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.