2010-2019

Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)

André Crous

Gorgeous images and rich sounds enrich the Coen brothers’ glum story of folk singer in New York City in the early 1960s.

inside-llewyn-davisUSA
3.5*

Directors:
Joel Coen
Ethan Coen
Screenwriters:
Joel Coen
Ethan Coen
Director of Photography:
Bruno Delbonnel

Running time: 105 minutes

Two-thirds into Inside Llewyn Davis, the titular main character, a folk singer with a beautiful voice but no money, finally gets the chance to perform for a major record producer in Chicago, Bud Grossman. Grossman, whom Davis has wanted to impress for a long time, sits calmly just a few short feet away while Davis sings his heart out. The song moves us beyond belief, and we can’t help but expect that Grossman will feel the same. However, in case we still haven’t realised how desperate the situation is for this musician, we will find out very soon.

The question the scene raises, at least on the surface, is whether we want so badly for Davis to succeed because we have got to know him quite well over the first two acts, and we know he is down on his luck despite being a nice guy and an excellent singer. Perhaps Grossman doesn’t feel the same way because he doesn’t see the full picture.

But that is not true. In the film’s opening scene, when Davis performs the traditional folk song “Hang Me, Oh Hang Me” in the New York City’s Gaslight Café in the winter of 1961, we are immediately mesmerised by his evident talent and sincere emotional connection to the material despite not knowing anything about him. We would only recognise, towards the end of the film, what had led up to that opening scene, but actor Oscar Isaac is captivating in the role and gets our attention whether we know his story or not.

There are many more songs throughout the film, sometimes complete numbers that Davis performs in clubs or in private, sometimes a recording from the LP he had made with his previous duo partner, Mike Gorfein, who recently committed suicide. In between the many songs, Davis’s circular existence of desperation is slightly modified by his interactions with his kind friends, who allow him to sleep on their couch, and by his not-so-kind friends, like the unsmiling Jean (Carey Mulligan), who tells him she thinks she is carrying his baby and generally behaves like a real cow throughout the story.

Luckily, Davis doesn’t seem to let all this negativity get him down. He is dead broke, doesn’t even own a winter jacket despite the polar temperatures all the way through the film and has no career to speak of except for the odd performance for a small group of nightly revellers at the Gaslight. And yet, he is not depressed, and neither are we. Directors Joel and Ethan Coen are very clever in lulling us into a false sense of security by having the main character cope despite the obstacles, until the very end when we realise this is just the latest round of misery to strike him, and in all likelihood, this will still be his life for some time to come.

His failed performance for Grossman notwithstanding, perhaps the most heartbreaking moment is when he crashes on the couch of Al Cody (Adam Driver), another singer, and is looking to store his box full of unsold records somewhere. Davis looks under a small table, only to find a similar box of Cody’s unsold records. This is a brief but powerful blow to our sense of optimism.

Even the moments that do offer some hope, like a jovial and uplifting performance with Jean’s straitlaced husband, Jim (Justin Timberlake), are deflated by our realisation that, no matter how popular the song is, he will barely see enough money to pay his immediate debts.

The cinematography is some of the best of any Coen brothers film since their 2001 hit O Brother, Where Art Thou?, a suitable comparison given the musical connection between the two and the importance of a character named “Ulysses” in both. Tones of green and grey are central to the palette, and so is the play of light and darkness, sometimes verging on chiaroscuro, most evident in the Chicago scene with Grossman (F. Murray Abraham). The director of photography is Bruno Delbonnel, who has only worked with the brothers once before, on their hilarious short film contribution to the Paris, je t’aime anthology film.

There are many things here that should spell utter gloom for the viewer – mean individuals who feel nothing for others’ feelings, a central character whose best friend is his guitar and a cat whose name he doesn’t even know, the same commuters on the subway day in and day out, and a life slipping more and more quickly downhill – but thanks to the music and a spellbinding performance by Isaac, we remain a captive audience for most of the film.

He steals the show with his renditions of folk songs and, bathed in Delbonnel’s lush cinematography, sometimes with the cat draped over his shoulder to keep him warm, this period film is as beautiful as the story it tells is tragic. We may not get inside his head, but we certainly get a very good impression of the mood of the time and of his life.

August: Osage County (2013)

André Crous

A drugged-up Meryl Streep goes on a two-hour rant, but gradually the onion’s many layers are peeled back.

august-osage-countyUSA
3.5*

Director:
John Wells
Screenwriter:
Tracy Letts
Director of Photography:
Adriano Goldman

Running time: 120 minutes

August in Osage County can be scorching – with temperatures in the 90s (mid-30s in degrees Celsius) – but even in the sweltering heat, there is nothing that is quite as oppressive as the atmosphere around the Weston household.

In August: Osage County, the matriarch is Violet (Meryl Streep), who has been popping pills on a regular basis for a long time and was recently treated for mouth cancer. Her hair is short, and she stumbles from room to room speaking her mind (or “truth”, as she calls it) and lobbing insults at the small group of people one would call her family.

The man who has put up with her the longest is her husband, Beverly (Sam Shepard), whose opening words, “Life is very long”, taken from T.S. Eliot’s “The Hollow Men”, suggest to us that he has had enough of this and that this will be his last time round the prickly pear. By the time the subsequent opening credits sequence finishes, he will have disappeared forever from this earth.

With the departure of their father, the three daughters arrive at the house deep in the Osage Plains, in north Oklahoma, to pay their respects to an individual who, although a heavy drinker, was also a very good man, especially so because he put up with Violet for so long.

Barbara (Julia Roberts), her father’s favourite – a point that elicits particular scorn from her own mother – arrives with her teenage daughter, Jean (Abigail Breslin), and husband, Bill (Ewan McGregor), from whom she has unofficially separated.

Ivy (a captivating Julianne Nicholson), a diffident, freckled girl who has recently decided to straighten her hair, is the only daughter who has stayed behind to take care of the elder Westons, for which she has not received any kind of financial or emotional support from anyone.

And then there is Karen (Juliette Lewis), the youngest, who lives in Florida and doesn’t stop talking about her fiancé, the Ferrari-driving Steve (Dermot Mulroney), who will take her to Belize on their honeymoon. Steve is nearing 50, but we notice he has his eye on the 14-year-old Jean.

The film does not have the most original of plots, as this family gathering inevitably leads to countless revelations, the one more stunning than the last, until there is little more to do except to head off into the taboo territory of incest. As is to be expected, Streep sucks all the oxygen out of the room when she speaks, but she accomplishes more than that: In this film, she also sucks all the light out of the room, as her sharp tongue lashes everyone around her. “Nobody slips anything by me”, she says, and she is right, but when she decides to reveal others’ secrets, we cringe because we know she is deliberately stepping over the line to make the point that she is a know-it-all.

Director John Wells’s adaptation of Tracy Letts’s play (Letts also crafted the screenplay) keeps most of the story indoors, and he fashions this space to resemble a cave, with blinds and curtains drawn, and on the day of the funeral with the women dressed all in black, we only see their heads, and therefore their words sting with so much more power.

There are two exemplary scenes around the dining room table. In the first, on the day of the funeral, Violet, at the head of the table, doesn’t so much speak as gush her mind. It is a gamble that churns our stomachs as her words become more and more inappropriate, and we end up cheering when someone eventually wrestles her to the floor. We are not only angry with her, but also with the rest of the family who by their silence enable her to keep going.

The second scene, with Violet and two of her daughters, is much more interesting, as it involves characters that have become infinitely more complex since we last saw them huddled around the table an hour earlier. This time around, there is a struggle for power and truth, but although there is no clear winner, it is just as painful as before.

August: Osage County is filled with moments where the skeletons come tumbling out of the closet in slow motion. People are hurtful, but even if we don’t empathise with many of them, because their behaviour is at times revolting, we do gradually comprehend that there is more to everyone than what we may perceive at first. People can also be secretive to a fault, and many of the secrets we discover here only lead to heartache and misunderstandings.

But even when there is a torrent of emotions and hysteria, there is still hope. Chris Cooper, who plays Violet’s brother-in-law, is nothing less than a prince, and his character’s love for his son, “Little” Charles (Benedict Cumberbatch), is tender and sweet and beautiful. When it seems like all hope is lost, Charles takes to the piano to sing a love song. He makes the world stand still, and that is when we realise that, even in a family as messed-up as this one, all is not lost.

Nymphomaniac: Volumes I and II (director’s cut)

André Crous

The 5½-hour uncut and uncensored version of Lars von Trier’s controversial film is smooth but hardcore and stronger than the sum of its parts.

nymphomaniac-directors-cutDenmark
4*

Director:
Lars von Trier
Screenwriter:
Lars von Trier
Director of Photography:
Manuel Alberto Claro

Running time: 325 minutes

This review complements the separate reviews of the two volumes:
– Nymphomaniac: Vol. I 
– Nymphomaniac: Vol. II

The long-awaited director’s cut of Lars von Trier’s Nymphomaniac has everything audiences were promised at the outset but didn’t get when the two shortened volumes were released separately. In this very lengthy version, more than 80 minutes have been restored after an outcry from the director and a wave of interest from viewers who were intrigued by what they got to see the first time around. The final cut, although still presented in two parts with their own final credits, is surprisingly strong, even as we can see why many of the shots were cut or scenes trimmed.

First of all, it has to be said that the editors on the shortened versions did a remarkable job paring the 325 minutes of the director’s cut down to around 240 minutes. Their work can only be thoroughly appreciated now that we can compare the two cuts with each other, which both convey the same story as before and have a remarkably similar focus.

The film is still a story-within-a-story, and it opens with the middle-aged Joe (Charlotte Gainsbourg) being discovered bloodied and beaten up in a London alley by the lonesome book worm Seligman (Stellan Skarsgård). Seligman takes her back to his place to recuperate and asks her what happened. She proceeds to tell him all about her life of loneliness, love and lots of sex, and how she ended up getting exactly what was coming to her, as she fatalistically suggests.

Out of the two volumes, the first, which covers most of Joe’s years as a teenager and a young adult, had far less footage cut (around 30 minutes) than the second (almost a full hour), and indeed it is not always easy to point to new material. There surely are standout moments, such as a depiction of the god Odin in the ash tree (the Norse world tree) that Joe’s father tells her about as a young girl, or the much-extended sequence at the hospital while her father writhes in agony as he leaves this life.

There are other moments, too, that are rather easy to notice, and it is equally understandable why the editors removed them. These include, for example, two shots in the train that show Joe’s friend Bee followed by a conquest, to underline Joe’s frustration at not having the same success at hooking up. In the shorter version, there is only one shot, and the scene is significantly shorter. The same is true later on, when both girls pretend to be heartbroken in order to tease comfort from the male passengers in their respective compartments. In the shorter version, we see only how Joe went about this performance. The cuts served to narrow the focus to Joe rather than the event in its holistic sprawl and were very effective. We also got much less of Bee’s elaborate recounting of one of her sexual episodes to a group of promiscuous young women who call themselves the “little flock”, which serves no real purpose in the director’s cut.

Although it took out very little material, one of the most significant cuts becomes apparent in “Chapter 2: Jerôme”: In the short version, when Joe decides to deliver a love letter to Jerôme, her boss, who also took her virginity when they were both teenagers, she arrives at his office only to find he has left with his secretary. In the longer version, we see two scenes in which Joe shares her feelings with the secretary and is told that she should deliver the letter on a specific day, which turns out to be the day they leave together.

These specific scenes add much greater depth to Joe’s character, as they depict a kind of longing or yearning for Jerôme that was not as evident in the shorter version, and ultimately these moments elicit more empathy for her from the viewer.

The largest chunk of new material in the first volume forms part of the black-and-white “Chapter 4: Delirium”, in which Joe’s father dies. While the shorter version did make an impact, the effect was much weaker than it is now, as we get a much firmer sense of unconditional love between the father and daughter, and his ultimate demise is truly affecting.

In general, however, the most obvious difference between the two cuts is the quantity of full-frontal nudity, as there was a modest amount in the edited version compared with the copious number of male members, often presented in close-up, entering a variety of holes – one of which, we now learn in this latest cut, Joe calls her “Pandora’s box” – in the director’s cut. Particular mention has to be made of Von Trier’s unexpected use of the Proustian idea of the madeleine (wholly absent from the edited version) after a graphic scene of oral sex performed on the train, which before had been heavily cut.

We also learn her father left her his calliper, which they used to measured leaves with. These two details tie in with subtle indications of incest later on in Vol. II, as the calliper features in a self-performed abortion scene, and Joe flips through her book of dead leaves shortly before she starts to touch herself.

The abortion scene is a showstopper. It lasts (or feels like it lasts) an extraordinary amount of time and was completely omitted from the shorter version of Vol. II. It is without a doubt the most gruesome and grisly scene in the entire span of Nymphomaniac and is one of the most wrenching scenes I have ever witnessed on film, right up there with Irreversible’s head-pulverisation with a fire extinguisher and the climactic sequence of misery at the end of Requiem for a Dream. And yet, while a conversation between Joe and Seligman about the pros and cons of getting an abortion is too long, the act itself – in which Joe uses some of her medical training (shown here in a few restored shots in Vol. II) to expel her foetus with, among other things, a knitting needle and a clothes hanger – is as powerful as anything you will ever see on film.

Another scene in Vol. II that is much longer now is the “sandwich”, or the three-way sex scene between Joe and two very well-endowed men from somewhere on the African continent, which is the film’s only scene that unquestionably falls into the area of pornography.

A film that lasts 5½ hours will either draw us in and make us feel like we are a part of the world of the story or annoy the viewer with the feeling that time is standing still. In this case, while the film’s “present” is only one night, the events recounted last many decades, and thanks to a plethora of sexual adventures and a comparable spectrum of philosophical and socially relevant discussions, the film is never static.

The energy of the relatively quick succession of events in the shorter version has dissipated, but the more ample information we get now is always interesting, even when it seems entirely tangential. One odd shot, however, which may or may not have been in the shorter version, is of a mirror inside Seligman’s apartment. In an inexplicable moment of obliquely breaking the fourth wall, Von Trier’s camera appears in the mirror for a longer-than-brief period of time when this object is shown to us. What this overt manifestation of the author inside his own work implies is not at all clear, but with topics ranging from the Fibonacci numbers and sexual polyphony to Zeno’s paradox of Achilles and the tortoise, perhaps these just add to the elusive quality of this work that simultaneously appeals to and repulses us (a bit like the suffering and the joy that relate to the Western and the Eastern Church, respectively, in the film), and whose intended meaning we may never grasp in full.

The director’s cut (of which Vol. I was screened at the Berlinale, and Vol. II premiered at the Venice International Film Festival) smoothes out the rough edges of the dialogue scenes between Joe and Seligman in the short versions, presents us with too many giant trouser snakes to count and emphasises the beautiful rapport between Joe and her father that made for the one truly unblemished relationship of her life.

Von Trier, whose first language is not English, fails to engage us with many of the smaller roles, whose actors often sound like they are reading their lines, but all the main parts are admirably played, and Uma Thurman, in particular, is absolutely captivating in her role as the wife who loses her husband to Joe’s lustful escapades. Unfortunately, the director’s cut has no additional footage for their unforgettable confrontation.

The cynics might say this strategy of teasing viewers by releasing two films before releasing their “final cuts” less than a year later is all a marketing ploy on the part of director Von Trier, who has worked in the industry for long enough to know how things work. That may well be the case, but neither the story he tells nor the way he tells it have changed substantially, and whether viewers get to see the shortened or the original long-form version, the experience ought to be one of great fun and pleasure that also leads us to deeper questions, not only about sex but about our lives as human beings. And that certainly cannot be said for any other film that features this much nudity (although the fans of Last Tango in Paris may disagree). It may not be as coherent – and driven by a strong central issue – as his magnificent Manderlay, but the talent, intellect and yes, provocation, of Von Trier is unmistakable. 

Nymphomaniac: Vol. II (2013)

André Crous

Lars von Trier’s sexual two-parter comes to an end with great violence but not nearly enough pleasure.

nymphomaniac-vol-iiDenmark
3*

Director:
Lars von Trier
Screenwriter:
Lars von Trier
Director of Photography:
Manuel Alberto Claro

Running time: 125 minutes

This review complements two other reviews of the film: 
– Nymphomaniac: Vol. I 
– Nymphomaniac: Volumes I and II (director’s cut) 

The last time we saw Joe, she was writhing between the sheets, but in a way different than usual: The erogenous zone between her legs had become nearly insensitive, and she could no longer reach orgasm. Obviously, for the title character of Lars von Trier’s Nymphomaniac, this is as bad as it gets.

In the first volume, Joe told the story of her rampant sexuality – mostly in bed, but almost everywhere else, too – to the kind stranger Seligman. There was her at a young age stimulating herself by sliding face-down on the wet bathroom floor and then hooking up with strangers on a train in a face-off with her best friend who had equally promiscuous goals. She fell in love with the boy who took her virginity and kept meeting up with him throughout her life, until he eventually became the cantus firmus in the polyphony of her sex life, as so memorably demonstrated by a three-part split-screen accompanied by Bach’s “Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ” chorale prelude for organ.

This second volume, in which the story continues, is much darker in tone than the first two hours, as it focuses on the consequences of Joe’s loss of sensation. The principal consequence is that for some reason she becomes less vigilant about using contraception and ultimately falls pregnant. At first, she takes care of her son, Marcel, but with the constant absence of her husband who travels on business, and her tumescent desire to reach orgasm once more, she embarks on an odyssey of discovery that involves sadomasochism and ducks.

We wouldn’t have put it past him, but fortunately, Von Trier spares us any mention of bestiality. The ducks in questions are not quacking (an insert that provides the biggest laugh in the film) but silent. For those not in the know, hiding the “silent duck” is the sexual act of fisting.

It is a young man called K. who hides the silent duck and is an expert at a number of additional techniques to inflict terrible pain on Joe that leave her body bruised and battered, and in one case, her buttocks bleeding as the flesh is torn out of them in a way that Von Trier explicitly links with the Passion of Christ.

These scenes, violent as they are, are nothing compared with the darkest part of the film, which takes place on a parallel track and cleverly uses Von Trier’s otherwise insufferable 2009 film, Antichrist. It involves Joe’s gradual isolation and rejection of family life and leads to two stomach-churning scenes with the infant Marcel. For those who saw the opening sequence of Antichrist, a comparison with the events in this film, and the relationship between Joe and Jerôme in particular, will be very insightful.

Those who have seen Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom are also in for a last-minute surprise, although Von Trier’s reference isn’t as solid as the one to his own film.

While it certainly wasn’t Von Trier’s intention with Nymphomaniac: Vol. II to make an “enjoyable” film in the conventional sense, it isn’t as riveting as its predecessor either, and it is an easy stretch of the metaphor to say the pleasure of Nymphomaniac arrived all too prematurely. The many different tangents on which the director went off in the first film were almost always surprising and often both ridiculous and thoughtful at the same time.

Here, however, Seligman loses the plot as he finds ever more obscure historical or literary counterparts to the situations and the characters in Joe’s autobiography, at one point leading her to exclaim it one of his “weakest digressions” yet. We learn a little bit more about him, but like the single scene of Joe’s work environment, the glimpse is far from satisfactory. And yet, as Von Trier did earlier in the story with his antics about the Fibonacci numbers, our patience does pay off, as the events unfolding behind a black screen toward the end of the film can be illuminated by earlier revelations of Seligman’s character.

Nymphomaniac has presented film critics in particular with the opportunity to dissect its pornographic intentions. It was a topic I briefly dealt with (and mostly rejected) in my review of the first instalment of the two-part film. Vol. II hands us a different club to beat the director with, and this one is not only more appropriate but more brutal. It is the violence performed against women.

Sadomasochism generally, and even in the particular case of this film where there is a mutually agreed-upon – but for the viewer utterly distressing – absence of “safe words”, means there is consent for things to happen that would otherwise give rise to lawsuits of battery and assault. Von Trier films the instances of S&M violence committed against Joe in a way that never sensationalises the event but maximises our discomfort and even disgust.

In so doing, he cannot be labelled any kind of deviant or misogynist but rather a filmmaker who knows how to get us to squirm without recklessly stumbling across the very apparent ethical minefield. He manages the same feat later on when Joe faces a man whose urges would be criminal, not to mention incontestably monstrous, if acted upon, but both Joe and Von Trier neatly draw the line between victim and aggressor, in the process surprising us by revealing, in this and the previous situation, human beings behind what at first seemed to be thugs.

Nymphomaniac, Vol. II is quite different from the first film in terms of tone and doesn’t keep our attention as easily. Seligman speaks too much, the chapter headings become a bit contrived, and the story-within-a-story simply becomes tiring. As the lead, Charlotte Gainsbourg seems chronically depressed, both in the present and in her flashbacks (she takes over here from Stacy Martin, who played Young Joe in Vol. I), and her demeanour infects our experience.

Von Trier continues to frustrate his audience with odd choices of characters and sudden narrative twists, but there is no denying his Nymphomaniac is unlike anything he or anyone else has done since the days of Dogville and Manderlay, and these are all the films of a master filmmaker.

Nymphomaniac: Vol. I (2013)

André Crous

The first instalment of Lars Von Trier’s sweeping sex film keeps surprising us, and not just in the ways you might expect.

nymphomaniac-vol-iDenmark
3.5*

Director:
Lars von Trier
Screenwriter:
Lars von Trier
Director of Photography:
Manuel Alberto Claro

Running time: 120 minutes

This review complements two other reviews of the film: 
– Nymphomaniac: Vol. II 
– Nymphomaniac: Volumes I and II (director’s cut) 

Vastly overhyped because of its supposedly controversial sex scenes starring famous actors and actresses, Lars von Trier’s Nymphomaniac: Vol. I delivers a story whose shock value is actually rather toned-down compared with the director’s previous work. It is, however, the best film he has made since Manderlay in 2005.

For theatrical distribution, Von Trier’s opus was cut from a rough cut of 330 minutes to around 240 minutes, neatly spread out over two films.

As with some of his previous filmic outings, most notably Dogville and Manderlay, Nymphomaniac: Vol. I is structured like a novel, with five onscreen chapter heads clearly dividing the film into separate sections. The impetus for this may be the book on angling that sets the story in motion, or it may be a more orderly way of working through the clutter of one woman’s seemingly never-ending sequence of sexual encounters.

The middle-aged woman, played by Charlotte Gainsbourg, called Joe, is found bruised and battered in an alleyway one night by the caring stranger Seligman (Stellan Skarsgård), who takes her home when she asks for tea and milk instead of an ambulance. He puts her to bed and asks her what happened.

She pointedly answers that she is a bad person, but with a little persuasion, she starts recounting her life story, from her childhood through her teens and into young adulthood (in the flashbacks, her role is played by Stacy Martin). In the process, there is talk of masturbation, sexual incantations and hypersexuality, but also of fly-fishing, Fibonacci numbers and Bach.

The film oscillates wildly between the profound and the preposterous, sometimes in the span of a single sentence, as a serious conversation about one’s hesitation to enter a door that has just opened leads to a close-up of a cat suddenly disinterested by the door that has opened in front of it. It is interesting to note, however, the closed-up hole in Seligman’s front door where a cat could have entered in the past.

Nymphomaniac: Vol. I is interested in both showing and telling, as we get seemingly superfluous depictions of concepts – from onscreen math during a sex scene to an illustration of the angle necessary to parallel park successfully while this action is being carried out correctly, seen from God’s point of view – as well as a very extensive discussion of the interconnectedness of sex and more mundane everyday activities.

It often seems like Joe and Seligman are talking past each other, before the connection slowly reveals itself. But we have a nagging feeling that something is not quite right. Kind as Seligman is, he does too many things that remind Joe of past incidents, and his interests in the Fibonacci numbers and in fly-fishing all too quickly help explain Joe’s actions to herself.

Is Seligman real? There is some discussion about delirium tremens, the potentially fatal condition of abstaining from alcohol if one has been addicted to it, which leads to horrifying hallucinations. Could Joe’s abstinence from sex have led to a similar form of delirium tremens in which she discusses her life with a complete stranger who seems so connected to her?

It is not entirely improbable, but we will have to wait for Vol. II to get a clear answer.

In the meantime, let us entertain ourselves with the question whether this is pornography, as some in the media are bound to suggest.

The answer, not resoundingly, but firmly enough, is “no”. Some may find the sex scenes somewhat stimulating, but whatever graphic imagery the film contains is brief and limited in nature. And even when there is nudity, it is usually more scientific than sexy. Compare this with Blue is the Warmest Colour (La Vie d’Adèle: Chapitres 1&2), in which lingering takes gave us blow-by-blow accounts of sex scenes between its leading ladies, or with Von Trier’s own, much more explicit The Idiots (Idioterne) from 1998.

While determined not to fall in love, which would mean sex more than once with the same person (an appalling notion to her mind), Joe does eventually have sex, at least twice, with a young man called Jerôme. It must be said here that the man playing the part, Shia LaBeouf, is a charming actor, but his British accent is atrocious and does great damage to our willingness to take him seriously.

What Joe’s uncharacteristic amorousness spells for her future, we will probably learn in Part II, but by the time the film’s end credits roll, and we are treated to snippets from the sequel (which mostly assure us that there will be countless more scenes of her masturbating), we are deliberately left confused as to the meaning and the relevance of all of these stories. Also, Joe says she has a full-time job, but we never see her doing any job except the obvious one.

We do see – and hear – a lot of talking, and although some viewers may nod off during some of the very inexpressive Gainsbourg–Skarsgård interactions, they will be rewarded in good time with some clever application of different fields of interest to the woman’s sex life. These dialogues often seem too overtly written and staged, and Von Trier certainly could have been more succinct, but at least we quickly realise time is not wasted (except for a rather tedious black-and-white chapter with Joe’s dying father).

Lars von Trier, as magnificent as he has proved himself to be in the past, has recently had his head stuck in the clouds in a very public way. His tawdry Antichrist, most famous for its close-up of Gainsbourg cutting off her clitoris with a pair of scissors, concluded with perhaps the most ludicrous and inappropriate dedication in the history of film: to the late Russian filmmaker and master of the sublime, Andrei Tarkovsky. So, too, in Nymphomaniac, Vol. I, he continuously tries to establish a link between his own film and the other big “sex film” of the recent past that was equally vastly overhyped because of its supposedly controversial sex scenes starring a famous actor and actress: Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut.

The director links the two films by making repeated use of the most famous sound bite from Kubrick’s film, the gorgeous “Waltz No. 2” from Shostakovich’s “Suite for Variety Orchestra”. But whereas the music boosted the lush, colourful dinner parties of the former, the music in Von Trier’s mostly desaturated picture only serves to draw on our knowledge of Eyes Wide Shut without digging any deeper.

Despite its awkward transitions and an incomplete storyline, Nymphomaniac: Vol. I is easy to watch, and time passes remarkably quickly. Uma Thurman, who only stars in a single scene, is unforgettable in her role as a cuckquean, and the chemistry between LaBeouf and Martin is awkward, riveting, and sometimes a little humorous – qualities that make their scenes all the more enjoyable.

This is a promising first part of a two-part story, but a unified film would have been much better. However, although that black-and-white chapter seems entirely out of place, the pieces fit together surprisingly well, even if the hype promised more than the film could ever have delivered.

Love (2015)

André Crous

An epic film about obsession, rutting and a lot of fluids (once shooting straight at the viewer), but nothing about love.

love-gaspar-noeFrance/Belgium
2*

Director:
Gaspar Noé
Screenwriter:
Gaspar Noé
Director of Photography:
Benoît Debie

Running time: 135 minutes

An ode to genitalia, vigorous rutting and the release of bodily fluids, Gaspar Noé’s Love is the polar opposite of Michael Haneke’s similarly titled Amour. For one, its two main characters are immensely unlikeable: Instead of two octagenarians who have spent a lifetime together and are reaching the end of their lives, we have here a chronically oversexed American named Murphy and the “love” of his life, Electra, who satisfies him provided he is not already pounding away between someone else’s open legs.

Love has little to do with the intense emotions suggested by its title and is rather an examination (albeit superficial) of sexual obsession, with the filmmaker intent on showing the audience as many graphic details as possible. Murphy’s tool shoots his life essence as often as possible – at one point directly in the direction of the viewer, who might be catching the film at one of its 3-D screenings. If this were exciting and not laughable, it may have qualified as pornography, but as things stand, this is much worse than most kinds of triple-X entertainment.

The poster of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s infamous Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma) appears on the wall of the main characters’ apartment, for no particular reason except self-interest (it is one of Noé’s favourite films), and maybe because it serves as a kind of reminder that we should view this material as controversial but worthwhile, too.

That is difficult to do, as the very thin story is barely worth a discussion, except for the inclusion of the hardcore sex scenes, which appear to be unsimulated, and in which full penetration takes place at least some of the time. Unlike a film such as Michael Winterbottom’s 9 Songs, however, there is no underlying interest in seeing these characters growing closer before they grow apart. Noé focuses on the stagnant relationship, held together by bouts of mostly routine sexual intercourse, and he does not allow us to experience any elation or regret at the rare developments we are witness to.

The film’s first shot recalls the heady, steamy days of Catherine Breillat’s Romance X, as we look down vertically onto the naked bodies of Murphy and his wife, Omi, nearly immobile except for them slowly using their hands to bring each other to orgasm. When the moment comes, as it were, Omi laps up Murphy’s juice. This surprisingly explicit action immediately takes the viewer aback, because such a scene is not at all an everyday occurrence in the cinema, at least in theatres without sticky seats.

Noé, perhaps best known for his brutal examination of love, assault and revenge in Irreversible (Irréversible), here intimates, through his main character who is a film school graduate, that movies should be about “blood, sperm and tears”, and this film lives up to the expected trio of fluids.

But even more copious than Murphy’s seed is his use of the dreaded c-word to cuss out Electra, who is right to suspect he is cheating on her with any girl that shows a passing interest in having him inside her. We simply cannot care one little bit about Murphy’s meltdown, even though the film seems to suggest that this is the only story that is of any interest.

The film’s major flaw, and there are many to choose from, is that it does not enable us to empathise with its main character. Even worse, we are not particularly interested in him or his way of thinking, because his actions appear to be primitive, and although far from unexpected, his betrayal of his girlfriend is despicable.

The acting is terrible, and especially the scenes of high melodrama, namely the shouting matches between him and his girlfriend, are laughably amateurish. Contrast them with the break-up scene in Blue is the Warmest Colour, and you will quickly see what these scenes are supposed to look like if they are to have even a shred of credibility.

Noé, whose unconventional use of the cinematic medium in both visual and narrative terms was laudable in Irreversible, here tries to imitate Jean-Luc Godard’s physical manipulation of the medium by adding black-screen flashes to the entire film, which are not only irritating but pointlessly exhibitionist and silly. Early on in the film, we also get a splashy, full-screen-text definition of Murphy’s Law, because, you know, the main character is called “Murphy”.

And then there is director Gaspar Noé’s masturbatory references to himself. Not only is Murphy’s son named “Gaspar”, but Murphy’s ex hooks up with an “artist” named Noé, played by – you guessed it – the director himself. These names are repeated often enough for us to recognise what Noé is up to, but we never get close to understanding why he is behaving like such a neophyte. Who, except the most amateur of filmmakers, would engage in such ill-conceived grandstanding?

Because of their unconventional nature, the unreserved depictions of sex often harm whatever serious intent Noé had with his story, and some of the particularly graphic moments elicit laughter instead of compassion. This film had no reason to be. Its director obviously thought people would get a kick from unsimulated sex, but unlike Lars von Trier’s amazing look at sex in the double-volume modern-day masterpiece Nymphomaniac, Noé’s film is a fluff piece that has as much to do with love as with serious filmmaking, which is almost nothing at all.

Citizenfour (2014)

André Crous

Chilling documentary about maligned whistleblower contrasts his consistent belief in privacy, transparency with government’s wild, dishonest flip-flopping.

citizenfourUSA/Germany
4.5*

Director:
Laura Poitras
Edited by:
Mathilde Bonnefoy
Directors of Photography:
Kirsten Johnson
Trevor Paglen
Katy Scoggin

Running time: 115 minutes

One of the biggest disappointments of the Obama presidency has been that while the president has distinguished himself by seemingly approaching questions of national security with greater circumspection, or seriousness, than his predecessor, he has often arrived at the same conclusions and committed similar actions that have eroded public trust because of the seemingly sweeping power of the executive.

This administration, which has billed itself as the most transparent in history, has been equally opaque to both the press and the public, and those who criticise the government’s operations are labelled as traitors and their patriotism questioned, not only by those who did so in support of the previous administration but also by many in the current one.

Edward Snowden is not the first government whistleblower during the Obama years, but his case has certainly generated the most publicity because of the almost unimaginable reach his leaks have exposed to the public. Halfway through Laura Poitras’ chilling documentary Citizenfour, when we see President Obama for the first time, saying “I don’t think Mr. Snowden was a patriot”, his words convey the exact opposite of what he represented when he ran for office, and he seems out of touch with reality, having become a prisoner to the greedy national security apparatus.

The title of the film refers to the name by which Snowden introduced himself when he first made contact with Poitras online. Poitras is no stranger to the government’s heavy-handedness, as U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents have interrogated her on multiple occasions since the 2006 release of her My Country, My Country, which looked at life in Iraq after the U.S. forces invaded and occupied the country in 2003.

She shot most of Citizenfour during that exciting time in the summer of 2013 when the world did not yet know who had leaked the abundant treasure trove of National Security Agency (NSA) documents that indicated relentless, government-sanctioned spying on almost everyone. It suddenly seemed like this leak would finally cast light on the U.S. government’s invasion of privacy. For a while, that is what happened, but because the spectre of terrorism still hangs over and propels every argument from the intelligence community more than a decade after their failure to prevent the events of Sept. 11, 2001, many people at all levels of society and government are hesitant to call out the invasive nature of surveillance.

Just like those who questioned the United States–led invasion of Iraq were labelled anti-American, Snowden and those who support his selective leaks about the state’s reach into everyone’s electronic footprint are now said to be friends with America’s enemies. Although they will deny it, the people who flippantly make the latter argument seem to think that the government is their friend, when in fact it has become their enemy. Ironically, it is taking away U.S. and non-U.S. citizens’ rights while pretending to do so for their own good.

Half of the film – exactly one hour – takes place in Hong Kong, most of it inside Snowden’s room at the Mira Hotel, whither he had invited Poitras and Rio de Janeiro–based journalist Glenn Greenwald, as well as The Guardian’s Ewen MacAskill. While these four people were holed up in that tiny room, Snowden’s life is on the verge of going up in flames, a fact underscored when he learns government agents have paid a visit to his girlfriend back home, even though his identity as the whistleblower was still undisclosed.

He provides documents, charts and other presentations to the journalists and helps them sift through the information that at times is almost too stunning to contemplate. Recognising the sheer scale of the revelations, Snowden confirms this is as bad as it seems. “It’s not science fiction; this is happening right now.”

This central part covers brief explanations of the meanings of multiple acronyms or other code names, such as Prism, Tempora and XKeyscore, with enough disclosure about profound overreach to keep on giving the audience goosebumps for the entire duration. This section is bookended by 20 minutes to set the stage and 40 minutes to follow the consequences of the revelations, including the infamous detention of Greenwald’s partner, David Miranda, at Heathrow Airport in August 2013. It is an emotional moment for the audience when Miranda arrives back in Rio de Janeiro, because the feeling of despair is palpable and truly overwhelming.

What follows Greenwald’s and MacAskill’s initial articles is a media frenzy and a clampdown on Snowden’s freedom, including the U.S. Department of State’s decision to revoke his passport, which left him in the no man’s land of one of Moscow’s international airports. We do not get to see this part of the journey, because Poitras says her own security was compromised by the leaks, and she spent much of the next year in Berlin to edit her footage.

However, one scene in Brazil is surprisingly moving and concerns a speech by Greenwald at a senate hearing to investigate NSA spying on Brazilian citizens. While Greenwald lays out some of the surveillance programs and their significance, a few people in the audience hold up paper printouts of Edward Snowden’s face. This kind of solidarity with a man on the run for illuminating the dirty truth is admirable and fortunately is free of the political shading it would be subjected to if it occurred in the United States (at the very least, the silent protesters would likely be put on a watch list immediately, curtailing their freedom of travel).

The film ends with a few big moments, but because the story is so current and still developing, it is necessarily incomplete. For now, Snowden still lives in Russia as a refugee. The film contains a single scene with WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange, who is also a refugee, currently in hiding inside the Embassy of Ecuador in London, but while we see him aware of Snowden’s flight from Hong Kong to Moscow, it is unfortunate that we get very little other information about his involvement in the affair.

The final scene strongly hints at the knowledge of wrongdoing that time and again goes all the way to the top of the U.S. executive branch. Even just going by the Snowden documents, it seems to be clear that Obama has utterly failed to live up to the promise he made in a campaign speech in 2007, when he said, “I will provide our intelligence and law enforcement agencies with the tools they need to track and take out the terrorists without undermining our Constitution and our freedom. That means no more illegal wiretapping of American citizens, no more national security letters to spy on citizens who are not suspected of a crime, no more tracking citizens who do nothing more than protest a misguided war, no more ignoring the law when it is inconvenient.”

Citizenfour is an absolutely riveting and utterly compelling documentary that provides details about the U.S. and UK surveillance industries that only the most dedicated reader of The Guardian may have been familiar with. Snowden, dressed in a white T-shirt as he patiently explains the complex ways in which the NSA and its partners ignore people’s right to privacy, often smiles and projects a warm, friendly demeanour, far from the egomaniacal vision of self-righteousness many in government have suggested. He is calm, direct and very articulate; he also clearly measures his words when he speaks and is reluctant to become “the story”, even though he knows it is probably inevitable.

The only person less interested than Snowden in being the focus of the media spotlight is Poitras, who never appears on camera and whose voiceover is delivered dispassionately, because the information is powerful enough and does not require any emphasis for effect. Compare this approach with the bombast and the saturated onscreen presence of Michael Moore in his films, and the narcissism of the latter becomes difficult to ignore.

It is impossible to estimate what the importance of this material will be 10 or 20 years from now, and Snowden’s future (his current residence permit is valid until 2017) remains as opaque as his own movements. Poitras’ unique access to her subject has shown us the relatable man behind the revelations whom many call a traitor even though he came forward armed with the truth, while they ignore those who lied and were caught red-handed, like James Clapper and Keith Alexander, because they were allegedly doing this to protect the country. The battle for the truth and for the recognition of Snowden’s trailblazing activities continues, but Poitras’ film has gone a long way towards rightfully rehabilitating the image of one of the 21st century’s most consequential freedom fighters.

Oslo, August 31st (2011)

André Crous

Norwegian wunderkind director Joachim Trier’s second feature is devastatingly intimate as it gracefully follows its main character, a former drug addict, around the capital for one life-changing day.

oslo-31-augustNorway
4*

Director:
Joachim Trier
Screenwriters:
Eskil Vogt
Joachim Trier
Director of Photography:
Jakob Ihre

Running time: 90 minutes

Original title: Oslo, 31. august

The silence that bookends wunderkind Joachim Trier’s slightly ethereal but always solidly grounded Oslo, August 31st is potent. It channels our curiosity more than our emotions, but it also envelops this powerful film about life post-addiction in a soft bubble with a core that is complex and deeply felt.

The main character, 34-year-old Anders, does not even speak a word until more than 10 minutes into the film. By the time he does, however, we have already seen him try to commit suicide by weighting his clothes with rocks and walking into the river à la Virginia Woolf. He backs down and – in another subtle moment of bookending, this time intra-scenic – the camera, which has stayed on him throughout the scene and without cutting away, tracks back across the waters to the river bank. When he comes back out, we see he has lost his jacket, and this loss of a level of protective clothing is the first layer whose disappearance eventually reveals a man terrified of rejoining society.

The framework within which the action takes place is the special day, August 30, for which Anders has received permission to travel into Oslo. After an extended period of time recovering at a drug rehabilitation clinic, this marks the first time he is able to return to the city of his former, wilder self. While the purpose of his visit is to go for an interview at a magazine, he takes the opportunity to meet up with an old friend, Thomas.

Once they meet, the film suddenly reveals itself to be something very special indeed. “I’m a spoilt brat who fucked up”, Anders admits to his friend, who has recently become a father and thus part of the mould of the city’s social fabric, unlike Anders, who is single and whose clinic is located outside the city limits. Not coincidentally, Thomas is wearing a shirt while Anders has on a much more informal grey T-shirt.

The two men’s conversation is pointed and lightly skims over issues of life and death. They know they have to discuss these things, but they don’t quite know how. Above all, their words make it clear that Anders’s opinion of himself is scraping rock bottom. Thomas is kind and understanding, and he tries his best to be supportive, but he is walking on eggshells around Anders, and when his friend suggests he might commit suicide, Thomas is so stunned he has no idea how to react. These scenes, taking place on a peaceful summer morning in a park in the city centre, bring with them a mixture of tenderness, nostalgia and desperation whose power takes the viewer’s breath away.

Their meeting ends on a slightly surreal note, as the moment of their separation, albeit with the faint prospect of seeing each other at a party later in the evening, is replayed in front of our eyes. The result is both ominous and strikingly beautiful, as we can just about feel time slipping through our fingers as it turns from reality into a memory.

This first social interaction of the day, meant to console Anders, brings with it a surge of feelings that taint the rest of his day. Even though he arrives at the interview and appears to be connecting on an intellectual level with the magazine’s editor in chief, when the questions turn personal, he experiences intense humiliation and retreats into himself. It is one of the saddest moments in the film, as we realise that the possibilities are plentiful, but for Anders, the greatest obstacle is overcoming the broken image he sees when he looks in the mirror. He doesn’t want anybody’s pity; what he really wants is a solution, but one that still makes him feel good about himself.

It is hard to ignore the sadness at the heart of Oslo, August 31st, especially during those moments when Anders looks at the people around him blissfully going about their lives, seemingly without a worry in the world. These scenes lead to a voice-over contemplation – heartfelt yet tinged with melancholy because of their absence – of his parents’ role in forming his life. 

The rest of the story develops with Anders walking on a knife’s edge as he tries to be the same guy as he was before, but different. A planned meeting with his sister doesn’t go as planned, and when the late-night party offers old friends who haven’t changed much, the past catches up with him. This final act is by far the most disappointing aspect of the film, as it veers towards territory we expect rather than the original, meticulously crafted dialogues, interactions and styles we relished up until this point. 

Anders Danielsen Lie shines in the lead role as his namesake. Determined to somehow make it through the day in a city he knows like the back of his hand but in a state that frequently has him on the verge of tears, the character is deeply affecting, even when the answers to our questions are often opaque. Trier’s film draws strength not only from the director’s empathetic view of humanity but also from Danielsen Lie’s sensitive performance that draws deep from the well of emotions inside the actor and washes over the story (and us) with the force of a silent tsunami.

The Snake Brothers (2015)

André Crous

Two brothers – one addicted to drugs, the other yearning to be his own boss – make the most of their limited means in the bleak Czech countryside.

snake-brothers-kobry-uzovkyCzech Republic
4*

Director:
Jan Prušinovský
Screenwriter:
Jaroslav Žváček
Director of Photography:
Petr Koblovský

Running time: 110 minutes

Original title: Kobry a užovky

Petr, aka “Cobra”, is in his 20s and unemployed in Kralupy nad Vltavou, a town just north of Prague. He dyes his short hair purple, and in the opening scene, we find him walking down an empty street with bolt cutters on his back. He notices a semi-abandoned wooden house and decides to empty it of its electrical appliances. Shamelessly, he piles them into a trolley – in full view of the gobsmacked neighbour – before heading back out.

His older brother, Vojtěch, aka “Viper”, is working in a factory but often arrives late because he so frequently has to deal with the police who phone him up at night when Cobra causes a public disturbance, yelling from the rooftops about his latest “plan”. Viper is tired of the factory work, exhausted because he is not sleeping enough and fed up with being told he is not pulling his weight. He tells his employer to go jump in a lake and makes his way to the nearest pub.

The Snake Brothers was directed by Jan Prušinovský and stars real-life brothers Kryštof and Matěj Hádek as the two fictional siblings. The characters in Prušinovský’s film have little chance or ambition to escape the closed cycle of existence in their small town, but the director is never too hard nor too soft on them, and sometimes their desperate acts can be simultaneously heartbreaking and humorous.

The main thrust of the narrative concerns Viper’s steady trajectory towards control, as he opens a clothing store and works hard to make it successful. His evolution into a master of his own destiny is helped, in no small part, by his unexpected decision to seize the moment and address a group of German businessmen in German, a language he hasn’t spoken since his East German father left the family years ago.

At the same time, Viper has to contend with Cobra’s ever-fried mental state and proclivity toward kleptomania in order to finance his cocaine habit. He also has to deal with his lazy shop assistant, Zuzana, who is, unfortunately, the wife of his best friend, Tomáš.

Although the relationship between the brothers is obviously front and centre in the film, Tomáš is easily one of its most interesting characters. Actor Jan Hájek channels a man who is focused, sensitive and patient, and he is perhaps the only person in the story whom the viewer can truly admire, although Viper has by far the most complex personality. 

Dialogue tumbles like a dirty river out of the characters’ mouths. In fact, they might just be the most foul-mouthed of any film this year (unfortunately, the English subtitles don’t fully convey the power and the unfailing filth of the original Czech), but our attention always remains riveted to what they are saying, and how they are saying it.

The language, sometimes comical but often used by people in desperate situations, is complemented by actions that are similar in kind and work wonders to prevent the audience from feeling like they are falling into the characters’ abyss of desperation. In one scene, for example, Cobra steals a phone from someone’s handbag at a party. The victim sees him, but instead of assaulting him in response, the lady merely takes back her phone and returns it to the handbag.

It is a small moment that elicits a big laugh and shows that the people around Cobra have understanding for him. He is not a threat to their existence, and while he is utterly irresponsible, there is no need for trumped-up drama to entertain us. In this case, on the contrary, it is the unexpected lack of drama that sometimes provokes our amusement.

What sets this film apart from other similar depictions of desperation in the Czech countryside (Zdeněk Jiráský’s incredibly affecting 2011 feature film Flower Buds comes to mind) is that while it has many moments that appear to suggest a future of near-hopelessness for its central characters, the filmmaker does not put them through hell just to make a point or to stun us with despair. The scenes of Cobra getting wasted or going to the local gambling den to waste the money he has stolen from a vulnerable member of his family remind us of the constant monotony and melancholy in which he finds himself.

The final scene brings with it a shocking revelation that we don’t see coming, as we realise one of the central characters has become the replacement for one of the most despicable individuals in the film. To some extent, we are happy there has been development but mournful over the direction in which this has occurred for this person.

The Snake Brothers is presented very tightly with some highly commendable decisions made in the editing room, especially one late-night act of larceny that involves a television set.

Far from being the gloomy and/or uneventful work that similar features often want to be (like Flower Buds and Nowhere in Moravia, respectively), this is a strong tale told by a storyteller in total control of his material, complemented by a wonderful soundtrack.

Viewed at the 2015 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival 

Machete Kills (2013)

André Crous

The sequel to Machete is a sad film that leaves us despondent and makes us yearn for the audacity of the original.

machete-killsUSA
2*

Director:
Robert Rodriguez
Screenwriter:
Kyle Ward
Director of Photography:
Robert Rodriguez

Running time: 110 minutes

Once you’ve ripped out someone’s intestines and used them to scale a building, there’s really no way for you to up the ante. But in a nod to the film’s predecessor, one of many references to countless films, Robert Rodriguez’s Machete Kills charges ahead and lets the title character rip out his assailant’s intestines once more and sling them into a helicopter’s fast-moving rotor blade so that we can have blood and guts splatter all over the camera lens.

If you never saw the first Machete, you may not mind this as much, but anyone seeing this follow-up will miss the good ol’ times of Machete’s former adventures. This sequel, and its main character, is sad from beginning to end, and we simply cannot allow ourselves to enjoy such a waste of talent, especially as the melancholy of the sometimes sardonic Machete is completely unbecoming.

The man with the machete, who used to be a Federale, still loves to wield his weapon of choice, slicing and dicing his enemies with the poise of a master chef. But in this instalment, he has to face some revolutionary technology that is straight from a B-movie director’s wet dream. Case in point: a defective molecular disruptor that turns people inside out. If he can successfully evade this device and the women wearing bras fitted out with machine guns, he may just save the world.

Opening with a fake trailer for this sequel’s sequel, titled Machete Kills Again … in Space!, the film doesn’t beat about the bush about its intentions: We are being prepared – or set up – for the ultimate finale that will take place in a galaxy not very far away, where technology from many decades ago will vie for our attention amid some expected carnage. The narrator boldly claims that Leonardo DiCaprio may be starring, then admits the actor is subject to change.

It all seems a bit silly, but while we watch this second part of the now-official trilogy, we discover many of the characters are the same, and by the end of the film they’re all being beamed up beyond the exosphere. Rodriguez’s version of space looks incredibly boring, but perhaps he will bring the sexy back.

Unfortunately, there is no such sexiness on display in Machete Kills. The first film’s many moments of excess, which had some of the same flippancy of Tarantino’s Death Proof but without all the stylistic flourishes, provided a sensational spectacle.

At present, however, it seems Rodriguez’s imagination has run dry, as he makes wholly inappropriate references, including Mission: Impossible and the television series 24. At one point, the soundtrack even alludes to James Bond.

As it is, the film has too many famous faces anyway – Lady Gaga, Mel Gibson, Cuba Gooding Jr. and Antonio Banderas are all villains, some more super than others – although, more often than not, they are just masks that hide the true identity of yet another mask. Rodriguez must have been aware how ridiculous this approach is, as was made clear at the time John Woo’s version of Mission: Impossible was released, but even when he is using it for fun, it becomes annoying.

The only face that brings a smile to ours is the one put forward by the overly ambitious U.S. President Rathcock, played by the one actor who has nothing to lose: Charlie Sheen, credited by his real name Carlos Estévez. Rathcock wants to prove he can live up to both parts of his name: For the first part, he employs Machete, but the second he can do himself.

He tells Machete he will become a U.S. citizen if he accepts the mission to kill Mendez, a Mexican drug lord who has a missile pointed straight at the United States. In this way, he indirectly visits his wrath upon his enemy. But his campaign videos speak of his pornographic lust for violence, as he poses with enormous weaponry to make clear his intention to safeguard the Second Amendment. He mixes some of the more objectionable traits of recent U.S. presidents to create a skirt-chasing cowboy that is both a caricature and frighteningly familiar.

But with Machete’s name in the title, one would have expected him to have more gravitas in the film itself, instead of being a bit of a sideshow to all the opulent tastelessness we have to witness, including the bit with the intestines. Machete is demeaned as a character because one of his most impressive skills turns out to be his ability to dodge bullets, or to be sprayed and still survive. Even in a film that aspires to being a B-movie, such a lack of imagination is unacceptable.

Let’s hope the third film is either wildly different, with pre-production time heavily spent on character development, or gets scrapped altogether – preferably with a mean machete.