4 stars

Hawaii (2013)

André Crous

Hawaii poster2Argentina
4*

Director:
Marco Berger
Screenwriter:
Marco Berger
Director of Photography:
Tomás Perez Silva

Running time: 101 minutes

It’s difficult to imagine Marco Berger making a winter movie.

From the beautiful sunset of one of his first short films, The Watch, to the evergreen bubble of lush gardens in rural Argentina that is a constant metaphor for the budding relationship in Hawaii, his films have always been optimistic about the possibility of finding love, or at least of finding someone. That possibility, however, is not without its ups and downs, and one should never make assumptions about anyone else’s interests or intentions.

Hawaii is a refreshing return to form for Berger after his tense and visually frigid second film, Ausente. Having secured more than $22,000 through the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter (disclaimer: I also made a contribution of less than one-half of 1 percent), Marco Berger and co-producer Pedro Irusta set about shooting a film they had initially planned to make with twice the budget. The product is surprisingly well-crafted, and perhaps thanks to Berger’s experience on the short-film anthology Sexual Tension: Volatile, he appears to be in complete control even as he tells a story that one expects to take up much less time.

The world of the film almost exclusively belongs to its two central characters, Eugenio and Martin, played by Manuel Vignau and the curious, wide-eyed Uruguayan actor Mateo Chiarino, respectively. With the exception of three brief scenes, they provide the only interaction of the film, and our attention is focused on the flowering of their relationship alone over the course of a few weeks during the summer.

Martin is homeless. He sleeps in the bushes under a small blanket and goes from house to house during the day asking for work. Eventually, he arrives at the gates of a large property, where the slightly bearded Eugenio, two or three years his senior, tells him the house actually belongs to his uncle, but that he needs help around the house. As Martin is about to leave, he realises he knows Eugenio from many years ago, when he spent time in the area before moving to Uruguay.

The rest of the film looks at the gradual shedding of secrets and the intimacy of shared childhood memories, which bring the two closer together.

Hawaii’s simplicity is only illusory, but the questions the viewer has as the action unfolds will be answered – or, at the very least, framed through the prism of humanity – by the end of the film in a way that ties together the loose ends. Berger expertly manages his characters’ secrets, some of which we know from the beginning, and some of which he only lets us in on over time. Almost surprisingly, homosexuality is not really one of these secrets, although it is referenced obliquely, but Berger knows that we would assume these two characters are keeping that secret, and in the process we may see the forest for the trees – in other words, we may miss the more important story, which is the growth of a relationship outside the limits imposed by supposedly keeping sexuality a secret.

Such optimism also illuminated Berger’s début feature, Plan B, in which two straight men realise they have feelings for each other. That is not to say Hawaii is devoid of tension: After a major revelation, we can feel the characters almost unable to speak to each other, and yet we will soon come to realise the source of anxiety is not quite what we think. Berger is not fooling us on purpose as much as he seems to indicate that people have their reasons, and we have to be more patient to fully comprehend them, instead of drawing an all-too-simple conclusion.

His hair styled in a butch cut, Martin at first appears to be a very straightforward role, but over time we recognise the combination of vulnerability and survival that has brought him this far, and he doesn’t want anyone’s pity. He only appears to be slightly naïve, but just because he does not spend his time writing or drawing, like Eugenio, does not mean he is not sensitive.

He, and the viewer, wants questions answered, but he does not blindly rush toward an explanation. Perhaps the viewer is more impatient, trying to figure out what it means when one touches the other lightly on the shoulder, or when Martin puts his hand on Eugenio’s chest to feel his heartbeat. Is this a game? And do they both know what they are feeling themselves, or are they in the dark about their own emotions? How close can the one allow himself to be to the other without causing suspicion?

These questions are central to the experience, and it is impressive to see Berger pose them to us without seeming to tease us, and yet, at the same time, he keeps our attention on the development of the story and of these characters.

Later, when Martin picks up one of Eugenio’s T-shirts and puts it on, we wonder whether he wants to be more like Eugenio or if there is something more intimate to this gesture. Berger keeps us in the dark, but it is not to create some false kind of tension. It is the most natural scene in the world, and yet he has imbued it with an ambiguity that is audacious and spot-on.

The first 15 minutes of the film, almost entirely without dialogue, seem to belong to a different film altogether, but far from being an artistic flaw, we eventually there is some meaning behind this, too: These 15 minutes are used to sketch a world where Eugenio and Martin have not yet met each other as adults. Once they do, it is as if the world they inhabit also changes, and the result is a film that we can savour.

Hawaii contains clever compositions that do not attract attention but demand more attention because they are deceptively simple. One example is when Martin looks at himself in the mirror in Eugenio’s room. A few minutes later, Berger only needs to show us Eugenio looking in front of him to realise he is actually looking at a reflection of Martin behind him, changing his clothes, and no reverse shot is even necessary.

That kind of oblique look, of knowing what the viewer sees and what the character sees without showing him looking, is missing, unfortunately, from a later scene next to the river. That scene in Brokeback Mountain when Jake Gyllenhaal is peeling a potato and refuses to look behind him at Heath Ledger changing his clothes was awe-inspiring because we knew exactly what was going on in Gyllenhaal’s character’s mind. The scene next to the river in Hawaii eschews this subtlety in favour of more explicit leering.

The rest of the film contains a great deal of contemplation, and while we often don’t know what goes through the characters’ minds, we have some idea. An early shot shows Martin filling a water bottle at a tap before the camera focuses on his crotch. It is a subtle hint at the frustration he keeps hidden, but this frustration helps us understand his character rather than the story, which is a good thing, even though it does make Eugenio rather difficult to decipher.

Then again, perhaps that is life. This is the world occupied by the two main characters, and by them alone, and yet we don’t feel like voyeurs but rather like explorers (incidentally, the film cites Jules Verne from time to time) who share some of the joy of their experience.

Just like Plan B, Berger’s Hawaii is a film that will make its many homosexual viewers happy to be gay. It is not political, and it is not about gay guilt or repression or angst about coming out. On the contrary, it shows how wonderful it is to be alive and be with someone who is comfortable around you, and it treats the possibility of finding love as a reality.

How to Survive a Plague (2012)

André Crous

How to Survive a PlagueUSA
4*

Director:
David France
Screenwriters:
David France
T. Woody Richman
Tyler H. Walk
Director of Photography:
Derek Wiesehahn

Running time: 120 minutes

Once, there was a terrible disease in the United States and around the world. It seemed to affect only homosexuals, and the discrimination against this already marginalised community increased as fear gripped the country over the fatality of the human immunodeficiency virus that led to blindness, deafness, sensitivity to the smallest illness, the unsightly Kaposi’s sarcoma, and almost certain death.

The 1980s and the first half of the 1990s were the worst for those suffering from the AIDS epidemic, as first the Reagan government was unwilling to address the epidemic (President Reagan infamously mentioned the word AIDS for the first time in public as late as 1987), the Ed Koch administration of New York City dragged its feet, and then the George H.W. Bush government didn’t push its drug administration and National Institute of Health to pursue research of the disease and of a potential cure with greater urgency.

How to Survive a Plague is a documentary that tells the story of how a group of activists brought down enormous pressure on the government, informed themselves about the virus, worked to raise public awareness and make the influential drug companies aware how their policies were affecting a large swathe of the population.

These activists formed part of a grassroots organisation called ACT UP, and there can be no doubt that it is because of the work of ACT UP that AIDS deaths have drastically decreased and medication is affordable to a very significant amount of people infected with the lethal virus. AIDS has not disappeared, but the AIDS crisis has, and it is because of the protests and the perseverance of ACT UP.

This documentary, comprised almost entirely of footage shot by dozens of individuals at the time of the epidemic that follows some of the main figures in the movement, starts in what is clearly presented as another lifetime: The appearance of the Twin Towers reminds us this was another lifetime. Labelled “Year 6”, the film opens in 1987 at a protest march against the policies of New York City Mayor Ed Koch, whom activist Ann Northrop beseeches to declare a state of emergency, so that those suffering in the emergency rooms, often for days before they are treated, usually assaulted by homophobic assailants right there in the waiting rooms, can be properly treated, with dignity.

There is incredible anger at Koch, and this anger, which extends to the government as a whole, fuels the movement for most of its existence, coupled with a strong urge to find a cure and stop the suffering and the death of thousands upon thousands of people. “It’s like living in a war,” says Peter Staley, a former bond trader on Wall Street, who is one of the main characters in the film. “All around me, friends are dropping dead. And you’re scared for your own life at the same time.”

The fear and the anger translated into many activists throwing caution to the wind and acting out in ways they may not have considered had they been healthy or unaffected, although some of the important individuals, like retired chemist Iris Long or Merck research scientist Emilio Emini, were not activists but participated because they cared, they knew they could make a difference and help all of these people in any way afflicted by HIV and AIDS.

Without a doubt, one of the most engaging figures is Peter Staley, who is good-looking, passionate and eloquent about the message of the movement. He scales government buildings to hang banners that proclaim “Silence = Death”, he appears on television programs to debate politicians about the government’s health policies, and he speaks at AIDS conferences that until then had largely excluded the voices of the movement. This last point is not really dealt with in any detail, however, and the film would have benefited from greater context.

We follow ACT UP’s fight against Burroughs Wellcome Company, the pharmaceutical firm that produced AZT, the first AIDS drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration, at the astronomical cost of $10,000 a year per patient, to getting DHPG approved, which would save the eyesight of tens of thousands of AIDS sufferers. Their actions are not just the result of their anger but also of an enormous amount of research, often by members who studied at Ivy League schools. They help people understand the virus and huddle with everyone else to come up with the best strategy to proceed. They would go on to form the Treatment and Data Committee, which would ultimately become the Treatment Action Group (TAG).

We follow the action as if someone had taken a camera back in time to record everything as it happened. Meetings in basements, interviews with some of the main people, family gatherings… everything is there in the film — even Staley riding his bike.

This film contains incredibly powerful moments, and they are almost always the result of inherent emotion on the faces of characters deeply affected by this epidemic, often the victims of decisions made by bureaucrats who don’t yet understand what ordinary people are going through on a day-to-day basis. And that is why it brings such insight to notice people like Ellen Cooper, who used to be an FDA regulator who had to explain the administration’s decisions to an angry ACT UP crowd, become AIDS activists themselves.

Interestingly, the scene that moved me more than anything else was also the most obviously filmic. It was the protest march against President George H.W. Bush’s apparent inaction on AIDS research. Tens of thousands of protesters flocked to Washington, D.C., and some even dumped the bones and ashes of their loved ones on the front lawn of the White House, their actions set to the eerie sounds of “Happiness” by Jónsi and Alex. This scene is incredibly powerful.

How to Survive a Plague tells a breathtaking story but falters towards the end when it starts using shorthand once Bill Clinton becomes president, skipping from 1993 to 1995, which is when research had picked up and the government agencies and public opinion had finally come around (with the exception of eternally homophobic Senator Jesse Helms) to agreeing that a cure should be sought. We are told these were the worst years, but we don’t know why. That is a terrible omission from the narrative.

However, suddenly seeing Mark Harrington (one of the leaders of TAG) and others appear as a much older man, knowing what that means, and hearing videographer Bill Bahlman confirm that “the dying was stopping,” quickly stuns us into silence.

Although it is only a few years since AIDS decimated entire communities, this film is a very vivid reminder of the trauma that accompanied the disease and shows how activism accelerated the research that eventually led to the cocktail, achieving major triumphs along the way, like getting DHPG approved and highlighting the absurdity of the Roman Catholic Church’s prohibition on using condoms.

If you want to know anything about the struggle against AIDS, this is the film to watch.

Someday, the AIDS crisis will be over. Remember that. And when that day comes, when that day has come and gone, there’ll be people alive on this earth — gay people and straight people, men and women, black and white — who will hear the story that once there was a terrible disease in this country and all over the world, and that a brave group of people stood up and fought, and in some cases gave their lives, so that other people might live and be free. — Vito Russo

The Place Beyond the Pines (2012)

André Crous

The Place Beyond the PinesUSA
4*

Director:
Derek Cianfrance
Screenwriters:
Derek Cianfrance
Ben Coccio
Darius Marder
Director of Photography:
Sean Bobbitt

Running time: 140 minutes

Derek Cianfrance is the unsung hero of contemporary cinema. Despite the grim and outright pessimistic perspective on relationships that he made so visible in his 2010 film Blue Valentine, in which a young man and woman constantly fight, bicker and make up, only to crush each other again — and the viewer, too — his films very realistically accentuate something very few others can boast of: the dark side of love.

The Place Beyond the Pines is a departure from his previous film in the sense that it doesn’t focus narrowly on the ups and many downs of a relationship but rather takes the consequences of fathers’ actions and project them over a generation to examine what happens down the line, although the director has much more interest in the drama of life than in any religious interpretation the viewer may bring to it.

The result, as is to be expected with Cianfrance, is not pretty, and yet life, though always complicated, is not without hope. There is a chance for characters to redeem themselves, but there is a big caveat: provided that other people don’t bring them down in the process. There are no guardian angels here, and even the actions that seem to spark a temporary reprieve for someone in dire need are usually motivated by the so-called protector’s selfish need for self-protection.

In this film, Cianfrance teams up with noted director of photography Sean Bobbitt, who has a background in documentary work (as does the director) and worked with Michael Winterbottom on the marvellous depiction of domestic turmoil in the underrated 1998 film Wonderland.

The collaboration produces a very gritty representation of life that includes drugs and violence. But these are merely props in a story that runs much deeper.

The film tells the story of Luke Glanton (Ryan Gosling) who earns the bare minimum riding a motorcycle inside a steel “globe of death,” and when he learns he has a son he drops everything to commit his life to being a good father. However, he is stubborn and aggressive and behaves like a real miscreant towards the man whose life he is making miserable: Kofi, the stepfather of his son. Kofi turns out to be one of the most interesting characters in the film, and he is portrayed with a quiet sense of dignity and fatherly love for a child who is not his own by actor Mahershala Ali.

Events transpire that lead to a confrontation with rookie police officer Avery Cross (Bradley Cooper), who is about to lose his naiveté about life as a policeman. His actions, as well as those of Glanton, will follow him for years to come and impact his relationship with his son.

The film is set in upstate New York, in the town of Schenectady, which is the approximate Mohawk translation of the film’s title. However, this factoid doesn’t feature anywhere in the story, which will certainly animate many post-screenings discussions at the bar (because, yes, you probably will need a drink after this film).

As we saw in the gorgeous but disturbing Little Children, the green foliage of New England towns can hide terrible secrets (of course, American Beauty had the same message), and The Place Beyond the Pines also seeks to pull the curtain back ever so slightly on the goings-on in the small town where its story takes place. Corruption, drugs and violence are just a few of the issues that the film raises, and they don’t even come close to the emotional violence done to us by these fictional characters.

As bookends, the opening and the closing shot are as magnificent as their meaning seems to be just out of reach. The opening Steadicam shot will make the viewer think of GoodFellas and its famous Copacabana tracking shot through the kitchen as we follow Ray Liotta (who also appears in this film) deeper and deeper into a place where he wields great influence. In Cianfrance’s film, it’s Gosling whose back is turned to the camera as he walks shirtless and supremely confidently through an amusement park in a shot that lasts nearly three and a half minutes from beginning to end; he is serene despite the wild sounds all around him as he heads towards the abovementioned “globe of death”, where — in a seemingly unbroken take — he will mount his motorcycle and perform the deadly stunt for a raucous crowd.

The film’s closing shot shows this same character’s son, many years later, taking up a motorcycle and driving off into the distance, this time across a peaceful autumn landscape that in no way represents his inner turmoil. Where he is headed we do not know (very likely he doesn’t know, either), and it would be incredibly simplistic and presumptuous to assume this scene neatly slots in with the events of the opening shot, but there is an unspoken hint of filiality between the two, and tenuous as the connection may be, we get a feeling of cohesion that is simply gorgeous.

Cianfrance’s films may be bleak, but his work proves the ever greater richness and complexity of life, and he should get more credit as a storyteller and a documenter of human emotion.

We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011)

André Crous

We Need to Talk About KevinUK/USA
4*

Director:
Lynne Ramsay
Screenwriters:
Lynne Ramsay
Rory Stewart Kinnear
Director of Photography:
Seamus McGarvey

Running time: 112 minutes

Young Kevin (Ezra Miller) is a monster. From the moment he is born until the night he is arrested at school, a creepy, stomach-turning malice is palpable, and at various points, the viewer will rightly wonder whether the film might unfold as an adaptation of The Omen.

We Need to Talk About Kevin is a film about the effect a child’s killing rampage at his school has on his parents, but compared with other films like Beautiful Boy, Gus van Sant’s Elephant or the astonishing The Class (Klass) from Estonia, the focus here is purely on the mother and her very traumatic recollection of her son’s childhood.

The film does not pretend to be interested in the reasons behind Kevin’s actions, and this is an important point to keep in mind. Whether we eventually get any kind of explanation or motivation is quite beside the point — the point being an examination of his mother Eva’s (Tilda Swinton) struggle to make peace with the events of the past 18 years that culminated in the deaths of many innocent children, at the hands of her own flesh and blood.

But this does not mean the film is indifferent toward Kevin’s psychology. It is made evident that Kevin was an unwanted baby and that Eva did not plan on being a mother. It is impossible to tell whether the film assigns the blame to her for Kevin’s unstable character, but we do get a sense she is not blameless and may even be responsible for his ultimate breakdown.

The glimpses we get are all presented as wholly subjective impressions, and perhaps for the first time since Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now, we are made aware of the colour red in almost every single scene. But unlike Roeg’s film, which was an effective exercise in making a stylized thriller, We Need to Talk About Kevin uses red as a way to visibly stain the memories of the main character. Such visual intelligence is rarely seen on the big screen.

It is also to the screenplay’s credit that Eva is at the centre of events since this is the only way for the film to present her son and his actions as perplexing without testing our patience and our desire for rational motivation. Kevin has no sense of shame and fearlessly humiliates his mother, who tries to rationalize his behaviour and refuses to discipline him. Often, Eva’s sense of culpability makes her blame herself for the petulance displayed by her son, who forever remains a stranger to her.

Eva’s emotional turmoil, her angst and her frustration at always being the victim are staged very competently, though the constant staring of the people she passes in her small town does become more than a little irritating.

Kevin is not a likeable boy, nor does he reveal any sense of a moral compass. He is allowed to be passive-aggressive throughout his entire childhood and always gets away with this kind of behaviour, perhaps because his family seems to be isolated from the rest of society. Though neither of his parents is particularly quick-witted, Kevin somehow manages to be a genius at social manipulation, and his dark side will send shivers down the spine of any adult viewer. But even if we accept him as just a loose cannon, this aspect of his character comes across as contrived.

With its focus on Eva’s ostracism in society and her stoic acceptance that the days ahead will be as gloomy as the days behind her, We Need to Talk About Kevin is likely to elicit a sense of frustration at this remarkably passive character who never fights against the injustices committed against her and who often remains quiet about her sense of helplessness.

A film about a child who is born unwanted and finally takes his revenge by mowing down his classmates is certainly one way to promote a pro-choice message, one I have no qualms with, but the radical characterization of Kevin as being something close to the Antichrist does not help the cause.

Though far from brilliant, We Need to Talk About Kevin is a potent and haunting depiction of a mother’s conflicted response to being rejected by her own son, made by a filmmaker clearly in control of her craft.

This is a slightly modified version of the writer’s review that first appeared in The Prague Post.

Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012)

André Crous

Beasts of the Southern WildUSA
4*

Director:
Benh Zeitlin
Screenwriters:
Lucy Alibar
Benh Zeitlin
Director of Photography:
Ben Richardson

Running time: 93 minutes

Beasts of the Southern Wild is a masterfully directed piece of naturalism that puts under the microscope nature and the people who treat it as a friend, even a relative, as it weaves together their daily routines in a way that integrates magical fantasy with hard reality. If you are looking for a strong narrative, you will not find it here, but the power of the film’s intimacy with its characters and their dreams is outstanding.

The film is all the more remarkable for being the début feature of Benh Zeitlin, who co-wrote the screenplay and contributed to the majestic score that often adds a very distinct dash of optimism to the events. Zeitlin’s film, set on the bayou around New Orleans, shows an encouraging affinity to George Washington, David Gordon Green’s strong and perceptive first feature released in 2000, which took place in North Carolina and whose plot was limited to small but meaningful interactions between children. Green’s film generated a lot of critical praise at the time for its honest depiction of children living in poverty and the world they create for themselves to make their physical and social circumstances bearable.

Zeitlin approaches his subjects — a 6-year-old girl called Hushpuppy (played by the astonishing first-time performer Quvenzhané Wallis) and her sickly father, Wink — with understanding and curiosity, and the story never seems contrived or judgmental. Such compassion for the characters is not seen very often on film, but Zeitlin has the gift to evoke our empathy with his interest.

The plot is almost secondary to the cohesive network of very naturalistic overtones onscreen, though the events are certainly significant. Around the time of a hurricane, which may or may not be Katrina, on a bayou around New Orleans called “The Bathtub”, Hushpuppy and Wink do their best to survive the daily turmoil of living in poverty. As Hushpuppy’s mother is no longer with them, the girl speaks to her mother’s clothes, which seem to speak back in very unsentimental tones.

The film contains one of the most tension-laden hurricane scenes I have ever seen. Short though it is, mostly relying on the sound of the constant rush of water from the ceiling of Hushpuppy’s and Wink’s makeshift shack in the forest, it packs a punch and reminds us of the profound effect a strong soundtrack can have on the audience.

The reality of the characters comprises their immediate surroundings but also their fantasies and their memories, and the representation of these is captivating, even hypnotic. We are introduced, early on in the film, to enormous fabled creatures called Aurochs that pique Hushpuppy’s interest in the mythical. Whether they are real, and what exactly they might represent, is open to interpretation, but their presence is a surprising yet wholly justifiable tactic that supports an ever so slight magical-realist ambience. This is strengthened by imagery such as characters constructing a houseboat on the high waters brought by the hurricane, calling to mind Noah’s Ark.

The young Wallis never sets a foot wrong as her character is self-confident and focused without being smart-alecky or playing older than her age. It is a shame, however, that the screenplay doesn’t expand her character so that we may know more about her friendships beyond the confines of the crude quarters Hushpuppy and her father call home.

But the way in which her point of view is communicated to us cannot be faulted. It is her own — rather than a generic “childlike” — perspective, as very intimate details are related with images and sounds that echo her own emotions. When Hushpuppy puts her ear to the chest of a pig or a chicken, she (and we, too) can hear the heartbeat of the animals. And the fragments of memories that she has of her mother, that she either personally witnessed or was told of by her father, are infused with a very openly romanticized sensibility that tells us something about the characters as well as the actual events.

From what we can gather, Hushpuppy’s father tries to raise her as a boy, always calling her “dude” or “man” and engaging in arm-wrestling matches with her. This line of thought isn’t really pursued by the director, but certainly contributes to a feeling that these individuals have more history and complexity to them than films generally tend to demonstrate.

Beasts of the Southern Wild is very moving most of the way and elicits wonder and admiration rather than excitement, especially when the action moves to less gritty locations such as an underground nightclub or a FEMA shelter.

As the ice caps melt, Hushpuppy tells us in voiceover that the world relies on its many parts fitting together just right. The narration is well-executed and effective, but the words don’t cast quite the same spell as those of characters in David Gordon Green’s films.

The film is a remarkable achievement for a first effort, and though a tighter narrative would have helped the viewer latch on more firmly to the events onscreen, this is an auspicious start to a great career in storytelling.

This is a slightly modified version of the writer’s review that first appeared in The Prague Post.

Orders (1974)

André Crous

Les OrdresCanada
4*

Director:
Michel Brault
Screenwriter:
Michel Brault
Director of Photography:
François Protat
Michel Brault

Running time: 107 minutes

Original title: Les Ordres
Alternative English title: Orderers

It was almost as if the Canadian government had too much space in its prisons, so it rounded up people at random on a large scale to incarcerate, isolate and torture. The experience, as presented in the film, is wholly Kafkaesque: Locked in their cells and interrogated about places they’ve never been to and people they’ve never met, they are never charged or even told what they are suspected of. And yet, it is all based on events that really took place in Canada towards the end of 1970.

The “orders” in the title refer to the justification for this chaos and trampling on fundamental human rights. Though the prison guards treat their new inmates the same way they presumably treat everyone else locked up in prison, nobody can say what the reason for this treatment is, but it must be for a good reason because the orders come from high up in government.

The actual reason, which director Michel Brault only hints at during a summary at the beginning of the film, is that two political figures were kidnapped by the Quebec Liberation Front, the FLQ. Though never named here, they were British Trade Commissioner James Cross and Quebec Province’s Labour Minister, Pierre Laporte. The government deployed the War Measures Act that led to a wave of arrests, but in the end, nobody was charged and those arrested were released.

Orders follows five individuals who were arrested by the police, without apparent reason, during this time, and the film is based on some 50 interviews conducted with those who lived through this ordeal. They are Clermont Boudreau, a union representative who works at a weaving mill; Marie Boudreau, a housewife, who is Clermont’s wife; Jean-Marie Beauchemin, a doctor in charge of a community health clinic; Richard Lavoie, who is unemployed and taking care of his young son; and Claudette Dusseault, a social worker.

The most interesting characters are the Boudreau couple and Richard Lavoie, who loses his beard when he is taken to prison in a scene that is devoid of sentiment but provokes great emotion in the viewer, especially as Lavoie is shaved against his will next to another man, who loses his very thick beard, too. The feeling of despair is palpable, and we don’t need the characters to put their objections into words.

Brault, who had a background in documentary filmmaking, here goes about blurring the lines between fiction and fact in a very clever way. When each of these five characters is introduced, they also appear in interview form: The actors introduce themselves, say whom they portray, and then immediately slip back into their role to explain what their characters do, but they do so in the first person. In this way, there is no alienation, but rather an undeniable symbiosis between the real actors and their fictional characters embroiled in historically factual events.

It is interesting to note that when Richard Lavoie is asked for his date of birth, he provides the date of birth of the actor who portrays him, Claude Gauthier.

The film has a political slant, to combat not just the injustice of the situation but also the hypocrisy of the government and the silence of a large swath of the country that didn’t resist the government’s grab for power and suppression of its own people.

The very first words the film shows us are those of Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau, made more than a decade before the events for which he would be responsible:

Whenever any form of authority unjustly abuses a man,
all the other men are also guilty;
for it is through their silence and consent
that they permit the authorities to commit this abuse.

These words ominously, correctly anticipate the stunning silence from the Canadian public in general when the arrests took place. At the end of the film, we learn that, while the media reported on the arrests, there was little reporting when the individuals were eventually released — some after three weeks of incarceration — without ever being charged with any crime.

Orders is mostly in black and white, although the scenes inside the prison, depicting a world away from the everyday, are presented in colour. It is unclear whether this was meant to give a documentary quality to life outside the prison whereas the incarceration is presented as something almost unbelievable, but what is certain is that the prison scenes have more artistic freedom than the scenes outside (with the exception of a final crane shot, at odds with the rest of the film).

In particular, there is a shot similar to the famous scene in Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver when Travis Bickle is rejected by a girl over the phone and the camera tracks away rather than show us his heartache. Here, we see Clément Boudreau, who had been on a hunger strike because he received only “pig swill”, or cold porridge, day in and day out, finally getting some crisps and a can of Coke. He breaks down in tears as the camera pulls back to leave him his privacy. It is a breathtakingly powerful scene that respects the character and emphasises the pain he is going through in a visually striking way. A slightly more “filmic” representation of the material involves the fainting of Lavoie, shot as a slow-motion fade-out.

The film gives an intimate portrait of some of the individuals who were affected by the Canadian government’s acts during 1970’s October Crisis, and while many may criticise the film for not naming names, the focus on the people themselves shows that Brault was interested in the effect of the events on people, rather than looking for answers about their origins.

I Killed My Mother (2009)

André Crous

J'ai tue ma mereCanada
4*

Director:
Xavier Dolan
Screenwriter:
Xavier Dolan
Director of Photography:
Stéphanie Weber-Biron

Running time: 96 minutes

Original title: J’ai tué ma mère

If Antoine Doinel was bipolar and gay, perhaps his story would have looked a little like that of Hubert Minel.

His French counterpart — and particularly his actions in Les Quatre cents coups (The 400 Blows) —  is indirectly referenced at many turns in the film, the interview with a psychologist in Truffaut’s film here becoming a self-shot black-and-white confessional that is repeated throughout.

Hubert is in his late teens and lives with his mother, whom he obviously despises. Over time, we get the impression this is not just everyday conflict between a teenager and his parent(s), but Hubert has other issues, some related to him not having told his mother he is gay, others perhaps having more to do with his mental health.

This début film of Dolan, who plays Hubert and was only 19 years old when he directed this self-written screenplay in the autumn of 2008, is as artistic as it is intense. The mother-son couple spend much of their time either engaged in passive-aggressive interaction or screaming at each other (sometimes Dolan starts speaking and doesn’t stop, while the camera stays on him for an extended period of time), but while the mother, played by television actress Anne Dorval, often tries to shrug her shoulders at her child’s behaviour, the petulant Hubert goes from one extreme to the other in hopes of manipulating his mother into letting him do his own thing.

That approach is not bearing much fruit, and one day at school when he receives an assignment to question his mother about the family’s financial situation, he tells the teacher his mother has died. This is a line taken directly from Truffaut’s directorial début, The 400 Blows, which was also about a single child, although Truffaut’s Antoine had a much friendlier school environment.

Dolan’s use of his camera is striking, although there are moments when it crosses the threshold of pretension, as in his character’s supposedly self-shot confessional tapes — which nonetheless are not entirely static, proving someone else was behind the lens — which have his face cut off at the nose, showing us only his bottom half of his face, sometimes for an extended period of time.

What is truly amazing to watch is the one scene of intimacy, which takes place one day when Hubert and his boyfriend Antonin go to paint Antonin’s mother’s office by dripping paint on the walls à la Jackson Pollock. Noir désir’s “Vive la Fête” pulses on the soundtrack while the scene itself is constructed in many parts that include close-ups of paint added in many colours onto the wall, dripping, running from top to bottom in various patterns, shots of Hubert and Antonin eagerly throwing paint on the wall, a beautiful close-up of the colourful cans of paint, shot vertically from above, and ultimately the action of the two boys making out and having sex, their arms stained in different colours, sometimes accelerated, sometimes slowed down.

 The jump cuts of the paint dripping down the walls are reminiscent of Clouzot’s Le mystère Picasso (The Mystery of Picasso), in which the master’s artwork grows in front of our eyes from one separate artwork to the next. But Dolan, not interested in the final product, has his eye on the beautiful, artistic mobility of the paint in motion.

The transition between scenes is where the pretension sometimes sneaks in to fragment the film into more pieces than necessary, given the division established early on between scenes taking place in black-and-white and colour, respectively. Shots without any motion, a kind of photographic still life,  are inserted instead of a cut or a dissolve in order to add rhythm where none is actually needed, even though the exercise of creating motion with static images is admittedly fundamental to the cinematic art form.

Dolan’s sense for visual creativity, thinking outside the box, is breathtaking, from adding text onscreen instead of cutting to a close-up or a voice-over, to using a deliberate continuity error (faux raccord) when he puts a cigarette in his mouth in his bedroom before we cut to his face and he is in black-and-white — confessing in the bathroom that the doesn’t love his mother the way a son should love his mother.

He also makes the world his own, not unlike Tarantino, by actually changing the opening quotation from the original. Even before the opening credits, we see a quotation from Guy de Maupassant, from his novel Fort comme la mort (Strong as Death), from which he excises Maupassant’s contention that love for one’s mother is as natural as it is to live, and he changes “on ne s’aperçoit de toute la profondeur des racines de cet amour qu’au moment de la séparation dernière” to “on ne prend conscience de toute la profondeur des racines de cet amour qu’au moment de la séparation dernière.” The change is subtle and doesn’t change the meaning to any degree, but it is interesting nonetheless and suggests that Dolan, while respecting the conventions (many other authors, from de Musset to Choderlos de Laclos, are cited throughout the film by means of their works), also allows himself to make them his own.

But while the relationship at first seems toxic, unsalvageable, we slowly recognise that Dolan focuses on some particularly hurtful moments for the mother, and treats them with the respect they deserve. What is equally interesting is the framing of the two individuals: Whether in the car or at the dinner table, they are very often framed in a two-shot, sitting next to each other instead of opposite each other. While this pretends they are on the same level, equally vulnerable to our gaze, it also shows they are not making eye contact and therefore communication is obstructed.

Hubert’s confessions about his feelings and his mother’s true feelings about her situation, whether silently whispered to herself or in a moment of unleashing pent-up anger of years over the phone, we get a good sense for both of these characters and learn to accept the difficulty they face getting to know and accept each other. In this way, Dolan shows an acute sense for both showing us the many sides of his characters and giving human drama a human face and makes his entry onto the world stage with elegance and insight.

No (2012)

André Crous

No 2012Chile
4*

Director:
Pablo Larraín
Screenwriter:
Pedro Peirano
Director of Photography:
Sergio Armstrong

Running time: 118 minutes

“Pinochet could win this vote without cheating, if he wants — that’s what is so terrible”, says José Tomás Urrutia, a socialist who is spearheading the “No” campaign against Chile’s military dictator Augusto Pinochet in 1988.

His line is the first of many details that push the young advertising executive René Saavedra (played by the enormously gifted Gael García Bernal, here taking on the Chilean accent with as much success as he had with Che’s Argentinean in The Motorcycle Diaries), who had no real desire for political involvement, especially in a system rigged against its own people.

No opens with an example of an ad Saavedra has conceived. It is lively and recalls many Coca-Cola commercials in its use of different genres all tied together with one song, but the postmodernism of the exercise frighten the clients, who can’t understand why there is miming in the commercial.

The scene has two important reasons for being included in the film. Firstly, it bookends the production by anticipating an almost identical scene at the end, in which it is made clear what change has occurred in the minds of Chileans in such a short period of time, thanks to Saavedra’s eventual participation in the “No” campaign. Secondly, the more immediate reason is the name of the product: a soft drink called “Free”.

This kind of advertising has obviously affected Saavedra’s way of thinking, and he proclaims it is “in line with the current social context”. Whether or not that is true, it certainly influenced the “No” campaign, and the result is a spot full of feeling, although the people in the advertisement are nameless and without identity, save for being Chileans, or rather virtual Chileans inhabiting a better future. The resulting video, naïvely optimistic but brimming with energy, accompanied by the campaign song “¡ Chile, la alegría ya viene !” (Chile, happiness is coming!), can be viewed on YouTube. 

Each campaign has 15 minutes on television to make its pitch to Chileans, but the “No” organizers have to contend with an interesting dilemma: They want their commercial to be about a better, brighter future full of people smiling and not fearing the regime in power (which, by the way, uses fear in its own ad campaign), but they want to convey this by using the negative “no”. The way they choose to attack this problem is to view the no as the opposite of complicity, in other words, a deliberate decision to break with the past (and the present).

This break with the past is very well depicted by the film’s fragmented visuals. Often, scenes would start in one location (usually inside) before suddenly continuing in another (usually outside). At first, this seems like an odd directorial decision, as a question may be asked in one place and answered in another, but the many lens flares caused by the sunshine outside do suggest brightness ready to envelop our protagonists.

The film itself was also shot on U-matic film stock, which reminds us of the small budget the characters’ real-life counterparts were working with but also allows the seamless integration of archive footage, especially of the mass protests and the government’s ruthless response. The richest colours are onscreen when the commercial is aired, and although it makes a stunning contrast with the relatively “realistic”, drab colours of the rest of the film, it is not of a different world, just one that is hyperreal, its palette boosted and the action either sped up or slowed down according to the need for emphasis. The success of the film’s own combination of reality vs. idealism in its visuals mirrors the tension the “No” campaign has to mitigate.

They do this by their choice of an idealistic symbol for their effort to fight a very real threat: They choose a rainbow. Saavedra urges his fellow organisers to use happiness instead of fear or hate, although the facts are often presented in smaller spots, and with great effectiveness on the viewers, especially those who are angry at the government and don’t want the happiness to silence or ignore the pain.

The “No” campaign doesn’t really have a leader, although the leader of the Christian Democrats, Patricio Aylwin, who would eventually replace Pinochet as president, does appear from time and time. And it is important to notice that these important political figures, central to Chilean life, are not played by actors but instead presented by means of footage recorded at the time, like George Clooney did with Joe McCarthy in Good Night, and Good Luck.

The future is constantly in our heads because Saavedra has a young son, Simón, on whose life the imminent referendum will have a very visible impact. In one very powerful shot, Saavedra and Simón walk hand-in-hand down the road, our view of them only slightly obstructed by blurred figures in the foreground. We realise these are riot police, but we don’t see them until a wider shot, quite unnecessary, showing them lined up on one side of the street. 

The single take in the first 15 minutes of Billy Elliot, in which a conversation between a young boy and girl takes place while the girl walks past riot police in Newcastle, seemingly oblivious to their presence as she drags a stick across their shields, was done much better, as it made a much bigger impact because it was so much simpler.

No is about small moments almost hidden in everyday life. We realise the importance of events in shaping the characters’ view of their situation without the film dwelling on any of it. When Saavedra’s middle-aged housekeeper, Carmen, who had considered her life to be quite good and was going to vote “Yes” in the referendum, is confronted by police late at night who call her a “bitch”, the film doesn’t go in for a close-up, it doesn’t stretch the moment, and it doesn’t refer to it again, but we know this has probably changed her relationship to the government.

In another very brief moment, the “No” logo can be seen scraped out on the outside of a house, and we realise the movement is quietly gaining momentum, and yet our focus could or should be on the characters in the shot. Director Pablo Larraín creates a world that doesn’t need us to stop and think; his film creates a world rich with detail and behaviour and asks us to put some of the pieces together ourselves and provide a more engaging experience of the material.

Bernal’s emotional range is noteworthy; in particular, by the end of the film, he has gone through threats, betrayal, physical violence and elation, and his face can change from anxious to childlike glee in a second. And the film uses him in this historical setting very well to highlight the human dimension of the struggle for freedom combined with a display of the power of people, not to change things, but to make more people change, until the regime crumbles from the inside.

Sexmission (1984)

André Crous

SexmissionPoland
4*

Director:
Juliusz Machulski
Screenwriters:
Juliusz Machulski
Jolanta Hartwig
Pavel Hajný
Director of Photography:
Jerzy Łukaszewicz

Original title: Seksmisja

Running time: 116 minutes

This Polish film from the early 1980s is at times hilarious and very often terribly kitsch but can also be rather uncomfortable given the basic plot of a chauvinist protagonist facing off against feminism run wild in 2044.

Opening in 1991 with the arrival of a doctor whose one hand is limp and covered by a glove (the Dr. Strangelove reference cannot be by accident), named Dr. Kuppelweiser, it is said that cryogenesis has developed to a point where an experiment is feasible. Two men, the overweight and bombastic Maksymilian and the slim, more bookish Albert, leave their loved ones behind in the name of science and are scheduled to return three years later.

But plans don’t always work out the way we expect them to, and they wake up in 2044 in a world without any men — a “lesbian utopia” where reproduction is accomplished through asexual parthenogenesis, and any deviations (i.e. men) from the ideal are scheduled for naturalization, through which they will become female.

Maksymilian and Albert are certainly not in the mood to have their sex changed, and Maksymilian starts hatching a plan to seduce the female population en masse. His thinking, rarely questioned by the filmmaker, is that women need men and men need women. And yet, there is a revolutionary underground force of women who like to experiment with each other (a scene that exhilarates the two men) and many of the powerful women give off lesbian vibes.

But leaving director Machulski’s confused contemplation of gender equality aside for a moment, it is important to note the film as a slightly subversive record of its time. While never as overtly satirical as Stanisław Bareja’s Miś, another Polish classic from 1981, there are moments when we can see Machulski making light of the political situation in Poland in the 1980s while at the same time underlining its seriousness.

An obvious example is Maksymilian’s realisation that, by sleeping for 53 years, he missed out completely on getting his long-awaited flat from the government in 1998. While it may not seem like such a big deal since he was frozen in 1991, the film itself was released in 1984, and many Polish viewers would have viewed the year 1998 in that context, in other words, a wait of 14 years.

But another example is more opaque, as it is tied to the film’s very foundation. It provides a moment reminiscent of M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village when, towards the end, we discover that things on Earth are not really quite as bad as the all-female population have led themselves to believe, and in fact, the major players are only pretending to safeguard lower-ranking members in order to maintain control. This power they exert in order not to lose control is actually very easily comparable to the regime of the Communist Party of the time, and the lies that are told about life outside the confines of their bubble can be equated to lies (or exaggerations) told about the West.

In these final scenes, a revelation is also made about the existence of a cross-dresser that narrowly escapes labelling as transgenderphobic. Jerzy Stuhr, who plays the slightly heavy-set Maksymilian, at one point goes on a kissing rampage in the all-female world, which causes many women to pass out. This reaction is for comical effect, but also creates the impression that women and men necessarily need each other for sexual satisfaction. And when the one woman is revealed to be a man, the psychological effect of pretending to be something you are not is not addressed at all; instead, there is a substantial assumption that things will immediately go back to normal and he will simply “be a man”.

Sexmission is more about comedy that about filmmaking. The images are often a mess, following no particular point of view or sequence, and in one particular shot, the focus is racked completely out of sync with the actions it seeks to highlight. The story is lighthearted and easy to enjoy, and the young blond girl who is the principal guardian of Maksymilian and Albert in the future, Lamia Reno, is particularly effective as a strong woman whose sexuality makes her more amenable to sexual persuasion. Students of feminism will have a field day tearing the film apart, and for most 21st-century viewers the film will also provide its share of uncomfortable moments, though Machulski is not entirely indifferent to man’s negative influence on the world, as is made clear when we learn wars and venereal diseases are a thing of the past thanks to the extinction of man.

Dante’s Inferno (1911)

André Crous

Italy
4*

Director:
Giuseppe de Liguoro
Screenwriter:
Dante Alighieri
Director of Photography:
Emilio Roncarolo

Running time: 68 minutes

Original title: L’Inferno

Though creaking a bit with a load of peripheral characters that appear for a mere handful of seconds, as they are usually physically constricted from moving around, this very first filmic depiction of the “Inferno” part of Dante’s Divine Comedy is a remarkable visualisation of the story in a way that the cinema had not really taken advantage of before.

The one striking exception is the director whose style certainly influenced director Giuseppe de Liguoro: Georges Méliès, whose formative tendency (films whose meaning was enriched, even informed, by their visual style, in contrast with the Lumière brothers’ documentary-like films that strove to capture the world as it is without demonstrating any real creativity from the filmmakers, except for their placement of the camera) is on full display in this film that takes place in the underworld.

The film’s opening montage already gives us a peek into the underworld, presenting us with fragments of despair whose characters or settings we do not know yet (they will all be revealed over the course of the film), but the writhing bodies present a world undeniably abhorrent that rapidly comes into view.

Dante’s Inferno is very text-heavy as a screen full of words precedes nearly every scene, and this screen tells us what we are about to see and especially who the diverse assortment of characters are that Dante and his guide, the poet Virgil, meet on their way through he underworld. The problem is that the film’s one-hour length means the entire journey has to be condensed and all of the duo’s interactions with the condemned last a very short amount of time.

Sometimes, the names of the characters are onscreen for a longer period of time than the physical individuals themselves. But Dante carries on, carried – as are we, the viewers – by the trance-like music that accompanies the film’s most recent release, of the German electronic band Tangerine Dream.

There are many noteworthy special effects in the film, and the moments when Dante or Virgil or Dante’s muse, the young Beatrice who has an impressive spinning halo above her head, lift off to float away or fly off are very effective and do not seem as rudimentary as one might have expected. It’s pure Méliès for the contemporary viewer: at once fantastical and uncanny because of the slight awkwardness of the movements or the stammering nature of such an old film of which not all the frames were in perfect condition.

Sometimes, the use of superimposition and even of forced perspective (see, for example, Dante and Virgil meeting the giant Antaeus) is equally splendid. At another point, a headless man appears holding his own head – it is very easy to guess how this was done, but the effect is rather good.

Famously, Dante is reminded to “Abandon all hope [ye who enter here]” and the images we get certainly fit very well with this notion. Those trapped down below have been sentenced to suffer for their sins for all eternity and the variety of ways in which they have to pay for their time spent on earth can make for rather uncomfortable viewing, from the Summonists (those who have cheated the Church) trapped with their heads buried in the sand, and the spendthrifts who have to roll bags of gold around their circle, to the hypocrites wearing cloaks of gold on the outside but filled with lead on the inside.

Dante is a bit of a wuss, as he faints or screams all the way through Hell, once even pulling a tuft of hair from a head sticking out of the ground, but on the other hand the majestic Virgil, wearing a white sheet and wearing an olive wreath on his head in the style of an Olympic Games winner, and gesticulating hither and thither in extremely melodramatic fashion, doesn’t make any better an impression.

It is a frightening moment when Homer, Horace, Ovid and Lucanus appear and give the travelling duo the Roman salute, as within a few years of the film’s release, it would be co-opted by the fascists in Italy and Germany and become the Hitler salute.

This world where steam seems to be everywhere is a place where no one wants to end up. It is a place of endless misery, and the film presents a thorough catalogue of the pain and suffering that awaits those who choose to live according to their own vices and desires. It is sometimes rather obvious that the story was conceived on the first level to warn Dante’s fellow Florentines of their reckless behaviour, but the rundown of the levels of Hell makes for a powerful visual argument against immorality.

The film is unfortunately very episodic, and even the relationship between the two main characters, Dante and Virgil, is not allowed to develop. But as a purely visual experience, this film is a feast.