)

4.   Barbie (2023, Greta Gerwig)

5.   Saltburn (2023, Emerald Fennell)

6.   Coup de Chance (2023, Woody Allen)

7.   Beau Is Afraid (2023, Ari Aster)

8.   Priscilla (2023, Sofia Coppola)

9.   Asteroid City (2023, Wes Anderson)

10. May December (2023, Todd Haynes)

Stranger fucking danger

I didn’t know anything about Emerald Fennell before Promising Young Woman (2020), and I still don’t really. But I went to see Promising Young Woman in the theater and I’m glad I did, because I’m still like fascinated by it. I’m impossible though. Like even though I’ve vehemently sworn off David O. Russell I’m now drawn back to Joy (2015) because I can’t help but be—it shouldn’t work but that makes me like it even more.

Saltburn (2023, Emerald Fennell, 1.33:1) is a toxic comedy of manners class conscious morality satire chamber piece that takes a familiar premise, then subsequently takes our notions of whom we might empathize with, what feelings we associate with doing so, what judgements we might form about them, and then mischievously plays a trick on us.

     Most of the time I don’t think movies have messages. But Saltburn is excused. Whether I could articulate this message or not (I’m not gonna try because I don’t wanna spoiler), it stayed with me long after leaving the theater. My two favorite things about Saltburn are the decadence fantasy-wish fulfillment and the cast, but especially Rosamund Pike and Richard E. Grant.

     The decadence exists both at Oxford and Saltburn manor. And it’s dark in both instances. At school we care about the kids. But at Saltburn it’s how eccentric the entire family and staff are that makes it so enjoyable. The progression of the narrative always had me uneasy wondering where exactly this whole thing was going, and that intrigue is crucial to its thriller aspect. And as far as its style, I could think of many comparisons that I could make, but why bother?

 

11/21/2023 AMC Phipps Plaza 14

Atlanta, GA

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Sorcerer of death's construction

Ridley Scott is at his best with Gladiator (2000) and Kingdom of Heaven (2005). It’s like when some say how by the 60s the collapse of the studio system was due to the bloated, big budget historical spectacle period piece costume dramas that Scott found a way to revive them in something like the sexy ultraviolent almost like where Verhoeven seemed to be headed throughout the 80s-90s way, but Scott adds his own boyish sense of adventure and morality to them. Heaven is one of my favorite movies. It’s proof for me that a Hollywood historical war and romance epic can clock a nimble 3 hours and never drag. Unlike, say, Killers of the Flower Moon (2023, Martin Scorsese), which feels oppressively slow and neither the romance nor the violence are we meant to enjoy; it’s as if that movie is like a master forcing us to be held next to our own shit and suffer its stink because we made a mess on the rug. 
     Other than Heaven the only other Hollywood movie I can think of that’s so much fun is the Napoleonic wars set 3hr 28min War and Peace (1956, King Vidor). I can watch that movie, or even just jump in anywhere, and find that perfect blend of entertainment I'm always in the mood for. Vidor’s epic revels in its untethered freedom from adhering too closely to either Tolstoy or history. And like Gladiator and Heaven it’s fun, not to be taken too seriously, and has that boyish sense of heroism.

Napoleon (2023, Ridley Scott) has got a boyish sense of villainy. As a biopic, we get less of a sense of frivolity than either Gladiator or Heaven. But what we do get is an oil on canvas where light can be a thing of beauty. 
     And the battle scenes, especially the Battle of Austerlitz, command a formidable victory of epic spectacle. There’s something surgical about the staging of the battles, immaculate, precise, and horrifying. Napoleon reminds us that movies were supposed to have been made to be shown in a theater. Napoleon as a film is also less fodder for popcorn, plot and characters than it is one man’s bloody, unwieldy sense of ambition. We’re certainly in the era for those. This movie is cold, so cold—and I love it.

 

11/21/2023 AMC Madison Yards 8

Atlanta, GA

DCP

Insecure people are very dangerous

You would think May December (2023, Todd Haynes) is Sirkian melodrama, right? It has persecution from society, traditional feminine domestic roles/space, and the self-reflexive construct of artifice throughout. But it’s not entirely so, because it doesn’t seek to tear your heart out in that overly effusive attack on your emotions kind of way. And that’s why Todd Haynes is so good at doing his own thing—beautiful perfect make believe little dioramas where the character is just a little deranged enough to be fun but still hold up a mirror to show us ourselves. 
     And because I love Todd Haynes so much, I love Julianne Moore as GRACIE. It’s through Gracie the film is able to achieve its fundamental moral ambiguity. And if you’re open to trying hard enough to not merely discount her as crazy, you could begin to appreciate the strengths that contrast her weaknesses, and how the dreams of being happy contrast her nightmare reprehensible behaviors. Yeah sure, this is in fact a triangle protagonist thing and I should care about Natalie Portman as ELIZABETH and Charles Melton as JOE, but really I only care about Gracie. 
     Okay I know maybe I have a problem with decoding symbolism. But I can’t resist here the temptation to just sketch out: think about Joe gently nurturing butterflies from chrysalis to monarch; Elizabeth choosing a snake, a “kind that doesn’t bite,” to play her Gracie; against Gracie prowling the forest flanked by her 2 hunting dogs, with a shotgun, stalking an array of cute furry little woodland innocents. 
     The genre of May December should be called something like elevated melodrama. Or, I’d like even better something like arthouse melodrama, specifically because of the way it uses a Michel Legrand cue from The Go-Between (1971, Joseph Losey) much in the way Paranoid Park (2007, Gus Van Sant) uses the Nino Rota excerpt from Juliet of the Spirits (1965, Federico Fellini). The way that Legrand theme is used constantly shifts the tone of or our interpretation of shots. The biggest one maybe is right when the movie starts and there’s a slow zoom on Gracie lamenting they might not have enough hot dogs and the devastating music cue tells us maybe this is more tragic to her than we know? Or maybe this movie is disconnecting us from the melodrama code to get us to think about the art? Or maybe this movie is hilarious? Whatever it is, it’s fun too.
     The setting is one of the factors contributing to another great strength in May December, which is how original this material feels and allows us to forget that real life story it vaguely resembles. (I know this is irrelevant but I love Savannah and when Elizabeth interviews Gracie’s ex at that coffee shop I freaked out because in real life it’s Gallery coffee shop and I always go there as much as I can I love it.) When they mention living on an island (more symbolism in the vein of Sirk) it’s gotta be Tybee, and, uh, how can I put this, mostly people with money live there and it’s kind of uh, quaint—perfect. Also yes, the downtown Savannah stuff is gorgeous. But that night exterior where there happens to be a tour conducted in the background where we overhear snippets of anecdotal history gruesome details of a hanging told almost like it’s a fun fact is bonkers.
     May December is about each of its 3 main characters, and too nuanced and balanced for it to be worth me trying to outline. I see their flaws as much as I empathize with them. They’re all too human. And it’s as much a trashy tabloid premise as it is an elegantly executed prestige woman’s picture. 

10/17/2023 Landmark Midtown Art Cinema

Atlanta, GA

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Mise en scene me tender

The Virgin Suicides (1999) 1.66:1, Lost in Translation (2003) 1.85:1, Marie Antoinette (2006) 1.85:1, Somewhere (2010) 1.85:1, The Bling Ring (2013) 1.85:1, The Beguiled (2017) 1.66:1

In Priscilla (2023, Sofia Coppola) 1.85:1, the inserts are better than the movie. But it totally works to its strength. In this film setting is everything. And Graceland is Versailles. But the inserts; period authentic jars of Noxzema, Chanel no. 5, mascara in one assorted on a bathroom counter; in another, an airplane ticket on Pan-Am; porcelain miniature figurines in another; this is the film. We even get a montage where it all culminates in this connecting notably Sofia Coppola's longtime passion for Polaroids and it clicking this is probably the time they were first introduced into the market. Coppola curates the details of the setting as would be featured in a magazine, or adorning a bedroom wall, or a scrapbook. It’s who she is. It’s her artistic identity. 
     And as in most of her movies, her perspective is that of a young woman embarking on something like a fairytale exploration of a world of decadence, fame, and idealized romance that upon proving illusory allow her to become empowered and glimpse the kind of wisdom wrought through hard-earned life experience. In Priscilla it’s all so gorgeously quaint. Priscilla is an object. She’s Elvis’ idealization of a teenbride who only exists to be there for him to cuddle when he’s lonely, dress up, make-up, and do her hairstyles how he wants, and keep her in a dollhouse—she’s his Barbie. And here’s where it begins to become apparent that in this dream of make-believe the princess is just any ordinary girl, which is to say she could be any ordinary girl. And in her own way, Coppola tells the story she wants and has the immensely talented aptitude to understand that it’s not her burden to tell this as a documentary. 
     Sofia Coppola cinematically builds Priscilla through ephemeral, poignant moments of contemplative melancholy. There’s never anything melodramatic about the way she treats the material. The hues are soft and diffuse, as is the atmos—mist instead of shadows. 
     Priscilla is also a film where the 60s pop songs become this kind of alchemy collage. But the original score is also this percussion-based lullaby xylophones, celesta, or something like I don’t know: bells, glass, chimes, music box pretty, delicate, and soft like everything else in the movie. 
     This film isn’t detached from the heart of its protagonist. Yet there does seem to be something indicative of a distance between the life she wanted (and we want for her) and the one she gets (and the version of it Coppola has made into a movie). Coppola is so confident in her perspective that the artifice of it knowingly depicts the world used to ultimately define the characters she’s created. And through this it is then a matter of familiarizing ourselves with the cold inescapable maze of what’s left out as key to these truthful renditions. And it does help that Priscilla throws in just enough details you probably aren’t familiar with or don’t see coming to make it that much more fun.

11/03/2023 AMC Madison Yards 8

Atlanta, GA

DCP

The only path in life is the one behind you

Fincher recap: Early includes Se7en (1995), The Game (1997), Fight Club (1999) and Panic Room (2002). Zodiac (2007) is pivotal. The Social Network (2010), The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011) and Gone Girl (2014) is mid. The Killer (2023) is late. The films I’ve left out are irrelevant. 

 

Oh my god yes. The Killer is a return to greatness. It’s a revenge-o-matic pretty much standard assassin genre entry with an existential loner. Or think of it as an arthouse John Wick. 

     Its narrative takes a slightly askew take in that the conflicts its protagonist encounters are mostly, how can I say this, minor (or what I'm really trying to say is not conventional Hollywood familiar). But just when you think it starts to become predictable, it ducks you. Its tone is very quiet and takes its time. But it never drags. And its center is its protagonist's vo.

     There’s more handheld camera in the first half of this than every other Fincher film combined. Its customary Fincher palette often is an array of murky yellow, cyan, and green hues. And have you ever wondered what the difference is between a subjective camera shot and an objective one? I have struggled to understand this. Like is a pov the only example of subjective and everything else is objective? Anyway. In the Paris portion of the movie, when THE KILLER listens to The Smiths the music is clearly mixed upfront when we see what he’s seeing (subjective) and intercuts with shots where we’re with him and then the music is muffled and distant (objective), a great learning tool.

     The Killer sees Fincher having matured. As if it’s an entirely unrecognizable departure from the person who made Fight Club. Fassbender as The Killer dressing like a typical nondescript mannequin from an upscale mall, at various times seen eating McDonald’s, clutching a paper Starbucks cup, and ordering an Amazon order from his wireless device is the epitome of what Jack’s inner voice loathes. But he’s cool. Even him only listening to The Smiths says a lot. Who doesn’t love Morrissey, but they wouldn't exactly indicate anything other than mainstream at this point. Yet most enjoyably The Killer’s that Fincher brand of smug, efficient, and knows how to deliver black comedy one-liners. He’s what you want if you want Fincher.

     I love The Killer. It’s simple although immensely rewarding. And it’s the first time I’ve seen a Fincher film that didn’t seem to be striving for the grandiose operatic heights he’s heretofore constantly aimed for. 

 

10/27/2023 Midtown Arts Cinema

Atlanta, GA

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