 After learning that Kelly Reichardt is the favorite filmmaker of Bong Joon Ho - the mastermind behind 2019's greatest film, Parasite - I admittedly went into this bracket with extremely high expectations. When Bong Joon Ho won the coveted Palme d’Or at last year’s Cannes Film Festival for his film Parasite, one person’s vote on the jury held special meaning for him: that of the director Kelly Reichardt. A pillar of American independent cinema, Reichardt favors quiet, minimalistic storytelling, often focused on the margins of society. As she once put it, “My films are just glimpses of people passing through.” Bong has spoken frequently of his appreciation for her work; he called the opening shot of her 2008 film, Wendy and Lucy, “one of the most beautiful opening scenes in the history of the movies.” - David Sims, The Guardian And if you are a fan of either, I strongly recommend reading this adorable interview in its entirety here. But first, a little about Kelly... Born in 1960's Miami, Reichardt developed a love of photography from an early age. She went on to earn her MFA at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and made her directorial debut in 1994 with the film River of Grass. But it would take over a decade before she started making feature films regularly.
"I had 10 years from the mid-1990s when I couldn’t get a movie made. It had a lot to do with being a woman. That’s definitely a factor in raising money. During that time, it was impossible to get anything going, so I just said, ‘Fuck you!’ and did Super 8 shorts instead." - The Guardian She's known for finding her locations first, and her story second, and has paved the way for what critics call "neo-neo-realism." Her dialogue is sparse, her plots simple, and her cinematography epic. The script days (the amount of time that passes in the film) are almost always less than a week; her films are windows into lives of simple people, and it's a small but richly textured capsule. River of Grass (1994)Directed by: Kelly Reichardt Written by: Kelly Reichardt & Jesse Hartman Starring: Lisa Donaldson, Larry Fessenden IMDB Synopsis: Cozy, a dissatisfied housewife, meets Lee at a bar. A drink turns into a home break-in, and a gun shot sends them on the run together, thinking they've committed murder. I had originally put First Cow down as one of the Reichardt films for this bracket, but since it's not available yet (and who knows if/when movie theaters will be operational again) I decided to look for another that was easier to find on a streaming service. I stumbled upon River of Grass and instantly remembered seeing the move trailer about 4 years ago. It had been re-released in 2016 after the film's distributor, Oscilloscope Laboratories, launched a Kickstarter in order to digitally restore the film, and made it's way around the Sundance Film Festival again, 22 years after it's original debut. It looked grainy and weird and effortlessly cool, giving me the same kind of vibes I got from Ghost World and Reality Bites. It appeared to pay homage to an era without tokenizing it; intentional without trying too hard. “A road movie without the road, a love story without the love, and a crime story without the crime.”— Kelly Reichardt The graphic novel-based Ghost World is in a league of its own, however; River of Grass feels more like it was inspired by a shoebox full of vintage photographs and postcards, found in the sticky attic of a distant relative: the the visual journey is exceptionally well-curated but the narrative thread is sparse, but the two roads never really merge. At times it almost felt more like one of Lana Del Rey's more experimental music videos than a feature film - not a bad thing, but, you know... not what I was expecting. “Lee and I had crossed that straight line that dad called the law, and I could feel the butterflies in my stomach as I tumbled deeper into a life of crime. After all, murder was thicker than marriage, and Lee and I were now bound by the life we took.” I wish I'd known a bit more about her filmmaking before I'd walked into these, because I feel like I would've appreciated her approach a bit more. The trailers do make it look like they'll be much faster-paced - and that's not to say I have the attention span of Michael Bay fan - but when you set up a premise that echoes Natural Born Killers and True Romance, one can't help but anticipate a little more action. That being said, I cannot emphasize enough how fucking cool the whole movie looked. The heavy filmic grain and square screen easily could've come across as pretentious, but instead it was nostalgic; it made me feel like I was watching a vintage slideshow, or going through my grandmother's scrapbook. “I stood near the water thinking about different things, and sometimes catching a glimpse of my life as if I was thumbing through an old photo album.” Meek's Cutoff (2010)Directed by: Kelly Reichardt Written by: Jonathan Raymond Starring: Michelle Williams, Bruce Greenwood, Zoe Kazan, Paul Dano, Shirley Henderson IMDB Synopsis: Settlers traveling through the Oregon desert in 1845 find themselves stranded in harsh conditions. If River of Grass was like going through the polaroid section of an antique store, watching this movie was kind of like walking through a museum: it was undeniably beautiful, intensely quiet, and I enjoyed it a lot less than I thought I would. I wanted to like it. I know all the cool kids like it. But my god, it was boring! There! I said it! I could deal with the little-to-no-dialogue. I figured out pretty quickly that this wasn't a plot-driven film, and I was okay with that. I appreciated that the landscape was, essentially, the main character. I accepted that this was an "about the journey not the destination" kind of show. But the silence. The aching, never-ending silence. And I'm not an idiot, I KNOW that was intentional. You really fucking feel like you are in the middle of goddamn nowhere, and it's the 1800s, and when the sun sets it is dark AF. ...But also like it's a movie, and we will forgive you if you light your actors so we can see them? Literally half this movie is in the actual DARK because Reichardt refused to use anything more than an actual sad and tiny campfire to illuminate her actor's faces when anything was filmed at night. Sure, it was authentic... but was it worth it? Seriously, this is what it looked like:
You're supposed to feel overwhelmed by the silence, but I have to wonder why. I felt a kinship between Reichardt's eye and that of Jane Campion, particularly The Piano (I agonized over including Campion in this bracket, but since The Piano is one of my top 10 favorite movies of all time I felt it would be unfair; plus I intentionally wanted to focus on directors with less accolades). Honestly, one of the reasons that film is in my top 10 is because of the score - it's extraordinary, and one of my favorite classical music pieces to listen to. It shapes the story, it becomes as much of a character as Reichardt's desolate wasteland does - but it fills a space, rather than carving out one. It elevates the film from a silent pseudo-documentary to an artistic masterpiece; it gives it an edge of magic that Meek's Cutoff could've benefited from tremendously. I said that this wasn't a plot-driven film, but you definitely couldn't call it a character-driven story either. If I were to have you guess which character I was thinking of and I wasn't allowed to describe their outfits or the actor who plays them, you would have no idea who was who (except for Meeky McBeardy Face and The Native American). Pink Dress & White Bonnet Girl? Chick who played Moaning Myrtle in Harry Potter? That girl who's dating the big brother from Little Miss Sunshine in real life? And I literally have no idea who any of their husbands are (except for Dano) because they all look exactly the same and have not one characteristic distinction between them. I'm learning that when it comes to movies, I like to feel a sense of escapism - not necessarily fantasy, but I like to feel one degree above real life. I like beauty. I like fully developed, unique, weird characters with rich backstories and detailed idiosyncrasies. I like wide ranges of emotion, even if that emotion is boredom or desperation or restlessness. I don't like when movies explicitly tell you what to feel and when to feel it, but I also don't like feeling like the movie I'm watching is hard work. And Meek's Cutoff most certainly was. And the winner is...I'm frustrated by this idea that "good films" have to be exhausting and take so much effort to watch. Imagine if we held the same standards to food: "You can tell this was a good steak because it was as bleak and godless as the Oregon Trail; the salad took extreme concentration to digest; the soufflé offered no conclusion, but merely suggested a quiet murmur of what dessert could be."  I know it's not a perfect analogy. But at the end of the day, I want my movies to be a little, well - yummy. River of Grass was hardly delicious, but it was just weird enough to be memorable, and it had it's tasty moments.  
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 Before I begin eviscerating these films as kindly as possible, a little bit about the prolific Liliana Cavani... Born and raised in Italy, Cavani is the daughter of an architect father and a cinephile mother, who used to take her to the film house every Sunday. She studied literature and philology (the study of the structure, historical development, and relationships of a language or languages) from Bologna University in 1960, and had intended to become an archaeologist before switching gears entirely and choosing to pursue film instead. She attended Rome's well-respected "Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia", (Experimental Cinematography Center), and then like so many of our other Mad Matriarchs, began making documentaries to gain experience. It wasn't until her film The Night Porter in 1974 that she began to receive more critical (and occasionally controversial) acclaim for her filmmaking.
The Night Porter (1974)Directed by: Liliana Cavani Written by: Liliana Cavani & Italo Moscati Starring: Dirk Bogarde, Charlotte Rampling IMDB Synopsis: After a chance meeting at a hotel in 1957, Holocaust survivor Lucia and Nazi officer Max, who tortured her, resume their sadomasochistic relationship. It honestly blows my mind how a movie with such an OUTRAGEOUSLY FASCINATING DESCRIPTION could actually end up being so totally... underwhelming, in such a variety of ways. It was as disappointing in it's lack of sensitivity as it was in it's lack of brutality, which is an extremely odd sentiment to carry away from a film with such a barbaric premise. Honestly, do yourself a favor and skip it entirely. Watch this kinky Cabaret reinterpretation of Salome (trigger warning: it ends with a head in a box) and read the Roger Ebert quote and consider yourself 1 hour and 58 minutes richer for having not viewed this wildly mark-missing tragedy through your fingers (like I did). "The Night Porter" is as nasty as it is lubricious, a despicable attempt to titillate us by exploiting memories of persecution and suffering. It is (I know how obscene this sounds) Nazi chic. It's been taken seriously in some circles, mostly by critics agile enough to stand on their heads while describing 180-degree turns, in order to interpret trash as "really" meaningful..." "...That's not to say I object per se to the movie's subject matter, a sadomasochistic relationship taken up again 15 years after the war by a former SS concentration camp officer and the inmate he raped and dominated when she was a young girl. I can imagine a serious film on this theme -- on the psychological implications of shared guilt and the identification of the slave with the master -- but "The Night Porter" isn't such a film; it's such a superficial soap opera we'd laugh at it if it weren't so disquieting." - Roger Ebert
I wanted so badly to like this movie not just because of it's incredible premise, but because it was made by this badass Italian woman in the fucking 70's when women really weren't making movies, and they certainly weren't making movies like THIS. It is perhaps the most scathing insult I could give a Matriarch, so forgive me in advance: but if I hadn't known any better I would've assumed hands-down that this was directed by a man. The male gaze is so aggressively overwhelming in this that I really can't pin down whether Cavani was simply trying to emulate the toxic masculinity that was considered "normal" in her era or if she genuinely struggles with sexism herself. I agree wholeheartedly with Ebert in that it wasn't the subject matter that was off-putting, but in how casually Cavani handled it. I think what's the most disappointing about this film is that it had SO MUCH POTENTIAL to be so, so much better, and we know this to be true because there are EXAMPLES of excellent films that deal with the master-slave dynamic in a way that is respectful, intellectual, and fucking compassionate:
I have always had a deep and respectful fascination with the BDSM community, largely because of how many sex-positive and pure things I have seen come out of it. Most people incorrectly think that BDSM stands for “bondage dominance sadomasochism.” It actually stands for: “Bondage Discipline Submission Masochism.” The key difference? Submission, not sadism. It’s not just about taking pleasure in hurting someone else, it’s about experiencing the vulnerability of letting an other control you - this requires extreme trust and trustworthiness (which is why people with this lean tend to seek it out from a professional; it doesn’t tend to work with a “normal” partner, because there’s usually just too much personal baggage that confuses the boundaries). So we know that in BDSM relationship there is a “Dom” (dominant) and a “Sub” (submissive). You know what those essentially are? The Lover and the Beloved. Honestly, they’re just extreme, exaggerated, aggressive expressions of those two roles. That’s partly why so many people had such a vitriolic reaction to the 50 Shades phenomenon, and why I am so bitterly disappointed with The Night Porter: THAT IS NOT WHAT BDSM IS ABOUT. These stories are about the wrong kind of control - total ownership of a human being, of making a woman a man's literal slave - in and out of the bedroom. They are abusive, manipulative, controlling, and wrong, which is the antithesis of an authentic BDSM arrangement.
I am also bitterly disappointed with this film because I really, really thought (okay, fantasized) from the description that the Holocaust survivor was going to be the Dom... how much cooler would that have been?? Picture this: a beta male, closeted Sub is forced by the Gestapo to become an SS Officer. He isn't racist, in fact he really likes Jewish women. ...He even has this dirty little fantasy of getting beaten up by a Jewish woman, he doesn't know why, maybe his German guilt? He just wants some hot Ashkenazi broad to wear sharp stillettos and walk up and down his back until he bleeds and cries. Then one day on the job, some officers are making fun of him, saying he's never raped a Jew before. They taunt and bully him into dragging a particularly beautiful young woman out behind the Holocaust dumpsters... but he can't do it. The woman - played by a precocious and exquisite Charlotte Rampling - mocks him. "Oh, the little Nazi can't get it up?" She throws dirt in his face. She spits on him. She takes his whip and beats him. He likes it. She likes it. They make passionate, consensual love, and continue to do so until he sneaks her out of Germany and they open their own BDSM dungeon in NYC, THANK YOU, YOU'RE WELCOME, THE END. Ripley's Game (2002)Directed by: Liliana Cavani Written by: Charles McKeown & Liliana Cavani, based on the novel by Patricia Highsmith Starring: John Malkovich, Dougray Scott, Lena Headey IMDB Synopsis: A dying family man in need of money is persuaded to assassinate a European crime boss. Once again, my mind is BLOWN by how much this movie misses the mark. Contrary to the IMDB synopsis, the premise is essentially about this sociopathic part-time hit man (Malkovich) who gets Very Slightly Snubbed at a party by his totally average-Joe neighbor, Dougray Scott, who's only real character traits are that he is dying of Leukemia and is married to Baby Cersei.
So basically just ripping of Albert Camus' The Stranger, Malkovich decides to exact his totally hurtful, gratuitous, and unnecessary revenge on Baby Cersei's Dying Husband by paying his Hit Man Boss to hire the poor guy to assassinate someone??? And then what??? Like just die from guilt??? Unclear. And we never find out, because the Hit Man Boss decides to get greedy, and pressure BCDH to assassinate someone ELSE (this is all for money, of course, which he's being convinced will help his family after he dies). But Malkovich is like "no I just wanted him to murder one guy" and Hit Man Boss is like "too bad" and then the second hit job goes TERRIBLE probably because BCDH is a super shitty hit man and Malkovich has to bail him out but one of the targets doesn't die so then BCDH and Malkovich have to hide away in his giant mansion in Italy together and wait for the the survivor and his cronies to come attack them but don't worry, Malkovich kills them all, but only survives because FUCKING BABY CERSEI'S IDIOT DYING HUSBAND STEPS IN FRONT OF A BULLET FOR HIM. AND THIS IS LITERALLY ALL BECAUSE THIS POOR SAP SAID ONE KIND OF MEAN THING ABOUT MALKOVICH AT A PARTY. WTF.
I suppose I can't totally fault Cavani for the plot because this was based on a novel (one of a trilogy about this Mr. Ripley character, apparently), but from what I can guess, Mr. Ripley is a fuck ton more interesting than Cavani gives him credit for. When I say that this film misses the mark, once again I am sorely feeling the gaping void of satire when it could've been expertly used: A totally ridiculous and easily offended sociopath who moonlights as a hitman gets very moderately insulted at a party and sets up an elaborate and totally absurd revenge plot that goes hilariously wrong. THAT IS PRIME FODDER FOR SATIRE. Movies like The Game and Ready or Not did an aggressively better job at handling the tension between violence, humor, and absurdity, and managed to do so while finding moments of real anguish and existentialism. Ripley's Game just took itself so seriously, which is not only a ludicrous position for a movie about such an absurd character to take, it's a goddamn waste. And the winner is...I think one of the biggest let-downs of this bracket was that I am walking away from it feeling like I have very little to say about Cavani. I couldn't pick her directing style out of a line up, much less describe or analyze it. There was nothing memorably beautiful about either film (except, of course, that Cabaret scene from The Night Porter, as well as a totally unnecessary but lovely ballet number earlier on), no strong style choices good or bad. I never got a sense for her taste or aesthetic, or for what was important to her, other than gravely misplaced senses for when to demand levity or seriousness. So I am doing something unprecedented, BECAUSE I CAN: I am moving the fuck on.  MARJANE SATRAPI FOR THE WIN!!! Satrapi moves on in the competition because I am forfeiting these films. I refuse to let a movie about a Nazi raping a teenager win, and I refuse to give the award to a totally mediocre and lame anti-satire about bullying a guy with Leukemia. While I have appreciation for how Cavani trail-blazed women-helmed cinema in Europe, she doesn't hold a candle to what Satrapi has accomplished artistically.     Although the nature of this project incurs some friendly competition, the heart of the blog was always about education. I wanted to learn more about the under-publicized, under-appreciated, and underrated women directors of the world, and I for one can say that I stumbled upon an actual iconic GEM when it comes to Marjane Satrapi. I vaguely remember seeing Persepolis a million years ago in high school and thinking for the first time, "Oh wow, cartoons can be for adults? And not just, like, The Simpsons?" (a show which, I must add, was forbidden in our Evangelical Christian household). The point is, I had no idea yet that a simple comic could be used to tell a powerful story. I thought they were just for the Sunday Funnies, or for doodling on the back of church programs during particularly long and monotonous services. 
"People are so afraid to say the word 'comic'," she told the Guardian newspaper in 2011. "It makes you think of a grown man with pimples, a ponytail and a big belly. Change it to 'graphic novel' and that disappears. No: it's all comics." Satrapi was raised in Tehran, Iran, by Marxist parents who were actively against the monarchy of the last Shah. She was only 10 years old when the Iranian Revolution happened in 1979, and her family began to experience the oppression of Muslim fundamentalism. Concerned for the safety of their precocious and outspoken young teenager, Satrapi's parents sent her to Vienna to attend school. After a brief stint (and failed young marriage) back in Tehran, she relocated to Paris, France, where she still lives today. By the age of 30, she published her autobiographical comic books (NOT graphic novel, see above quote) for which she received global and critical acclaim. (Ironically, Chicago would later remove her books from schools because they believed them to be too "graphic and violent." HILARIOUS.) A few years later, Persepolis was adapted into a film, and a few years after that, her other successful comic book, Chicken with Plums, was also adapted for the screen. Persepolis (2007) Directed by: Marjane Satrapi, Vincent Paronnaud Written by: Marjane Satrapi (comic), Vincent Paronnaud (scenario) Starring: Chiara Mastroianni, Danielle Darrieux, Catherine Deneuve, Simon Abkarian IMDB Synopsis: A precocious and outspoken Iranian girl grows up during the Islamic Revolution. Before I begin discussing this phenomenal and important film, I would like to take this moment to pay tribute to the significance of animation. I know it's off-brand for me, but I won't rant. I will simply leave these pictures below, as a tribute to moments in recent animation that have Made Sarah Cry (a rarity). If my cold black heart can feel something from some squiggly lines and remote voice actors, then my god so can you. The takeaway: animation is powerful.
Still not convinced that a mostly black-and-white animated feature about a teenage girl during the Iranian Revolution entirely in French is for you? I suppose I can't blame you. After all, how could a story so niche and specific illicit any universal pang of affection?
How could simple black and white images evoke any deep or meaningful emotions, or properly grasp the devastation of war, death, pain, or loss?
How could a mere cartoon effectively communicate the childhood trauma of saying goodbye to your favorite uncle in prison, or hiding from bombs in the middle of the night?? Surely a simple comic couldn't capture - through the eyes of a child, no less! - the selfishness of humanity during war-time rationing or the moment one abandons God??!!
I MEAN LITERALLY, ONE CAN ONLY IMAGINE THAT NAUGHT BUT THE MIND OF AN UNCULTURED RUBE COULD BE TOUCHED BY THE ANIMATED ITERATION OF the awkwardness of puberty, the joy of discovering punk rock, the shame of adolescence, the confusion of being a foreigner in a foreign land, the memory of precious conversations with a family member now gone, the crippling anguish of falling in love, realizing your friends are trash for the first time, rocking out alone in your room, the bitter and overwhelming loneliness of growing up anywhere, any time, at all, ever... Or, perhaps most memorably, the devastation of a heartbreak, and the never-ending to journey to feel "normal" again...
 ...Perhaps I have made my point. This film is as devastating as Chicken with Plums is whimsical (seriously, so much whimsy). Perhaps more so. There is something terribly poignant about the genuinely universal threads in Persepolis, and it is as enriching as it is heartbreaking to learn about a time in history not so long ago that affected so many people. This surviving artist is but one small mercy of that time, and her story is a goddamned international treasure. Chicken with Plums (2011)Directed by: Vincent Paronnaud, Marjane Satrapi Written by: Vincent Paronnaud, Marjane Satrapi Starring: Mathieu Amalric, Maria de Medeiros, Golshifteh Farahani, Edouard Baer, Isabella Rossellini IMDB Synopsis: Since his beloved violin was broken, Nasser Ali Khan, one of the most renowned musicians of his day, has lost all taste for life. Finding no instrument worthy of replacing it, he decides to confine himself to bed to await death. If Amelie and Jojo Rabbit had a baby, then forced that baby to read Nietsche and Camus, listen to Tom Waits records, chain smoke hand-rolled cigarettes, and develop a drinking and/or gambling problem, then you would have Chicken with Plums. Essentially, a totally underrated and delightfully whimsical fairy tale complete with The Angel of Death, Isabella Rossellini's giant breasts, and a magical violin. Pair all this with nods to Coraline-esque animation and a devastating score, and it's honestly a shame that our delicate American palettes can't handle tragedy like the French do, because this movie should be right up there in the international cult-classic hall of fame.  I mean, come on! Humor, whimsy, AND melancholy?? THOSE ARE MY THREE FAVORITE MOVIE INGREDIENTS!!! But alas, even I cannot escape my fragile American sensibilities, because the moment it ended and I shouted, "OH COME ON, WE GET IT, YOU'RE FRENCH, BUT JESUS CHRIST." It's really fucking sad, dude. Perhaps the most tragic part of it all is how... mundane the tragedy is. A depressed musician in a loveless marriage loses the last thing that ever gave him pleasure on this earth - his violin - and he resigns himself to lay in bed and wait for death. We see his life for exactly what it is: a misunderstood and neglected wife, vulnerable children pining for a present father-figure, and a man who just can't heal from his own baggage long enough to get his shit together. As my theatre professor used to say, "Tragedy is breaking a nail; comedy is falling down a well and dying." In this, you get a bit of both. If an anti-hero is the name of a protagonist who is also the villain, what do you call the man who is the protagonist but not at all heroic and also really, really depressing? I suppose I'll just call him The Violinist. There are two ways to look at this film: 1) The Violinist spends the eight days before his totally preventable and actually kind of lazy suicide by lying in bed and whimsically moping over the past like a gigantic emotionally stunted baby, or 2) The Violinist, overwhelmed by the fragility of life and the inevitability of death, spends eight precious days reminiscing over every delicious detail of his better memories, savoring them as if they were his favorite last meal (CAN YOU GUESS WHAT THAT DISH IS?) And both are true. His life was both epic and mundane, tragic and ordinary, plagued with heartbreaking loss and speckled with the daily struggles that every person endures. Just as yours and mine are. Only for The Violinist (and, luckily, for us), we get to experience this juxtaposition with the careful and brilliant hands of the magician, the weaver, the alchemist, Marjane Satrapi: I don't know how many times I can safely use the word "whimsical" (that makes 7 if you count the photo from the trailer; I made them bold for your counting ease) without looking like a total hack, but this is seriously a film worth checking out. I can't gush enough about it because Persepolis was such a fucking BANGER and I don't want it to eclipse this remarkable little gem. And the winner is... |
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But please, please do yourself a favor and watch them both!! You will be WHIMSIED!!!! (that's 8)
Once again, I feel that I am at an impasse.
I am reminded of my struggle with Meryl Madness, wherein I had to negotiate determining the best Meryl performance and not the best Meryl overall film. I have one film to represent each woman, but the competition is ultimately about who is the best director.
If there was an overall algorithm for best film percentage (based on a system I completely made up because THIS IS MY BRACKET AND I FUCKING CAN), Mira Nair would win:
HOW-fucking-EVER....
Babbit had a perfect movie.
A PERFECT MOVIE, Y'ALL! Do you know how rarely that happens? Let me give you a quick rundown of some of Sarah's All Time Favorite Perfect Films:
Babbit had a perfect movie.
A PERFECT MOVIE, Y'ALL! Do you know how rarely that happens? Let me give you a quick rundown of some of Sarah's All Time Favorite Perfect Films:
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Have I scared you away yet, now that you know my taste is probably out-dated and trashy and not as cool as yours? Unclear.
Surely you can see a common thread, however: unique aesthetics, iconic female characters, an epic plot about otherwise "mundane" people, and just a dash of sci-fi-, fantasy, whimsy, or satire (and while we're here, dope scores/soundtracks). They are dark and humorous, riding that razor-blade edge between hitting too close to home and scratching right around the itch. These are movies that I could watch over and over and over again, and always find something new and exciting.
In the article You Give Out Too Many Stars, Roger Ebert defended his take on film criticism by saying:
"The star ratings are relative, not absolute. If a director is clearly trying to make a particular kind of movie, and his audiences are looking for a particular kind of movie, part of my job is judging how close he came to achieving his purpose." |  |
I am inclined to agree. And although this is somewhat of a digression, I am now compelled to share another one of my favorite Ebert quotes, because it so aptly sums up my position on film criticism:
"I like movies too much. I walk into the theater not in an adversarial attitude, but with hope and optimism (except for some movies, of course). I know that to get a movie made is a small miracle, that the reputations, careers and finances of the participants are on the line, and that hardly anybody sets out to make a bad movie. I do not feel comfortable posing as impossible to please. Film lovers attend different movies for different reasons, all of them valid."
You'll notice a lot of my Perfect Films were actually made on fairly small budgets. I work as a freelancer on a lot of smaller projects, so it's hard for me not to see the blood, sweat, and tears that goes into these indie darlings. My heart beats twice as strong for directors like Babbit AND Nair (particularly on their earlier projects), who had to really fight to make these films.
And the winner is...
This was not an easy choice to make. Both of these women have such strong and unique voices. ...But only one of them made A Perfect Movie.
Wait, what happened to Monsoon Wedding vs. Salaam Bombay?? As it turns out, some of these movies are extremely hard to find on streaming platforms (even more so when you're looking for subtitles), and Vanity Fair was free. Sorry! Also, I have low key been wanting to see it since I read the book in high school, but then 16 years passed and I had no reason to watch it anymore. ...Until now!
But first, a little about the sumptuous and unparalleled Mira Nair...
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Mira Nair was born and raised in rural India, and at 13 attended an Irish-Catholic missionary boarding school in the city. It was here that she became enthralled with English literature, subsequently influencing her decision to attend Harvard University (where she received a full-ride scholarship). She studied sociology and film, making her first documentary short for her thesis in 1979. She spent the next few years gaining experience by making docs, and in the early 80's she directed and co-wrote her first non-doc feature, Salaam Bombay!, for which she was the first the woman to receive the Golden Lion Award from the Venice Film Festival.
Monsoon Wedding (2001)
Directed by: Mira Nair
Written by: Sabrina Dhawan
Starring: Naseeruddin Shah, Lillete Dubey, Shefali Shah, & Tillotama Shome
IMDB Synopsis: A stressed father, a bride-to-be with a secret, a smitten event planner, and relatives from around the world create much ado about the preparations for an arranged marriage in India.
I am low key excited about how un-American this film was, because it gives me an opportunity to briefly talk about a subject that I know intimately but rarely have a platform to discuss...
Y'all ever heard of Warm Cultures vs. Cold Cultures?
Written by: Sabrina Dhawan
Starring: Naseeruddin Shah, Lillete Dubey, Shefali Shah, & Tillotama Shome
IMDB Synopsis: A stressed father, a bride-to-be with a secret, a smitten event planner, and relatives from around the world create much ado about the preparations for an arranged marriage in India.
I am low key excited about how un-American this film was, because it gives me an opportunity to briefly talk about a subject that I know intimately but rarely have a platform to discuss...
Y'all ever heard of Warm Cultures vs. Cold Cultures?
"Anger Management"
I doubted as much. Fun Fact, I was born in Paris, France, moved to Menlo Park, California when I was 4, moved to Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, when I was 12, moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, when I was 17, then moved to the Midwest when I was 21. My parents are Evangelical Christian missionaries, so I was raised participating in aggressive amounts of hospitality to a global melting pot of fellow missionary guests, and the differences between "Warm Culture" and "Cold Culture" was something that was discussed frequently.
This was a particular hot-button topic while living in Hawaii, when my parents were working with YWAM Kona, a base that attracted a large population of Korean missionaries. The school was suddenly facing a number of issues between the folks from Southeast Asia and those from, say, Germany or Norway, and it all came down to their massive cultural differences.
Eventually someone wrote a book about it called From Foreign to Familiar (which was low key the second Bible in our home), and at some point after that, an graphic designer named Yang Liu made a series of illustrations that super succinctly describes some of the fundamental differences between these two types of cultures:
This was a particular hot-button topic while living in Hawaii, when my parents were working with YWAM Kona, a base that attracted a large population of Korean missionaries. The school was suddenly facing a number of issues between the folks from Southeast Asia and those from, say, Germany or Norway, and it all came down to their massive cultural differences.
Eventually someone wrote a book about it called From Foreign to Familiar (which was low key the second Bible in our home), and at some point after that, an graphic designer named Yang Liu made a series of illustrations that super succinctly describes some of the fundamental differences between these two types of cultures:
 "Me"  "Opinion"  "Parties" |  "Way of Life"  "Boss"  "Handling a Problem" |
I am taking the time to point this out because I believe it is essential to a critical appreciation of a film like Monsoon Wedding, and to all films made from a non-Western point of view. While the illustrations are certainly simplified and a little over-generalized, they capture the spirit of how different the non-American approach to life, family, and story-telling can be.
Which brings us to Monsoon Wedding, a film that leisurely meanders from one sub-plot to the next, rarely bothering to explain who is who or hint to where we can expect this journey will take us. We can determine that there is a young woman, Pimmi, who is low key having an affair with a married man, but decides to cut it off because she's decided to let her parents arrange a marriage for her, and the groom is coming TODAY. Pimmi's "older and unmarried cousin," Ria, is older and unmarried, and thinks romance is dead, probably because she is older and unmarried (they seriously describe her in those three words at least a dozen times).
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But Ria is far more concerned with her 10 year old niece, Aliya, who is garnering the attention of Creepy Uncle, and her reactions indicate to us that Ria might have some legitimate reasons (of the repressed-memory variety) for being so offensive.
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Parallel to the story is the super obnoxious wedding planner, Dubey, who I think might be India's Hugh Grant? Unclear. I found him a little yelly for my test, but he is otherwise befuddled and hapless, making him the perfect catch (not) for the totally underrated and secretly very hot family waitress (?), Alice (also unclear on her position. Also I am low key in love with Alice. YOU CAN DO BETTER, SWEETIE!) Anyway they have a meet-cute over some marigolds, and Dubey spends the rest of the movie following her around in a supposed-to-be-cute-but-mostly-creepy kind of way, and it's by the saving grace of Tillotama Shome's unparalleled eyeball acting that you end up cheering for the (eventually) happy couple.
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Pimmi eventually tells The Groom about her affair and he takes it like a champ, applauding her for starting their marriage out honestly. Ria catches Creepy Uncle definitely about to do something creepy, and confronts him, culminating in a very public confession: Creepy Uncle molested her as a child, and now he's after Aliya.
At first, Father of the Bride is in denial. Then he breaks down, ashamed that he didn't know his niece was vulnerable. He apologizes to Ria, but tells her that Creepy Uncle basically paid for the wedding, and he can't just ask him to leave. Please, will she take (another) one for the team, and come to the wedding anyway? Then just when you think Father of the Bride is really just gonna let the wedding photographer tell Ria to kneel by Creepy Uncle's feet "for composition," he has enough and tells Creepy Uncle to GTFO.
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This is massively significant for a Warm Culture, which is all about saving face and "the best of the group," but it's also pretty huge for a family in general. Frankly this film actually normalizes a number of things which you don't see often enough:
- women acknowledging they have been abused
- women being BELIEVED
- men crying
- men hugging
- men not being huge douchebags when they find out their girlfriend's aren't virgins
- courtship
- DANCING
As someone with two sisters who married in our family's backyards, I can attest to the palpable anxiety of planning a wedding, which Monsoon perfectly captures. There are so many scenes of random family members swarming the house, the kitchen, the dance floor, and I couldn't help but grin and roll my eyes at the memories that evoked.
Truth be told, as much as I have come to loathe the wedding experience, I would still give anything to go to a proper Indian wedding. The colors, the fabrics, the textures, the ritual, the sacredness of it all, is something that the West has all but abandoned, and something I think we long for deep down.
Vanity Fair (2004)
Directed by: Mira Nair
Written by: Julian Fellowes, Mark Skeet, & Matthew Faulk
Starring: Reese Witherspoon, Romola Garai, Rhys Ifans, & James Purefoy
IMDB Synopsis: Growing up poor in London, Becky Sharp defies her poverty-stricken background and ascends the social ladder alongside her best friend, Amelia Sedley.
Written by: Julian Fellowes, Mark Skeet, & Matthew Faulk
Starring: Reese Witherspoon, Romola Garai, Rhys Ifans, & James Purefoy
IMDB Synopsis: Growing up poor in London, Becky Sharp defies her poverty-stricken background and ascends the social ladder alongside her best friend, Amelia Sedley.
As is quickly becoming my tradition, I must acknowledge the Art Dept for their exceptional skill at delivering this aesthetic feast: Maria Djurkovic (Production Designer) & Beatrix Aruna Pasztor (Costume Design) for bequeathing us with these numerous ~ Delicious Moments ~. Instead of posting a hundred (or more) screen shots, I have to say the trailer actually captures all the best ones:
Special shout-out to my personal fave #deliciousmoments...
 "Putting the "Peen" in Jalapeño"  "Old-Timey Fingering" |  "Eyeball Fan"  "Vulcan Face Mask" |
I remember reading this book in high school and actually loving it, largely because I low key identified with its scrappy, clever, and charming anti-heroine, Becky Sharp. I haven't thought about that book in years, but upon reflection, I must say I have MUCH stronger opinions about it now, and they're all mostly along the lines of: why all the hatred?
Nair's film was criticized for sugar-coating Becky to make her a more palatable protagonist, most notably from Rotten Tomatoes: "A more likable Becky Sharp makes for a less interesting movie." First of all, I don't know that that's true; regardless of how the audience may feel, all the other characters definitely still view her as a villain. For what it's worth, I don't remember ever feeling like she was villainous at all.
She was a woman in survival mode, in a time when your only options were to be Super Fucking Ridiculously Rich or to be literally on your hands and needs scrubbing the floor in the one dress you owned and getting sexually harassed by your creepy boss who also owned the castle you lived in. Like of COURSE she was going to "do whatever it took" to NOT live like that, and frankly it is bonkers to me that she is described as being so "manipulative" and "conniving" when literally all she did was be a little bit smart and a little bit polite and speak FRENCH and half the the rich people were like "oh we like you now come sit with us" and the other half were like "what a VILLAIN."
 "Get in bitch, we're going social climbing." |  "You can't sit with us." |
I, for one, am relieved to read that Nair felt the same way I did about Becky: she was not a villain, she was just a woman who acted like a man before it was cool. (Just kidding, we still get harassed for it)
Nair first read Vanity Fair when she was 16. Back then, she identified very closely with Becky, the outsider trying to gatecrash high society. "Becky Sharp, among everything else in the novel, was the most memorable for me. She was a woman who was like us. She had been dealt cards by society but wanted to make her own deck."
..."But I loved it that Thackeray had given her her own set of morals. She could see through the bullshit at all times. She never lied and she was at home with the courtier as well as the king. That's where I identify with her, because I am the same person whether I'm at the Venice film festival or on the streets of Bombay."
Geoffrey Macnab, The Guardian
 My ONE aesthetic criticism is Johnathon Rhys-Meyers goddamn My Chemical Romance / scene kid / 2004 fauxhawk. WHAT IS HAPPENING WITH THOSE BANGS?? LMAO. |  The rest of the film is a rich and opulent answer to the question: "What if badass women of color painted during the Renaissance?"  |
I must commend Nair for squeezing a nearly 1,000 page book into the two-hour format, and while the pace did leave one with occasional emotional whiplash, I for one had zero complaints about the ending. If anything, I wish that the book had maintained more of the cruelty that society thrust upon Becky, to highlight how absurd it was that this woman was JUST TRYING HER BEST and she was all but tarred and feathered for it. You can't help but fall in love with a woman who works that hard, so I am on board with her Katy Perry Indian wedding (minus the cringey colonizer-ness of it all, of course).
 "How can I end this ripe mango of a movie in the damp bloody English countryside?" - Mira Nair |  "I don't even remember how the book ended, and honestly, I don't care." - Sarah Ruthless |
And the winner is...
I have had a hell of a time determining which film should win this bracket, because they were both so exceptionally DELICIOUS. Yeah, I said it.
Monsoon Wedding was hot tea and curry and marigolds and the smell of rain; Vanity Fair was old lace and sandalwood trunks and sherry. Both films were two hours long; Monsoon took place over four days, VF spanned twenty years. Monsoon was Eastern Warm Culture, VF was Western Cold Culture.
But ultimately, this competition is about which film I can see the director's hands on the most, which one best represents her message, her spirit, her story; which film is the Mira Nair-iest. And for me, that film was Monsoon Wedding.
Monsoon Wedding was hot tea and curry and marigolds and the smell of rain; Vanity Fair was old lace and sandalwood trunks and sherry. Both films were two hours long; Monsoon took place over four days, VF spanned twenty years. Monsoon was Eastern Warm Culture, VF was Western Cold Culture.
But ultimately, this competition is about which film I can see the director's hands on the most, which one best represents her message, her spirit, her story; which film is the Mira Nair-iest. And for me, that film was Monsoon Wedding.
I LITERALLY DON'T EVEN KNOW HOW IT'S POSSIBLE THAT I HAVE GOTTEN THIS FAR IN MY LIFE AND NEVER SEEN EITHER OF THESE MOVIES. IT IS LITERALLY OUTRAGEOUS. I AM OUTRAGED.
But before I lose my actual shit gushing about these films, a little about Jamie Babbitt...
But before I lose my actual shit gushing about these films, a little about Jamie Babbitt...
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Jamie Babbit grew up in Cleveland, where her mother ran a drug and alcohol rehab treatment program for teens called "New Directions" (inspiration for "True Directions," the gay conversion camp in But I'm A Cheerleader??). She majored in West African Studies at Barnard College which honestly cracks me the fuck up, because WHY?? After taking some film courses at NYU over the summer, she started working on film sets, basically lying her way into jobs she was totally under qualified for (honestly, mad respect). A few years later, she started making her own shorts, and just six years after graduating college, she made her first feature: But I'm A Cheerleader.
Itty Bitty Titty Committee (2007)
Directed by: Jamie Babbit
Written by: Jamie Babbit, Tina Mabry, Abigail McCarthy, Andrea Sperling
Starring: Melonie Diaz, Nicole Vicius, Guinevere Turner, Carly Pope
IMDB Synopsis: High School grad and all American gal, Anna, finds her purpose and herself after she hooks up with the radical feminists in The Itty Bitty Titty Committee.
If there's one thing I can applaud Babbit for, it's her commitment to an aesthetic. These movies couldn't be more visually different, but they both are cohesive, self-aware, and fully-realized. And while I would give anything to go back in time and give BOTH of these movies to my obliviously queer teenage self, I must say that I think Itty Bitty was probably best enjoyed as a teenager, and best enjoyed in 2007.
Before I criticize the hell out of it, I will point out that I feel like you can't really appreciate what Babbit was trying to do unless you've seen Born In Flames, the cult-classic 1983 documentary-style film by feminist & punk icon, Lizzie Borden:
Written by: Jamie Babbit, Tina Mabry, Abigail McCarthy, Andrea Sperling
Starring: Melonie Diaz, Nicole Vicius, Guinevere Turner, Carly Pope
IMDB Synopsis: High School grad and all American gal, Anna, finds her purpose and herself after she hooks up with the radical feminists in The Itty Bitty Titty Committee.
If there's one thing I can applaud Babbit for, it's her commitment to an aesthetic. These movies couldn't be more visually different, but they both are cohesive, self-aware, and fully-realized. And while I would give anything to go back in time and give BOTH of these movies to my obliviously queer teenage self, I must say that I think Itty Bitty was probably best enjoyed as a teenager, and best enjoyed in 2007.
Before I criticize the hell out of it, I will point out that I feel like you can't really appreciate what Babbit was trying to do unless you've seen Born In Flames, the cult-classic 1983 documentary-style film by feminist & punk icon, Lizzie Borden:
But alas, Itty Bitty is more like Born Into A Sizzle, although they share a few key ingredients: female rage, teenage restlessness, queer frustration, and montages, montages, montages! The irony of course is that none of the women in the film are actually supposed to be teenagers, although they all run around like them - which is frustrating, because the whole point of their feminist gang Clits in Action ("CIA" for short, lol) is that they are Women To Be Taken Seriously, and yet their attempts at political stunts are either outdated, comically unbelievable, or downright cliché. For example, when Young And Impressionable Anna meets Chunky Highlights Anarchist Sadie, she's spray painting graffiti on the plastic surgery clinic where she works: A WOMAN IS MORE THAN THE SUM OF HER PARTS. Later on, when Anna joins the gang, she helps them replace the mannequins in a department store window and dramatically paint on the window: WOMEN COME IN ALL SHAPES AND SIZES.
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I will applaud the film for being neither SWERF-y nor TERF-y, which is an accomplishment since this came out before either of those words were in the average feminist's lexicon (there is both a trans-masc and low key sex worker character, neither of whom are tokenized or fetishized). But the rest of the gang's feminist politics seem to fall into the category of "A real feminist looks like this!", which of course negates the entire purpose of progressive and intersectional feminism as we know it today. At one point, Anna's older sister asks her to wear a padded bra so her bridesmaid dress will fit for the wedding (because Anna missed the tailoring appointment Being Gay And Doing Crimes), and Anna accuses her of "basically making her wear a burqa." SO MANY THINGS WRONG WITH THAT STATEMENT.
I will applaud the film for being neither SWERF-y nor TERF-y, which is an accomplishment since this came out before either of those words were in the average feminist's lexicon (there is both a trans-masc and low key sex worker character, neither of whom are tokenized or fetishized). But the rest of the gang's feminist politics seem to fall into the category of "A real feminist looks like this!", which of course negates the entire purpose of progressive and intersectional feminism as we know it today. At one point, Anna's older sister asks her to wear a padded bra so her bridesmaid dress will fit for the wedding (because Anna missed the tailoring appointment Being Gay And Doing Crimes), and Anna accuses her of "basically making her wear a burqa." SO MANY THINGS WRONG WITH THAT STATEMENT.
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So while the gang did occasionally partake in a few cool punk antics (like the time they replace a racist statue in the park with a handmade one of Angela Davis), the rest of their vendetta was, unfortunately, ultra-cringey. If a woman wants to get bigger tits, let her! If she wants to wear a burqa, fucking let her! The issue is not in what women do, it's why. And if they're doing it because they WANT to, because they CHOOSE to, then how rich is the irony that a gang of literal self-proclaimed feminists are telling them that's the "wrong way to be a woman"?
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I'm also still really caught up on just how phenomenally bad the acting was. Like I just don't get it. If you search these women on IMDB, they have pretty much all gone on to keep working (except Nicole Vicius, oddly, who's impression of a woman too afraid to leave her wealthy and established girlfriend but who loves wooing hot new recruits was an insufferable character, but amongst the least unwatchable performances). And not to get too ahead of myself, but everyone in But I'm A Cheerleader was on fucking point, and I firmly espouse that satire is an extremely difficult genre to execute well. Cheerleader definitely had a more high-profile cast, but Melonie Diaz (who plays Anna) has gone on to be in the new Charmed! So is Babbit just better with aesthetics than actors? Is some of the awkwardly pedantic dialogue to blame? Or did the cast of Itty Bitty just hate rehearsing their lines? Unclear.
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All that being said, it's hard not to cheer a little when the CIA hilariously breaks into a live talk show to upload their footage of their most radical operative, "recovering lawyer" Shulamith (hands down the best performance by Carly Pope) who has PAINTED A GIANT PENIS ON THE HEAD OF THE WASHINGTON MEMORIAL, AND THEN BLOWS IT UP (because they're mad that everyone's celebrating the 125th anniversary of the memorial, and they hate it for no other reason except its resemblance to a penis).
 You can tell she's a radical feminist now because she has pink highlights in her hair |  #BeGayDoCrimes #ButDontDateBitchesLikeSadie #SeriouslyShesTheWorst |
It is literally outrageous and unbelievable to the point of farce, but if you can suspend your disbelief for like 5 minutes, it's begrudgingly (albeit radically ignorant and embarrassingly juvenile) just "punk" enough to be sort of awesome.
But I'm A Cheerleader (1999)
Directed by: Jamie Babbit
Written by: Brian Peterson (screenplay) and Jamie Babbit (story)
Starring: Natasha Lyonne, Clea DuVall, RuPaul, Melanie Lynskey, Katharine Towne, Cathy Moriarty
IMDB Synopsis: A naive teenager is sent to rehab camp when her straitlaced parents and friends suspect her of being a lesbian.
IT IS LITERALLY GOING TO TAKE ALL MY SELF CONTROL NOT TO TOTALLY LOSE MY SHIT BECAUSE I LOVED THIS MOVIE SO GODDAMN MUCH.
FIRST of all, the CAST! Everyone cool is in this movie!!
Written by: Brian Peterson (screenplay) and Jamie Babbit (story)
Starring: Natasha Lyonne, Clea DuVall, RuPaul, Melanie Lynskey, Katharine Towne, Cathy Moriarty
IMDB Synopsis: A naive teenager is sent to rehab camp when her straitlaced parents and friends suspect her of being a lesbian.
IT IS LITERALLY GOING TO TAKE ALL MY SELF CONTROL NOT TO TOTALLY LOSE MY SHIT BECAUSE I LOVED THIS MOVIE SO GODDAMN MUCH.
FIRST of all, the CAST! Everyone cool is in this movie!!
Baby Natasha Lyonne! Someone please find me the online fan fic where her character in "Cheerleader" is the backstory for her character in "OITNB."
Did you know it is ILLEGAL in the state of California to make a movie about lesbians and NOT cast Clea DuVall?
RU FUCKING PAUL OMG (this is the butchest we will ever see him)
GAY *dies* RUFIO
Catherine FREAKING Moriarty?!?! Remember when she played Robert DeNiro's 15 year old WIFE in "Raging Bull"??
Remember season 4, episode 1 of "Buffy," titled "The Freshman," where Buffy starts her first year at college and gets attacked by a super hot goth vampire named Sunday? THAT WAS KATHERINE TOWNE, THE SUPER HOT GOTH LESBIAN IN "CHEERLEADER"!!!!
 Baby Gay Melanie Lynskey! |  Baby Michelle Williams! |  Baby Gay Julie Delpy! |
Now before I can begin worshipping every single goddamn detail in this film, we MUST all pay homage to the EXTRAORDINARY aesthetics accomplished by Rachel Kamerman (Production Designer), Macie Vener (Art Director), and Alix Friedberg (Costume Design), the likes of which I haven't seen since the (almost) equally effervescent and delightfully dykey Heathers.
GAZE UPON EVERY GLORIOUSLY DELICIOUS AND PERFECT INCH OF THIS SAPPHIC PASTEL DREAM COME TRUE:
Satire is an extraordinary super power.
There are some subjects that are too sensitive or too painful or too cliche to approach head on. I thought about this a lot when Jojo Rabbit came out: if Scorcese or Mendes had made a serious, gritty (and probably 5 hour long) film about the young German boys who sensationalized Nazi Youth in the name of patriotism, it would be too hard to watch; or worse, the only way we could endure watching it would be to disassociate and desensitize ourselves.
There are some subjects that are too sensitive or too painful or too cliche to approach head on. I thought about this a lot when Jojo Rabbit came out: if Scorcese or Mendes had made a serious, gritty (and probably 5 hour long) film about the young German boys who sensationalized Nazi Youth in the name of patriotism, it would be too hard to watch; or worse, the only way we could endure watching it would be to disassociate and desensitize ourselves.
 | "Satire is traditionally the weapon of the powerless against the powerful." |
Satire allows us to view and experience those stories with our guards down.
Because the fact of the matter is, gay conversion camps fucking exist. Vulnerable queer youth are outed by their friends, ostracized by their communities, abandoned by their families, and victimized by (often closeted) fundamentalist and abusive adults. Religious trauma is a real thing.
I have no desire to watch a movie about that harsh reality (goddess bless Joel Edgerton, but I will never watch Boy Erased). It hits too close to home. But a teen rom-com about the frustrations of being a teen, the awkwardness of falling in love, and the high stakes of speaking your truth - all set agains the technicolor dreamland of a 90's pastel Polly Pocket phantasmagoria?? Hell fucking yes, sign me UP!
At no point did I forget or overlook the raw struggle of what it means to un-brainwash yourself when you've been taught to believe that your feelings are disgusting and that your body is an abomination. But I got to re-live that trauma with pink plastic raincoats, a wall made of daisies, and RuPaul being gay AF. I got to re-live the thrill of falling in love with your best friend even when it feels like the world is falling apart, and I got to see it with a happy (and totally punk rock) ending.
I could see Babbit's hands all over this because they looked and felt similar to Itty Bitty. But this time, it fucking worked. When she told a joke, it was one we were all in on; when she winked at the audience, we were winking right back.
"Comedy has to be done en clair. You can't blunt the edge of wit or the point of satire with obscurity. Try to imagine a famous witty saying that is not immediately clear." |  |
And the winner is...
In an OVERWHELMING ONSLAUGHT that hardly even feels fair, the winner is, without a DOUBT: But I'm A Cheerleader.
I know I am supposed to be comparing and contrasting the work of each director based on the film I chose to represent them, but I am having a hard time not looking at their work as a whole, because if I had to place them in order of beauty and impact, it would go:
1) 13th
2) 35 Shots of Rum
3) Selma
4) White Material
But if I'm honest, I'm more likely to revisit the works of DuVernay than I am of Denis. So is this a contest of "likability," "watchability," or of objective cinematic "greatness"? Because those are all different categories.
1) 13th
2) 35 Shots of Rum
3) Selma
4) White Material
But if I'm honest, I'm more likely to revisit the works of DuVernay than I am of Denis. So is this a contest of "likability," "watchability," or of objective cinematic "greatness"? Because those are all different categories.
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Spoiler alert, but it's going to come down to which one I liked more. Because this is my blog, and I get to pick, goddammit.
So I have been musing all day on why I ultimately “liked” DuVernay’s work over Denis’. We can chalk it all up to personal taste, but where does that come from? What influences it? And most importantly, why aren’t I cool enough to like French cinema like I’m supposed to? The thought I kept coming back to was perhaps not an obvious one.
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I first heard the term “Deist” when I was twelve years old, and I remember feeling the same sense of understanding, awareness, and relief that I felt when I first heard the terms “queer,” “BDE,” or “binge-watching.” Oh! There’s a name for that feeling! I didn’t make this up!
Deism is the religious sub-genre that believes in “God as a watchmaker.” There is a creator, and She created the world, but made it like a watch: all the springs and coils are set in place, and they run on their own, untouched by the intrusive hands of a messier god.
I have no sources to confirm where Denis stands on religion, but her work reminds me of Deism. She sets up all the springs and coils and lets the watch tick all on its own, with little to no personal intervention.
I first heard the term “Deist” when I was twelve years old, and I remember feeling the same sense of understanding, awareness, and relief that I felt when I first heard the terms “queer,” “BDE,” or “binge-watching.” Oh! There’s a name for that feeling! I didn’t make this up!
Deism is the religious sub-genre that believes in “God as a watchmaker.” There is a creator, and She created the world, but made it like a watch: all the springs and coils are set in place, and they run on their own, untouched by the intrusive hands of a messier god.
I have no sources to confirm where Denis stands on religion, but her work reminds me of Deism. She sets up all the springs and coils and lets the watch tick all on its own, with little to no personal intervention.
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DuVernay, on the other hand, is the God of her own world. She wants you to know Her creation, and she wants you to feel something about it. She seeks out and creates visual beauty in bold and memorable strokes; Denis finds quiet whispers of beauty and lets it bleed into her work like a watercolor, blurry and distant.
DuVernay’s work will undeniably make you feel something. Her characters and her visuals are emotionally evocative. Denis’ work made me feel… nothing. Or, rather, it made me feel The Nothingness of it all. For someone who is stylistically known for putting the camera all up in their actor’s business, there is remarkably little character to any of them. I see the facts of them: they own a coffee farm, they have a son; they work for the train station, they have a daughter - but what are the feelings?
I used the word “expressionless” to describe the actors in both of her films, and that’s not to say they were boring or untalented. They were fascinating to watch, but not for the reasons I’m used to. I found myself desperately searching for something, anything, that would indicate a strong feeling one way or another, just as I found myself desperately searching for Claire Denis to feel a strong feeling - or feel ANYTHING - one way or another. Instead, she presents this little slice of life, rich with metaphor and agonizing detail, and just… lets it exist.
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Denis captured life the way I feel it already is: sometimes beautiful, but ultimately hopeless. DuVernay captured life in the way that I want to believe it could be: hard, but hopeful.
And I say that after feeling tremendous despair after watching 13th. How can we help? How can we ever change the world? DuVernay offers no promises or solutions, but she let me know that there are people out there who Give A Shit. Denis just reminded me that there are people out there as confused and miserable and alone as I am, trying their best. And maybe it makes me a monster, but that wasn't enough for me. That's not why I go to the movies. Deep down, I want to believe in a God that Gives A Shit.
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Perhaps I’m just an American idiot consumer, who needs to be told what to feel, or an empty Millennial monster, desperate for a reprieve from the numbness of existing in a capitalistic society where my voice feels unheard and my efforts go unnoticed. But goddamn, it felt good to FEEL SOMETHING. It felt good to be reminded that there are still fights worth FIGHTING out there. All Denis reminded me of was that people are always fighting.
For all these reasons, I am choosing Feeling Something over Feeling The Nothingness. I feel The Nothingness enough everyday without any help from tiny and impossibly cool French artists. I long for the intervention of a God Named Ava.
Perhaps I’m just an American idiot consumer, who needs to be told what to feel, or an empty Millennial monster, desperate for a reprieve from the numbness of existing in a capitalistic society where my voice feels unheard and my efforts go unnoticed. But goddamn, it felt good to FEEL SOMETHING. It felt good to be reminded that there are still fights worth FIGHTING out there. All Denis reminded me of was that people are always fighting.
For all these reasons, I am choosing Feeling Something over Feeling The Nothingness. I feel The Nothingness enough everyday without any help from tiny and impossibly cool French artists. I long for the intervention of a God Named Ava.
And the winner is...
First, a bit about Ms. Ava DuVernay...
When I read about DuVernay, all I can think is here is a woman who has Put In The Time. Raised just outside of Compton, she spent her summers in her father's childhood home of Selma. She worked as a journalist covering the O.J. Simpson trial; she started her own PR firm; and, just for fun, she launched the Urban Beauty Collective, a promotional network for more than 10,000 African-American beauty salons and barbershops across the U.S.
In 2005 she started making films. Inspired by personal events, her first narrative feature, I Will Follow, cost $50,000 and was made in 14 days (GOTTA LOVE THAT HUSTLE!), and Roger Ebert called it "one of the best films I've seen about coming to terms with the death of a loved one."
I am compelled to point out that Selma was nominated for Best Picture and Best Song (for which it won) at the 87th Academy Awards, but not for Best Director or Best Actor (which was an insult to David Oyelowo's incredible performance as Dr. King).
In 2016, her documentary 13 was the surprise opener for the New York Film Festival, and quickly became a national sensation. She was finally (and rightfully) nominated for Best Documentary Feature, becoming the first black woman to be nominated by the academy as a director in a feature category.
When I read about DuVernay, all I can think is here is a woman who has Put In The Time. Raised just outside of Compton, she spent her summers in her father's childhood home of Selma. She worked as a journalist covering the O.J. Simpson trial; she started her own PR firm; and, just for fun, she launched the Urban Beauty Collective, a promotional network for more than 10,000 African-American beauty salons and barbershops across the U.S.
In 2005 she started making films. Inspired by personal events, her first narrative feature, I Will Follow, cost $50,000 and was made in 14 days (GOTTA LOVE THAT HUSTLE!), and Roger Ebert called it "one of the best films I've seen about coming to terms with the death of a loved one."
I am compelled to point out that Selma was nominated for Best Picture and Best Song (for which it won) at the 87th Academy Awards, but not for Best Director or Best Actor (which was an insult to David Oyelowo's incredible performance as Dr. King).
In 2016, her documentary 13 was the surprise opener for the New York Film Festival, and quickly became a national sensation. She was finally (and rightfully) nominated for Best Documentary Feature, becoming the first black woman to be nominated by the academy as a director in a feature category.
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Selma (2014)
Directed by: Ava DuVernay
Written by: Paul Webb (although DuVernay made a number of uncredited rewrites to the script, for which she was criticized, accused of trying to "rewrite history" with her own agenda. Her response was: "I am not making a documentary. I'm not a historian. I'm a storyteller".)
Starring: David Oyelowo, Carmen Ejogo, Common, LaKeith Stanfield
IMDB Description: A chronicle of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s campaign to secure equal voting rights via an epic march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, in 1965.
It would behoove my audience (all 3 of you, hi guys!) to know that I work as a freelance production designer. So before I delve into anything else, I MUST point out the EXCEPTIONAL beauty of this film. It's obviously all under DuVernay's artful eye, but the cinematography by Bradford Young and the production design by Mark Friedberg cannot go unmentioned. I am distantly reminded of Joe Wright's 2005 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, in the sense that every frame of this film is carefully curated with the color and composition of an Impressionist oil painting. She reclaims the art of symmetry (new phone Wes Anderson, who dis?) and it makes it something powerful and purposeful: there is beauty and order in this world, and it's worth fighting for.
Written by: Paul Webb (although DuVernay made a number of uncredited rewrites to the script, for which she was criticized, accused of trying to "rewrite history" with her own agenda. Her response was: "I am not making a documentary. I'm not a historian. I'm a storyteller".)
Starring: David Oyelowo, Carmen Ejogo, Common, LaKeith Stanfield
IMDB Description: A chronicle of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s campaign to secure equal voting rights via an epic march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, in 1965.
It would behoove my audience (all 3 of you, hi guys!) to know that I work as a freelance production designer. So before I delve into anything else, I MUST point out the EXCEPTIONAL beauty of this film. It's obviously all under DuVernay's artful eye, but the cinematography by Bradford Young and the production design by Mark Friedberg cannot go unmentioned. I am distantly reminded of Joe Wright's 2005 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, in the sense that every frame of this film is carefully curated with the color and composition of an Impressionist oil painting. She reclaims the art of symmetry (new phone Wes Anderson, who dis?) and it makes it something powerful and purposeful: there is beauty and order in this world, and it's worth fighting for.
My only complaint about the movie is that it was forced under the constraints of a PG-13 rating. I wanted to see the folks in Selma get to express the anger and righteous indignation that they did not have the privilege of safely expressing back then, and it felt at times like I visibly see them straining under the more polite and palatable restrictions that PG-13 requires.
Along those lines, there is ONE delicately constructed sentence that refers to Dr. King's philandering, and much of his marital strain is depicted only through heavy sighs and longing glances. It's not that I wanted a gritty and demeaning expose of his uglier side, but I would've liked to see more... vulnerability, I suppose? He never really lets his guard down (I am now convinced that Dr. King was an Enneagram 8, if that means anything to anybody). The closest we get is when he kneels down to pray on the bridge, then turns the party back around, shocking, disappointing, and confusing even his closest followers. He explains later - with a ferocity that's easy to mistake for anger - that he was afraid of them getting hurt again.
But maybe that was the point. Maybe intensity and resiliency were the only ways Dr. King knew how to express vulnerability. Maybe he never even let himself feel those things privately, because he was actively being harassed by the FBI and literally could not let his guard down even in his own home.
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Speaking of the PG-13 rating, I must commend DuVernay for expertly walking the line of giving an honest depiction of violence without visually exploiting black bodies. She doesn't shy away from acknowledging the brutality of the violence that occurred, but there is no sensationalizing of it either. To be gratuitous would've done the victims a great disservice, because as an audience we would be compelled to desensitize ourselves to it. Again, I can't help but think of her frames like paintings. She brilliantly manages to capture such ugliness in such a beautiful way. The colors, the atmosphere, the music, the composition: they aren't distractions, they aren't lures; they are part of a larger metaphor. There is beauty and ugliness everywhere.
 Pieter Lastman, Battle at the Milvian Bridge. Oil on canvas, 1613 |  |
How else could we look at the opening scene? You know what's coming the moment you see those four beautiful children walking down the stairwell of the 16th Street Baptist Church, but you are compelled not to turn away because the moments leading up to it are, undeniably, beautifully shot. I am haunted by the image of a girl's foot, in her Sunday Best shoes, as she goes tumbling in the blast. We are never exposed to the carnage; we don't need to be. DuVernay shows just enough, and no more.
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13th (2016)
Directed by: Ava DuVernay
Written by: Spencer Averick, Ava DuVernay
Starring: Angela Davis, Melina Abdullah, Michelle Alexander, Cory Booker
IMDB Description: An in-depth look at the prison system in the United States and how it reveals the nation's history of racial inequality.
Once again, I am in AWE of how visually stunning this film was. I am not an enormous documentary buff (although this film might change that), largely because I did not know how beautiful and compelling they could be. There is not production designer listed on IMDB, so I'll just have to thank the cinematographers (Kira Kelly & Hans Charles) for making a documentary compiled of mostly talking head interviews this striking, interesting and gorgeous.
It is simple enough: dress them well, light them beautifully, and set them against bricks, industrial buildings, and a tapestry of lines that visually evokes the aesthetics of the prison industry complex. But goddamn is it effective! I mean seriously, who is responsible for this? The Locations dept?? What gorgeous abandoned train station is Angela Davis even in?? Works of art!!
Written by: Spencer Averick, Ava DuVernay
Starring: Angela Davis, Melina Abdullah, Michelle Alexander, Cory Booker
IMDB Description: An in-depth look at the prison system in the United States and how it reveals the nation's history of racial inequality.
Once again, I am in AWE of how visually stunning this film was. I am not an enormous documentary buff (although this film might change that), largely because I did not know how beautiful and compelling they could be. There is not production designer listed on IMDB, so I'll just have to thank the cinematographers (Kira Kelly & Hans Charles) for making a documentary compiled of mostly talking head interviews this striking, interesting and gorgeous.
It is simple enough: dress them well, light them beautifully, and set them against bricks, industrial buildings, and a tapestry of lines that visually evokes the aesthetics of the prison industry complex. But goddamn is it effective! I mean seriously, who is responsible for this? The Locations dept?? What gorgeous abandoned train station is Angela Davis even in?? Works of art!!
It would be a crime not to also mention the animation department (Ekin Akalin, Frank Lin, Dan Meehan) for interweaving song lyrics and statistics in a way that was both jarring and mesmerizing, all while juxtaposing them against historical photographs and video footage.
DuVernay didn't have to try very hard to make you feel something; she merely set out the facts as they are, and that is compelling all on its own. But once again, she chose to also make it beautiful and a true work of art.
DuVernay didn't have to try very hard to make you feel something; she merely set out the facts as they are, and that is compelling all on its own. But once again, she chose to also make it beautiful and a true work of art.
“We haven’t ended racial caste, but simply redesigned it.” - Michelle Alexander
Special shout to Nancy Regan at the end there, looking high AF while preaching about the "Just Say No" campaign on national television as part of the "War on Crime" (a traditional American euphemism for "blacks.")
I am ultimately struck by how this film will make you Feel Some Shit, but at no point did I feel emotionally manipulated. I felt educated without feeling like an idiot for not already knowing (America has 5% of the world's population, but 25% of the world's prisoners!!!), and I felt the gravity of the situation without feeling so overwhelmed that I needed to shut it off. I wanted to keep watching, and I was hooked on every word.
I'd go so far as to say that even felt a sense of empowerment, for knowing exactly how it all works. It's cliche but it's true: knowledge is a kind of power. I hope they show this film in high schools across the country. I hope some kid in a rural Red State sees it in their sophomore history class and is so affected by it that they come home and make their ignorant Republican parents watch it. And then they tell their friends. And on and on...
If I had one complaint about the film, it was that despite giving an extremely clear call to action - slavery is alive and well, so what are you gonna do about it? - it did not do much in the way of offering any practical solutions. What can I do to help? Do I call a congressman? Do I protest somewhere? I am left feeling an overwhelming sense of despair (despite knowing my privilege as a white woman means that I exist with little to no fear of incarceration).
In spite of this - because of this - I strongly implore anyone who hasn't seen this film to put it at the top of your list. And if my endorsement can't convince you, maybe this clip will:
"Let’s not forget how many martyrs we put in the ground in the 60s and 70s. Let’s not forget how many of our leaders had to leave the country or are in prison. You’ve stripped out a whole generation of leadership. You ran them out of the country, you put them in prison, you put them in cemeteries… You can tell the story of white leadership in America and never mention the FBI one time. You can’t tell the story of black leadership - not ONE! - without having to deal with the full weight of the criminal justice system weaponizing against black “dissent.” - Van Jones
And the winner is...
I really wasn't expecting this to win, based on nothing more than that it was a documentary and I DID NOT KNOW DOCUMENTARIES COULD MAKE YOU FEEL THIS MUCH. I didn't even know how I could judge the directing of a film from a documentary. How can you be a good director if you aren't directing actors? How can you tell a compelling story with nothing but interviews and old video clips? But goddamn is DuVernay ever a master weaver.
I said it aloud when I watched that clip for the first time, and I'll say it again: this is just extraordinary fucking filmmaking.
And just like that, we are off and running into Matriarch Madness!
Our first Matriarch of Filmmaking is the legendary Claire Denis. Before we delve into an analyses on two of her most iconic pictures, a little background...
Claire Denis was born in France, but lived in the French-speaking parts of Africa until she was a adult. Her father was a civil servant, and made a point of moving the family around every two years so the kids could "get a sense of geography." Her experience growing up as a racial minority has noticeably colored her work, in the sense that she seems to have worked towards transcending race altogether. "It was very embarrassing," she has said of her upbringing, "Not because I was white, but because I was not black."
In her early 20s, she married a much older man who was a photographer and artist. Although their marriage didn't last, it was he who encouraged her to go to school for filmmaking. Her first film, Chocolat, was met with critical acclaim.
She has described herself as "filming fast and editing slowly," and is notorious for filming on location over working in a studio. It's been said that she will position her actors before the camera as if they were posing for still photography, and luxuriates in the tangible sensuality of their bodies and the terrain they occupy.
Denis’s films can be hard to find in the United States, but she is beloved by many young American filmmakers for, among other things, her artful confrontations with race. Barry Jenkins, the director of “Moonlight,” which won last year’s Academy Award for Best Picture, told me, “I get the sense that she truly just doesn’t give a shit, that it doesn’t occur to her that she shouldn’t be ‘allowed’ to handle this material. It’s not a foreign world to her, in a way it might appear to be when you look at her and see a white Frenchwoman.” He continued, “You watch ‘Chocolat,’ and it’s remarkable. This is a first movie by someone who has not one question about what her rights are as a storyteller.” - Alice Gregory
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White Material (2009)
Directed by: Claire Denis
Written by: Claire Denis & Marie N'Diaye
Starring: Isabelle Huppert, Nicolas Duvauchelle, & Isaach De Bankolé
IMDB description: Amidst turmoil and racial conflict in an unnamed Francophone African state, a white French woman fights for her coffee crop, her family and ultimately for her life.
Written by: Claire Denis & Marie N'Diaye
Starring: Isabelle Huppert, Nicolas Duvauchelle, & Isaach De Bankolé
IMDB description: Amidst turmoil and racial conflict in an unnamed Francophone African state, a white French woman fights for her coffee crop, her family and ultimately for her life.
Within the opening 10 seconds of the film, you know exactly what Denis' style is: slow, lingering shots, all done with a shaky hand-held camera. We are glued to Isabelle's body, sometimes uncomfortably close, sometimes achingly far away. We see so many things, with so little dialogue, music, or intentional narrative to tell us how we should feel about it. For better or for worse, we get to choose how these images make us feel: A crowded bus. An abandoned shoe. A woman seen through a door. Running through a field, from something or towards something we do not know.
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I also have to point out here that there are literally so, so many shots of the back of Isabelle's head. I am sure there is some film school rhetoric out there that says if you employ this technique, it's a subconscious indicator of delving into their psyche. And I'm not saying it didn't work... you spend so much time behind Isabelle's wispy, carefree (or careless?) ponytail, that she becomes anonymous without you even realizing it. And because the shots are mostly quite close, you don't feel foreboding or stalker-ish... If anything, she almost becomes like a mother leading you by the hand through this dusty and violent world.
I am inclined to wonder how this film would have been different if we had been facing our protagonist. I'm inclined to believe she would have been immediately "othered." She would have become subconsciously objectified, and because of that, much less forgivable. It's so much easier to judge someone when you're looking them in the eyes. When you're trailing along behind them... you're just trying to keep up.
To be fair, it was effective... I'm just not entirely sure what it was actually trying to be effective at. Which is kind of Claire Denis' whole thing: she refuses to emotionally manipulate her audience. You get to choose how the work makes you feel. But if I'm being honest, by the end of it, I mostly just felt like Pam:
The hardest part of this film for me was still in not judging Isabelle's character. As we follow her around her new war-torn village, she is stopped by an African soldier who tells her she is disgusting and basically all the violence in the country is her fault. She doesn't flinch, she doesn't argue. In fact, a few scenes later, she mutters his words back to herself like a chant. Is it blatant ignorance? Is it heartbreaking defeat? I AM NOT SURE.
ADDENDUM: I was remiss not to point out in my initial publication of this post that White Material was co-written by an extraordinary woman of color, the accomplished writer Marie N'Diaye. Knowing that does change my judgement of this piece somewhat... but still little to help relieve this unshakable discomfort. Perhaps that has less to do with the White Privilege of it all, and more to do with the fact that Denis' films make no promises to be "comfortable."]
The fact of the matter is, I can't help but view this film through the lens of my over-active white guilt cringe muscles. On the one hand, there is a part of Isabelle desperately fighting to keep her farm that is inspiring and devastating because it's all she has left in the world, and because you know she will fail. And on the other hand, you feel like she SHOULD fail. I couldn't help but yell at my screen, "Go home!" because it wasn't a battle worth fighting. It wasn't her land. She didn't have any right to be there. It's not like she was traipsing around in white linens and drinking lemonade on the porch (although she does wear a super iconic light pink dress and run through the fields a lot). She gets dirty and sweaty. She drives a big ol' truck. She gets guns pointed in her face by African teenagers. She works on her own farm. But it still feels... wrong? Am I shitty for saying it feels wrong? Am I shitty if I DON'T say it feels wrong? Unclear.
"Isabelle Huppert, small and slender, embodies the strength of a fighter. In so many films, she is an indomitable force, yet you can't see how she does it. She rarely acts broadly. The ferocity lives within. Sometimes she is mysteriously impassive; we see what she's determined to do, but she sends no signals with voice or eyes to explain it. There is a lack of concern about our opinion; she will do it, no matter what we think her reasons are." - Roger Ebert
There are two moments that stuck with me the most.
Isabelle runs the farm with her ex-husband, who lives on the farm in a separate home with his African wife and their 10 year old son, Jose (the ex-husband's sick father also lives on the farm with them, but more on that later). After recruiting some new farmers after the old ones abandoned ship, Isabelle goes to pick up the kid to take him out of school (partly because there are dangerous rebels roaming the streets now, but mostly because she needs his help picking coffee). She doesn't realize that her ex-husband also showed up to pick up the kid, so she drives the truck of workers back while the dad drives the kid home on the back of his motorcycle. In a few lingering shots, we see this young half-black boy stare at his two white "parents," then stare at Isabelle's truck packed with workers. There is no dialogue, and there doesn't need to be. You know what's going through his mind.
It's mere chance that he's riding next to the truck instead of riding inside it.
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The second moment was pretty much the entirety of this bizarre sub-plot involving Isabelle's son. He is a grown man, a gorgeous, blond, Dorian Gray-esque asshole who sleeps all day and has no purpose in life. Some child soldiers sneak into the house one day to steal some clothes and jewelry, so he chases them outside into the wilderness of their coffee farm BAREFOOT (he is not very bright). The kids circle back around and sneak attack him, and with a gun and machete to his throat they make him strip naked, and run off with their clothes.
The shots are extremely minimal: he runs on the hills, they come up behind him, weapons are out, and they start to pull his clothes off. I read probably three or four articles about this film, and it wasn't until the very last one that I saw mention of a possible theory that the son was raped. I re-watched the scene, and while it's more like an extremely faint echo than a solid suggestion, it does (sort of???) make sense for what comes next...
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...Because what comes NEXT is that the son goes BAT SHIT FUCKING BONKERS. The child soldiers mock his "golden hair" and cut off a chunk with their machete, so he shaves it all off, grabs the excess hair, and shoves it down the throat of his dad's new wife. Then he hops in his motorbike, and in full Mad Max style he chases after the child soldiers and JOINS THEM?? Then leads them BACK to his OWN HOUSE and loots his OWN FOOD?? Then they all do a bunch of drugs they stole from the pharmacy they looted in town, pass out, and get ambushed by the African military who slits all their child soldiers throats and burns the son alive.
Meanwhile, Isabelle is getting dragged around town by the new farmers who want to go back home and the African rebels who keep ambushing her for money, at one point coming across a young girl wearing one of her stolen dresses and necklaces. By the time she makes it back to the farm it's too late. In a completely expressionless rage, she picks up a piece of wood, and over the the burned corpse of her dead son she beats her ex-husband's father to death.
Meanwhile, Isabelle is getting dragged around town by the new farmers who want to go back home and the African rebels who keep ambushing her for money, at one point coming across a young girl wearing one of her stolen dresses and necklaces. By the time she makes it back to the farm it's too late. In a completely expressionless rage, she picks up a piece of wood, and over the the burned corpse of her dead son she beats her ex-husband's father to death.
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And that's it. That's the end of the fucking movie.
I think the rape of the son makes more sense plot-wise, but it's also clear by now that plot is not really one of Claire Denis' priorities. It's all about the metaphor: white people raped the land, and now the land is raping them back. A hair for a hair, an eye for an eye, a son for a son.
The last shot in the film is not of Isabelle, but of the only child soldier who escaped. He clutches the red beret of a beloved rebel soldier, and runs into the smoking fields. So what are we left with? What's the message? I mean, it's whatever you want it to be. It's wavering, it's trembling, and it's easily over looked.
35 Shots of Rum (2008)
Directed by: Claire Denis
Written by: Claire Denis & Jean-Pol Fargeau
Starring: Alex Descas, Mati Diop, Nicole Dogué, & Grégoire Colin
IMDB Description: The relationship between a father and daughter is complicated by the arrival of a handsome young man.
Written by: Claire Denis & Jean-Pol Fargeau
Starring: Alex Descas, Mati Diop, Nicole Dogué, & Grégoire Colin
IMDB Description: The relationship between a father and daughter is complicated by the arrival of a handsome young man.
The IMDB description can't help but make me chuckle. I mean, like, yeah, technically I guess it's about a young woman and her father and "the handsome young suitor who comes between them," but that makes it sound much more drastic and dramatic than it was. In what I can now confidently say is CLASSIC CLAIRE DENIS style, it was more like the delicate murmur of a plot. If Tarantino is the clanging of a brass gong, then Claire Denis is like a small flute playing quietly in the other room.
If White Material was the movie about the back of Isabelle Huppert's head, then 35 Shots of Rum was about blue and brown: almost every shot in this movie was rich with blues and browns, and it is undeniably, aggressively beautiful. ...Water & Earth. Ice & Rust. Cold & Warmth. What does it all mean? I don't know, but I can't stop fucking looking at it! The fact she didn't just call this movie "Blue & Brown" is honestly a crime. Also because it's never actually explained what "35 shots of rum" means, except that there's a story behind it (I guess everyone who knows the story is too drunk to remember it).
What's odd to me about her work is that even though she luxuriates in these long, beautiful stretches without dialogue, and lingers on faces and bodies and the mundane but beautiful world that surrounds them, there is SO little character development. Her actors are all but expressionless. There are no monologues. There is one argument in this film, and it lasts like 2 lines, and both of them are yelling from different rooms so you don't even see their faces. Who are these people? They're not boring, and they aren't blank. They have colors to them, (BLUE AND BROWN PROBABLY) they have shape. But they have no... substance? I'm not sure. I am lacking the words the describe the lack thereof. They're just people, living life, and we get to watch them. They cook dinner, they ride the train, they eat and sleep and hug. There are feelings there, deep ones, but they are expressed with such a delicate touch that I found myself squinting to see it. (Somewhere in France, a very cool French person is flicking their cigarette and saying, "Stupide Americans" right now).
Which made it all the more awkward when this HILARIOUSLY aggressive scene was thrust upon me. Josephine (the daughter) and Lionel (the father) are going out to a concert with their friends and pseudo-family members from the building: Gabrielle, a spunky taxi driver who has a desperately obvious crush on Lionel, and this other guy, whom I will only be able to refer to as French Adam Driver.
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I mean, come on!
The car breaks down in the rain on the way to the concert, so they end up ducking into this little bar to drink and dance the night away. Lionel is being grumpy because he's clearly annoyed that French Adam Driver, who has been his neighbor and buddy for years, is now suddenly hitting on his super hot and totally-old-enough-to-date daughter.
French Adam Driver, oblivious to Lionel's SUPER NOT SUBTLE grumpiness, decides to cut in the middle of Lionel & Josephine's cute (or weird?) daddy-daughter dance, *just* as the slow song starts to play. It is in this moment that French Adam Driver decides to fucking realize that he's hot for daughter, and they begin to dance VERY SENSUALLY while Grumpy Lionel is LITERALLY THREE FEET AWAY. Going into French cinema, I had prepared myself for some avant-garde and very un-American sex shit, but I was NOT prepared for this.
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AND HERE IS YOUR DAD, THIRTY-SIX GODDAMN INCHES FROM YOU, WATCHING THE WHOLE THING LIKE THIS:
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But don't worry, he SUPER MATURELY handles it, by grabbing the hot bartender and dancing sexy with HER. Except his daughter doesn't see it. Only Gabrielle, the adorable and long-suffering (LITERAL) girl-next-door sees it, and watches the whole fucking thing like THIS:
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...Fucking savage. Oh yeah, and this goddamn song is playing for the ENTIRE FOUR MINUTE SCENE:
...I tease, but ultimately I did actually enjoy this movie. Okay, maybe "enjoy" is too strong of a word. I reached for my phone WAY less during 35 Shots than I did during White Material. Hey, I'm not saying I'm proud of it, I'm just saying what happened.
I will be honest that it was "easier" to like this movie. It was significantly less uncomfortable (and that's saying a lot, HAVE YOU LISTENED TO THAT SONG?) There's a family with a very insular bubble, this beautiful little island they've created for themselves, but they both know deep down that it can't last forever, and it shouldn't. Change sucks, but that's life. That's a story that I am familiar with, and that I enjoy seeing explored from a new perspective. (A white woman fighting for her right to farm indigenous land while her son becomes a literal INCEL was harder to get behind. I'm sorry.)
And it's not just the daughter "discovering sex;" this isn't a weird, Puritanical portrait of a father owning his daughter's body, this is a French film for Christ's sake. Lionel works as a train conductor for the metro, and at the beginning of the film one of his work buddy's retires (this is where we first hear of the "legend of 35 shots," although we frustratingly never find out. Again, I suspect that it's my American inclination to have Closure And Answers that makes me bothered by this). His work buddy gives off the most aggressively, painfully obvious signs that he is Not Fucking Okay with being retired, and it goes right over Lionel's head. Seriously, the guy weeps at his own retirement party, he says "I don't know what meaning my life will have after this," he meets up with Lionel for coffee and gives him back a book he borrowed ten years ago and says "I won't be needing this anymore," he joins Lionel on the train a few weeks later and says "I wasn't expecting to miss it this much... I'm glad I could take one last ride with you" and SOMEHOW Lionel is still surprised when Work Buddy throws himself in front of the tracks later.
You know it's coming, but you know that Lionel doesn't. And that's what's devastating. It's honestly the most distinct narrative thread we see out of Claire Denis: if I continue on this path, I will end up like this man; and by extension, my daughter might too.
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So presumably, Grumpy Lionel let's French Adam Driver date his daughter. I say "presumably" because all we see is Lionel & Josephine argue, then go on a road trip to Germany to visit Josephine's dead mother's grave, and then they come back and Josephine and French Adam Driver are getting married?? It's all very surreal and abstract and Freeeeeench and it's fucking beautiful, don't get me wrong, but it also kind of makes me feel like an idiot when I have to rewind a scene four times and read several articles and analyses on a film to understand how we got from vacuuming and arguing with dad to driving to Germany to marrying marrying French Adam Driver.
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And the winner is...
This doesn't feel like a "perfect win" to me, because I'm really not walking away from either film going, "Oh shit, I have to tell my mom to watch this" (which is, ultimately, the greatest compliment I can give a film. I only recommend Janet the best.)
Ultimately, 35 Shots will linger for me a moment longer... those blues and browns, y'all. Like that ancient Instagram feng shui saying goes, "It must either serve a purpose, or be beautiful." Neither of these films really served a "purpose" - and I recognize that they weren't supposed to, and that's Claire Denis's whole existential French thing - but one of these films was remarkably more beautiful.
If Denis' directing style could be translated to a different medium, it would be the abstract, trembling, intensely detailed graphite masterpieces of Agnes Martin... it's subtle, it's unassuming, it preaches nothing to you and demands nothing of you, and it's not for everyone.
To be honest, I'm not sure if it's for me. I want to be the kind of person who likes movies like this... slow, still, quiet, and so abstract that it transcends narrative. But at heart, I'm a storyteller, and I don't know if you can call her work a true "story." It has all the elements of one, but it's missing something. It's beautiful to watch, but there's no sense of closure. Watching her work is like trying to complete a puzzle that has all blank pieces and no picture on the box. Claire Denis is the La Croix of directors, and what can I say, some people really dig that shit.
...A small announcement that there has been ANOTHER change to the Matriarch Madness bracket. After much toiling and gnashing of teeth, I decided that I couldn't live with myself if Jamie Babbitt wasn't on the list (I HAVE NEVER SEEN BUT I'M A CHEERLEADER OR THE ITTY BITTY TITTY COMMITTEE AND HONESTLY I DON'T KNOW HOW THAT'S EVEN POSSIBLE). So despite how much I fucking loved Jennifer's Body, she will be replacing Karyn Kusama. (Please forgive me Karyn).
Holy motherforking shirt-balls, are you folks even READY FOR THIS? Because I sure as heck am only about 29% ready.
The season is upon us. It is time. For another bracket of epic, unfathomable proportions
The season is upon us. It is time. For another bracket of epic, unfathomable proportions
For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, around this time last year I completed the daunting feat of organizing and watching 32 Meryl Streep movies in order to deduce her greatest performance of all time. And this year I will do it all again, this time with 16 female directors from around the globe. Behold… MATRIARCH MADNESS.
For those of you looking at my list and saying, “Hey wait a hot second, where the heck are Sofia Coppola, Greta Gerwig, Kathryn Bigelow, and the Wachowski Sisters? Those are the only women directors I know!” Well, that’s the kind of the point. Those are the only women directors I know too!
Before Meryl Madness 2019, I had only seen 2-3 Streep films. So, in the spirit of broadening my horizons, I have carefully selected a variety of female directors with that in mind. The oldest movie on the bracket is from 1974, the most recent won’t be out for 2 weeks. These directors are old and young, queer and straight, French, Black, Canadian, Scottish, Asian, Indian, British, Argentinian, Belgian, Iranian, Italian, New Zealander, and American.
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I chose women who had an oeuvre to choose from, selected two films that I thought (based on nothing but descriptions, related articles, and how intrigued I personally was by them) best exemplified their aesthetics. The first round will determine each director’s best film, and with that film to represent them, the games will begin.
32 films. 16 directors. 1 winner. This is… #MatriarchMadness
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Sarah Ruth(less) Joanou is a Chicago based writer, artist, production designer, actor, & cat mom.
