Beautiful Boy
A subdued drama that simmers but never boils. Steve Carell and Timothée Chalamet give heartbreaking performances as a father and son overcoming the hurdles of drug addiction. Based on a true story and adapted from two books, the film seems as lost as its main characters. There is no discernable narrative progression—the story meanders as the filmmaking confuses. It does not reach a point of emotional catharsis, but instead wallows in its melancholy for hours, leaving a taste of dissatisfaction at the end. The film’s redemption comes specifically from Chalamet’s transformation—the subtleties and details that he imbues in his character render his performance a true masterpiece. –MF
High Life
Yes, that TIFF film where Juliette Binoche carries Robert Pattinson’s semen in her cupped hands. It’s the kind of thing that makes sense in High Life, a film about sex that never becomes erotic. Claire Denis’ first English-language film leaps through time, presenting a temporally disordered story about a group of criminals sent to investigate a black hole. They do little to drive the mission; their role is to be bodies under observation. Denis’ movie is pre-occupied with bodies, partly to reclaim their humanity. As the movie opens, the camera pays close attention to Pattinson’s chest and face and the moments he touches his infant daughter. Each image is a sculpture in blue and orange glows, capturing all the curves and lines of each actor’s body. As they get closer to the black hole, the body becomes contested. Memories intrude, and the film’s most visceral moments are ones in which the body becomes a site of violence and orgasm. In other moments, High Life dreams of a transcendent body, one that can become earthen or cosmic. –HW
Mid90s
A nostalgic and sentimental representation of the time period and the characters it introduces. Stevie, played by Sunny Suljic, is a young man who has just begun to discover what it is that makes him… him. Skateboarding, puberty, and friendships all become part of Stevie’s life, as he navigates a new world of cool. All of this is explored against a backdrop of older rock and rap music, ranging from Nirvana to Seal. Jonah Hill’s directorial debut (which he also wrote) does not ever pretend to be bigger than it is. Rather, it is low-key and charming. Its fleshed-out characters are products of their time and environment, all bound by an early sense of friendship. –MF
Ash is Purest White
Jia Zhangke’s newest feature is his most sprawling investigation of disillusionment yet—spanning 17 years and several provinces in China. After firing a gun into the air to save her boyfriend Bin’s life, Qiao (played by Zhao Tao, Jia’s regular collaborator) is sentenced to five years in prison. When she gets out, she sets out to find Bin and discovers a China dominated by transportation and media. It’s now easier to move around the country, but most people have nowhere to go. Ash is Purest White is partly about the failure of love and partly about the struggle of genre. It returns: to the gangster movies Qiao and Bin grew up on, to the places they tried to escape, and to Jia’s filmography. Part of this story has been told in Unknown Pleasures (2002) and Still Life (2006). But while those movies were about a sense of local entrapment, in Datong and Fengjie respectively, Ash is Purest White realizes confinement on a national, possibly cosmic, scale. –HW
Shoplifters
This heart-wrenching picture manages to take grim situations and wrap them in hopeful disguises. It is the slow and gradual tale of a found family and the moments in which their lives spiral out of control. Kore-eda’s film forces into existence the question: “What is it that makes a family?” Its answer suggests that bonds can exist outside of blood. Shoplifters is an evocative film that delicately deals with the topics of child abuse, poverty, and puberty. Even in their lowest moments, the main characters never fail to make you want to reach out and give them a hug, wipe away their tears, and help them dig their way out of their suffocating situations. –MF
The Grand Bizarre
As a celebration of patterns—in maps, language, tattoos, and textiles—The Grand Bizarre is something of an anomaly. It’s a flurry of fabrics, an extended montage that travels around the world, showcasing the places of textile production. What makes Jodie Mack’s ode an anomaly is its firmly experimental structure and its joyously fun presentation. Pop songs give The Grand Bizarre a music video feel, while Mack makes playful animations out of patterns. Fabric flashes in the rear-view mirror of taxicabs, over seats and public spaces. As much as Mack is interested in these repeating patterns, she’s also interested in the spaces around them. Where and how these textiles are produced, and where they go, are the marginal political considerations of The Grand Bizarre; Mack’s physical sensation of travel carries through the film, overriding the static, dominating patterns that appear on maps. –HW
Never Look Away
Art, history, and politics are woven together in this three-hour feature about an artist struggling with his creativity in Post-World War II Germany. The film and characters deal with the delicate sensibilities of life and the potential secrets of the universe. The picture is shot beautifully and saturated with a lush score—there are intense moments in the movie where the sound is not kept at a polite volume and instead thunders throughout the theatre. It is heartbreaking as well as hopeful, intellectual without being pretentious, and complex without becoming isolating–MF
The Image Book
This film is an essay without a thesis. Jean-Luc Godard’s newest is an angry rumination on the use of images—a collage that revels in its own destruction. Beginning with a section on the images and sounds of war, both real and staged, the screen is cut up. Most clips are tweaked, re-sized, or digitally degraded. The Image Book moves through a section on trains; technology linked cinematically to representational freedom and historically to death camps, and towards a final sequence entitled “la région centrale.” No longer deconstructing Western art, Godard ruminates on the Middle East under “the eyes of the Occident.” This sequence is the most distressed and most hopeful; as The Image Book critiques Western representations of the Middle East, it also presents texts produced in the Middle East. The montage becomes more obscure, in part, because these texts implicitly ask the viewer why they haven’t already been seen. –HW
ROMA
This is a moving, semi-autobiographical tale shot in black and white by Gravity director Alfonso Cuarón. It tells the story of a Mexican family and their loving maid Cleo (played by first-timer Yalitza Aparicio), who finds herself in an isolating situation. The setting—Mexico in the 1970s—completely comes to life through Cuarón’s camera, with all of its inviting music and authentic characters. As it progresses, ROMA becomes harder to watch due to its subject matter, but it is impossible to tear your eyes away from the screen. Aparicio’s performance in the latter half is easily the most heartbreaking that I’ve ever witnessed. A true gem of a movie and a tribute to the women who shaped Cuarón’s early life. –MF
Kursk
Unlike the fate of its namesake, this film manages to stay afloat throughout its 117 minute duration. One may ask, How do you keep an audience continually engaged in the depressing topic of a sinking submarine? In Kursk, Thomas Vinterberg manages to do just that by digging into the lives of the doomed seamen. Accompanied by skillfully placed flashbacks and ethos–inspiring reenactments, Kursk tells the story of the 2000 K-141 Kursk submarine that sank during a training exercise. The movie portrays the Soviet military’s incompetence and negligence towards its sailors, first by revealing their depressing conditions at home, where their wages are withheld, and later through the decision to refuse international aid, which leaves its sailors helpless in the middle of the ocean. As most submarine tragedies go, the ending is obvious. Yet, this predictability doesn’t take away from the feeling of deep ethos and anger at the seemingly avoidable circumstances. –SR
Never Look Away
Cutting into three distinct epochs of German national history, Never Look Away follows the life of a young artist, modeled after painter Gerhard Richter. The narrative shifts stylistically through the protagonist’s young years as a boy under Nazi rule, to life alongside the Communist GDR, and eventually into the roaring 60s of the modernist West. It reveals the development of a nation alongside the maturing of an artist. We witness how ideology, style, and politics change, while identifying with the protagonist as we follow him through mundane moments of living. The film also introduces the painter’s nemesis, whose ambitions position him as an unwavering force in the narrative. What is a beautifully scripted and stylistically original film becomes a story of villains and victims living alongside one another for the sake of modernity and the development of a nation. –SR
Tell it to the Bees
Can a film ever go wrong with a story set in the English countryside about lesbians in the 1950s? Certainly not with a screenplay adapted by a woman, from a book written by a woman, for a director that is, yes, a woman. If the film’s production team hasn’t sold you already, then the touching story will. Revealing the hardships of small-town life in post-war Britain, Tell it to the Bees recounts a story of love and fear. A doctor, whose reputation has been questioned once before, falls for the warming heart of a single mother whose fate is threatened simultaneously by an abusive ex-husband and taxing factory work. We see these two souls heal one another, as their relationship develops, through the eyes of the protagonist’s child, as he discovers that love can be found in many forms and can flourish against all odds. –SR
Red Joan
Spies. Beautiful British Actors. Judy Dench. Does a thriller about an ex-KGB British spy need anything else? Shifting back and forth in time, from the arrest of Melita Norwood who supplied intelligence to the Soviets and enabled them to create their own atomic bomb, to her early schoolgirl days, Red Joan is a slow-burning drama that strikes hot when Cold War incentives are revealed. The star of the show, surprisingly, is not the Dame herself, but her younger counterpart, Sophie Cookson. Sophie brings a comedic and relatable sympathy to the spy character that compels us to question what we would do in Joan’s place. She shows us the consequences and personal sacrifices of a woman in her position who is not only a spy, but also a scientist and a lover. –SR
The Black Book
Focusing on the mysterious upbringing of an orphan boy and his governess, this Portuguese drama fails to answer its own questions on identity. Set at the turn of the 18th century, the film provides visual pleasure with locations ranging from Venice to Paris. But for those hoping for a full story rather than period trappings, the film is lacking. No single element of the script stands out enough to provide a lasting emotional impression, except, perhaps the dramatic narration of the governess which spans the film. However, despite the narration’s assistance, the audience is left questioning the characters’ choices and true aspirations, even at the height of action. –SR
Comments are closed.