Dunkirk (2017)

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Dunkirk_Film_poster.jpgUpon being thrown headlong into Christopher Nolan’s immersive wartime drama Dunkirk, it becomes obvious that it is hardly a narrative film like any of the director’s previous efforts because it has a singular objective set out.

It’s economical (shorter than many of most recent efforts) and the dialogue is sparse, sprinkled sparingly throughout his picture. After all, the main goal of this film is not so much to tell us a story — drawing up the lines as they might have been — but actually immersing us in that moment that was so crucial to British morale and ultimately the outcome of WWII.

As such, this is visual storytelling to the utmost degree and it comes off splendidly for the precise reason that film has always been a visual medium as much as we try and make it about dialogue. Because invariably dialogue is often used as a crutch while Nolan’s film relies almost solely on its images to tell its story and that’s a quality of filmmaking that is often lacking in the contemporary industry.

Backstories are all but left to the imagination and there’s immense power in that. Too often storytellers feel a need to spell everything out, providing all the perfect cookie cutter moments in order to hold the audience member’s hand so they comprehend it all. But has something as volatile as war ever been like that? I’m sure we can all answer with an emphatic “NO,” so why would a film be any different? Make people use their brains. Make them feel something viscerally. Leave them in the dark. Keep the outcomes ambiguous.

Likewise, there are no imagined interactions between the major figures at play whether Winston Churchill or Adolf Hitler. In fact, we never see a German’s face. We only see the results of their efforts to deter the British and cut off their escape route. As for Churchill, we never see the great English bulldog but his spirit wafts over the picture — certainly his words too — but it’s that spirit of resilience, that never say die attitude that speaks to his own character. That is enough.

Normally these type of decisions would signal a death wish but Nolan has been rewarded for his brazenness offering up a summer blockbuster that’s all but necessary. Because it tramples over much of the conventional wisdom that the industry has tried to impose on itself to reel in success. If there was any man to do it, Christopher Nolan certainly fits the bill.

There’s still very purposeful action playing out on three fronts. You have the soldiers actually stuck on the beach and in this case, we end up following a group of soldiers. Boys really. First, one who flees back to the beach after his compatriots are gunned down then joins with another boy to try and get aboard a battleship with a man on a stretcher. Finally, they get their chance only to get torpedoed out of the water. Treading in the oil-soaked ocean until someone can save them.

Then, there’s a trifecta of British Spitfires (led by Tom Hardy) traveling across the English Channel to provide coverage to their boys down below. Their exploits are documented with engrossing aerial shots that bring us right into their cockpits as they sit behind the controls looking to evade and vanquish their enemy.

Finally, we have the men of the home guard namely a father (Mark Rylance) and his two sons who answer the call to come to the aid of their young men stranded across the channel. You get the sense that they are riding into the valley of the shadow of death except that the valley of death is the sea and German U-Boats are waiting for them. Still, they push onward to rescue men coming by sea and by air. It too requires costly sacrifice.

Dunkirk’s soundtrack is magnified by ticking clocks and Hans Zimmer’s selection of screeching strings but it’s not necessarily developing the drama for drama’s sake. Again, there’s this underlying striving for authenticity.

One scene stands out in particular when the shell-shocked soldier (Cillian Murphy) asks if the boy he accidentally harmed is okay. He’s sorry now but doesn’t know the irreparable damage he has done. Still, the young man’s brother could lash out in anger. Instead, he takes the high road and tells him the boy is fine. His father grimly gives him a nod. He has made the most merciful decision for all parties involved.

It’s so easy to get caught up in the moment and you begin to understand to what extent these British soldiers were sitting ducks on the beaches of Dunkirk.  Because you are right beside them in every waking moment. And if we understand the horrors and the selfishness that begins to breed as survival instincts set in then just as easily we comprehend the pure euphoria that comes over the men when the flotilla from home comes to their rescue.

Even in these moments what is striking is not so much that Dunkirk is a grand epic but it feels surprisingly intimate. Despite the anonymity that runs through a great deal of this film Nolan still gives us characters that we can attach ourselves to and they begin to resonate not because we know their person inside and out necessarily but we start to empathize with their positions first hand.  When you begin to see the world as someone else sees it, it’s difficult not to connect. And that goes for everyone.

Because this was not just a war of soldiers from the army, navy, and air force. This was a war that involved nurses and the home guard and every other man, woman, and child who rationed their supplies and blacked out their windows all because of the collective war effort.

It’s often the most trying circumstances that bring us together so that we are no longer individuals but we become one. Dunkirk seems like precisely one of those galvanizing events that can forever be looked back on with pride. It personifies bravery, resilience, a stiff upper lip if you want to put it that way. And the significance in survival is that they lived to fight another day and ultimately with the other Allied powers they were able to quell the Nazis.

Some might come out of Dunkirk hailing it as one of the great war pictures of our generation, but truthfully it’s more so a survival story and a tribute to the fighting spirit that often dwells in the souls of men. In an age so often lacking in courage, fortitude, and honor those are the very attributes that rise to the surface and become most evident. Dunkirk is a striking reminder, not simply for the British people, but for us all.

4.5/5 Stars

Morocco (1930)

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Gary_Cooper_and_Marlene_Dietrich_in_Morocco_trailer_2.jpgBefore the exoticism of Casablanca, Algiers, or even Road to Morroco, there was Josef Von Sternberg’s just plain Morocco but it’s hardly a run-of-the-mill romance. Far from it.

Although it involves soldiers, it’s also hardly a war film but instead set against a backdrop that presents an exotic love affair as only Sternberg could. With a sultry Marlene Dietrich matched with a particularly cheeky Gary Cooper, it instantly looks to be an interesting dynamic because they couldn’t be more different.

She, a radiant German beauty with an evocative pair of eyes to go with a somewhat sullen demeanor. He, America’s ruggedly handsome ideal of what a man should be. And it in Sternberg’s film neither of them is what we’re used to.

He’s a renegade soldier in the French Foreign Legion. She’s a cabaret singer (that hasn’t changed) but she also manages to be French, not German. Somehow it’s easy enough to disregard because it’s not necessary to get caught up on the particulars.

All that matters is that they both find themselves in Morocco. He is traipsing through town with his division and spends some free time taking in her floor show along with the rest of the rowdy masses. Neither one of them has found someone good enough for them — they’re equal of sorts. He’s a gentleman cad if you will and she’s hardly an upstanding woman, making a living in a dance hall but there’s more to her. It’s hinted that she once had love, perhaps.

It takes so long for them to actually speak to each other but they’re flirting from the first moment they lay eyes on each other. They say so much through simple expressions all throughout the cabaret show. Things proceed like so. She slips him a flower, then an apple, and finally a key. At this point, he gets the drift and we do too.

Later that evening he winds up at her flat and they spend their most substantial time together. It’s full of odd exchanges, meandering conversations that run the risk of sounding aloof. In fact, their entire relationship is replete with oddities.

Another man (Adolph Menjou) is smitten with Amy but he’s never driven to jealousy. He’s good-natured and generous in all circumstances. People like him must only drift through the high societies.

She holds onto some wistful longing for the tall dashing Legionnaire who drifted through her life. But she’s slow to act. Meanwhile, he hardly seems to take it as a blow to his love life when she resigns to stay behind. After all, he’s quite the ladies’ man. He probably doesn’t need another woman. He’s always got several draped over each arm.

Morocco is a film interesting for the spaces that it creates and not necessarily for the story it develops. Visually, by the hands of the director and then simultaneously by Cooper and Dietrich as they work through their scenes both together and apart. Though it might in some ways lack emotional heft, its stars are still two invariably compelling romantic stars of the cinema.

Somehow it still manages to be quite lithe and risque when put up next to its contemporaries. It exudes a certain mischievousness of the Pre-Code Era. It’s not so much licentiousness and debauchery but it wishes to suggest as much. It can be implied without actually going through all the trouble of showing it.

Dietrich sums it up perfectly in her little diddy about Eve (What am I bid for my apple/ the truth that made Adam so wise? On the historic night/ when he took a bite/ they discovered a new paradise). In essence, the world got a lot more exciting when sex and deceit were brought into the equation. Maybe she misses the implications the Fall of Man but that’s precisely the point. Still more Pre-Code sauciness case and point.

In the final moments, where Dietrich abandons her heels and goes slinking across the sand chasing after her man, it feels less like a romantic crescendo or even a tragic turn and more like a ploy by the director to make his leading lady the focal point of his story one last time. She is granted the final bit of limelight. Because in many ways Gary Cooper could not win when it came to upstaging Marlene Dietrich orchestrated by her devoted partner/director Sternberg. Thus, Morocco turns out to be a rather curious love story different than some of the more typical Hollywood fare.

4/5 Stars

The Whole Town’s Talking (1935)

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the_whole_towns_talking_1935_posterComic mayhem was always supercharged in the films of the 1930s because the buzz is palpable, the actors are always endowed with certain oddities, and the corkscrew plotlines run rampant with absurdities of their own.  Penned by a pair of titans in Jo Swerling and Robert Riskin, The Whole Town’s Talking opens with an inciting incident that’s a true comedic conundrum.

Bald and beady-eyed Mr. Seaver is called upon to fire the next employee who comes in late to work. A tough proposition to begin with but it gets worse.  Arthur Ferguson Jones has not been late to work in 8 years and of course, today’s the day his alarm clock doesn’t work. Although he gets a reprieve. Still, the next person walking in isn’t so lucky. The hardy, wisecracking Miss Clark (Jean Arthur). And that’s our introduction to our main players.

But the real wrench comes from an age-old device that’s easy to scoff at initially. There’s a doppelganger. Yes, the same upstanding, timid Arthur Ferguson Jones is cut in the spitting image of Public Enemy No. 1, Killer Mannion. But before you check out, consider what this does for this ruckus of a story. It ties it up in knots.

Jones is the talk of the town. Exploding flashbulbs. Cover stories. Tumult. Back in the glory days when the press ran in a pack like hyenas.  His boss invites him to dinner, wants an autograph for his boy. He’s being ribbed by his coworkers and Miss Jones takes an interest in his literary endeavors. This leads to a gig ghostwriting the gangster’s life story in the local paper.

Meanwhile, the police argue about what to do about him. They finally decide to give him a special passport. It says he’s not Killer Mannion. And hapless little Mr. Seaver still badgers his employee to finish up his waiting caseload. What no one expects is that Mannion will sneak into Jones’ home and sets up camp.

And from that point on, everything gets confused. Robinson gets a chance at a great deal of range sometimes having his two diverging roles playing off each other in the same frame. All you need to know is the gangster is looking to leave his new benefactor holding the bag for his numerous crimes. Whether it works out or not is quite another story.

This a particularly odd film for the talent assembled. It doesn’t especially feel like a John Ford film and not simply because it’s not a Western. But at this point in his career, his stock company isn’t even assembled.

Edward G. Robinson will always be identified with gangster pics and it’s true he was tired of that association. Here he’s playing comedy. He has one foot in his usual wheelhouse but the other seems utterly alien to his usual persona. As such it’s great fun.  And his timid common man isn’t even a tragic figure like Chris Cross (Scarlet Street). The comedy is far more apparent and that in part stems from Arthur.

She shows up late to work, gets fired, and still has quips coming out of her ears. She plays all the journalists trying to pump her for facts and at the same time falls for this dope who has her picture framed by his bedside. Perhaps better than anyone she perfected how to be cheeky but still wholesome and caring. Arthur feels most at home in this film more than anyone else, given her comedic pedigree but she and Robinson bounce off each other well.

In a few years she would play a Miss Jones but for right now she’s content calling her colleague by the pet name “Jonesie” and (tiny spoiler) she does become Mrs. Jones. So an oddball romantic pair they might be, but that doesn’t make the partnering of Robinson and Arthur any less amusing. They’re both on their A-game in The Whole Town’s Talking and thankfully there would be many more arresting performances to come.

4/5 Stars

Review: Pickpocket (1959)

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pickpocket-1Pickpocket is an intricately staged, truly intimate character study from the inimitable Robert Bresson solidifying itself as one of his greatest works. As was his practice, Bresson took Martin LaSalle, a non-actor to be his leading protagonist.

The Uruguayan-French actor sports gaunt, rather severe features, thick eyebrows, a sauntering gait and a slumped posture. However, there’s also some facial similarity to Henry Fonda there, except LaSalle is even more “normal” if you want to go that far. He seems altogether unextraordinary and still Bresson manages to tell an engaging story with such an unassuming star–not through emotions but the inverse–a complete lack of emotions replaced instead by actions.

Aside from being a vagrant who lives in a dilapidated flat, Michel is a cynic who holds a bit of a superman complex. In fact, he’s not far off from Raskolnikov in Crime & Punishment. The difference being his crimes are more mundane. The outcome is less pronounced. But he too achieves a kind of redemption.

With such a life as he leads, not working, with hardly any friends, or anything to do aside from betting on the horses, Michel fills his idle hours learning what it is to be a pickpocket. It becomes his livelihood as he joins forces with some accomplices, honing his trade, and gleaning inspiration from the life of pickpocket socialite extraordinaire George Barrington. Except Michel seems nothing like this man. He’s no adventurer or colorful personality. He watches the world with passionless eyes, lacking purpose, and hardly talking to anyone. When he does, it’s generally brusque. He’s not looking to make friends–aside from his “buddy” Jacques. He hardly even visits his sickly mother even when she’s lying on her deathbed.

But that’s what makes his nearby neighbor Jeanne (Marika Green) all the more fascinating because she brings something out of him. It just takes him a long time to realize it. I cannot get it out of my head that Marika Green shares some striking resemblance to Natalie Portman. This notion shot into my head the first time I ever viewed Pickpocket. It serves no real obvious purpose but to suggest her stunning beauty and maybe even that there’s a modernness to her or better yet a timelessness behind her eyes that’s full of some sort of inexplicable power. Maybe Natalie Portman has that same quality as well. It’s difficult to say.

It’s striking that many of the scenes in Pickpocket are almost silent, lacking scoring and often even dialogue, and yet they’re choreographed like the most elaborate dance. Instead of feet, though, hands are involved. The dexterous hands and limber fingers of pickpockets.  And his eyes rove as much as his prying fingers.

There are similarities here with Sam Fuller’s Pickup on Southstreet except in this case the life of a pickpocket, this life of second class crime is the extent of his existence. There are no gangsters, plots, or big implications pointing to Cold Wars and Communists. But if they share anything it’s their equally impressive understanding of economical filmmaking with the innate ability to tell rich, impactful stories in a highly condensed amount of time.

Michel’s life is pitifully mundane in a sense and yet within that context, he’s still able to find hope and that’s the beauty of what Bresson suggests here through the simple functions of sound and image. He evokes a great deal.

It was not the final words of Pickpocket that struck me but rather the image that we are left with. There stands Michel incarcerated in prison. It seemed inevitable. Because supermen do not exist, at least not in the way that he supposed. And yet in the same breath, when he shed that philosophy he found something better.

He caresses Jeanne through the bars, kisses her face. Yes, he’s still trapped, stuck in such a horrible spot without his freedom. But the utter irony of it all in this one moment, before a very abrupt conclusion, Michel is finally free–finally saved by the graces of love and it took a prison cell to teach him as much.  His life was propelled by inaction highlighted by contained moments of theft and deception. Therefore, it’s in this final instance that Michel finally shows some amount of goodness and affection bursting forth. His life no longer seems to be defined by being a pickpocket. For once, it’s defined by something else–by someone else.

Whereas Raskolnikov realized that he needed Sonya to resurrect him much like Christ resurrected Lazarus, Michel comes to a similar conclusion here though he only believed in God for three minutes. Still, in a sense, he has been redeemed and now there’s a certain amount of hope in his life going forward. The straight and narrow is a tough road to traverse but Michel might find it yet.

“Oh, Jeanne, to reach you at last, what a path I had to take.”

4.5/5 Stars

Shoot the Piano Player (1960)

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Shoot The Piano Player begins thrillingly with a car chase. The man being pursued flees down a street corner, his assailants disappear into the night, and he subsequently bounces off a streetlight like an idiot. The man who brings him back up on his feet proceeds to regale him with stories about how he met his wife before walking off, never to be seen again.

In fact, none of these characters are our main protagonists but it perfectly encapsulates the glories of Francois Truffaut’s stroke of genius in this early emblematic film of the New Wave.  It’s a petty crime story with a comical streak. The two tough guys aren’t tough guys at all but with their hats and pipes they look like a pair of Monsieur Hulot doppelgangers or something. That is until they pull out a gun. But even then, they’re hardly thugs.

Listed out as simple plot summary, it has certain flourishes fit for a Hitchcock thriller. A man on the run. Lurking criminals, kidnapping, murder, romance, humor, but there’s no doubt, even with this being only his second feature, that this is very much Truffaut.

It’s all a wonderful front for Truffaut’s own explorations. And the bottom line is not simply homage to film-noir and the Master of Suspense but more broadly all his fascinations of men, women, love, and everything that intrigues him about putting a mirror up to humanity–cinema itself. However, as the director long suggested, he preferred film to reality because he could orchestrate it, make it to his liking, with touches of humor and tragedy.

This pseudo-storyline starts with Charlie who placidly knocks out honky tonk for the public’s enjoyment. It’s hard to know if he’s content or simply biding his time. The latter seems more likely. Except when his big brother Chico busts into the joint with a couple of hoods on his tail, in some small way it brings everything rushing back on Charlie.

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It’s not much but the ensuing events have him wrapped up in his own bit of intrigue as he navigates his romantic inclinations and every other thing that is thrown his way.  A Hollywood reference point would certainly be Out of the Past and similarly sinks back into a flashback. But here it is used in a way that’s completely jarring, hardly convenient for those seeking comprehension. And Truffaut’s character utilizes voiceover as well but this is not the laconic, cynical speak of film-noir, instead the nervous inner monologue of a timid piano player.

His sometime bedmate and the housekeeper for his kid brother is Clarisse. Meanwhile, the waitress at his work Lena has his heart going pitter patter, not quite a Hitchcock blonde but a woman who is willing to get involved with his drama. But there was also another important woman in Charlie’s life: His wife.

It’s from these three women in their relationships with Charlie and all the other male characters that some very blatant realities become evident. There’s a conscious separation of the woman into parts whether it is her heart or her body. In one sense, the aforementioned women are strong characters. Meanwhile, the men are all fairly passive, their main outlets include objectifying, ogling, even ridiculing their female counterparts.

At least Charlie’s candid about it but he’s still part of the problem. In many ways, in looking at the women as the tragic figures often used by men as a cinematic object, Truffaut could very easily be wrestling with his own issues of love and romance. What does that actually mean? What causes people to marry? What causes them to love and fall out of love, break up and come back together or even commit themselves to death?

All that can be found within this film although it is obviously veiled by scenes masquerading as crime and comedy. The crowning joke of them all is really a kind of tragedy. Amid the strangest turn of events, Charlie or Edouard (as we now know he is called) is resigned to play behind his piano once more.

The final moments at the snowcapped cabin are madcap and still almost surreal with some stunning sequences captured vividly by iconic New Wave cinematographer Raoul Coutard. In breaking so cleanly with his initial effort of The 400 Blows, Truffaut simultaneously positioned himself as a very special filmmaker. He’s beholden to drama, comedy, crime, and romance, but most of all, he’s beholden to the magic of the silver screen.

4.5/5 Stars

Review: Vivre sa Vie (1962)

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vivre-sa-vieThe opening credits of Vivre sa Vie commence with the opening note “dedicated to B-movies” and indeed many of Jean-Luc Godard’s best films could make the same claim. They’re smalltime stories about little people living rather pathetic lives if you wish to be brutally honest. This isn’t Hollywood.

Opening titles aside, we meet our main characters from behind, their backs to the camera in the throes of a minor spat. It acts as the subject for the first of the director’s 12 tableaux that make up the film rather like chapters in a book following the life of our heroine Nana (Anna Karina). Next, comes pinball games, Nana’s occupation as a Record Shop attendant and other mundane moments.

The passage of time caused me to forget that Nana goes to a screening of The Passion of Joan of Arc. Her own life witnessed in the eyes of Joan–a heroine that she easily empathizes with for her own amount of suffering and pain. It’s difficult to decipher who Nana feels more connected to, Joan of Arc or the actress Maria Falconetti herself. Because the truth is, Nana too was trying to make it as an actress, even being featured in a film or a play or something or other. It didn’t work out.

As the story evolves, we gradually begin to see her plight more clearly. It comes slowly at first before fully establishing itself. She goes down the rabbit whole quite by chance, taking on a very different occupation. It’s pitiful really, she looks more like a frightened rabbit than a woman of the street.

Her aspirations of catching the eye of some director are instead channeled towards Raoul, the pimp who gets her started and shows her the ropes of the trade. In some ways, it feels like he owns her, and yet Nana still strives to lead her own life. One of the moments she gives the illusion of happiness is in all places a pool hall as the jukebox grooves away and she shimmies with it. But in this moment as with so many others, it seems as if she’s constantly under the gaze of men. She’s constantly trying to earn their affection and in some sense earn her own worth. Whether or not they give it is another matter and that’s the great tragedy of Nana’s life.

In some of the film’s final interludes, she finds time to wax philosophical with an old thinker on a number of topics from personal responsibility to issues of free will. He further asserts that the more one talks, the less the words mean. Perhaps Godard took that to mean form over dialogue.

At times it’s as if Godard’s camera is constantly on a swiveling axis or even a pendulum, focusing on a figure and swinging back and forth between it’s two subjects. No cuts are necessary and it’s oddly compelling.

Look at his work hastily here and it could be misinterpreted as shoddy and that could be but more likely is the fact that Godard was always thumbing his nose at convention. He was never beholden to classical Hollywood but he did have heroes. The likes of Sam Fuller, Fritz Lang, and Nicholas Ray. Men with their own aesthetics and Godard was forging his own path. Only someone like Godard would have the audacity of having us watch the entire transcription of a letter. Why? Because he wanted to.

Vivre sa Vie did not ignite the Nouvelle Vague but in many ways, it stoked the flames and Godard perhaps unwittingly gave nod to another landmark film from his compatriot Francois Truffaut, Jules et Jim, which finds its way up on a movie marquee.

Perhaps what’s easiest to take away from Godard’s work here with longtime collaborator Raoul Coutard is that he’s constantly messing with our classical cinematic sensibilities. The way he cuts (or doesn’t), the way he interrupts sound, the way he moves between intertitles and so on. It’s still his and it still disrupts the status quo that we are used to even as seasoned viewers of visual content.

For some, it can come off as tiresome, even pretentious but it’s undoubtedly Godard and highlighting the entire narrative is the quietly yet still evocative performance of Anna Karina. Her doe eyes speak volumes by themselves.  They truly were the power couple of the French New Wave. He being the audacious artist, she his inspired muse. However, it begs the question, if there is any stock in the parallelism between film and reality. Nana/Anna being controlled by the men in her life or was it truly her life to live?

4.5/5 Stars

The Edge of Seventeen (2016)

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The_Edge_of_Seventeen_2016_film_poster.jpgThere’s a moment in Kelly Fremon Craig’s The Edge of Seventeen where Nadine (Hailee Steinfeld) suffers the ultimate humiliation third wheeling with her older brother Darian (Blake Jenner) and her (former) best friend Krista (Haley Lu Richardson). Needless to say, the evening is less than stellar but it gets worse after Nadine feels like she’s been totally betrayed. She’s been hating her brother recently and her best friend is dead to her now. The fact that she sets up an ultimatum doesn’t make things any better.

It only gets worse when a fellow partygoer notes Nadine’s sibling relationship reminds her a little bit of the movie Twins — if Nadine was Danny Devito and Darian was Arnold Schwarzenegger. It’s a perfect illustration of how she feels.

Growing up is never easy for anyone and it’s little different for Nadine. Mean girls at school. No friends. Until the fateful day when she got one but by the time high school hits everyone’s doomed. Hailee Steinfeld manages the tall order of portraying this maladjusted, histrionic, neurotic teen with a pitch-perfect pout.

She’s simultaneously our Lloyd Dobler and our Molly Ringwald in any of the John Hughes vehicles and yet none of those things because she’s come out of a different millennium. She must put voice to every thought and emotion that comes ricocheting through her head as much as she constantly yearns for the not so pretty boy on campus to notice her existence.

Her family life is little better. The death of her father still lingers with hurt. Her brother is the devil’s incarnate (at least to her) and her mom (Kyra Sedgwick) is a little ridiculous–not to be taken seriously in the least. Did we mention that her best friend is hooking up with her brother?

What the film grasps so impeccably is that the teenage years are often defined by one word: Awkwardness. This film is the creme de la creme of awkward and for a coming-of-age film that’s very much a compliment.

There so many awkward conversations to be had. Steinfeld and Woody Harrelson share some of the best because she comes like a hurricane of emotion and he gives her nothing — only the driest retorts as her smart-aleck history teacher. Equally enjoyable is the budding friendship between Nadine and fellow classmate Erwin Kim (Hayden Szeto) who makes no attempt to hide his crush on her.

It’s easy to quickly assume Erwin is in the tradition of Long Duk Dong from Sixteen Candles but a particular Ferris Wheel conversation throws all those conventions out the window for good with a few self-aware lines of dialogue. It’s a pleasant surprise that this relationship is rife with laughs but not at the expense of the characters. Only in the sense that we have the age-old conundrum of the friend zone, still fretted about by teens to this day.

She thinks he’s nice but isn’t attracted. He thinks she’s the greatest girl in the world and dreams of making it into something. He takes all her signals to heart. She doesn’t. The Edge of Seventeen feels very genuine in these respects and the beauty of these themes are their universal quality. This isn’t just about a girl and a guy–one Caucasian the other Asian–they are two people just like us. It’s the universal unifier. We’re all human.

That’s one of the relationships modeled by Nadine in the film. But there’s another one that is far more unpleasant. The one involving her own crush on Nick a seemingly unextraordinary teen male that Nadine for some inexplicable reasons seems batty over. So much so she wants to get with him and sends him the longest, most explicit, and regrettable text message of her life. Still, it gets her some results–a ride in his car with some extra-curricular activities. Whether it’s exactly what she wanted is another thing entirely.

It’s sad really. Our culture is so saturated by sexual images teenagers think there is a need to play into those expectations, to use those same methods to get others to like them and be with them. When, in reality, that’s not right at all and the funny thing is that isn’t even what we want. It’s fairly clear Nadine finds this out firsthand. She doesn’t want just the sex in the first five minutes. She wants more. Conversation. Relationship. Intimacy. To be known. Anything would be nice. And that’s what we all want to some degree but we have an inherent ability to chase after the imposters and the imitations. They seem so nice and yet leave us with nothing.

We’ve been taught we need to lead with what’s on the outside — it’s our body that matters — as our hearts slowly die on the insides because we feel like no one understands us. Our family is made up of psychos and we have no friends. That’s part of what makes this film so revealing. But also the very fact Nadine, despite all her teenage drama, certainly has her moments.

Speaking into her mom’s life with certain candor at least on one occasion and actually opening up to Darian in a way she’s never been willing to do before. It’s the fact that she and Mr. Bruner can joust and yet by the film’s end you know full well they genuinely enjoy each other. It’s true that the acrimonious relationships with teachers somehow are the ones we remember and ultimately invest in most deeply. It’s those interactions that redeem Nadine and help her figure her life out, even if it’s only a little bit.

My only reservation is that although we greatly enjoy their characters, because of their economical amounts of screen time, it feels a little bit like Nadine’s dad and her best friend were used solely for the sake of the plot.

Still, the film’s ending makes no attempt to suddenly discover the meaning of life in some lightning rod of an epiphany. Instead, it contents itself in concluding its story not so much with endings but with the hint of new beginnings and that is oftentimes so much more rewarding. Can I simply end by saying Erwin’s quite the filmmaker?

4/5 Stars

Cleo from 5 to 7 (1962)

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cleo-from-5-to-7It’s a joy to watch Agnes Varda dance. Or, more precisely, it’s a joy to watch her camera dance. Because that’s exactly what it does. Her film opens in color, catching our attention, vibrant and alive as the credits roll and a young woman (Corinne Marchand) gets her fortune read by an old lady. She’s worried about her fate. We can gather that much and this is her way of coping. Superstition and tarot cards but she’s trying and the results are not quite to her fancy.

And from that point on Varda’s camera continues to move dynamically but her film quickly turns to black and white as if to say something. Our main heroine, this young, attractive singer named Cleo has sunk into a sense of despondency. For the next two hours, she must wait it out to hear the news from her doctor. The news being whether or not she has been stricken with cancer. And if cancer then recovery or even….death. This is her existential crisis.

In the following moments, the camera falls back as an observer even donning her point of view from time to time and that’s the true enjoyment of this film. There are stakes laid out right from beginning and those remain in the back of our minds but it’s really about how we get there. How she gets there.

Cleo walks the streets of Paris browsing shop windows for hats, taking cab rides through the city, patronizing local establishments, resting at her flat with her assistant, and even calling on friends.

It becomes obvious that Cleo needs other people in her life whether she knows it or not. There’s an importance in solititude when she gets to examine the passing world and take in the serenity of running water in a park on a peaceful afternoon. But it’s the people that bring some color to her life. True, she does note that everyone spoils me, no one loves me, undoubtedly bemoaning the quick house call by her lover, the doting of her houskeeper, and the comical buffoonery of her pianist and lyricist duo.

But she also calls on her friend Dorothee who models by day in a sculptor’s studio taking in the bustling Parisian streets with all sorts of people but more importantly time for all sorts of conversation both superficial and sincere. They visit the local cinema and are treated to a silent comedy short (starring Nouvelle Vague power couple Jean-Luc Godard and Anna Karina). As the girl’s boyfriend rightly ascertains comedy is good for the soul. It can help alleviate a world of hurt.

Cleo’s final confidante comes quite by chance. A soldier on leave from Algeria as it turns out. He’s at first forward, then didactic, and finally utterly sincere. He’s perhaps just the type of person Cleo was looking for without even realizing it — someone who is perfectly obliging with conversation when she feels completely taciturn. Theirs is a quick friendship as he agrees to go with her to the hospital for the impending news and she, in turn, looks to see him off to the train station as he goes back from whence he came.

And does the film’s conclusion suffice? Not particularly. It’s abrupt and unsatisfying after all that prolonged wait but curiously Cleo seems at peace. Perhaps that is enough. What this film does impeccably is capture a moment as if it was pure and true and utterly authentic. It takes real world issues and a real world setting, synthesizing them into a fictional storyline that still functions as the every day would.

This is the world of the Cold War, war in Algeria, Edith Piaf in the hospital, Elmer Gantry, Bridget Bardot, and French pop music. It’s all melded together, bits and pieces, and moments and ideas and snapshots into a thoroughly engaging piece that becomes a sort of rumination on life and death and all those things that complicate living. If it all sounds like a jumbled mess of words it is and instead of trying to comprehend it by any amount of diction you should do yourself an immense favor and see Agnes Varda’s Cleo from 5 to 7 for yourself. If you are disappointed then I am truly sorry for you. Because it’s a wonderful film.

4.5/5 Stars

White Heat (1949)

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james_cagney_in_white_heat_trailer_cropWhite Heat burns like hot coals even today as the epitome of incendiary cinema. It’s a gangster picture from master Warner Bros. craftsman Raoul Walsh that’s volatile and intriguing, highlighted by the always fiery James Cagney as a crazed man-child with a mom complex.

Cagney had stayed away from gangster pictures that made him a star for nearly a decade and it’s true that now it’s easy to label this a film-noir given the sweeping tide of the times including other pictures like The Killers, Brute Force, and so on.

Still, everything that is truly inspired from this film stems from Cagney’s performance because we have seen gangsters before, bank jobs, inside men, gun molls, and the like but Cody Jarrett is one for the ages. He throws a twisted wrench into what is already a quality thriller by going absolutely ballistic and simultaneously jolting it in the most peculiar ways.

Before Norman Bates was even whispered on the lips of audiences Cagney burst onto the scene with his demonic characterization, very plainly evil personified as the psychotic Cody Jarrett. He smacks policemen, guns down the worthless, and schemes incessantly. However, he also has a strange sense of family and friendship. He’s prone to crippling migraines like his insane father and still parks himself on his mother’s lap. He even befriends a copper, except he doesn’t know it. He gets duped like a two-bit stooge.

Edmond O’Brien was on the rise at this point following such films as The Killers and The Web. He still owns a supporting role in the sometimes thankless job as the decent heartbeat of law and order. But he has so much more character than all the other stiffs with their fine looks and chiseled jawlines who simultaneously faded into the annals of history.

Although he’s playing support to Cagney, there are a lot worse gigs and the pair works well with each other. At one time strangers, confidantes, and finally bitter enemies in the constantly seesawing dynamic that comes when an undercover agent looks to get buddy-buddy with a certifiable psychopath. Not surprisingly it makes for a thoroughly engaging crime film because the characters actually have something to them.

The iconic Mess Hall sequence brimming with Cagney’s explosive bravado is representative of his flair throughout the entire picture. It just won’t let up. It never lets up. A line of “telephone” takes a message down the row of inmates (including sports icon Jim Thorpe) before reaching the waiting ears of the hardened criminal. Like a stick of dynamite, he goes off and becomes possessed by some unnamed force. It represents the manic, off the wall style of Cagney that still compels audiences today. It’s no longer a simple performance. This is not acting (or it doesn’t seem like it). This is feeling, hate, anger, rebellion, and violence all channeled into a transcendent moment where the man has completely lost himself in a role. No one can touch him. It’s fantastic.

Virginia Mayo finds herself portraying her particular sultry siren accustomed to mink and bubblegum. While Steve Cochran stands tall as the main crony with big ideas, the aptly name Big Ed who is looking to worm himself in on Jarret’s territory (and female company), while he’s incarcerated. Meanwhile, Margaret Wycherly who was previously known as the angelic mother of Alvin York takes on a maternal role on the complete opposite spectrum and she does a fine job as a woman modeled after the notorious Ma Barker.

Any great crime story needs a final set piece where everything can culminate in one ultimate crescendo. White Heat does not disappoint in this regard as Agent Hank Fallon looks to tip off his colleagues following the inception of a big heist of a chemical plant in Long Beach. What follows is a tense dragnet and shootout and it’s a fitting place for Jarrett to meet his maker or in his case his mother. He literally goes into the inferno, blowing up and entering the conflagrations of hell in the most startling of fashions — still clinging doggedly to his mom–his twisted guardian angel of death. It’s a curtain call worthy of such a performance and knowing it can do no better, the film ends there, no fanfare just a grimy picture where criminals aren’t as cut and dry as Hollywood once supposed.

5/5 Stars

The Big Sick (2017)

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The_Big_Sick.jpgIn his opening introduction, Kumail (comedian Kumail Nanjiani playing a cinematic version of himself) explains what it was like to grow up in Pakistan with cricket and praying and arranged marriages. All those fun Pakistani traditions. There’s a bit of a matter-of-fact flippancy to how he recounts it all. Truthfully, it’s in stark contrast to much of what we’re used to. As he so rightfully points out, it also meant they got episodes of Knight Rider a lot later than everyone else. That’s before his parents made the decision to move to the States with their two sons.

America has always been a melting pot since the day of Alexis De Tocqueville and that’s part of what this film celebrates while never completely denigrating Kumail’s Pakistani roots. It so refreshingly provides a story told from a different point of view — one that we have not seen all that often — which is all illustrated so exquisitely in the opening moments.

But The Big Sick is also resonant in part because of the conflict of cultures that dwells at its core. A differing perspective usually causes chafing and it’s no different in this case. Still, at first, it must start out as a love story and it is or at least it evolves into one. This particular romance feels invariably relevant to the current world we find ourselves in. It’s a picture informed by a 21st-century worldview.

Kumail is making a go of it as a stand-up comedian in the Windy City and he makes ends meet with a bit of Uber driving. He meets a girl named Emily (Zoey Kazan) at his comedy club, a local grad student with aspirations to be a therapist. They go on a date and wouldn’t you know it, they sleep together. That is the culture after all as much as Uber, ethnic diversity, profanity, and irreligiousness.

Perhaps it’s more precisely put by Kumail who so candidly admits he hasn’t prayed for years because he does not know what he believes. That is the world that this movie occurs in, our world right here and now. They have their rounds of playful patter and time spent together watching Kumail’s favorite horror movies (he proudly has a poster of Shaun of the Dead up on his wall like any unabashed nerd). Still, they are equally noncommittal in how they never want to get too serious about relationships.

It makes sense that romances are about relationship but often those very things are also so closely tied to family. Both sets of parents play a significant role in the picture and certainly, none of them are perfect — exhibiting a wide range of idiosyncrasies — and yet the key seems to be that they are more than a pair of punch lines. It’s those very relationships too that seem to add even a greater depth and heighten the stakes. Because parental commitment more often than not is for the long haul even when their kids’ relationships don’t seem to be.

In case the title didn’t tip you off already, I’ll save you the trouble and let you know that Emily winds up sick in the hospitable. The people by her side are her mom (Holly Hunter), her dad (Ray Romano), and Kumail who feels bad even as their relationship was all but finished.

As we get to know them as people though, it really feels as if we are getting a better understanding of Emily and the same goes for Kumail. In the same way that Kumail feared telling his family that he was dating a white girl, we see another culture clash in her parent’s who fell in love years ago despite coming from two very different backgrounds, one a stiff New Yorker the other a southern belle in a football-loving family.

Kumail begins to gain a certain modicum of courage to stand up to his own parents, in particular, a mother who is always trying to set him up with a nice Pakistani girl like she did with his older brother. He’s weathered a long list of resumes and “drop-bys” by the most eligible Pakistani ladies. We sense the need for personal integrity. He needs to learn how to exercise it not only in dealing with Emily but his parents as well.

You can still be an American and embrace other cultures and that’s one of the keys to this story because navigating that can be utterly trying. Our differences far from encumbering us should bless us with life more abundant and humanity still proves that love can be a universal language that crosses many divides, cultural or otherwise.

Furthermore, could it be that this film too succumbs to that character trope formerly in vogue as the manic pixie dream girl? It’s a stretch since this is based on real events but it falls apart further still as we watch the film progress to its full conclusion. Because if you remember this fantasy character is meant to bring something out of the male character and cause a change in them. That does happen to Kumail to an extent.

The crucial development for the sake of Zoe Kazan’s character is the fact that she is allowed more growth than simply being the cause of Kumail’s growth. Thankfully she is more than a mere plot device. She is given the dignity of an actual human being meaning that she’s able to acknowledge that maybe she hasn’t changed as much as him — she’s not ready to just go back to the way things were before — and that’s okay because that feels authentic.

That’s not to say there can’t be a happy ending but as many of the greatest modern romantic comedies have managed this one leans into ambiguity and makes that a strength far more than a weakness. Kumail has gone onto to pursue his stand-up career. Emily no doubt continues her aspirations to become a therapist. Still, there’s such a thing as a fairy tale and this might be a good time to point out again that this is semi-autobiographical. Real life fairytale romances are possible. They just usually happen to be a lot messier than we’ve read about in books. A lot like this story.

3.5/5 Stars

Update: On September 16th, 2017 a man named Nabeel Qureshi passed away. And I bring up his extraordinary life because it was difficult for me not to see the parallels to this film.

Like Kumail, Nabeel was Pakistani-American. Like Kumail, Nabeel also faced the challenges of going against the wishes of his parents when it came to core aspects of his life. Like Kumail, Nabeel and his wife faced the malevolent onslaught of sickness. But in Nabeel’s case, the sickness struck him and he did not recover.

It sounds like a very sad tragedy and it is bittersweet but I reference it because Nabeel was a man who had tremendous joy and hope and he left such a lasting impact on his fellow man. It is a life worth sharing about. I enjoyed the Big Sick but even in the last few months and weeks, I have been inspired by Nabeel Qureshi’s life even more.