Catching up with last year

If it’s not obvious already, I have to confess that what I offer here are not reviews, far less criticism, but purely personal reactions, from the perspective of a lifelong obsession with film.  Whether that obsession is deep or shallow I leave to the reader.  I am merely sharing my own enthusiasms and warnings, in the random order of my viewing as 2019 recedes in the rearview mirror, and the best films of the year arrive on one streaming service or another.  I’ll keep adding to this viewing diary, as I get around to seeing the best-reviewed films of the year.

Nakedly and obsessively autobiographical, Johanna Hogg’s The Souvenir (MC-91, AMZ) emerges as piquant and elliptical, about a romance that is both nightmare and puzzle.  The affair transpires between a privileged young film student with an apartment in Knightsbridge (though it isn’t on the soundtrack, it’s appropriate to think of “Play with Fire” by the Rolling Stones) and a posh but sketchy, somewhat-older man with an art history degree, who purports to work for the Foreign Office (when he isn’t taking heroin).  The title references a Fragonard painting with which he woos her.  She’s played with refreshing milky openness by Honor Swinton Byrne (her mother impersonated by actual mother Tilda Swinton); he’s played with exiguous oily charm by Tom Burke.  Her apartment, which Hogg replicated meticulously as a film set, is in the vicinity of Harrod’s, where the couple periodically dines in high style (and one of the film’s most enigmatic scenes recreates an IRA bombing there in 1983).  So this adds up to a portrait of the filmmaker as a young woman, in the midst of a toxic but self-defining relationship.  The style of personal authenticity in film is both discussed and exemplified here, and yet I was not as enamored of it as many critics were.  This is one of those films that requires a second viewing that I am not inclined to give.  I file it under Rich People Problems.

The Report (MC-66, AMZ) succeeds in at least two ways: as antidote and refutation to Zero Dark Thirty (and other apologists for torture); and as a showpiece for the young male actor of the moment, Adam Driver.  Annette Bening is also a plus, playing Diane Feinstein as the head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, for whom the eponymous report is being produced, almost single-handedly by the Driver character, over five years of research in windowless rooms, at the CIA and elsewhere.  The report belatedly debunks the rationale for Extreme Interrogation Techniques, the Cheneyesque euphemism for torture, which the CIA had already acknowledged as a failure in a secret internal report.  Scott Z. Burns creates an inaction thriller about political conspiracy and governmental whistleblowing, which sustains interest while staying close to the facts.  And it lands at a moment that makes it all the more relevant.

Silly but endearing, Long Shot (MC-67, HBO) is a confection concocted out of dozens of romantic comedies, but sweet and tasty nonetheless.  Lip-smacking you might call it, especially given the presence of Charlize Theron, as a do-gooder Secretary of State initiating a presidential run.  She hires schleppy journalist Seth Rogen as a speechwriter, since she used to babysit for him when they were both teens.  Unlikely sparks fly, unextinguished by comic comedowns.  Rogen is okay despite the evident beauty-&-the-beast implausibility, but Theron proves once again her amazing versatility, to go with astounding beauty.  She can project power, but also vulnerability and slapstick.  I second Anthony Lane in calling her “the spiritual heir to Barbara Stanwyck.”

Christian Petzold is the rare German filmmaker whose work I follow, and his latest is Transit (MC-82, AMZ), which is strangely engrossing.  Most of his earlier films, including Barbara and Yella, centered on Nina Hoss, but here the captive and captivating woman is a secondary character, embodied by Paula Beer.  She in effect plays the Ingrid Bergman role in this twisted and twisty re-imagining of Casablanca by way of Kafka, set in present-day Marseilles, with political exiles trying to flee the fascist stormtroopers who already occupy the rest of France, and waiting for transit papers to reach Mexico.  Three men in turn hope to sail away with this woman, and the most Bogart of them is played by Franz Rogowski, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Joaquin Phoenix.  Though based on a World War II novel, the film is set in the imminent present, the troops wearing modern day riot gear, and bears heavily on the fate of refugees today.  As always, Petzold’s direction is unflashy but deeply layered, with most of the action internal, in the sorting out of personal and moral dilemmas.

Wild Rose (MC-80, Hulu) successfully pushed a lot of my buttons, and will send me in search of more work by director Tom Harper and exploding star Jessie Buckley, who by herself is reason enough to seek out this film.  She plays a wild Glaswegian girl who dreams of going to Nashville and becoming a country phenom.  She’s already a feature on Glasgow’s version of the Grand Old Opry, but fiercely committed to breaking out and making a bigger impact.  A jail term and two children she had before the age of 18 stand in her way, though her mother (Julie Waters) is helpful as well as critical.  The country music soundtrack and especially Ms. Buckley’s own singing are a treat, and the story artfully combines Ken-Loach-like kitchen-sink realism with show-biz fantasy, to an unexpected but satisfying conclusion.  I was with this movie all the way to the very end, and through the final credits.

Crossing media but sticking with this post’s heading, I come to the miniseries Chernobyl (MC-82, HBO), whose continuing accolades steeled me to the task and test of watching.  It truly is horrific, both in replicated detail and in radiating implications, which the winds blow in our direction.  On one level, it’s a well-made disaster thriller, unfolding inexorably through ever-expanding challenges.  On another, it’s an eye-opening lecture on nuclear physics, and almost a negative image of Apollo 11 in its portrait of scientific ingenuity and technical expertise.  On a third, it’s a universal parable of the perils of governmental lying.  It helps that our way into the story is eased by a familiar cast: Jared Harris as the nuclear scientist who leads the response, Emily Watson as a composite character representing the other scientists working on the reasons for the disaster, and Stellan Skarsgard as the Soviet minister assigned to deal with it (the latter two in a weird reunion from Breaking the Waves).  Hard to figure out how something like this could come from the screenwriter of Hangover movies and the director of music videos (Craig Mazin and Johan Renck, respectively), but the production values are impeccable, and while incorporating some familiar dramatizing tropes, the series does not completely falsify the story, which is cautionary in the extreme.  So grit your teeth, strap on a strip of metal to protect your genitals, and get busy confronting this disaster.

There are as many varieties of cinephilia as there are of sensibility, but my own could hardly be more opposite from Quentin Tarantino’s.  My reactions to his films range from mild amusement at the absurdity of it all, to disgust at the cartoonish violence.  That said, my view of Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (MC-83, dvd) leans toward the former before veering toward the latter.  His effort to traverse the terrain of popular culture in the late Sixties, from media and music to commercials and clothes, kept me entertained for stretches, but not for the ridiculously-long running time.  The redeeming feature of it all is the cool and collected performance of Brad Pitt, as stunt man and factotum to fading action star Leonardo DiCaprio, once a TV headliner, now reduced to bad-guy guest shots and spaghetti Westerns.  The typically appealing Margot Robbie features in an adjacent story.  And all the various cameos are quite entertaining, from Al Pacino to Lena Dunham.  Technically accomplished and adept at pastiche, Tarantino has wit and enthusiasm, but no sense or empathy.  This time around, I didn’t hate his work, but certainly didn’t love it either.  If you want to watch a movie about the manias of moviemaking, I would re-direct your attention to Francois Truffaut’s Day for Night, one of my all-time favorite films.

Documendations update

Whether or not Walter Pater was correct that “all art aspires to the condition of music,” my contention is that all cinema aspires to the condition of documentary, bringing visual confirmation of worlds we would not otherwise encounter.  Here I’ll be offering a survey of recent and recommended documentaries, the straight stuff, so to speak, real-to-reel life.  This list includes four of the recently-announced Oscar nominations.

Yet one more reason to be wistful for the Obamas is the first film from their “Higher Ground” production deal with Netflix, American Factory (MC-86, NFX).  Trust Barack and Michelle to find and fund Julia Reichert, a documentarian I have favored since Growing Up Female (1970), Union Maids (1976), and Seeing Red (1983).  Here partnered with Steven Bognar, she follows the fate of a GM plant in Dayton OH, from its closure in 2008, through its 2015 purchase by a Chinese billionaire as a plant to produce auto glass, to the difficulties encountered in melding the two cultures into an effective workforce.  Many other themes are adumbrated in this deep and wide cinematic exploration, about work and business in the 21^st century global economy.

Another telling insight into modern Chinese culture is provided by One Child Nation (MC-85, AMZ).  Director Nanfu Wang came from China to America for college and film school, and returns when she has a child of her own, to explore the wide-ranging implications of the one-child policy in force at the time of her own birth in 1985.  This is a cautionary tale about the government takeover of human fertility, encompassing not just unrelenting propaganda, but forced sterilization, abortion, and even infanticide, and the costs of compliance on individuals.  Emotionally disturbing but thought provoking, this is a pointedly personal exploration of a public issue, with a nod to the opposite problem of choice in this country.

It’s likely that the Academy will make a political statement by honoring the Obamas, but as a film – in its beauty, novelty, and fable-like resonance – Honeyland (MC-86, Hulu) is the best and most surprising documentary of the year.  In remote Macedonia, a lone Turkish woman lives in a deserted village with her elderly and ailing mother, tending bees both in the wild and in her own hives, carefully attuned to their well-being.  A large and boisterous family moves into one of the abandoned properties and makes a feckless stab at farming.  Our heroine tries to be welcoming to the interlopers, especially the children, but only one serious-minded boy actually appreciates the crone’s wisdom.  As in many documentaries, the appeal lies in the entry into an unknown and mysterious world, but this one is extraordinary not just in its access, but in the extreme grace of its cinematography, which illuminates the inner beauty of a magnificently ugly old woman.

Another lesson in sustainability is provided by The Biggest Little Farm (MC-73, Hulu), a charmingly eclectic retelling of an attempt to reclaim the played-out monoculture of a California farm, into a natural Eden of diversity, despite all kinds of adversity.  The film is good-natured in every sense of the word.  Accomplished wildlife photographer John Chester directs and narrates the story of how he and his foodie wife Molly determined to live a life of purpose by developing a viable all-natural farm, following the precepts of a biodiversity guru.  Augmented by interviews and even animation, the story unfolds across several years, through all the challenges and triumphs of trying to live in perfect harmony with nature.  I’d bump up its Metacritic rating by ten points.

In Hail Satan? (MC-76, Hulu), what looks initially like a satiric view of an oddball group of sketchy cranks, gradually morphs into a celebration of a different sort of diversity, one enshrined in the “establishment clause” of the constitution.  In Penny Lane’s documentary, the Satanic Temple grows from an island of misfit toys into a stalwart defender of religious and personal liberty, against those who would falsely claim the United States as a “Christian nation.”  These Satanists are less like a cult or coven of dark rituals, and more like a Dada-esque group of political and cultural provocateurs, with a credo that is frankly more rational and inclusive than that of their fundamentalist antagonists.

Though highly regarded, Apollo 11 (MC-88, Hulu) was a documentary I approached with some of the same skepticism and indifference I had for the moon landing itself, fifty years ago, when I studiously avoided all tv coverage of the event.  And today more than ever, it seems like a stupendous waste of energy and ingenuity, not to mention money, which could have been much better spent addressing terrestrial problems.  That said, this compilation of previously unseen NASA footage and official live audio calls up the event with remarkable and thoughtful vividness. 

Ask Dr. Ruth (MC-68, Hulu) fills in the Westheimer backstory in a way that makes her seem more significant than just a pop culture icon as talk show host and guest.  From her kindertransport survival of the Holocaust, which claimed her parents and other relatives, through three marriages, a stint as a sniper in the Zionist war in Palestine, followed by education in France and the U.S., and a career-defining stint with Planned Parenthood, which led to her becoming a pioneering media spokesperson for supportive sex therapy.  Put this in a category with RBG or Iris, though not quite in their class, as a celebration of the vitality of little old ladies.

I suspect that Hulu hoped to hit the same sweet spot as Minding the Gap with Jawline (MC-74, Hulu), which turns into a near miss, as an intimate look at the lives of teens in dead-end Rust Belt towns in a culture of social media.  The problem is the too-exclusive focus on one 16-year-old hoping to transcend his dismal circumstances by building a Bieber-esque following online, and then in public appearances.  The sociological phenomenon is of more interest than the individual, and the best thing I can say about this film is that it provides context and background for the excellent feature film Eighth Grade.

Note the surprisingly estimable line-up of documentaries on Hulu, but now we turn to a more traditional source of quality nonfiction film, PBS.  It’s always worth keeping up with the documentaries of interest offered in various series like “Independent Lens” and “POV” and “American Masters,” but here I highlight recent offerings on “American Experience” and “Frontline”

On the former, McCarthy (PBS) usefully recapitulates the brief transit of the senator whose name has become a byword for the persistent strain of American politics that relies on outright disregard for truth, coupled with demonization of marginal populations (sound familiar?).  In the Fifties, at least, there were some guardrails on the American political system, and some Republicans (including Ike) with the backbone to resist.  Rest assured that the spirit of Roy Cohn lives on, and Trump seems to have found his avatar in William Barr.  As in the classic Emile de Antonio documentary Point of Order, one of the most telling scenes is from the Army-McCarthy hearings, when Cohn is reacting to the moment when the senator self-destructs on national tv, back in the day when no politician actually believed he could get away with shooting someone in plain sight on Fifth Avenue.

Speaking of which, the reliably informative news series “Frontline” recently featured a two-part program on “America’s Great Divide,” with two hours each devoted to the Obama and Trump presidencies, as they solidified the division into partisan rancor, one inadvertently and the other purposefully.  The recapitulation was coherent and telling, with many voices on both sides.  Pointedly poignant – not to say nostalgic – and then enraging, the best part for me came from extended sequences I’d missed at the time, such as Barack’s singing “Amazing Grace” at the services for the Charleston church shooting.  I gather this production is available on Amazon Prime as well as PBS Passport.  Worth the time, if you can stand it.

Frontline also provided the platform for one of the Oscar nominees for Best Documentary Feature, For Sama (MC-89, PBS).  Waad Al-Kateab’s film puts a face (and mangled bodies) on to the bland assertion that Syria is the world’s worst humanitarian crisis (though there is Olympics-level competition for that title).  She’s a student in Aleppo when the protests against Assad escalate, and soon becomes a television journalist.  She covers the years of air attacks by the regime and the Russians, until the resistance is broken.  Along the way she marries a doctor and has a daughter (the Sama of the title), while documenting the airstrikes specifically targeting hospitals.  The protracted siege is an unimaginable situation, but you are there with the family, and with the beleaguered community, whether you want to be or not.  Hard to watch, but worth the effort.    

To round off this post, I return to another Oscar nominee from Netflix, Edge of Democracy (MC-81, NFX).  This is also a first-person film directed and narrated by a young woman; Petra Costa examines the political history of Brazil during the course of her lifetime, from the institution of democracy after military rule in the 1980s to the revenge of authoritarianism with Bolsonaro (Brazil’s Trump, in one of many scary parallels to American politics).  She has a unique perspective – as granddaughter of an influential oligarch, but daughter born to young radicals in hiding from the regime – and privileged access to Lula, as the union leader turned popular President is universally known, and Dilma (Rousseff), his hand-picked successor as President.  In an impeachment trial that was more of a sham and hoax and witch hunt than the USA’s, Dilma was removed from office.  Lula was sent to jail on a seemingly trumped-up charge, thereby forbidden to run in 2018 though released in 2019, paving the way for right-wing forces to install the useful idiot Bolsonaro.  It can’t happen here?  Maybe it already has.

It is worth noting that while women have been notoriously left out of Best Director nominations at the Academy Awards, all five Best Documentary Features candidates were at least co-directed by women.  The world would certainly be a better place if more films were made by women, and more attention were paid to them.

Martin Scorsese recently made a stir by opining that the superhero films that dominate the multiplexes are not “cinema,” but I believe he would agree with me that these documentaries are certainly what cinema was meant to be, what Roger Ebert defined as a “machine to generate empathy.”

A confession

When I made my list of the best TV of 2019, I cheated and included season three of Better Things (MC-96, Hulu), even though I’d only seen a few minutes of it.  I found the commercial-interrupted streaming on FX intolerable, so I had to wait impatiently for the third season to finally join the first two on Hulu.  I’d timidly rated it #2 on my list of half-hour comedies, but now I will boldly move it into #1 (Brits had a separate list, but I’d put Better Things in a tie with Fleabag for the very best comedy). 

(This show by itself warrants a trial subscription to Hulu – commercial-free option essential – but if you go beyond their featured network programming, there’s a lot of good stuff hidden in the margins, among foreign and indie films, and documentaries especially, which I’ll be covering in my next post.)

I also confess that I am a little in love with Pamela Adlon, squat and squawky-voiced as she may be, but so original and authentic, brash and out-there, in this heavily autobiographical series, as the fiftyish single working mom of three teen or tween girls.  In the third season, she writes and directs as well as stars, brilliantly on all counts, leaving behind the taint of association with Louis C.K.  The girls are great too, as is the whole ensemble of LA creative types.

There are gags galore, salty language and toilet humor, with plenty of embarrassing situations, but in the context of unflinching observations of real life – work and family and friends – from a pointedly female perspective.  As an implicit feminist without portfolio, Adlon’s defining characteristic is forthrightness.  She’s going to open her mouth, and only occasionally put her foot in it.

From a different generation and the opposite coast (though Adlon was born in Albany), I miss many of the show’s cultural signifiers, and am unfamiliar with most of the music, but they seem exceptionally well-chosen.  If you can handle the brazen situations and potty-mouthed dialogue, I strongly recommend this show.  Better Things may not be one of the more memorable titles, but the series remains one of the best things on TV.