Movies: The Official "Movie of the Week" Club Thread IV

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Victoria
Schipper (2015)
“Ok. I go.”

Ohhh “the oner,” that spectacular feat of filmmaking choreography where we’re led through a town square or the back of a nightclub or the deserted early morning streets of Berlin. It’s a showstopping maneuver that I have a mostly on, but sometimes off, relationship with. Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil (and Altman’s The Player, which mimics it) give us key character introductions and information. Goodfellas’ Copacabana scene gives us character — the world just OPENS for this man and we see it through his date’s eyes. But then sometimes you get a Birdman or an Atonement where the feat (faked in Birdman, executed in Atonement) just feels much more about the filmmaker than the film. I’m watching you do it, but wondering why beyond your own ego stroke. (Quick tangent, a good friend of mine and I got into an argument the Boyhood-Birdman Oscars year because he dismissed Boyhood as being “just a gimmick” and I’m like mf’er Birdman is ALL gimmick).

This brings us to Victoria, where the showstopper is the show. It’s a bold move and it largely works for me. You’re always aware of the experiment and because of that, perhaps ironically, it’s less of a distraction. The show doesn’t stop. The events and the rhythm constantly makes sense. Great pacing between actions and exhales. And the decision to make the movie one shot also makes story sense. It’s impressive filmmaking, so much so that I wonder why director Sebastian Schipper hasn’t worked more. One movie and a TV show episode in the nine years since this.

One of my favorite movies the year it came out. I wondered if it would have diminished in the years since but it really held up well for me. A couple of things that really jumped out to me this time — language and casting. There’s a nice tension in the film due to the fact that the only common language among Victoria and the guys is English. So when they’re speaking German, she doesn’t know what they’re saying. Good performance of observation by Laia Costa. It’s never underlined, but one wonders if the night goes different if she’s able to better understand them. And on casting, half the work for Costa, Frederick Lau and Franz Rogowski is their own faces. Though Costa reveals a steeliness that might be hidden by her doe eyes she reads so soft you can’t help but want her protected (even from her own poor decisions). Lau is well meaning but overconfident. Rogowski is trouble.

Really great sense of place and time of night, the quiet of the streets contrasted with the thrum of the clubs, the night’s gradual transition from black to blues to purples to light and how the streetlights create these almost bubbles or orange ...

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Traveling next week so I might be late on the next one but I will get to it.

 

[Pink Mist]

Victoria (Sebastian Schipper, 2015)

First things first, Berlin is one of my favourite cities in the world, I love the gritty bohemian spirit of artists and weirdos. Immediately upon my visits to the city I get wrapped up in its intoxicating energy where anything is possible and adventure lies around any corner. Its the kind of place where its easy to leave a party at 4am and not go to bed until 10am as you float from encounters and after-parties (not to mention that a lot of the clubs themselves operate from midnight on Saturday to well into Monday morning/afternoon).

Victoria perfectly captures that vibe of Berlin. Although my nights never ended up in a robbery or in a shootout with the cops, there was usually an element of danger and sketchiness that was thrilling, so its easy to see how Victoria could get pulled into the predicament that she gets into in the film. The meet-greet with the boys outside of the club is extremely realistic and the actors all have good chemistry with the largely improvised dialogue.

The main draw that brings people to watch Victoria is that its a one-shotter. The two and a half hour film was shot in one-take, and I believe they accomplished it on their third try. There's a lot of attention to the use of the one-take and its impossible to talk about Victoria without talk about the one-take, but to me I don't really notice it. The use of the one-take in Victoria is effective because it doesn't really bring attention to itself. It's subtle and naturalistic, unlike say Birdman or 1917 that use the one-take as a flashy attention seeking technical device. There's no flashiness, its not weaving through walls and sets; its grounded, like you're an additional member of the gang of characters. It works because its effective at capturing the ebbs and flows of the night, the excitement and chillout time that draws someone into adventure. Could the film have been filmed without the one-take? Absolutely, and I think you could make a great film from it. But I think the one-take works well in service of the story and the atmosphere of "real Berlin" and is not simply a technical exercise.

I think this is the 3rd or 4th time I've seen Victoria and it continues to hold up and is among my favourite films of the 21st century.

 

[Pink Mist]

Wake in Fright (Ted Kotcheff, 1971)

Wake in Fright is a great movie to watch on a Sunday while nursing a slight hangover from the night before, although its marginally less relatable now because its the middle of (an albeit balmy) winter in Toronto. Right from the onset we are introduced to the oppressive and dreadful environment of the Australian outback, with endless an desert inhabited by mates that are far too hospitable. We follow John Grant, an arrogant English teacher who is trying to leave the outback to Sydney to catch a flight back to England for the Christmas holidays. Except he never makes it much further than Bundanyabba - the Yabba - where he falls in with the heavy drinking locals, gambles all his money in a game of heads or tails, binge drinks to excess, and slaughters a bunch of kangaroos.

Wake in Fright was considered a pivotal film in Australian cinema, as it was nominated for the top prize at Cannes alongside fellow Aussie film Walkabout in the 1971 festival and helped launch both the Aussie New Wave and Ozploitation film movements (interestingly though, both directed by non-Australians with Nicolas Roeg being British and Ted Kotcheff a Canadian). The film has a lot to say about isolation, masculinity, and addition and it is not shy about its points. It grabs you by the neck and screams it in your face that the Outback is hell on earth and a brutal environment where only the most macho with pent-up aggression can survive. Even intellectuals like John or the doctor must strip to their most base urges to fit in this fever dream of a town. The foreboding terror of friendship, like if The Hangover was a horror movie.

I think this brash approach to the material by Kotcheff mostly works in showing John's degradation and the hard-drinking macho culture of the Aussie Outback, but at times he definitely oversteps the line. Most notably and controversially, with the kangaroo hunt in which real kangaroos are shot and killed for the movie. It's gross, its gruesome, its and difficult to watch. Apparently this slaughter lasted for hours and it wasn't far off from what was depicted on film with the hunters getting drunk out of their mind missing their shots. So I suppose it is realistic in that sense, but it doesn't make it less disturbing to watch.

 

[Pink Mist]

My next pick is Werner Herzog's Lessons of Darkness

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Wake in Fright
Kotcheff (1971)
“Come on, have a drink!”

John Grant, saddled with debt and a thankless remote teaching gig to pay off said debt, is stuck in an Outback town as he tries to make his way to his girlfriend and Sydney for a holiday. Gambling debts, alcohol consumption and violence mounts as he tries to extricate himself from this hell (somewhat) of his own making.

This movie looks like it smells bad. Nary a scene passes that doesn’t feel like it smells like stale beer or rotting meat or sweat (both stale and active perspiration). Or all of the above! It’s hot, oppressive. A bender from hell. It feels like a hangover. A real nightmare — not trippy David Lynch stuff, but one that gets under your skin because it’s one of those a bad decision or two and it could happen to you sorta stories.

Donald Pleasance is too beefy to truly be called spritely, but he has this malevolent sprite presence here. An almost gleeful tormentor to our protagonist. I think it’s his best performance. @kihei has written many things over the years that have stuck with me, but he once shared how disgusted he was by actor/magician Ricky Jay’s general appearance. Pleasance has cleaned up nicely for other roles, but I’ve seen this a few times now and god does his performance and generally disgusting vibe haunt me. I can hear the flies buzzing around him.

Doesn’t paint citizens of the Outback with much nuance. I know it’s a well-regarded film now, but don’t know if there was any in-country complaints about it. It predates Deliverance here in the U.S. but it’s hard to see some parallels with the city boy stuck in a rural hell story. The real kangaroo violence is tough. I understand they’re overpopulated and it’s basically Australia’s version of deer, but still some tough scenes to watch.

Ted Kotcheff would move on to Hollywood success — First Blood, North Dallas Forty. Hard to imagine the guy who made this would go on to make Weekend at Bernie’s 15 years or so later … well, wait, unless you want to argue Bernie’s corpse is essentially Donald Pleasance’s bad penny role and that weekend from hell is a comedic, American-ized update of Wake in Fright for the Reagan 80s … hmmm, maybe I should rewatch Weekend at Bernie’s?

 

[kihei]

Wake in Fright (1971) Directed by Ted Kotcheff

It's the kangaroos, innit? If it weren't for the merciless slaughter of the roos in this movie, I don't think Wake in Fright would have left much of a mark. Not that it's a bad movie, it's not. But it reminded me of something that bugged me a little in the early '70s. I don't know what to call these flicks but they represent a real spate of "We hate us" movies. These movies often came from Commonwealth countries (Killing Heat from South Africa with Karen Black was another one) and were largely acts of self-flagellation. I know I saw a few at the time, but the one I remember most was a Canadian film called Wedding in White (1972), about a girl who was raped by her brother's best friend, got pregnant, had the baby, was cruelly treated by her parents, and forced to marry a highly unsuitable older man. That man was played by Donald Pleasence, who made a career playing genuinely creepy, unattractive people, not a career choice most actors would aspire to. Such movies had one thing in common, a taste for misery and a need to announce to the world "Oh, what louts we are."

Wake in Fright is the Australian entry in this tiny sub-sub genre. However, while the cruelty and general ugliness of Wedding in White often seems gratuitous, Wake in Fright at least has a specific target--the hard drinking, hard partying, two-track-mind, white Australian male. The group in this film would come off like morons regardless, but the kangaroo massacre scene is so severe and so difficult to watch, that it takes this movie to a whole new level of disgust. I mean, I never saw anything like it before. The fact that Kotcheff or whoever thought such a scene added to the movie's theme seemed to overlook the fact that only an unfeeling lout would think all this graphic carnage was a good way to make his point. It makes Kotcheff seem as insensitive and destructive as the characters in his movie. But it sure is memorable--for better or worse, it is hard-wired into my brain for the rest of my life.

The fact that Kotcheff is Canadian, not Australian, is obviously not a comfort to me. But he did have an amazingly varied career. Going from Of Mice and Men to Wake in Fright to The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz to North Dallas Forty to First Blood to Weekend at Bernie's is one of the wilder trajectories among film directors. In Wake in Fright, he gets fine, or, at least, committed performances from his entire cast, including the lead Gary Bond, the last actor God made before She got Guy Pearce right. My only quibble is that Bond's unhappy school teacher didn't have very far to fall. You can't have a tragedy when the guy is lout material to begin with. Still, on the positive side, as an example of toxic masculinity, Australian style, Wake in Fright is hard to beat.

 

[kihei]

Double post

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

including the lead Gary Bond, the last actor God made before She got Guy Pearce right.

What a line. Chef's kiss.

 

[Jevo]

Wake in Fright (1971) dir. Ted Kotcheff

John Grant is an English school teacher in Australia stationed in the outback village of Tiboonda. He's there against his will, an indentured serf in his own words. He's bound for now due to a financial bond he signed with the government for his education. For the Christmas holiday he leaves for Sidney, first via a small and slow rail journey to Bundanyappa, or The Yappa, a mining town where the only thing to do is drink, gamble, drink, hunt, drink and drink. He's only supposed to stay for one night before flying to Sidney in the morning. But during the night he gets caught up in a game, first he's lucky and sees himself only one more good bet away from being able to buy himself out of his financial bond and out of Tiboonda. Of course he then goes on to lose everything. He no longer has enough money to buy a ticket for Sidney. The people in The Yappa are hospitable, but also violent drunks, and Grant sees himself pulled further and further into the depths of The Yappa the longer he stays.

Wake in Fright is a horror, only without any of the things that usually make a horror. There's nothing super natural. Nothing scary in the dark. In the Yappa it's all out in the open. There's nothing hidden. The Yappa is the Yappa, it doesn't pretend to be anything it is not. it's where low lifes and degenerates can come and live without judgement. The realness of the Yappa and its inhabitants is what makes it such a scary place. Grant doesn't as much fear for his life, as he fears getting sucked into the Yappa and never being able to leave. He's a gentleman with a good education and sees himself as better than them. But the longer he stays, the more he becomes like them, and perhaps ever feels as less than them.

The movie is crude and boorish, just like the people it portrays. That works quite well in this instance. There's some drunken montages where you feel as confused and sick as Grant does in the same instances. Especially during the infamous kangaroo hunt. The kangaroo hunt was quite bad even in 1971, but now it's quite sickening to watch that kind of lack of care for animals, purely for sport and entertainment. And the scene is also so long. It just keeps going. It makes it effective, but also makes it so much worse to see, if you've read about how it was filmed.

Wake in Fright is very effective as a of human horror movie. It's not my kind of movie, but I respect it for what it is, and I think it does what it sets out to do very well.

 

[Jevo]

I've been busy moving houses. So I haven't had time to think of a new film. But I was in the cinema watching The Boy and The Heron over the weekend, and it really made me want to watch Ponyo again. So Ponyo is my next choice.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Morvern Callar
Ramsey (2002)
“It’s just the same crapness everywhere so stop dreaming.”

Christmas Day. Morvern Callar’s boyfriend lies dead in their apartment. Suicide. He leaves her a note, a mix tape, some money and an unpublished novel. She reacts by going out to clubs and a house party with friends, as if nothing has happened. She tells her friend her boyfriend has left her … which is, technically, true. What follows is a bit of a grief walkabout. She disposes of the body, keeping the death a secret. She puts her name on the manuscript and sends it off to publishers. She works, she parties, she rounds up her friend and they jet off to Spain on an impromptu vacation. Secrets are revealed. A falling out occurs. More exploration. And then the book is sold. The ruse works and Morvern moves off into a future that is … brighter?

Morvern Callar is one of the more memorable depictions of grieving I’ve seen, albeit it’s a shifty one. We’re never fully privy to what’s going on in Morvern’s mind. It’s all actions and reactions with little motivation or context provided. Is she in denial? Maybe. Is she getting payback from past unspoken pains? Maybe. Do her motivations matter? Maybe. I’m just along for the ride here, man. Samantha Morton’s still face gives little away. There’s a shot of Morvern looking out a rainy window after learning her friend and deceased boyfriend had a secret tryst in their past. She’s mad. She’s not crying but the shadows of the rain play like tears on her face. Is that the key to unlocking this?

Lynne Ramsey hits and maintains this constant dreamy vibe. It’s not a reality questioning thing, more a feeling. Ghostly coasting along. This is well encapsulated in the beautifully vague final scene of strobing nightclub chaos juxtaposed to slo-mo movements and the Mamas and The Papaps’ This is Dedicated to the One I Love.

I’ve watched a string of movies lately wrestling with grief in various ways from direct grieving for lost loved ones like in Starman or Solaris or for a former life and self like Past Lives. Away from Her (which we’ll get to). Even In the Realm of the Senses, which closes with one of the more physical representations of grief expression ever put on film. They’re all effective in their specific ways, but it is Morvern Callar and its lack of clarity that’s really lingered for me.

 

[Jevo]

Morvern Callar (2002) dir. Lynne Ramsay

On Christmas Day Morvern Callar's boyfriend commits suicide on their kitchen floor. He leaves behind a book manuscript, a suicide note and some money to pay for his funeral. Morvern doesn't tell anyone, doesn't do anything. She goes out to a party with her friends, and tell them her boyfriend left her. She buries her boyfriend in the mountains, she sends the book manuscript to a publisher in her own name, and uses the funeral money to go to Spain with her friend Lanna. Morvern walks around in a haze of grief as they go to clubs and hook up with other tourists.

Grief is hard to comprehend. It hits everyone differently, and while you can be sympathetic to others' grief, it's incredibly hard to understand it, even if you've suffered grief in the past. Morvern Callar handles her grief in her own way. A psychologist would probably argue it's not a very productive way. But Morvern Callar doesn't seem to understand her own emotions either. She only seems to know she's supposed to do act in some way, but she doesn't know what she's supposed to do. She also seems to have forgotten how to "be normal", so often she ends up acting her way through every day situations in the way she thinks they are supposed to go. Lynne Ramsay perfectly creates a dream-like atmosphere throughout the whole movie, which helps put the viewer into the same haze that Morvern goes through. Exactly what Morvern is thinking is never clear. Maybe it's not even clear to her. Samantha Morton is great as Morvern. She gives a great insight into what happens inside Morvern's head, but doesn't spell it out more than necesarry.

Grief is a tough subject to show on film because it's such an internal experience. And while we never really know how Morvern feels or what she thinks. I think Morvern Callar is a very good example of how grief can be shown on film.

 

[Pink Mist]

Morvern Callar (Lynne Ramsey, 2002)

Morvern Callar has one of the best opening scenes of anything I've watched in recent memory. A blinking red light, a hand softly moving over a body, cut wrists, blood, a Christmas tree, and a suicide note on a computer (READ ME.; be brave, Morvern) It is a really effective scene that says so much without saying anything - an apt description of the film itself too.

Morvern Callar is a film about a young woman experiencing the grief of the suicide of her boyfriend on Christmas Eve. However she doesn't give the expected reaction to the death of a loved one, she doesn't tell anyone that he's dead, she goes to a party that night, quietly buries the body, and uses the funeral money he left her to go on holiday in Spain. While we see her actions, what we get little of his her words or her internal thinking and motivation behind her actions. A true example of "show don't tell" and in letting images lead the story. It helps too that Samantha Morton as the lead has such an expressive face that can say a lot (or often in this case, hide) with very little. What was the nature of their relationship that causes her to grieve this way? Was he abusive? Is she in denial that he's actually dead? Is she psychotic? Who knows, there's just enough there to speculate, but its that's all up for interpretation and there's no obvious answers.

I really love how Ramsey directed this and how it was shot by her DP. There's a trance like quality to the film as if Morvern is in reverie, floating from location and encounter, and perhaps refusing to make sense or process what is occurring. Grief is curious, we don't like to think about how we would react but we all assume we would act rationally, when really the experience can be unpredictable and anything but linear.

 

[kihei]

Morvern Callar (2002) Directed by Lynne Ramsay

I kept thinking about Krzysztof Kieslowski's The Double Life of Veronique. That film is one of the most beautifully atmospheric movies in film history. Yet I don't think Kieslowski deliberately set out to make an atmospheric movie. "Atmosphere" was a result of the story and the manner of depicting that story. Atmosphere seemed a natural component, a byproduct, of the director's art. Director Lynne Ramsay seems to start her movie with atmosphere in mind. The quirky personality of the central character, the stylistic choices that Ramsay makes--they all seemed designed to set Ramsay apart from what other directors, say Ken Loach, might do with the same material. To me this makes for a very artsy movie about a working-class character, something that you don't see every day, and it does take the viewer some distance off the beaten path.

Though some of the subject matter is dead-pan dark, I can't help but feel that Ramsay tells the story in a larky sort of way. Given what this movie could be, for one thing, a horror movie, there is a lightness and buoyancy in the telling of the tale. A great deal of the film's effectiveness has to do with our opaque central character Morvern, brilliantly played by Samantha Morton. Her boyfriend commits suicide, and she makes the best of it in a very peculiar way, first ignoring his body, then taking credit for his manuscript, then chopping him up in manageable bits, and burying him in the moors. All this happens with a minimum of horror or even distaste. Sure, it is psychopathic behaviour, but it seems as though Morvern is just playing the hand that she has been dealt as best she can. To me, there is a lot of droll humour involved in this approach to "moving on." This timid store clerk has an imagination, if nothing else. Then she takes off for Spain with her girlfriend and they pal around aimlessly before she comes back, briefly, to England in order to sell her boyfriend's manuscript. If Morvern Callar is about anything, it seems to be about moral nullity. I guess grief and shock could explain part of her behaviour, but certainly not all of it. In fact, she may not be experiencing grief at all as perhaps her boyfriend was a horse collar around her neck that she is well rid of. There are signs that he was no prize. Perhaps Morvern is less opaque than just a blank with no moral compass. Or perhaps she is just a clever girl, a female version of Purple Noon's Ripley, who is willing to do unconventional things to achieve desired ends. Or, likely, a combination of both.

I have only seen two previous Ramsay movies. I absolutely hated We Need to Talk about Kevin (no, we don't), and I absolutely loved You Were Never Really Here. So I treated Morvern Callar as sort of a third-set tie breaker. It took me longer than usual to decide, but I liked it quite a bit.

 

[Pink Mist]

Morvern Callar (2002) Directed by Lynne Ramsay

I kept thinking about Krzysztof Kieslowski's The Double Life of Veronique. That film is one of the most beautifully atmospheric movies in film history. Yet I don't think Kieslowski deliberately set out to make an atmospheric movie. "Atmosphere" was a result of the story and the manner of depicting that story. Atmosphere seemed a natural component, a byproduct, of the director's art. Director Lynne Ramsay seems to start her movie with atmosphere in mind. The quirky personality of the central character, the stylistic choices that Ramsay makes--they all seemed designed to set Ramsay apart from what other directors, say Ken Loach, might do with the same material. To me this makes for a very artsy movie about a working-class character, something that you don't see every day, and it does take the viewer some distance off the beaten path.

Though some of the subject matter is dead-pan dark, I can't help but feel that Ramsay tells the story in a larky sort of way. Given what this movie could be, for one thing, a horror movie, there is a lightness and buoyancy in the telling of the tale. A great deal of the film's effectiveness has to do with our opaque central character Morvern, brilliantly played by Samantha Morton. Her boyfriend commits suicide, and she makes the best of it in a very peculiar way, first ignoring his body, then taking credit for his manuscript, then chopping him up in manageable bits, and burying him in the moors. All this happens with a minimum of horror or even distaste. Sure, it is psychopathic behaviour, but it seems as though Morvern is just playing the hand that she has been dealt as best she can. To me, there is a lot of droll humour involved in this approach to "moving on." This timid store clerk has an imagination, if nothing else. Then she takes off for Spain with her girlfriend and they pal around aimlessly before she comes back, briefly, to England in order to sell her boyfriend's manuscript. If Morvern Callar is about anything, it seems to be about moral nullity. I guess grief and shock could explain part of her behaviour, but certainly not all of it. In fact, she may not be experiencing grief at all as perhaps her boyfriend was a horse collar around her neck that she is well rid of. There are signs that he was no prize. Perhaps Morvern is less opaque than just a blank with no moral compass. Or perhaps she is just a clever girl, a female version of Purple Noon's Ripley, who is willing to do unconventional things to achieve desired ends. Or, likely, a combination of both.

I have only seen two previous Ramsay movies. I absolutely hated We Need to Talk about Kevin (no, we don't), and I absolutely loved You Were Never Really Here. So I treated Morvern Callar as sort of a third-set tie breaker. It took me longer than usual to decide, but I liked it quite a bit.

You should "catch" her debut film, Ratcatcher. It's fantastic and her best work imo. It's like a Ken Loach/Dardenne Bros film by way of Terrence Malick. Extremely beautiful and poetic social realism

 

[kihei]

Away from Her (2006) Directed by Sarah Polley

Based on a short story by Canada's Alice Munro, Away from Her focuses on a retired couple, living quite contentedly in the countryside near Kitchener, Ontario, whose life changes when Fiona (Julie Christie), suffering from early onset dementia, decides to opt for a retirement home rather than become a burden to her husband Grant (Gordon Pinsent, a Canadian treasure). However, their loving relationship is more complex than it first appears. Grant has had infidelities with some of his female students in the past, and now he wonders if Fiona's memory loss is some kind of punishment. Meanwhile, once moved into the nursing home, Fiona develops a deep attachment with a male patient named Aubrey. At first Grant is greatly saddened by this turn of events. However, when Aubrey's wife Marian takes him home for financial reasons, Fiona lapses into deep depression, and Grant decides he would rather have Aubrey in Fiona's life than to see her in such a distressed state. This involves some complicated trade-offs with Aubrey's quietly resigned wife. Briefly Fiona recognizes Grant, and that moment will have to last him a long, long time.

Sarah Polley was 26-years-old when she directed Away from Her. How she managed to come up with a movie about Alzheimer's disease that was so well observed and thoughtfully constructed is a mystery to me. The script is spare and even a little detached, putting a lot of pressure on the actors. Julie Christie is magnificent as a woman slipping away from reality but perhaps achieving a kind of liberation in the process. Pinsent has an equally difficult role as the lover who is gradually being left behind, who has to completely reconstruct his sense of where he fits in the grand scheme of things. Known for boisterous East Coast characters, Pinsent's take on Grant is restrained, even dignified, but the hurt seeps through mostly in his expression. It is among the two or three best performances in his long career. Away from Her is movie that shies away from melodrama and concentrates on exploring feelings impossible to always put into words. It is a quiet approach, but it carries with it a great deal of compassion and sympathy.

I also love how southern Ontario the whole movie feels, an Alice Munro work, the references to Kitchener, Tobermory, and Manitoulin, and, of course, here Gordon Pinsent adds more local colour though he is a Newfie at heart. On one hand, I wonder what Kate Nelligan or Genevieve Bujold would have done with the role, in which case it would have had even a more Canadian feel. But it is good to see Christie give a performance which is right up there with her portrayals in Darling, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Don't Look Now, and Shampoo. I've seen the movie three or four times now and each time her performance actually seems deeper and more beautifully rendered than the time before. On a less enthusiastic note, it seems unfortunate that Polley has directed so few movies since 2006, two features and one superb documentary Stories We Tell about her family history which had some major surprises along the way. Hopefully she will make many more movies in the future.

 

[Pink Mist]

On a less enthusiastic note, it seems unfortunate that Polley has directed so few movies since 2006, two features and one superb documentary Stories We Tell about her family history which had some major surprises along the way. Hopefully she will make many more movies in the future.

Good news, bad news for you.

The bad news is that just yesterday she announced that she pulled out of directing her most recent project

The good news is that the film she pulled out of was being a hired gun for a live action disney remake of Bambi, so hopefully this opens her up for more interesting projects.

Sarah Polley Is No Longer Directing That ‘Bambi’ Live-Action Remake

 

[kihei]

My next pick is Bertrand Tavernier's Daddy Nostalgia.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Away From Her
Polley (2006)
“I think I may be beginning to disappear.”

Long-time married couple Grant (Gordon Pinsent) and Fiona (Julie Christie) are at a crossroads. Fiona has Alzheimer’s (at a relatively young age) and it is progressing rapidly. She’s a danger to herself and Grant is unable to manage it — at her suggestion and with his opposition, they find a center where she can go to live. The rule is Grant can have zero contact with her for the first 30 days. When he is able to see her, she’s grown attached to a man named Aubrey and doesn’t remember Grant. But is there more to what is going on? We learn through flashback and other clues that Grant once cheated on Fiona with a student and he can’t help but wonder is Fiona enacting some sort of revenge on him? He is losing her in an immediate sense, but in some ways he may have lost her long ago. It’s a slow realization for him. When Aubrey is moved back home, Fiona’s condition deteriorates. In a beautifully realized moment, Grant knows what is best for her (and him) is for her to get that connection back and for him to finally let go.

If my math is right Sarah Polley wrote and directed this at the age of 26/27(ish) which is kinda insane to me. It’s not just making a movie focused on older people but the maturity and gravitas she brings to it. She surely must describe herself as an “old soul” when she talks to people. It certainly helps to have the likes of Christie and Pinsent and Olympia Dukakis to say your words (adapted from Alice Munro). Christie, in an Oscar nominated performance, plays lovely and practical, but also enigmatic. Pinsent is in constant conflict between understanding and hurt. He’s haunted by his past and its possible implications on his present. I don’t know that the ”mystery” here (such that it is) is ultimately important, but it’s a wrenching lens through which to refract this relationship. When someone we love is in trouble, I suppose we all ponder how we may or may not have been able to do things different.

How do you not take it personal? Can you decide to be happy?

Yet another example here of something that could easily be treacly and corny or amped-up and melodramatic, but Polley seems to be preternaturally gifted at controlling tone. There’s a naturalistic matter-of-factness to all this that made it far more emotionally resonate to me than a more demonstrative path would have been. It brings me in.

 

[kihei]

K, what are you picking for your next movie?

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

K, what are you picking for your next movie?

Ah my bad. I remember posting it but it did the thing where it put it at the bottom of my review and not into a separate post and I forgot to repost.

Monty Python's Life of Brian.

 

[Pink Mist]

Away From Her (Sarah Polley, 2006)

Canadian cinema (the non-Quebecois kind) can often get a bad rap. Compared to the neighbours down south, it often either feels cheap with lesser production values or overly folksy as directors try to define the film by the way Canadian culture is somehow different or unique from the United States. For the first 20 minutes or so I was really worried for Away From Her on both of these fronts. The film certainly did not have a large budget (first time director Sarah Polley probably blew most of it getting Julie Christie to come to Canada) and it feels like that at times. The beginning of the film, for me, felt a bit like a cheap CBC production with its poor lighting and awkward blocking. Like a CBC production it also leaned heavily in these early minutes in Canadiana - pickup trucks, skiing, regional references to Southern Ontario, Gordon Pinsent's Newfoundlander accent. Everything about Anglo Canadian cinema I have been conditioned to hate, and I very nearly turned it off.

But then Julie Christie loses her memories, forgets her husband, and it stopped feeling like a Made in Canada film. From that moment on, when she spends the month without her husband and he revisits her in the home, I was hooked by the tenderness and maturity of the film. I quickly understood why the film is celebrated and launched Polley's career and why this little Canadian film earned Christie a Golden Globe win and Oscar nomination. What devastating performances by both Christie and Pinsent here, both are at the top of their games and carry the film beyond its limitations. A powerful and haunting mix of grace and sadness in their portrayals, it feels very human and natural. Not an easy film to watch, we don't like to think of what happens to relationships when we're elderly (be it memory loss or dying second), but it makes for compelling subject matter and drama. Impressive that a 26 year old decided to tackle this subject matter and handled it so well (despite those early stumbles in obligatory Canadiana).

 

[Jevo]

Away From Her (2006) dir. Sarah Polley

Grant and Fiona are an older couple who live in a cabin in rural Ontario. Fiona has been hit by Alzheimers and is deteriorating quite fast. Grant is having a hard time accepting the reality of the situation. But soon it becomes clear that he won't be able to take care of Fiona anymore in their home, and she should go to a retirement home. Fiona has already made up her mind, but Grant hesitates, especially when it becomes clear that the retirement home has a policy that disallows visitors for 30 days after admittance to make it easier on the residents. 30 days after Fiona was admitted, Grant comes back, but Fiona does not recognise him, instead she has become very close to another resident.

Dementia is a very tough subject to make a film about. Mainly because it's very hard to know what it's like to be on the inside. Even being the next of kin is very hard to imagine unless you are yourself a next of kin. But I think Away From Her is one of the strongest movies about dementia I have seen. Julie Christie and Gordon Pinsent are great in the principal roles. They have a tough job, but does it very well. Christie is great at slipping in and out of her memories, and she is great at being there, without really being there. Pinsent is very subtle in his facial expressions, but you are never in doubt what is going on on the inside.

One of the things that I think makes the film work really well, is the way that Polley has structured the story. It's not just told linearly, but it jumps back and forth in the story, but it really builds up the story in a perfect way. It shows the way that Grant is experiencing Fiona's illness. He's often in denial about it, because it goes back and forth all the time. Sometimes she's obviously ill, other times she's perfectly normal.

Away From Her is one of the most heartwrecking movies I have seen in a long time, and I couldn't be happier about it. It's fully earned, there's not a hint of melodrama or a cheap string quartet. It's just an incredibly good film. I can't imagine it's gonna leave my mind any time soon.

 

[Jevo]

Ponyo (2012) dir. Hayao Miyazaki

The five year old boy Sosuke finds a gold fish trapped in a glass jar in the ocean. He rescues the fish and puts it in a bucket of water, and brings it with him. Unbeknown to him, the goldfish which he calls Ponyo, is not actually a goldfish. It's the daughter of a wizard named Fujimoto and the Goddess of Mercy. Ponyo and Sosuke form a bond, and Ponyo wants to become a human like Sosuke. Fujimoto manages to capture Ponyo again. But she escapes, and in the process unleashes a lot of his magic. This allows her to turn herself into a human, but also causes a big imbalance in the world.

Ponyo has the same quality that makes My Neighbour Totoro one of the best films in the world, and that is, that it fully rewards you for having the same imagination, curiosity and wonder of the world as a five year old. If you can't find that in you, the movie leaves you behind, and it has no regrets doing so. I can easily see my 5 year old nephew finding a fish in the sea, and before he would have made it back to the car with his bucket. This entire movie and more would already have played out in his head. I can only dream of ever having such a lively imagination again. But a film like Ponyo gives me a look into that world of childlike imagination. Sosuke also very much acts like a five year old through out the entire movie. In many films kids end up being small adults, because the writers seem to have forgotten how children act. Miyazaki has not forgotten this, and he manages to write children that feel like children, and that helps me feel like a child, which is exactly what I want when watching a film like Ponyo. There's not many films which manage to capture this magic, and apart from My Neighbour Totoro and Ponyo, I can't think of any of the top of my head, and that's part of what makes these two movies so special. Kiki's Delivery Service has some of the same, but Kiki's quite a bit older than Sosuke and the kids in My Neighbour Totoro, and thus doesn't have quite the same feeling to it. Miyazaki also blends this seemlessly with his common naturalistic and environmentalist themes.

Ponyo is in my opinion the most visually delightful film that Miyazaki has made. I love the fish, the plants, the ocean. It's stunning, creative and playful all the way through, and it's a joy to watch it. There's so many details in every scene it's sometimes hard to follow the action, because I get caught up looking at the background instead. The same playfulness that is present in the story is also present in the animation.

In my opinion Ponyo is one of the best films Miyazaki has made. It might not be quite as good as My Neighbour Totoro, but it's damn close.