Letterboxd Highlights: May - June '17

Below are a series of shorter pieces originally written as diary musings on Letterboxd, selected for presentation. A truncated overview of what I’ve been watching, rewatching, and contemplating.

If you have a further interest in my various film blurbs, then you can follow me at letterboxd.com/elfo19/

The Ornithologist (2016)

Dir. João Pedro Rodrigues

Rodrigues draws you in and then implores you to dive down the rabbit hole as the film and it's characters slowly transform before our eyes, and the watchful foresight of nature. While one can simply see it as a series of surrealist clichés, the way Rodrigues literally inserts himself into the film through ADR and a Bunuellian actor swap implies that his cinema is not one of mere implications but an exploration thereof, as his own autobiographical history is juxtaposed with the mythology that most fascinates him.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017)

Dir. James Gunn

This is an irreverence grounded in sentimentality – a point that seemingly flies over the heads of those who accuse the franchise of pandering in pop culture references and cheap humour. Quill is of a certain generation and post-modern mentality, so much so that if he were to have been less lucky and been picked up by a different space-craft his companions may not have had names like Gamorra or Drax, but Tom Servo and Crow. This is best evidenced by Quill expressing even his most deep-felt romance through the lens of a pop culture understanding. Balanced with the gravitas of planet destroying gods, the possibility of all life unifying in identity destroying stagnancy, and a diverse intergalactic rogue's gallery of a cast, it feels grounded and organic.

His discovery of his inner power to Fleetwood Mac's 'The Chain' encapsulates the film. "You will never break the chain" – and he fights to do just that. We can become better than anyone ever believed we could. And every character here overperforms – Gunn included.

The opening credits sequence are a marvel – a joyous, funny and rich gag about friendship and optimism. While Gunn purposefully interrupts this sequence, and many others, with a tonal shift, it all feels purposeful. In a film that could have easily felt like whiplash jumping from meditations on grief, cosmical loneliness, immortality and abandonment to gentle ribbing, fantasy battle sequences, and the antics of a dancing CGI tree baby, the precedent helps create a world entirely compelling and worth believing in.

Beyond the Gates (2016)

Dir. Jackson Stewart

Junk throwback, retro fetish, intellectually and developmentally arrested twaddle like this is quite honestly so abhorrent and unwatchable that it boggles the imagination how one could even willingly waste so much time creating it. I couldn't really stomach Stranger Things, per my particular taste -- and this is the sandbox, amateur hour, crayon-up-the-nostril kid brother. Indicative of a complete dearth in creativity and cinematic ability. Most unfortunately it isn't an anomaly, but rather one in a long long lineage – a lineage I can only hope will be severed and permanently discontinued in the very near future.

The Death of Louis XIV (2016)

Dir. Albert Serra

Leaud does wonders with so little. He transforms with such subtle motions, photographed in a manner by which every minute twinge of a muscle is imbued with a multitude of meanings. It's a film of such intimate and powerful details – and Serra's decision to focus intensely on close-ups throughout is perfect.

The film is so visceral and focused in regards to the subject of mortality. Louis's portraits rest quiet in the chambers as the real man deforms and falls apart before our eyes. At the end a series of onlookers cry. Their motivation for doing so remains elusive – do they mourn a dead king or become overwhelmed by a vision of death so extreme (the end of a godly monarch) that they fear and mourn for themselves?

I was completely captivated beginning to end. Under some sort of hypnotic trance, completely lost in shadow and the lines of human faces in agony and conflict. And still Serra manages to find room for humour, politics and natural beauty among guttural human portraiture.

This reminded me most of Barry Lyndon – but the whole movie builds up to a final line so all-encompassing, darkly funny, and brilliant that I couldn't help think of Eyes Wide Shut as well.

What will this madman even do next?

Raw (2016)

Dir. Julia Ducournau

Probably great if you haven't seen all too many films before – but I was ten steps ahead of this one, and formally the film offers nothing that isn't already incredibly prevalent in the contemporary arthouse horror scene. The bifurcation of sex and cannibalism is not so effective – precisely because it is split up, and then entangled in ways that don't quite make sense. It winds up being yet another 'good girls go bad' shtick – the twist alleviates narrative implausibility, but doesn't elevate the material into anything more than a hip postured version of what has been already tread to death.

The music was pleasing to my ears, but one does not deserve applause for near plagiarism of the great Michael Nyman.

American Honey (2016)

Dir. Andrea Arnold

The worm in the liquor scene is really impressively uncomfortable and multi-layered. The audience feels such a strange mix of emotions in connection to the protagonist's position in the sequence, as she is simultaneously exploited and introduced to her most effectively means to achieve financial gain. The veiled motivation of the men surrounding her create an enormous tension – and when another character arrives and complicates the scene, we realize the enormity of that character's shrouded motivation as well.

On one level these characters are notably simple – as they boast of their sole desire to "make money", shouting in unison to rap songs, peering out at flat desolate American wasteland and surviving by any means necessary. But their need to lie to do so complicates them, and their transience suggests that their identities are left ever unformed – mish-mashed Americana Frankenstein creations, emotionally and personally stunted, as Lost Boys in a changing country (they sell magazines, even though – as they point out multiple times – nobody reads them anymore). They are characters forced to play make believe forever – they just dance around and sing and act like children.

Arnold's filmmaking has improved a lot since Fish Tank. While at times her whole point seems to become this reductive, counter-intuitive, tapping on the glass of the fish tank (pun unintended) pseudo-neo-realist 'nobility of the downtrodden' nonsense, she still demonstrates her growing knack for kinetic and simple camera-work and believably crass worlds. The film is at its worst when it wants you to look on wide-eyed and indulge in its wonderment, but at its best when Arnold creates interesting spaces and organic settings populated with intriguing characters.

Summer Night, with Greek Profile, Almond Eyes and Scent of Basil (1986)

Dir. Lina Wertmüller

A great director somewhat on autopilot. Incredibly sensuous, and not as harrowing and brutal as her most well-known works, but Wertmüller's interest in funny little stuck-up characters who conflate politics and sex continues forth with gusto into a hyperbolically long sex sequence in the second half. There's some mighty impressive camera-work throughout, particularly one shot on a beach where Melato in close-up ducks out of frame. The camera zooms into crystal blue out-of-focus waves, only for an impressively in-focus Melato to pop back into the image. Super artful and playful stuff.

Neighboring Sounds (2012)

Dir. Kleber Mendonça Filho

Honestly, Filho is on some other level with these films. This was his debut narrative feature? Insane.

Like an enigmatic puzzlebox, but with each seemingly incidental scene expertly constructed – there are some many intersecting threads entangled in what may seem initially to be quite casual. There are many comparisons to be drawn between this and Filho's follow-up, Aquarius. I love what he is developing as a filmmaker, with a series of pieces that explore history through contemporary life, and obscure narrative within shrouds of unspoken tension. All the while he focuses so intensely on visual and auditory poetics, using that wide aspect ratio more thoughtfully than almost any contemporary filmmaker I know.

Dirty Dancing (1987)

Dir. Emile Ardolino

Such a sincere and moving coming-of-age fantasy. The film's opening act is so thoroughly and uncannily relatable – with that unmistakable air of being a burgeoning adult forced into undesirable displacement on family vacation, with sky-rocketing hormones and wistful romantic fantasy being continually and silently stomped and trod upon by circumstance. The whole set-up is a product of a restrained portrait of late adolescent angst – and the film allows Baby to be adequately teenage and immature throughout.

And yes, the whole thing is a fantasy, but it is driven so thoroughly by the sort of fantasy that the more hopelessly romantic teenager tends to have (or at least I can attest to some kind of personal connection with the material). The scale is kept appropriately small and intimate, and the conflicts subtle. But the film is anchored most notably by its two central relationships – those Baby shares with Johnny and her father – both of which are particularly well realized.

Visually organic and sweeping moments like the lift in the lake are quite breathtaking and heart-seizing.

31 (2016)

Dir. Rob Zombie

All of Rob Zombie's films are haphazard post-modern mish-mashes, but his newest lacks either the audacity of Devil's Rejects's risky ‘Free Bird’ finale, or the out-on-a-limb abstraction and self-assured grace of Lords of Salem. 31 feels sloppy and limp – Zombie's wallowing in juvenilia through his dialogue hardly feels salvaged by a focus on violence that has become less effective, less creatively photographed, and thematically redundant. Essentially, it replays all of his creative weakness – a greatest hits compilation expunged of all its best tracks.

Okja (2017)

Dir. Bong Joon-ho

With all the subtlety of a Disney Channel Original Movie, and with terrible performances across the board (most shocking is the normally stellar Jake Gyllenhaal with perhaps the worst onscreen showing he's ever delivered).

Like Snowpiercer, Okja exhibits Bong's dedication to manipulative and over-simplified political childishness dressed up as off-beat fare. You can nearly feel the sledgehammer battering you over the head as Bong turns characters that should be compelling (or at least make sense) into ludicrous caricatures of unimaginable evil or complete idiocy. And by conflating issues of capitalism and mass-production with a Spielbergian cutesy approach (that crucially clashes horrifically with the cheap and off-topic introduction of a vile pig rape) his treatment of these issues turns into a reckless farce.

See ya around,

jw