Author: Alexander De Koning

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Film

Cinema in 2022 was the Year of the Donkey

Note: This article contains donkey spoilers

In 2015, the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung published an article on why humans are fascinated with what they called “animal films,” or, films focusing on animals as their subjects rather than humans. It came to the conclusion that the phenomenon was attributed to the fact that, for the first time in history, a species (humans) has the ability to not only study and reflect on themselves, but to also document and research other species.

The cinema of 2022 seems to have brought that phenomenon to a heightened experience, albeit centered around an animal not so commonly focused on or documented. The donkey (Equus Asinus) seems to have taken the animal spotlight this year, particularly in films pushing for awards attention. Films such as Triangle of Sadness, Banshees of Inisherin, and EO have not just casted donkeys into the limelight, but gave them actual narrative-centric, stakes-heavy roles, even going so far as to make them protagonists in their own right.

But why now? Why this particular animal in this particular year? Well, the first thing one thinks of when they hear the word “donkey” is humor. On top of that, what donkeys also offer, or at least in these particular films, is companionship, thus making the animal great for sidekick roles that add a levity of humor (Shrek, etc.) 2021 and 2022 have had their fair share of ironic humor and wit. Comedy has become so “real” now, that what we used to joke about has now become commonplace. That’s not to say that the humor has gone, but our jokes have now become more of a reality than we previously thought.

With that in mind, no other animal embodies the levity of ironic humor quite like the donkey. Think of a donkey’s purpose: it’s indifferent, lazy, and doesn’t have much of a role on a farm aside from scaring off predators and pulling carts. Its only thought is to survive to the next day. Throughout pop culture, even stretching as far back as fairy tales and fables, the donkey has been the laughing stock of farm animals, which sadly gives it its gloomy reputation (Town Musicians of Bremen, Winnie the Pooh). But it also makes the perfect representation of ironic humor in 2022.

Donkey
Banshees of Inisherin

A donkey doesn’t make an appearance in Triangle of Sadness until about two-thirds through the film. But when it does, it’s used as a plot device in perhaps the most ruthless casting of the animal this year. When the upper echelon yacht cruise full of the rich and wealthy is shipwrecked, the affluent passengers are placed on an equal playing field with the yacht’s crew when they don’t know how to care for themselves, flipping the film’s theme of inequality upside down. Starving for food, they come across a donkey, and, well, you could guess what happens next….

The animal is definitely used in a darker comedic sense here, but why not any other animal? Would it have had the same effect had another animal been spared? The donkey tends to be the lowest on the totem pole. They’re a species that always gets the short end of the stick. And when it’s slaughtered, it’s merely a representation of irony dying, the cascading caste system that has descended upon the yacht-goers after being marooned.

But pity humor isn’t the only trait the donkey inherited this year in cinema. The animal also took on the role of companionship, with Banshees of Inisherin going so far as to cast the animal in a supporting role as Pádraic Súilleabháin’s (Colin Farrell’s) sidekick. As everyone starts to leave Padraic’s life due to his toxic trait of being stagnant with his future he begins to become more and more attached to his donkey, the only familiar face that stays behind. Where Triangle sees the donkey as pity-less humor, Banshees breathes life into the animal by casting it through the lens of loyalty. However, as Padraic pushes the ones closest to him away, he also puts the last shred of his donkey’s loyalty at risk, which ultimately dies in the end as well.

But aside from Donkeys perishing in the spotlight, the year in film has also casted them as main characters. The Jury Prize winner at this year’s Cannes film festival, EO follows a donkey that goes astray as it makes its way across Europe. It starts at a circus, where we see our donkey set free by an animal rights group and drift from one owner to the next, oblivious as to what’s carrying him each way. Along the way, he influences the outcome of a soccer match, becomes the mascot for a small town’s celebration, and is even brought into the company of Isabelle Huppert. But the most important element of this film is the stark contrast to our other two previous examples. What this film does that the other two don’t is give our donkey agency, an attempt to overcome the limitations placed upon itself, much like the preconceived notions humans already have when they hear the word “donkey.” Whereas Triangle and Banshees showed the fate of a donkey through a human lens, EO takes the POV of the animal, with the result being a surrealist, stylistic vision showing ultimately how humans interact with the animal kingdom.

Donkeys don’t tend to hold a soft spot for many people. Humans have put them to many uses over the years, including entertainment purposes. And these films go to show that they truly are at the mercy of the humans around them. People tend to argue what the most dangerous animal in the world is, when they’re blind to the fact that humans who are the most dangerous. To return to the article in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, in our fascination with animal films, in our ability to record and document other creatures, we in turn often forget the implications and consequences of such actions, unaware of the interruptions we cause in their ecosystems. The cinema of 2022 seems to have flipped this perspective through empathy. In showing these consequences from the POV of the animal kingdom, the year gave us a necessary view of how, in studying other species, we also inadvertently record their demise.

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TV

How ‘Nicecore Television’ is Detrimental to the Medium of Scripted TV

Last May, The Guardian published an article on the rise of a kind of primetime television we haven’t seen before, a kind of television not driven by conflict like traditional TV, but one anchored by a levity of humor. It has come to be dubbed as “nicecore television,” that is, scripted television that aims to provide a charming touch of wit at the expense of pushing a show’s conflict forward. The article made some pretty valid points, but I believe nicecore television’s roots run deeper than the charm you seen on the screen. Shows such as Ted Lasso and Abbott Elementary tend to lean on these kneejerk humorous reactions as a crutch. But these aren’t just one-off jokes – these entire series are based off the need to rely on light-hearted humor in exchange for conflict driven episodic spaces.

But what does this mean for the future of serialized and episodic television and potentiality for series pick-ups? If these popular nicecore television shows aren’t driven by a central story engine, what does that signal to the longevity of other future series? In this day and age, incited by the pandemic, the business of TV has started shifting away from shows that have a consistent source of story energy in exchange for a more happy-go-lucky, wish-fulfilling TV series, which could very well be detrimental to the medium of scripted television. In light of next week’s Primetime Emmy Awards, we’d like to shed some light on these nicecore television shows and what they pose to the future of television writing.

The biggest example of nicecore television so far has been Ted Lasso, perhaps the first show in this new wave to sway away from a concentrated story engine. Apple’s first foray into TV signaled to viewers that the company was still finding its footing in the medium, but it was the height of the pandemic and the depths of quarantine that made Ted Lasso take off. It’s feel-good, un-American worldview provided the right feelings at the right time for viewers, as well as challenged the American viewer to watch a show about a world we weren’t accustomed to – international soccer – in a time where we desperately needed to go against our habits. It provided a rewarding light in a very dark time, pop-culture references we thought we’d forgotten, and sweet humor in the lead of Jason Sudeikis.

However, these attributes also contribute to the show’s flaws. Yes, the character of Ted Lasso is the lead. Yes, he provides a joke or pop-culture reference every sentence. And yes, his character is meant for us to feel happy. However, it is not his story. He is not the show’s protagonist. Interestingly enough, it’s Rebecca Welton’s (Hannah Waddingham), the team owner’s story. She is the one who’s put into conflict, she is the one putting the team at risk and instigating stakes. But what makes this conflict thin is the glue that keeps her in this situation. Why does she keep Lasso as manager? If she’s putting the team’s investors at risk and remains reluctant to Lasso’s optimism, why doesn’t she just get rid of Lasso? One hint: biscuits. But the show’s longevity is not reliant on this thin conflict. Merely, the through-line is only there to make the series function as a narrative, as the show instead relies on the jokes and personality of Ted Lasso morale boosting his team to generate episodes.

But nicecore television is not just an Apple TV problem. Now, even network shows are starting to borrow this approach. Abbott Elementary has only aired one season, but one can tell from the first episode that it relies heavily on its lightheartedness for audience satisfaction, much like Ted Lasso. But unlike Lasso, it follows its protagonist as its lead – Janine Teagues (Quinta Brunson), an elementary school teacher who desperately wants to help the underprivileged students she teaches. However, like Lasso, it also has a problem with the “glue” that keeps Brunson’s character in conflict. There is no organic glue keeping her in the world she is in other than that she wants to help the children. It’s admirable, and certainly provides for a likeable protagonist, but there is no central flaw or world of conflict she’s thrusted into. But these are the elements necessary to spur a series’ permanency, as the show instead aims to focus on high-spirited comical aspects to satisfy a viewer’s expectation for comic relief. It aims for a setup/punch-line combo instead of choosing to elevate the series by pushing the conflict forward.

Ted Lasso (courtesy of Apple)

Even though this is a fairly new formula, it’s one that’s quickly being copied in exchange for fewer series orders from networks. By following a formula such as this, the thought of the show’s longevity is quickly ignored, thus not promoting the show’s core theme and its varying degrees. CBS and ABC have both drastically cut back their series orders this year, in addition to axing many already existing series. This year, ABC had only one pilot order along with only one comedy picked up to series, whereas CBS ordered only 4 series out of its nine pilots with zero of them being comedies, and NBC has ordered two series so far out of its five pilots.

It used to be that a show took pride in delving deep into its theme over a number of seasons, churning out however many episodic spaces that stemmed from its central conflict. If you look at past successful TV shows (or, arguably, shows that ran for at least five seasons), a series longevity was a testament to the originality of a show’s theme – it was its social commentary. Shows such as Roseanne and Married with Children were not just light, dinner-time entertainment, but a particular insight into American society told through an intimate medium, a medium that centers around a flawed protagonist changing over a period of time based on the people they are surrounded by. These shows had just the right elements for a show to properly function: stakes, glue, dimensionalities of characters, and conflict.

Frasier is a perfect example of how central conflict can spur longevity. The show begins with the theme of privacy and a simple premise: a stuck-up Harvard-educated psychiatrist is forced to take in his injured policeman father who is everything but. The pilot episode lays down the bare basic bones of how the series will operate. But the conflict externalized on screen gradually gets more intimate as the series progresses. Soon enough, it becomes not just about the privacy of Frasier’s space, but also the privacy of his mind. The show grows to center around ethical dilemmas, as Frasier Crane rejects not only the invasion of his privacy, but the ethical quandaries that come with it, fearing that he might be going against his values as a highly-respected psychiatrist.

It wasn’t until the success of Seinfeld when networks discovered that a show can be essentially about “nothing,” thus taking away a sitcom’s essential social element. It brought about a “loose-ness” to network television, introducing the idea that a TV sitcom didn’t need a central theme. Traverse this all the way back to today, where the same predicament occurs but in a slightly heightened experience. Not only does breaking a story’s theme lead to a lengthy series, it also reinforces the need for a revolving door writers’ staff. Keeping fresh voices moving in and out of the writers’ room is essential for creating a show’s durability. It introduces new voices to bring about new story beats at a certain point in a show’s narrative, not just to keep the show fresh, but to also HIRE MORE WRITERS. Hiring more writers is key in breaking story. It promotes writers from within and provides a diversity of voices to lend to the exploration of a show’s central theme and the many pockets within it.

Cut back to today, where networks are giving fewer series orders and premium cable and streaming services are ordering what are essentially long movies cut up into 10 episodes. This, in turn, changes the entire economic climate of how television is written: by not working with a central theme and story engine, a show does not produce longevity. When a show does not produce longevity, it fails to hire fresh voices and perspectives, thus leading to the changing TV writer climate we have today. Have we really had better quality television with 8-10 episodes every one to two years as opposed 22 episodes in one year?

I’m sure it goes without saying that a show doesn’t absolutely NEED to stick to its conflict, it can survive just fine from its charm that stems from its cheeriness. But that will only take a show so far. It used to be a testament that a show’s depth goes as far as its writers’ room does. The more diverse the writers’ room, the more specific the show’s niche becomes. Not only do these “nicecore television” shows change the landscape of modern television, they change the very DNA as to how television is made. Television is an intimate medium based on character relationships, and a writers’ room centered around a single story engine provides this intimacy. When we lose what the central idea of what a show’s about, we lose its social commentary, we lose its intimacy. Let’s just hope there will be future shows that take into account the next generation of TV writers.

Featured image courtesy of ABC

Categories
TV

How ‘Euphoria’ is this Generation’s ‘Twin Peaks’

Every generation has that one show. You have your Breaking Bad‘s, your Hill Street Blues‘, your I Love Lucy‘s… but every generation has that one show that operates on a different level. That’s not to say if it’s good or bad, but it definitely can’t be compared to anything. If you haven’t been under a rock, HBO’s Euphoria boasts penises, a heavy soundtrack, reckless drug use, and underage sex. It’s everything a parent wouldn’t want their child to be doing. But underneath all the debauchery are mysterious forces at work, something mythic – everyone trying to find their own form of satisfaction, or I guess, euphoria.

But it brings to mind another show that aired 30 years prior. Despite being a serialized primetime network drama, Twin Peaks also explored the darker side of a small town: both center on subjects in high school, yet they take vastly different directions – one’s a murder mystery, and the other a relationship drama. Both portray promiscuity with high schoolers and adults. Both involve some sort of drug use. The similarities on the surface are easy to point out, but let’s dive a little deeper.

The theme (and story engine) of Twin Peaks is truth – the truth of Laura Palmer’s death, and the truth that everyone in the town conceals. However, Euphoria’s characters are also in search of their own truths: what makes them tick, what gives them the ultimate satisfaction, what will bring them closer to what life is all about – happiness. But also, both shows portray their characters as doomed to fail in this search. It will always be a bottomless well – they’ll keep digging and digging for that stimulus of an answer, but they’ll never reach it, all while putting their well-being at risk. As for Twin Peaks’ case, the “truth” will always be some version of the truth, an interpreted truth, by one of the town’s inhabitants.

Twin Peaks

It’s needless to say both shows also sprung from singular auteur-ist visions. David Lynch and Sam Levinson both had artistic controls over their respective series, quite evident in Euphoria with its exuberant style: the lighting, the camera movements, the casting, the music – it’s incredible how HBO gave so much power to a young filmmaker, in its first two seasons no less. Every camera placement and backlight feels precisely and deliberately done, that it’s impossible to imagine Euphoria as a show that functions with the elements of a traditional drama series: a writers’ room, rotating directors, etc… some may argue that as a fault, but Euphoria wouldn’t be the show we love even if it did have those elements.

And for Twin Peaks, Lynch had what was fairly the equivalent in the 90s with a basic cable drama. From the theme song, to the tone and mood, Lynch’s fingerprints are all over every aspect of the series. But network primetime was a different place back in April 1990, and Peaks crashed the party like a goth at a debutante ball. However, when the show’s producers succumbed to network pressure and revealed Laura Palmer’s killer (sort of) in the seventh episode, the show’s viewership hemorrhaged. But it was no longer just a show about finding the murderer of a high school girl – it started to involve other dimensions, the birth of good and evil. Lynch took it in a wild, surreal direction, the style we usually associate him with. All of a sudden, Twin Peaks became some sort of puzzle, quickly growing out of the mold basic cable shows usually get stuck in becoming the show we know and love today.

Both shows also grew their audience reach while on hiatus. It’s hard to believe, given that season 2 of Euphoria just aired, season 1 aired two and a half years ago. Most TV shows wouldn’t ever be able to sustain that kind of momentum, nonetheless during a pandemic. A show about high school kids who abuse privilege – what made that so special? Why was it still a talking point amongst TV enthusiasts despite a two-and-a-half-year absence? Likely, there’s a few particular reasons, or rather, a culmination of them all. Euphoria became popular right before the pandemic hit. It was the last cultural phenomenon that was a trending topic before our lives were changed. It’s also the last serialized drama series we can remember where we’re given a week to gossip, digest, and theorize on an episode before watching the next one, thanks to Twitter supplying it with a constant discourse outlet.

Euphoria

Twin Peaks, on the other hand, had 26 years before its return. But just like Euphoria, Peaks’ cult status only grew during its absence, speaking to a new generation and fanning the flames for the desire of a revival. And that’s just what happened. When Twin Peaks: The Return aired, it not only brought along its old built-in audience, but drew in a newer, younger crowd, and even behooved them to revisit earlier seasons. Also like Euphoria, Peaks’ popularity soared in its absence thanks to internet discourse. Its history and folklore only made the show more infectious with theories on what could’ve happened. It was a feedback loop that drew in younger audiences in a way its original audience couldn’t understand.

There are just as many arguments against this opinion than there are for it. One can just as accurately argue that these two shows couldn’t be any more different. But the starkest similarity is the zeitgeist around the two. They are two shows that challenge and require audience participation, and there’s very much a world that stems from and exists outside of them: us, the viewers. One could say that about any show, but these two are special. They conjure a community of specific kinds of people – outcasts, people in the in-between, people who don’t know how to necessarily describe themselves, but also a community that ultimately wants to challenge itself. I think that’s what these two shows will be remembered for most: the discourse and the compelling urge of the viewer to step out of their comfort zone.

Categories
Film

How This Year’s Oscar Nominees Revolve Around Subtlety

The Oscar nominees revealed just three weeks ago point in a direction where the Academy hasn’t really gone before. The films nominated aren’t necessarily box office darlings (not even Dune made it into the green stateside), nor are they franchises or revives (save for West Side Story). Rather, this year’s nominees revolve around subtlety to tell their stories, requiring viewers’ patience and their “dismissal” hat to be hung at the door. They aim to challenge the viewer, which is what any great film should do – test the boundaries of not only what you’re comfortable with, but also push the limits of your empathy. And perhaps this is why this year’s Oscar nominees are not necessarily quiet, but sensitive in their approach of telling their stories.

Let’s start with the first and biggest example: Drive My Car – Japan’s three-hour Oscar submission that’s an adaptation of Murakami whose opening credits don’t even appear until 50 minutes in – is this year’s Oscar favorite just behind The Power of the Dog. The film centers around a stage director (Hidetoshi Nishijima) who loses his wife and accuracy of vision and is forced to hire a driver (Tôko Miura) to transport him to and from rehearsal. At first tricked for self-importance, Drive My Car’s slow and quiet unraveling of its story of empathy thaws and rises to the surface during its lengthy run-time. Perhaps this is the function of the plot – it acts subtly and un-detectable, that its conflict only barely reveals itself. Their connection at first comes off stand-off-ish, but how the film employs the venue of a car for its subjects to be vulnerable with each other only aids the film’s empathy.

But the theme of empathy is not only a foreign affair: The Lost Daughter also maintains roots in its approach to intimate filmmaking. It’s another film whose conflict is not strictly overt, but requires patience and attention to figure out. It centers around a college professor (Olivia Colman) who’s apparently lost touch with her daughters and confronts her unsettling past when she encounters a new mother (Dakota Johnson) and her daughter. You assume her daughters are dead, or even worse, assume she’s at fault. But again, there’s only a very fine line of conflict in the film, most of which is worn and communicated via Colman’s performance. It is not one that is externalized, but internalized. The film’s story may as well have started before the beginning of the film, as that’s what’s implied: the thrusting of Colman’s character into a world she rejects is not necessarily shown, as the film forces the audience to be in Colman’s shoes in order to understand.

But perhaps the most likely film to win the top prize this year is The Power of the Dog, Jane Campion’s period piece western centering around a rugged cowboy (Benedict Cumberbatch) whose world is shaken up when his brother (Jesse Plemmons) brings home a new wife (Kirsten Dunst) and kid (Kodi Smit-Mcphee). The slow-burn conflict focuses on the empathy (or lack thereof) between Cumberbatch and Smit-McPhee. Clearly a homosexual, Smit-McPhee’s character serves to hit Cumberbatch’s vulnerable spots in the most cunning of ways, acting on his flaw of queer repression to change him over a period of time. He does so effectively, but again in such a minute way, externalized only through glances of the eyes and the softest of touches.

The inclusion of these films, and as frontrunners no less, seems to have Twitter scrambling to argue that the Academy is in fact “changing,” but maybe they’re rightfully so. Ever since 2017, the Academy has been inviting younger, more diverse members to join, and perhaps it’s only taken five years in order to see the result. The Academy has nominated “art” films before, but they’ve never been, for lack of better words, this quiet. Take a look back at the arthouse films nominated in the past twenty years. Crash was most definitely the surprise indie to win, but definitely wasn’t subtle in its message. Moonlight was definitely a step forward for the Academy, but that film was driven more by its externalization of empathy more so than subtlety. Roma was an exceptionally well-done film, but its ingenious indulgence of directorial choices and set pieces make it not very self-effacing.

 ‍  ‍  ‍  ‍  ‍  ‍  ‍  ‍  ‍  ‍  ‍  ‍  ‍  ‍  ‍  ‍  ‍  ‍  ‍  ‍  ‍  ‍  ‍  ‍  ‍  ‍  ‍  ‍  ‍  ‍  ‍  ‍  ‍  ‍  ‍  ‍  ‍  ‍  ‍  ‍  ‍  ‍  ‍  ‍  ‍  ‍  ‍  ‍  ‍  ‍  ‍  ‍  ‍  ‍  ‍  ‍  ‍  ‍  ‍  ‍  ‍  ‍  ‍  ‍  ‍  ‍ Drive My Car

This year’s Oscar nominees also fuel a fire to a debate that’s been resurfacing for a couple years – “why are movies so long nowadays?” With the inclusion of lengthy films such as Drive My Car (2 hours and 59 minutes), Nightmare Alley (2 hours and 30 minutes), and Licorice Pizza (2 hours and 13 minutes), the general public will likely begin to equate awards worthiness and critical acclaim with length. It’s almost as if a movie has to be long to get any awards recognition. But there are two sides to that argument.

The Academy tends to equate length with “seriousness,” indicating craft and skill. The shortest film to ever win best picture is Marty (1 hour and 31 minutes), but even that was an anomaly – it was a comedy, which tend to be shorter (and only four of which, arguably, have ever won best picture), with the average best picture nominee length from the past 20 years easily above the two-hour mark. But is that a necessary pre-requisite? Must a film be of a certain length to capture the attention of the academy?

The other side of the argument is that subtlety does often require patience, at least in terms of a feature length film. In order for a director to not be strictly overt and obvious in telling a story, the film almost needs to challenge the audience in that sense. It needs to bring about and require active viewership. Sure, it can be a film that actively tells you a story while the audience passively receives, but that’s exactly what it will be. And there’s nothing wrong with that. But a “smart” film, the kind that brings about a revelatory experience, requires an active audience. A film is more effective when both sides are actively participating, and the Oscar nominees this year embody that. It’s not to say so much that they are “long,” but they’re films of considerable length in order to accurately “challenge” an audience by asking for attentive viewership. One can argue that the Academy only nominates long films, but another can just as accurately say they nominate films that challenge us.

And when the length is rewarding, those are the ones that often stick with the viewer. The problem isn’t if a film is three hours. What matters is if it feels like three hours. If done effectively, if the writer has done their job, length is secondary. It’s when the narrative drifts out to sea that one starts to notice the length. Seven Samurai is three and a half hours long, but gets to and sticks with the conflict in the first minute.

But for all intents and purposes – yes, these movies are long. But they’re only long because they want to challenge you. It is the nature of filmmaking to actively challenge an audience, to force them outside of their comfort zone. It’s the sheer audacity to transcend what’s possible in film and push the limits of human empathy. Because subtlty drives this year’s Oscar nominees, then they just might be the next phase in film evolution to raise the art to a higher plane of existence.

Categories
Music

Meet Duster Lizzie: NorCal’s Hidden Gem

Eddie Hernandez, aka Duster Lizzie, has been gigging around Los Angeles and greater California for some time now. Having relocated to Camp Meeker, CA, he’s been solidifying his sound drawing inspiration from the nature and intimacy of Northern California, adding onto his already psychedelic, signature lo-fi vibe. He’s recently taken on a heavier electronic approach with his latest album, Spiritual Sequel, now available to stream, buy, and download on all streaming services. Check out the video for “Joke’s On You” below.

Categories
Film

Every Paul Thomas Anderson Film, Ranked

What makes a filmmaker exciting? It means that their best work is still ahead of them. There are amazing filmmakers coming out of the woodwork every day, each one better than the last. But if we had to bet on one filmmaker as the most exciting filmmaker on the planet, it’s Paul Thomas Anderson. Paul Thomas Anderson has traversed the cinematic spectrum, if there ever was one. But the fact that he’s still able to keep us on our toes at the mere sound of a new film, with all its mystery surrounding it, is something worth noting, and thank god we have at least one filmmaker that does so in such a mystifying fashion. In honor of Licorice Pizza hitting theaters nationwide on Christmas day, here’s our ranking of every Paul Thomas Anderson film… so far.

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9. HARD EIGHT

At one point in the 90s, it seemed like if any auteur wanted to break in they had to direct a gangster drama, or at least something to that degree – Reservoir Dogs, Sexy Beast, Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels… you see what I mean. It seemed like an easy buck to bet on.  Hard Eight was Anderson’s calling card. Having been developed and funded via the Sundance Lab, Hard Eight technically has two versions: one cut that its distributor released, and the other Anderson tried to push himself (even going behind the distributor’s back to submit his version to Cannes himself.) But thankfully, Criterion re-released Anderson’s cut of the film, even under its original title – Sydney. It not only launched the careers of John C. Reilly, Gwyneth Paltrow, and a career-best performance from Philip Baker Hall, but introduced the world to Anderson’s promising use of constantly rolling cameras and practices of a true cineaste. The low ranking of Hard Eight on this list is less an indictment of the film than a testament to the extraordinary films Anderson would produce in the coming decades.

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8. LICORICE PIZZA

For better or worse, the jury’s still out on Licorice Pizza. But everyone’s immediate reception has been near-unanimous, claiming it as a “perfect PTA” movie. Take that for what you will, because this writer is still more or less gathering their thoughts as to where it stands in his filmography. Following a summer romance in the San Fernando valley in the ’70s between a 15-year-old high school child actor and a 25-year-old career-less but hopeful girl, Licorice Pizza returns Anderson to his wispy ways of filmmaking. The film has a looser spine to it, allowing for the film to rely more on sporadic sequences to keep the pace going. Whereas his previous films had maybe one or two set pieces, Licorice Pizza is nothing but cinematic set pieces. But this is not a review of the film. It’s a fun watch (one this writer will definitely be returning to) and definitely eclipses some of his earlier work, but one can’t help but feel the airy-ness harking underneath that doesn’t ground the film in its circumstances. The soul of his fun whacky scenarios is there. The mystery, however, isn’t.

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7. PHANTOM THREAD

Every PTA film always has some sort of shade of mystery draped over its release, this one in particular when rumors started spreading that Paul Thomas Anderson was tackling a fashion stylist icon of the ‘50s who dressed royalty. Everyone’s eyes shot toward Charles James, the famous British-American haute couture stylist who was notorious for his eccentricities. However, that proved not to be the case. But one can notice some similar idiosyncrasies in Reynolds Woodcock. Phantom Thread was the next step in Anderson’s evolution of becoming the ultimate auteur, so much so he began taking the reins of cinematographer for the first time, trusting his actors to direct themselves from the page. The result is a gothic Victorian romance where one is well aware that the film’s director is at the helm of every creative aspect, much like Woodcock is over his profession and female partners.

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6. INHERENT VICE

The enigma around this one didn’t necessarily revolve around Anderson (BTS photos regularly surfaced), but rather the fact that it was an adaptation of a Thomas Pynchon novel, the only one he’s ever allowed to be adapted. Even though the two aren’t mutually exclusive, one can see Anderson’s fingerprints all over the novel. Originally intending to adapt Pynchon’s Vineland, but ultimately found it too difficult, Anderson returned to the ensemble casting and took notes from neo-noirs such as the Long Goodbye, Repo Man, and documentaries such as Hollywood Mondo. With the film’s huge cast of players, one leaves the theater feeling like they just smoked a fat joint. With so many tiny moving parts, the film is best when you stop trying to understand it, and rather let yourself understand it.

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5. PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE

Featuring arguably Adam Sandler’s most awards-worthy performance of his career, Punch-Drunk Love is PTA’s shortest, but sweetest film to date. Centering on a hermit novelty item salesman who doesn’t know how to be vulnerable, the film’s an idiosyncratic love story that bears resemblance to the French New Wave and musicals of the ’60s. What at first seems cryptic (the car crash, the harmonium, the airline mile scheme) eventually turns into a fascinating chain of events that knocks Sandler’s Barry Egan down, only for him to find the courage he’s desperately looking for in love. We wouldn’t see another PTA picture like this until Licorice Pizza.

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4. THE MASTER

Often referred to as “that scientology movie” upon its release, The Master is perhaps Anderson’s most ambitious film, and his first without his usual cinematographer Robert Elswit, this time with Mihai Malaimare Jr. behind the lens. It’s also probably his most mysterious film to date, mainly because the public didn’t know much about it. But it was that mysteriousness that made it so infectious. Almost everything about it seemed to be pointing in the direction of peculiarity – the 70mm roll out (the first film to be shot on 70mm since Henry V), the similarities between Lancaster Dodd and L. Ron Hubbard, the secret surprise screenings in NY and LA – it all added to its idiosyncrasy. But above all that, it boasts Joaquin and PSH’s best roles to date, Jonny Greenwood’s hypnotic score, and the closest thing one can get to 3D without the 3D: it’s the 2001 of the 21st century.

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3. BOOGIE NIGHTS

At only 27, Paul Thomas Anderson produced what would dub him the “most exciting filmmaker on the planet.” Boogie Nights contained an exuberance fueled by the oncoming of the ’80s with a narrative and characters that seemed to shift into an era of hyper cultural inflation. It showed his command over ensemble pieces, as well as his mastery in climactic set pieces (the drug deal sequence with a meth’d out Alfred Molina). It was something so ambitious to take on at such a young age, and yet even more magnificent to pull it off effectively. It resuscitated Burt Reynolds’ career with his only Oscar nomination, and demonstrated that Anderson is truly an actor’s director.

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2. MAGNOLIA

Perhaps the most whimsical of his filmography, Magnolia follows several San Fernando Valley inhabitants on a rainy day in LA, whose characters are plagued by trauma they can’t seem to let go of. It’s a beast of a movie – a 3+ hour runtime, a stacked ensemble cast, and a climax that’s Anderson’s best set piece in any of his films. And among his ensemble films, it easily ranks as his best. It’s a circular flowing narrative that’s his most poignant – by the end of it, you feel like you’ve felt something intangible. Upon first viewing, you see the story – the chance run-ins, the theme of coincidence… But upon second viewing, you see a parable: a pattern of flawed characters repeating their mistakes. Featuring Tom Cruise’s best role to date (and what would be his last Oscar nomination), Magnolia will rank at the top for most of Anderson’s fans.

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1. THERE WILL BE BLOOD

Anderson’s films tend to take place in the San Fernando Valley, but this was the valley before the valley. Anderson’s epic of a drunk-with-power oil baron who takes over a small religious town and challenges faith will be the one remembered by film historians and critics. Anderson, whose previous works up until that point included the playfulness of Magnolia and Punch-Drunk Love, had produced a film that bore comparison to the likes of John Ford and D.W. Griffith. Absolutely no one saw this dark turn coming, but it was a milestone indicating that Anderson was now leaving his whimsical fanboy era of filmmaking into embracing his true fascinations – the history of California oil, the spell of scientology, and haute couture fashion of the ‘50s. TWBB will be remembered not only for introducing a protagonist that will forever haunt the history of cinema, but because it’s an echo of an echo – an evolution in how we portray the past, one whose oncoming of new technology was perched right at the forefront. When you watch it, you see the cinematography of Days of Heaven, you hear the score of The Shining, you see a John Huston western… He wasn’t your film geek’s favorite filmmaker anymore. He was everyone’s.

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Film

Antoneta Kusijanović on Shedding Skin with ‘Murina’

“Please don’t write that down,” confesses Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović. I had asked about cinematic influences on her debut feature film, Murina, which premiered in the Director’s Fortnight category the previous night at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Executive produced by Martin Scorsese, Murina follows Julija (Gracija Filipović), an athletic teenager who rejects the obedience her father expects of her when his foreign friend pays a visit. Murina rightfully won this year’s Camera d’Or for best first feature – the same award Jim Jarmusch and Steve McQueen have won in the past.

The Croatian filmmaker and I meet at the La Quinzaine beach, a cabana situated just at the footsteps of the legendary Carlton Hotel. As I’m brought down to meet Kusijanović, there’s a surprise I did not see coming when she stands to shake my hand: she’s nine months pregnant.

“Oh wow, when are you due?” I ask.

“Now,” she laughs. What if the big moment happened during this interview? I try to make this interview less laborious than they usually are. “I take my influences from theater, from paintings, from locations, mostly,” she continues on about her inspirations. “I come from a family of painters and architects, so I think that most of it was born through that. Usually when I make my story boards, they’re always paintings. But also, visually, I build. Location is very important for me because location also informs the psychology of the character. And then seeing people move in that location is also what informs how they need to be portrayed.”

“So going off that, how much did the landscape direct you?” I follow up.

“Incredibly,” Kusijanović lets loose. “Because I was looking for that landscape. It was of course somewhere in the back of my mind growing up there. But for me it was very important to find a location without any vegetation. Even though Croatia is very green, and islands are very green. I was looking for places without any trees, because I wanted the characters to be as if they were on a plate like a raw meat: completely burned, exposed, under this heat in both their desire and violence.”

“In terms of casting, what did you see in Gracija for the lead of Julija?” I ask.

“Gracija [Filipovic] is a professional athlete. She’s a swimmer and dancer. She started as a non-actress in my short film, Into the Blue, and through that experience I got to know her better and understood that I wanted to make a feature film with her. And then I built the casting of everyone else around her. We would spend weeks with actors to test these synergies.”

The casting and costume choices seem to go hand-in-hand with the choice of locale, given how natural the swimsuits are on Julija versus her disdain for other clothing, “land” clothing. “She has a mastery of not so much the land but the water,” I add on. “And the difference in costume is very much an act of rebellion by her. When she’s in dresses, they don’t really fit well on her.”

“It’s very obvious when you put a character in an outfit they don’t belong to. It’s even referenced in the film, ‘I’m not gonna wear this. It’s not mine, it’s yours.’ But it’s also so rewarding when you give a person something they really feel as their second skin. Murina is all about skin, so we also tried to metaphorically dress Julija in that same way, with her skin. And she sheds different skins throughout the movie – one is from her family, and one is coming from the foreigner. That is a new skin, an improved skin. A skin which is braver and more persuasive for [going after] what she wants.”

“In directing the physicality of Julija, what was the seed you implanted in her mind to direct her? Because I could tell she was very much a master of her water environment.”

“Sometimes you have to direct others to give the right mood for her. That’s why it was very important to have the right team around her, because certain things need to remain hidden. Especially to such a young actress such as her. And it helped to spend a lot of time – over a month – with everyone together in a house where they lived like a family. They cooked and fished together. They built this real synergy.”

Courtesy of Mixer

“Throughout Murina, she’s always in conflict. She’s never belonging to the on-shore environment. What would you say her central flaw is that drives the story engine of the film?”

Kusijanović has to take a moment to ponder. Then, a light bulb goes off: “She is quick to conclude,” Kusijanović declares. “She’s a teenager. She thinks she knows everything. She thinks she sees beyond things. She has strong convictions. And she’s very impulsive, very courageous. Which being courageous is a very good thing to be, but sometimes maturity and wisdom is lacking. Yet, she gets slapped throughout the film, and she readjusts quickly, which is a sign of intelligence, I think.”

“Where did you meet [Gracija] originally?”

“I did a casting for a music video. It was a little Croatian band. Actually, now, a bigger band – Silente – from Dubrovnik. I did a casting for kids for that specific video. And Gracija was in that casting.”

“What drew you to her?”

“She doesn’t have to speak to tell things,” she reveals. “For me, it was mostly to say less. She has [natural presence] in front of the camera. And it’s very interesting to watch her, for me at least. So for me it was a deduction of the script. [I’m always] finding opportunities where I can deduct on a script, on a shoot, and in post.”

“You’ve attended labs at the Berlin and Sarajevo Film Festivals, attended La Femis, Columbia University… You’ve won awards at these laboratories, festivals, and institutions, even been nominated for a Student Academy Award. How does it feel to be thrown into the beast of Cannes?”

“I am very very grateful and happy to be in Cannes, especially this year. Even though we’ve been in a lack of festivals for a year and a half, it’s been very difficult for all the people in the film industry. So this year is somehow special, it’s like reincarnation year. So to be part of the festival this year is like even more rewarding than any other. And I’m very grateful.”

“Murina is your first feature, what’s next for you?”

“I’m open to new opportunities. I never liked to be bound by like a specific thing… I’m always following the characters and complex stories and open to be surprised, to change. I am writing a couple things right now and one of them is set in New York. It’s a shadow metropolis and it’s kind of a woman confronting her tribe once she realizes her husband cheated on her.”

“And you’re based in New York, yes?”

“I’m in between places. I’m in between New York, Debrovnik, and Zagreb.”

“Does New York influence your work? Especially in this movie?”

“It’s very important sometimes when you make certain films to be very local. And at other times to have distance. And of course New York gives me distance from Croatia, and Croatia from New York. So yes, both places inform each other.”

“Do you plan on going back to music videos at all?”

“Why not? I’m always open to everything, y’know? It’s a great form because you can explore. You can do things that you can’t do in film.”

“It’s not very narrative friendly, though.”

“It could be. It could be. Anything can be exactly whatever you want it to be. And that’s what’s exciting. Otherwise we’re just, y’know, working inside some types of forms, which is not exciting.”

Murina most recently won awards at the Hamptons International Film Festival and the Slovene Film Festival, and will be screening at the Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival this month.

Featured image courtesy of First Films First.

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Film

‘Vortex’ Film Review | Cannes 2021

Gaspar Noé always aims to divide. Enter the Void, Irreversible, Climax… The dividing line for these films lies between people who are frustrated by them and hate being frustrated by them, and those who are frustrated by them but seem to enjoy being frustrated by them. Vortex, however, will push one of these sides to the other based on how “normal” it is. Not even just normal, but also sensitive. In fact, this might be the weirdest Noé film just based on how conventional it is. Not as assaulting as his previous films, Vortex creeps into your psyche subconsciously. It’s not aggressive, rather it lets time itself do the work leading to self-destruction.

If you haven’t heard the rumors by now, Vortex follows an aging couple (Dario Argento and Françoise Lebrun) as dementia begins to set in on both of them, stumbling into madness. Struck from the original negative just days before its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival (probably why it was given a time slot at midnight on the very last day), the film has an ebb and flow feel to it, as if to show the waves of old age and dementia crash and recede. (Oh yeah, did I mention it’s all in split screen?)

The use of split screen aims to, again, divide, aiding in a sort of psychological separation in the minds of the spectator by using two plots happening concurrently – one side follows the husband, and the other the wife. There’s a prominent showing of clocks throughout the film always peeking out of pockets in the frame, perhaps to serve as the only constant between both sides of the film’s plot: the time they have that’s passing.

It’s hard to sell it as a midnight premiere at Cannes, however. At some point during its two and a half our runtime, I had the thought that this move may have originally been longer, and Noé decided to use the split screen method to make it that much shorter. (Its subject matter doesn’t quite serve as “midnight” status either, but because Noé’s a fixture of Cannes, I see it.)

Yet, the novelty factor faults from the lack of counter-conventionality. It doesn’t quite make up for the somewhat opaque external journey the couple makes. While your eyes dart from one side of the screen to the other, Vortex fools you into not thinking of it in conventional terms: the conflict, midpoint, crisis moments all become secondary. For a shorter film, perhaps this would work. But its lengthy runtime stretches itself a little thin.

Regardless, the cinema world can rejoice because we have something we rarely get: a Gaspar Noé film – a film we can debate, digest, and process. “For those whose brains will rot before their hearts,” states a quote shown during the opening (or as Noé sees it, closing) credits, and with it comes his most personal, sensitive, and vulnerable work to date.

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Film

Simon Rex Resurrects His Career with ‘Red Rocket’ | Cannes 2021

This world is hard enough to live in as it is, but to add the limitations of pre-conceived notions about who we are, it makes it nearly impossible. Sean Baker continues his use of first-time actors (he objects to the term “non-actors”) with Red Rocket, a film about past love and old relationships, even though others might tell you otherwise. Red Rocket follows ex-porn star Mikey Saber (Simon Rex) as he returns home to Texas City, Texas to his estranged wife and ex-porn partner, Lexi (Bree Elrod) and his mother-in-law, who justifiably reject him. However, he appeases, promising them he’ll get a job and pay their rent. He then returns to his old hustle of selling marijuana, and eventually falls in love with Strawberry (Suzanna Son), a 17-year old donut shop worker who lets him sell weed to construction workers at the shop. He then gets a wild idea to convince her to get into pornography, set on the mission of making her a porn starlet.

But if it sounds like this film doesn’t have a true story engine to generate conflict, you’re absolutely right. The film falters from not centering around its protagonist, which interestingly enough, is Lexi. But Red Rocket not that kind of movie, instead choosing to follow its antagonist as its lead. But this has props in itself – a perfect casting choice for an unlikeable lead (but still interesting) who always finds a way to buy time and tell people what they want to hear: he lies about his “successful” career in Hollywood, and manages to convince Strawberry he lives in a bitchin’ mansion.

However, this stretches the narrative so thin that it loses any shine or electricity it had, with an aimless second act that drifts off to sea. There are pointless sequences that don’t really add up to anything or add to the conflict at hand. The only slimmest, bare minimum through-line of a conflict is used merely as a placeholder for the film to “function” as a narrative, almost teetering on the edge of documentary.

But did I enjoy myself? Yes, absolutely. Did I laugh continuously throughout out? Of course I did. Do I think it could be better? 100%. The film just doesn’t operate or function in a way for me to be drawn to it beautifully or emotionally, because Red Rocket refuses to be one of those films.

Red Rocket will be playing at this year’s New York Film Festival on Sept. 29.

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Film

‘Titane’ Film Review | Cannes 2021

This year’s Palme d’Or winner didn’t just “premiere” at Cannes – it burst into the festival ecosystem like a thousand barrels of renegade crude, polluting everyone and everything around it. Centering around sleaze, sex, metal, blood, and fire, Titane is almost pornography for cars. Or maybe it’s just a porno, I’m still not entirely sure. The film begins with a car crash, as a young girl, Alexia (Agathe Rousselle), becomes restricted in a titanium back brace, who upon release, develops an asphyxiation for cars. (Note: if you want to avoid spoilers for Titane, STOP READING HERE.)

This, in turn, leads to an asphyxiation for metal and fire, leading to a retribution of the people who have done Alexia wrong sexually (most of whom are male). What follows is an attack on masculinity, upheld by a metal hair stick that not only holds up her hair to hide the scarring from her youth, but also what’s expected of her as a woman, supported particularly by a scene in which she literally makes a man choke on wood. (Other viewers I’m sure will have different interpretations of the film’s theme.) During this assault via sexual revenge, she’s only able to make meaningful, passionate love to the thing that started it all – a car. Which, interestingly enough, impregnates her.

However, her violent tendencies get the best of her, forcing her to go in disguise as a missing boy while on the run from the cops. She sucks in her distended belly and physically changes her appearance in a scene so visceral, so tangible, that you feel the painful transformation she puts herself through. Miraculously, it works, when she’s taken under the care of the local fire fighter chief (Vincent Legrand) who is absolutely convinced that she is his missing son.

This writer does have qualms about the film, however. Such as, why does she kill? What is the motivation of her carnage? Against not just men, but women, too? This leads to the stakes being more grounded in the second half of the film than the first, and even so, the second act goes on just a tad longer than it needs to. But after finishing Titane, those concerns became secondary, because the product is Noé-level punk rock cinema.

And that’s as far as I’ll go. If I were to divulge any further, it would take away from the wild, insanely good time that movies today have forgotten to bring to cinemas.