Some late thoughts on The Lobster

2015
Writers: Efthimis Filippou, Yorgos Lanthimos
Director: Yorgos Lanthimos

There probably isn’t a premise more distinct and downright bonkers than Yorgos Lanthimos’s sci-fi romantic black comedy drama The Lobster. Set in the near future in a society in which the law orders everyone to be in a couple, it follows newly-single Colin Farrell as he gets taken to a special hotel to meet a new partner. The clincher being, he has only 45 days before his time runs out and he gets turned into an animal.

The other inhabitants of the hotel are equally confused and desperate, relegated to nothing more than their ‘distinct features’ in the completely functional attempts to pair up. There’s John C Reilly’s Lisping Man, Ben Whishaw’s Limping Man, Ashely Jensen’s Biscuit Woman and Jessica Barden’s Nosebleed Woman. On top of that, the inhabitants are sent into the forest each day to hunt with tranquilisers the renegade loners who camp there, those who defy to be single.

Such a set up is so unusual and approached so clinically that it’s hard to take this film seriously as a piece of drama. Instead, you’re invited to engage with this world from a distance, to marvel at the eccentricity of its constituent parts and appreciate the sheer mundanity of its greyish cinematography and perfectly parallel, even logical framing and camera shots. I was expecting some sort of reasoning behind the government policy, maybe it being a means of managing underpopulation or dictatorial dominance. But like Lanthimos’s previous films Dogtooth and Alps, this film completely omits any sort of explanatory context.

This isn’t meant as a critique. Like his previous films, The Lobster showcases Lanthimos’s distinct love of world-building and creating unique and thought-promoting scenarios, such as the rigid structuring of the hotel. Every aspect and set-up is thought-through for maximum impact – the way the residents eat meals at rows of single tables, the ridiculously literal presentations they are given on the benefits of coupledom (woman walks alone; woman walks with man), the callous methods and punishments for testing the residents’ sexual functionality. In all, it makes an engrossing and surprisingly satisfying watch, one where I couldn’t help wanting to see what could possibly come next. Thankfully, the tone is so knowingly ludicrous that the film ends up being a lot funnier than I was expecting (or at least the trailer led me to expect).

The whole scenario perfectly suits the director’s love of arch, precise and literal dialogue. The cleverness of the dating context helps create a quiet sense of desperation, and provides one of the film’s many, almost cluttered, themes on the absurdity of dating and the social etiquettes and behaviours involved. Overall, like his previous work, the greatest sense one gets of watching this is that you’re asked to study this world as if through a microscope. Rachel Weisz’s forceful narration describes scenes in the minutest of detail and the camera maintains an incredibly still distance, asking us to consider these sad little characters as they are in their laboratory-like Perspex cage. The film is often quite cruel in its mockery of the protagonists, and encourages us, with our outsider status, to share in laughing at the ridiculousness of the scenarios and how unerringly stupid the characters are for taking part in it, from watching Ben Whishaw willingly and repeatedly smash his face into a table to gazing at John C Reilly tumble down a hill in slow-motion. It’s gleefully enjoyable, in a way that almost made me feel a little guilty for taking such pleasure in such preposterous meanness.

Thinking about it afterwards, The Lobster seems to me overall to be a critique of fundamentalism, and the foundation that one can understand or control something by looking at it literally, like the hotel’s unfounded notion that happy couples can be made from a single shared defining characteristic. Similarly, I couldn’t help thinking about how the media and governments like to define people into broad, often reductive, categories which hardly ever get to the root of understanding people and why they do what they do.

The Lobster loses its way once the film leaves the hotel and moves into the forest. It’s too long – a good 15-20 minutes or so could probably be shaved from the exploration of the forest-dwellers’ strange routines and instead be used to focus more on the basics of the story. In the end though, I was a big big fan of this movie, and can heartedly say I don’t think I’ve ever really seen anything like it, which is always a plus in my view. At the very least, it had my friends and me debating long afterwards, though mostly about which animals we’d like to be turned into.

A Trio of Reviews – Dancers, Filmmakers and Gangsters

The Dance of Reality
2013
Writer/Director: Alejandro Jodorowsky

The Dance of Reality is Alejandro Jodorowsky’s first film in a ridiculous 23 years. After indulging in El Topo (which I think is a masterpiece) and The Holy Mountain (which has enough bold ideas and beautiful shots to fill several movies), I was excited at the prospect of seeing his new film on a big screen. Thankfully, this new work is just so identifiably his, with its focus on spirituality, off-kilter humour and his unique no holds barred approach to visual style that I’d say The Dance of Reality definitely ranks with those other films. Similarly with those films too, I left feeling like I had no idea what really happened and a little overwhelmed with the sheer excess of content. I can’t help feeling any ideas I might have about this film are probably wrong.

Partly autobiographical, the story is inspired by Jodorowsky’s own childhood growing up in the Chilean coastal town of Tocopilla, and was filmed on location there. It’s saying something when this film can be called the most coherent he’s made yet – Jodorowsky here very much follows the advice “When forced to pick between truth and legend, print the legend”. Jeremias Herskovits plays the young Alejandro, a painfully shy young boy who is bullied by many for being Jewish and effeminate, and is desperate to win the affection of his father. The real Jodorowsky appears from time to time as his future self/spirit guide/narrator. Stranger still, Jodorowsky’s own son Brontis plays his father Jaime, a brash violent Communist who models himself on Stalin, all large moustache and grey jumpsuit, and whose approach to parenting is comically extreme. Pamela Flores plays Alejandro’s mother Sara, a buxom lady who runs the family undergarments store in the town, and who only communicates by singing. Large scenes of her lamenting or offering advice turn the film into an operatic musical.

As with El Topo and The Holy Mountain, The Dance of Reality is primarily about a man undergoing a quasi-Messianic spiritual journey, facing a series of challenges which tests his commitments to his goals and teaches him the aspects of his life he should be valuing. In this case, Jaime leaves Tocopilla on a quest to assassinate the right wing president of Chile to prove himself following several blows to his perception of his masculinity. Lots of other Jodorowsky traits and interests pop up too – a fascination with money and how it both corrupts and creates opportunities; the use of actors with amputations and disfigurements; long passages of rambling philosophical content and visual explorations of religion via mystical characters (here includes a nude theosophist and a kindly carpenter); and absolutely no fear in showing anything graphic (nudity, torture, urination, bloodshed).

Jodorowsky throws so many ideas at the wall here, and it’s unsurprising not all of them stick. This may be his most ‘conventional’ film but that doesn’t mean it’s not a mess. Long stretches of the film divert from the plot to explore often unrelated topics, and surreal content often drags out scenes longer than feels necessary. At over two hours, it can sometimes be a bit of a slog. Those familiar with his work will not be so confused by these tangents, and as a fan I lapped up a lot of these genuinely quite entertaining asides. Many shots are frequently gorgeous and distinct, especially with the clarity of digital film as opposed to the cheap film stock of his earlier work – a crowd of plague victims clad in black carrying tattered parasols traverses a mountain; the sea spitting up huge piles of dead fish sending seagulls into a frenzy; a joyous congregation holding chairs above their heads and jumping 26 times in thankfulness; Jaime fighting off Nazis with invisible sci-fi weapons.

The film does try to cover too many themes, although perhaps the most important one is Jodorowsky’s perception that our understanding of what ‘reality’ is is not concrete but rather a personal dance of our imaginations and experiences and an understanding of lives and experiences beyond our own. Jodorowsky is that rare beast – a true artist who soaks up the most diverse range of inspirations and creates challenging works for which he is more than happy to lose money making. In interviews, he comes across as a very humorous and energetic man, despite his age. That very much shows in this film.

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Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
2015
Writer: Jesse Andrews
Director: Alfonso Gomez-Rejon

Aka, the making of a Sundance hit 101. There is this stereotype of the Sundance indie hit being the quirky self-aware dramedy about dysfunctional middle class American families dealing with minor crises, and in ways Me and Earl and the Dying Girl fits many of these criteria, convoluted title and all. It’s also the latest in a series of films about teenagers with cancer, after The Fault in our Stars and Now is Good (although I haven’t seen either of those so I don’t know how this compares) – it’s probably likely this adaptation of Jesse Andrew’s teen novel was greenlighted following the big success of Fault in our Stars. But reviews of this film had generally been pretty good and the trailer made it seem pretty charming and light-hearted, plus I do have a bit of a soft spot for these sorts of films.

The Me of the title is Greg (Thomas Mann), a witty but socially awkward senior at high school who has crafted the perfect position for himself at school by being friendly with everyone but friends with no one, and not being a fixture in any discernible clique. His comfortable anonymity is troubled when his mum (Connie Britton) forces him to reach out to Rachel (Olivia Cooke), a former childhood friend who has been diagnosed with leukaemia. After an awkward start, Greg and Rachel gradually become good friends as she start her chemotherapy. Greg soon introduces her to Earl (RJ Cyler), his co-worker (as he’s too scared to call him his friend), with whom he likes to make Gondry-esque short movies based upon puns of classic movies (The 400 Bros, The Rad Shoes, A Sockwork Orange).

Reading comments online, it seems like this film has really polarised people, with many quite extreme in either loving it or hating it. I know the film didn’t fare so well at the US box office. But I’m quite happy to say I liked this film a lot. There are aspects about it which I wasn’t so sure about and bits which don’t totally fit, but overall there was a lot to enjoy about it and I was won over and I was moved. Of course the film is very cineliterate and full of references to directors and books which I lapped up. The soundtrack is very carefully selected too, with lots of Brian Eno tracks, including some original ones he composed just for this, which is exciting.

But what I liked most about the film was the characters, and the really great performances that brought them to life. The trio of teenagers especially come across as genuine and flawed and confused, even with some of the knowingly arch dialogue the script gives them. I’ve read complaints online about how Greg is an annoying narrator who is grumpy and doesn’t change over the course of the story, but that’s the point! Greg is stubborn, and he’s plagued with self-doubt and slavishly follows habits. It’s not surprising he often screws up when faced with the challenge of making a new friend, but we see him make the effort and we see the subtle development of his and Rachel’s friendship and the little lessons he learns. It’s testament to Mann’s realisation that we do enjoy his company, and how he and the film aren’t afraid of exposing his shortcomings. His deadpan voiceover repeats knowingly how this isn’t a touching romantic story and that does come across as a bit postmodern cliché, but I forgot that the film is bookended by Greg writing this story as a manuscript so it begins to make sense.

Similarly, I was impressed with Cooke’s performance as Rachel, where often we read how she’s feeling through the slight emergence of a smile, or the distracted offhand glances of her eyes. The camera loves her face, and we grow to learn a lot from it. I also appreciated how the film approached her reaction to the cancer. It’s not surprising that chemotherapy would make her depressed as fuck, and that there are scenes where she doesn’t talk or doesn’t look at anyone, framed in the corner of the screen slightly out of focus. There are moments when she’s upset, and bits where she’s laughing and joking, but I respected how there are no grand emotional scenes where she monologues about what she’s learnt or how she’s grown. Cancer sucks, and this isn’t afraid to show it.

Thirdly I loved Cyler’s effortless performance as Earl. It’s a shame he isn’t actually in the film that much really, as in many ways he’s the most interesting character. Living literally on the wrong side of the tracks, there isn’t as much exploration of his friendship with Greg or why he too loves cinema or eats his lunch in their history teacher’s office with Greg. He’s the most level-headed and the wisest of the three, and Cyler imbues him with an intelligence and maturity which feels older.

So what flaws did I feel were there? As I said, I would have liked to have learnt more about Earl. Also, like with many of these American indie films, a lot of the dialogue comes across a little unreal, like in that mumblecore knowing laidback way which sounds rambling and real but sometimes feel like it’s being read from a script, like it knows how witty it is. I don’t often mind this sort of thing, like in a lot of Wes Anderson scenes, but I found some of it a little out of place when placed with the more low-key quieter moments of the film. The supporting characters and high school cliques are comically exaggerated in a way that is often funny, but the characters of the parents a left a little lacking because of this. This may just be the teens’ perception of them as people not that important to them at this point in their lives, but I felt they deserved a little more characterisation, especially when they have such good comic actors playing them, like Nick Offerman as Greg’s dad. Rachel’s mother (Molly Shannon) is seen coping with her daughter’s diagnosis by drinking, but that’s all we see of her really – the permanent glass of wine in her hand.

The film is directed by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon, who’s had a lot of experience as a second-unit director and directing television, most notably American Horror Story. The very fluid camerawork full of crane shots and Steadicam which he favours in AHS is noticeably present here, although I think it gives a suitable sense of play and dynamism to scenes which is welcoming, especially when so many American comedy films nowadays are just happy to point and shoot and let the dialogue do all the work. Saying that, one extended scene where Greg and Rachel argue and the camera remains static near the ground is one of the most impressive in the film thanks to the script, the performances and Gomez-Rejon’s understanding of when restraint is the best option. For me, one of the biggest achievements of this film was its handling of the balance between comedy and drama. The film at times is more serious than I was expecting, and sometimes is emotional. I felt the film erred on the right side of sentimentality, not crossing over into mawkishness whilst still being affective. One scene set to Brian Eno’s ‘The Big Ship’ has quickly gone on to become one of my favourite scenes out of anything I’ve seen this year, it was genuinely moving. I was impressed.

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Legend
2015
Writer/Director: Brian Helgeland

Coming out of Legend, I was thinking that I had been entertained and there were bits I liked, but overall it was just an okay film, good in parts. Bit too long. I couldn’t really put my finger on what stopped it from being a better film, or what might have been missing from it. Considering it a day later, I can’t remember enough specifics to query it much further. But I’ve come to the conclusion that the decision to play this biopic of the Kray twins, London’s most notorious gangsters, relatively straight, with a storyline simply linearly plotting events as they happened in one scene after another with very little exploration of the factors involved or consequences, makes this film pretty uninvolving. It’s hard to tell how many years have passed over the entire story – things just happen. And then other things happen. It’s almost documentarian, but lacks the drama or engagement to elevate the material. The film is so indebted to the Kray’s perception of themselves as legends that it hardly questions this, and often buys into it. Scenarios are directed to promote the twins onscreen as anti-heroes as much as the violent thugs they very often were.

The story starts when the Krays are already powerful gang lords of the East End. Tom Hardy plays Reggie, the relatively level-headed twin with a business mind, who commands respectability but is not afraid of getting his hands dirty. He’s getting increasingly concerned about his brother Ronald (also Tom Hardy), who is prone to impulsive violence and paranoia. He’s reckless, and enjoys being a gangster for the thrill of conflict. Reggie also meets Frances (Emily Browning), a delicate but self-aware teenager who quickly becomes his girlfriend. This leads to an interesting tension between the three of them, as Reggie is torn between his love for Frances and her desire for him to live on the right side of the law, and his loyalty to Ron and the pleasures of being a gangster. This dynamic was the most interesting part of the film, and it didn’t feature enough to my liking.

Essentially though, the film is a platform for Hardy’s performances, and they are generally very good. It says a lot when many of the best interactions in the film are between the two twins, and I have to give kudos to Hardy and the filmmakers for making those scenes look so seamless, they were excellently done. I liked the suave cockiness of Reggie. From the trailer, I was worried that Ron would be a bit more caricaturish, and it is a little bit, but I did appreciate how the film could both mock his more extreme thoughts and plans (such as his idea to build a utopian city in Nigeria) and convincingly display his genuinely unnerving sociopathic tendencies. Though I’ve got to agree with Mark Kermode when he describes Ronnie as sounding a bit like Alan Partridge and looking like Peter O’Hanraha-hanrahan from The Day Today.

Further thoughts: first of all, the title is rubbish. Legend. It explains and refers to nothing. I can’t remember if the word is even mentioned in the film. And why is it singular? They’re twins, there’s two of them. They were infamous yes, but legendary? Not really, or at least nothing in the film really gets to the heart of what made them iconic, and nothing particularly legendary happens. I was on the listings page on a cinema website the other day and it had legitimately put the description of the 1980s Tom Cruise film Legend up instead by accident. This title says relatively nothing about the film.

Second, I liked Browning’s performance. She nailed the balance between playing vulnerable young woman but one who could stand up for herself and who wasn’t naïve. Her accent was on point too. But the decision to have her narrating the film is a strange one. It was probably hoped her involvement would provide more of an emotional core for the film, one which the Krays couldn’t provide. But the logistics of her voiceover makes no sense, and is often dragged down by clunky dialogue and exposition.

Finally, I liked the 1960s period detail, and the contrasts between the tacky glamour of the nightclubs with the faded décor of the terraced houses of the East End. But in the end, the overt style of the settings, all stages and sharp furniture is superficial like the film itself. It buys into this lifestyle too much to the point where it can only touch the surface of the Kray story, and we come out of it entertained but none the wiser.

Maps to the Stars

2014
Director: David Cronenberg
Writer: Bruce Wagner

My knowledge of David Cronenberg isn’t hugely extensive, although I know he’s famed for his body horror films, those that take a cold and clinical look at the faults and failures of characters’ bodies as a study of their damaged psyches, and how the dangerous flaws of the societies they live in drive their minds and bodies to destruction. Well at least that’s what I’ve read from the few films of his I’ve seen, from Videodrome as James Woods grows a brain tumour after watching a malevolent TV broadcast designed to purge world populations, to Dead Ringers where Jeremy Irons’ twin gynecologists suffer depression and addiction coupled to the screwed-up relationships they have with their female patients. These all come across as extremely complex themes and narratives when thinking back to them, and Maps to the Stars proves itself to be just as layered and difficult to read.

The film is part of this newer phase in Cronenberg’s later career, with a focus less on the bodies of his protagonists and more on the damaged psychologies and violent conditions in which they live. Beginning perhaps with A History of Violence with Viggo Mortensen’s internal struggle over his potentially violent past, to Eastern Promises and its tales of family drama in the brutal world of the Russian mafia in London, and finally to a study of psychology itself with A Dangerous Method, about the working relations of Freud and Jung. Based on appearances, Maps to the Starts seems to share the closest relationship with Cosmopolis in terms of content and visual style, although I haven’t seen that film so can’t comment.

Beginning with a shot of a disheveled Agatha (Mia Wasikowska), complete with grey cheap clothes, elbow-length gloves, trimmed bob-haircut and disfiguring burn scars, hunched asleep on a bus to Los Angeles, Maps to the Stars is a study of the damaged souls who live and work in Hollywood. Immediately after getting off the bus, blinking in the California sunlight, Agatha hires Jerome (Robert Pattinson) and his limo, happily paying $200 and showing from the start that nothing is at it seems. We are introduced to the Weiss family: dad Stafford (John Cusack), a money-driven TV psychologist who uses dubious methods on his numerous high profile clients; stressed wife Cristina (Olivia Williams), the ambitious manager to their son Benjie (Evan Bird), a 13 year old child star who’s just finished a stint in rehab.

The star at the heart of this constellation is Havana Segrand, (Julianne Moore), the unhinged minor star looking for her next big break by playing the role famously played by her mother in a remake of her most famous film. Unfortunately for Havana, she is better known for being physically and sexually abused by her mother, who died in a fire, than for her own acting abilities.

Hardly anything about this film is subtle; it’s a scathing and vitriolic satire on Hollywood politics. It carries on the tradition of previous insights on the fucked-up underbelly of showbusiness, from Sunset Boulevard to The Player and even Mommie Dearest. Maps takes things even further, creating an insidious hyper-reality which argues that the extent of Hollywood’s extreme self-love and narcissism results in incest of all kinds. All are left slightly deranged – many are subject to mysterious visions and hauntings which vividly and violently expose characters’ biggest flaws to themselves. Even the most outwardly sane character Jerome the driver finds himself unable to form relationships with others without viewing it as ultimately a form of research on which he can learn and propel himself to stardom.

It’s here that Maps proves itself to be more Cronenberg-ian than first appeared. It seemed he might have been going slightly off-topic, choosing to make a Hollywood satire, which seems like too easy a target for the director. But Maps ultimately turns into a truly dark and often unpleasant study of skewed minds. I’m not going to pretend to fully understand this film; the Freudian nightmare of why Havana is so desperate to play the abusive mother, as if trying to exorcise the internal demons. Or Agatha’s mysterious motivations for coming to LA, and getting a job as Havana’s assistant. Plenty of questions are left unanswered, and the twisting layers and no-holds-barred content turn this into a living nightmare.

The performances are uniformally excellent, from the more understated turns by Pattinson and Wasikowska, to a shocking performance by the young Evan Bird who makes the young and cruelly spoilt Benjie believable, even at his most heinous. This is Julianne Moore’s show though – going for childish brat to driven power-fiend within single scenes, and showing emotional breakdowns with such fearlessness as to make them both genuinely heart-wrenching and voyeurisitcally fascinating. She’s able to give Havana a tortured soul beneath the histrionics.

Sometimes the blends of tone can come across as a jumble, switching from almost slapstick-like comedy (Havana giving Agatha sex advise while sitting on the toilet), to gossipy expose (the Weiss family stories), to warped horrorish drama (the ghostly apparitions). The satire, despite being repeatedly purported as being based in reality, sometimes comes across as heavy-handed in attempts to be funny, such as the teen girl stars declaring another actress in her 20s is menopausal (although thinking about it, maybe I shouldn’t be so optimistic as to believe such people can’t exist). And the narrative is overburdened, trying to cram too much in for too many characters that sometimes some plotlines are left hanging or underdeveloped. Sometimes the attempts to combine satire with ghost story and shocking expose don’t always gel.

But in the end, I’m very glad I watched Maps to the Stars. I’d say I enjoyed it in a perverse sort of way; it’s far more devilishly entertaining than I was expecting and at times laugh out loud funny. Saying that, there are moments that are genuinely surreal and horrible, making this a strange watch. When the credits rolled, I found myself sitting speechless for a good while, unable to articulate what I’d just seen. It should be commended when a film does have that effect on you, although it’s unnerving to be unable to understand why.

“It’s a strange world” – Delving into the dreams of David Lynch

Finally, my first original blog post! In a long time, admittedly. And I’m not making things easy for myself by deciding to attempt to decypher the films of David Lynch. This has all come about because part of my summer viewing, trying to fill the post-uni void, has been the two series of Twin Peaks (1990-1991). I’ve been wanting to watch it for a while but simply kept forgetting about it, especially when I have so many other shows on the go. But I’ve finally started, and am currently making my way through season two, and I’m so glad. It’s really something special!

For a show that’s over 20 years old, it still feels remarkably fresh. Daring even, with many of the show’s plot twists, stylistic flourishes, strong directing, bold (and quite large) cast of characters, and surrealist elements coming across as pretty radical even now. Which makes it all the more remarkable considering this preceded the rise of the supposed third golden age of quality television, usually signalled as beginning with The Sopranos (1999-2007). Twin Peaks has a distinctly cinematic feel to it which I can’t help feeling has been a huge influence on later shows (someone please tell me if there are other more important examples!), such as its careful and expressive use of lighting and framing, and the importance of visions and dream sequences.

The show is centred around the investigation into the murder of Laura Palmer, a popular schoolgirl and homecoming queen from the small rural town of Twin Peaks in Washington state, near the Canadian border. Special Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) of the FBI is brought in to investiagate. However, the murder mystery actually only makes up a small part of the show, which is more concerned with the lives and stories of the eccentric townspeople including Laura’s boyfriend Bobby (Dana Ashbrook), her secret lover James (James Marshall), her best friend Donna (Lara Flynn Boyle), her grieving parents (Ray Wise and Grace Zabriskie) as well as the insidious goings-on of wealthy businessman Ben Horne (Richard Beymer) and his sultry daughter Audrey (Sherilyn Fenn). For me, Agent Cooper is fast becoming one of my favourite characters ever – both immensely practical and infectiously positive, he’s a joy to watch.

What I admire most about this show, and indeed all of Lynch’s work, is its sense of tone. The show has the cold seriousness of a mystery investigation, but also contains many melodramatic elements of a soap opera when focused on the other characters. Many scenes even have a weird sense of humour to them which can be genuinely and unexpectedly funny. The first season even parodies its soapy roots, by having many plot elements run parallel to those of an in-show daytime soap called ‘Invitation to Love’. Finally, there is a supernatural undercurrent which blurs and layers the show, giving it added depth and making it more mystifying and unique. What I really respect is how even within scenes, this tone can veer from deeply creepy and unnerving, to sublimely ridiculous without it feeling forced or off. This is partly helped by Angelo Badalamenti’s near-omnipresent soundtrack, which can be both jazzy and atmospheric. A lot of it comes down to the consistency of the show’s writing and directing though.

This all got me thinking about David Lynch, and how, from the few films I’ve seen so far, his work seems so distinctly… well, Lynchian. He has the most impressive control of atmosphere, and puts a real importance on sound design and iconography. So I decided to go on a bit of a mini-Lynch marathon and see how some of his films compare to Twin Peaks, which I’ve found so inspiring.

Wild at Heart (1990)

“You got me hotter than Georgia asphalt”

I think this was quite a weird film to start with, because Wild at Heart seems fairly different to the films I’d seen before. Much of the darkness and disturbing dream logic isn’t present. Instead this is a pulpy thriller, one with a broad and pretty crass sense of humour which you aren’t supposed to take too seriously. I really wanted to like this film, and the first half hour or so seemed promising. A young lovers on the run tale, it follows the road trip of Sailor (Nicolas Cage) and Lula (Laura Dern). Sailor had been imprisoned and separated from Lula for killing a man who had attacked him with a knife, but he’s done his time and now they escape together, much to the chagrin of Lula’s deranged mother Marietta (Diane Ladd). Maddened by jealousy and the thought of her daughter with a criminal, she sends both a private detective and a hitman after them.

I’m not sure whether this differing tone is perhaps due to this being the only one of Lynch’s films I’ve seen which is an adaptation, being based on a pulp novel by Barry Gifford (I haven’t seen Dune (1984) yet). The problems I found with this film is firstly that I began to find it boring towards the middle, as the story became more self-indulgent and plodding. A lot of the plot involves various flashbacks as characters describe events or reminisce, which I found messy storytelling. Indeed, I couldn’t help feeling Lynch in this case was far too interested in iconography and deranged excess, that it comes at the expense of proper context and characters.

I do really like Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern in this; they give it their all despite the limited development of their characters, like his Elvis-style drawl and awesome snakeskin jacket (“a symbol of my individuality, and my belief in personal freedom”), to her high-school wild charm. An early scene where Sailor wins a fight in a club, then leads the band in a rendition of an Elvis Presley track is pretty cool. A lot of the dialogue is snappy and quotable. But many of the characters are pushed to the point of cartoonishness, from Marietta’s screaming and smearing lipstick all over her face, to Willem Dafoe’s slimy bad-toothed gangster. A scene where he sexually threatens Lula leaves a nasty taste in the mouth, coming across like the film is almost sneering at Lula’s abuse. Yet even the two leads are barely drawn more than pop culture cliches. It all begins to undermine the seriousness of the storyline. On top of that, the film’s frequent references to The Wizard of Oz as an attempt to comment on the plot begin to feel heavy-handed after a few mentions. Some of Lynch’s surreal twists are here, but they feel out of place with the rest of the film which ends up a mess for me.

Blue Velvet (1986)

“I don’t know if you’re a detective or a pervert…”

It was a few years since I’d seen this, and what surprised me on both viewings is how straightforward I found Blue Velvet. Not to say that it’s simple, it’s still a weird and psychologically complex film about destructive sexuality and voyeurism. But more that the storyline is surprisingly grounded and driven – it has a definitive beginning, middle and end. College student Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle Maclachlan) returns home to the quaint suburbs of Lumberton to visit his father who has been hospitalised. One day when walking through a field, Jeffrey finds a severed ear, which he takes to the police. Through this, he begins a friendship with a detective’s daughter Sandy (Laura Dern), and through her learns how the ear may be linked to investigations into a nightclub singer called Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rossellini). His curiosity piqued, Jeffrey begins investigating Dorothy himself, which takes him into a seedy world of crime.

What’s so great about Blue Velvet, similar to Twin Peaks, is its hybridity of tone and genre. Blue Velvet plays out like a neo-noir detective story, but also contains elements of horror, erotic thrillers and teen films. It’s this combination of teen drama, and the innate curiosity and innocence of its protagonists, as contrasted to the darker elements of the story, which I find so interesting. As many have pointed out, this film is about the sinister underbelly of everyday America, the disturbing events hidden beneath the ordinary surface, often symbolised through images of insects such as in the iconic opening scene. This is a major theme in Twin Peaks too, and watching this back, I can see how this theme had such a big influence on later films like Donnie Darko (2001) and Brick (2005). For me, this film also has some of Lynch’s most well-developed and interesting characters. From Jeffrey and Sandy’s natural awkward teen dialogue and 1950s throwback style, but especially with Dorothy’s vulnerable and tortured sexuality and Dennis Hopper’s foul-mouthed character Frank Booth, with his iconic gas mask and disturbing recession into violent sexuality which is almost childlike.

I can’t recommend Blue Velvet highly enough, it really is terrific. Dealing with fairly disturbing subject matters, it nonetheless still has a human soul beneath all the extreme events, and this comes down to the strength of the script and characters. It’s easy to see how this is Lynch’s most personal film, from the small-town American setting to the deliberate evocation of 1950s pop culture and music. And that really shows through with the overall essence of the film.

Lost Highway (1997)

“Dick Laurent is dead”

These are the words that start the bizarre and hyperstylised madness of Lost Highway. I’m not going to admit to fully understanding this film, not all of it made sense to me. I doubt it’s even meant to make sense or have broader meaning, or it simply probably does only in Lynch’s head. Fred Madison (Bill Paxton), a nightclub saxophonist, lives with his wife Renee (Patricia Arquette) in their angular minimalist house in Los Angeles. They begin to receive packages containing videotapes of their home being filmed. These tapes become increasingly intrusive, going on to filming the inside and even the couple as they sleep. The police can’t help. Fred later meets a mysterious man at a party, who informs him that they’ve met before. And after this, well, it’s hard to explain. Not without giving away too much. However, my overall reading of the film seems to be that Fred, through a combination of jealousy and grief, tries to transform himself, to mask the terrible things he’s done even from himself.

Lost Highway saw the revisiting of some of Lynch’s most prominent themes. The darker, seedier side of American life is here foregrounded however by the LA underbelly setting. It’s still undeniably creepy, from the home invasion-horror vibes at the start, to Robert Blake’s chilling pale faced man. The hybridity of genres continues, borrowing from film noir to psychological horror. But I feel it lacks some of the subtlety of Lynch’s best work. Full of brash visuals, an overabundance of sex (Patricia Arquette seems to spend a great deal of the film naked and/or screwing), bursts of pounding Rammstein songs – this attempt to depict a decent into madness tends to work best in the quieter moments, those that build a sense of dread. Overall though much onscreen seems designed primarily to shock.

Looking back now, it can be seen that a lot of Lost Highway seems to build towards the completeness of Mulholland Drive. Both films share similar themes: storylines in roughly two parts, characters/actors playing dual roles, violently jealous lovers, LA settings, mystery men secretly pulling the strings.  As a result, this can’t help Lost Highway seeming like the lesser film. There’s much to admire, especially in the more enigmatic and atmospheric moments. But the patient pacing, sudden shifts in content and focus on such unlikeable and often impenetrable characters made this hard for me to like.

Mulholland Drive (2001)

“Hey pretty girl, time to wake up.”

Mulholland Drive has certainly developed a formidable reputation for itself. One of the most critically adored films of the 21st century, but also one of the more divisive and challenging films. Watching this again now, I certainly agree. This film is so incredibly rich – in ideas, in depth, and in quality of production.

Like Lost Highway, I’m not going to admit to fully understanding this film. Many questions are left ambiguously answered, and lot of theories abound online attempting to answer them: what is it about? which parts, if any, are dreams? who is dreaming? (This theory I stumbled on is one of my favourites, and definitely one of the more entertaining ones). I’m not going to attempt to explain what I think it’s about, I don’t think that’s the point of this film. And frankly that sort of writing and analysis deserves a post to itself. Hopefully I can attempt one in the future, definitely after another viewing.

Featuring a collection of seemingly disparate vignettes, the story focuses on Betty (Naomi Watts), a naive and eager small-town girl who arrives in Los Angeles in the hope of having a career as an actress. As she moves into her aunt’s apartment, she finds a woman (Laura Harring) hiding there, scared and lost after losing her memory in a car accident. The woman takes on the name Rita after seeing a poster for Gilda starring Rita Hayworth. Whilst preparing for Betty’s first audition, the two women investigate Rita’s past. Meanwhile, a Hollywood director (Justin Theroux) finds his latest project being sabotaged by gangsters, demanding he give his lead role to an unknown actress called Diane Selywn.

Watching this again, I enjoyed and appreciated it a lot more. I think the first time I was so caught up in trying to understand it all that I got lost. This time, like with Lynch’s other films, I got caught up in the atmosphere, the mood of it. Many parts of this film are disturbing in ways I can’t really put my finger on. Shamelessly calling back to my degree, this brings to mind Susan Sontag’s belief that the overinterpretation of artworks reduces the affective power of the work by attempting to shoebox it in to pre-existing interpetative ideas and theories. She calls for an increased focus on form over content, to regard more how a film affects us on an emotional and sensorial level, rather than attempting to force supposedly hidden meanings upon it. Lynch’s films I feel are appreciated best when viewed in this way. They are studies in mood, time and place. Whilst the complex story is certainly impressive, I personally didn’t feel the need to fully break it apart. The way Mulholland Drive made me feel told me everything I needed to know about what it wanted to convey.

The quality of this film really comes to the strength of the directing, which expertly conveys the feelings of the characters at different points of the film, which are often radically contrasting. The very careful focus on often small details – the distorted features of a gangster behind a glass screen, the relay of phone calls between criminals, the appearances of lamps and keys at vital scenes – all creates a sense of both dread and curious anticipation. Similarly, by having the main characters both naive and, in Rita’s case characterless, they become blank slates for the audience. They discover clues as we do, and we can see their development as the malevolent forces within the diegesis begin to affect them. The very self-conscious referencing of film noir cliches, but tinged with an almost supernatural twist, turns this into a scathing critique of the Hollywood system, one where creative freedom is restricted and skewed.

Finally, I have to mention Angelo Badalamenti’s score, which is simultaneously both his darkest but also his most romantic. It gives real presence and depth, and displays the contrasting feelings within the film, as well as genuine affections between characters.

I decided to focus on the films which I felt were more obviously within the same vain as each other. I’ve seen Eraserhead, but don’t really fancy watching that again! I’ll hopefully watch The Elephant Man, The Straight Story and Inland Empire soon when I find the time.

Holy Motors

2012
Director/Writer: Leos Carax

Compared to previous years, 2012 personally hasn’t been a standout year for new films for me. There have been some entertaining rides along the way: Moonrise Kingdom was a charming love letter to young romance, The Dark Knight Rises was a sprawling, busy, flawed but ultimately epic film about the breakdown of socio-ethical values and the superhero myth while Skyfall simply re-affirmed my love of James Bond films. But there wasn’t much that that truly inspired or enthralled me to any great extent. There was Amour, Michael Haneke’s soul-crushing study of an elderly man’s devotion to his wife whose mind is slowly dying but for me the real standout this year was Holy Motors.

Despite not winning any prizes at the Cannes Film Festival this year, Holy Motors was the film which seemed to generate the greatest amount of buzz and fervour out of anything playing on all of the websites, blogs and reviews I was finding. I didn’t know anything about the director Leos Carax (this is his first film for 13 years) or any of the major actors in it. All I knew were some bizarre details about the plot which didn’t seem to make much sense and some glowing reviews praising its originality; it was intriguing. The trailer didn’t offer much more- just a series of distinct and memorable clips and images but it was enough for me. I couldn’t wait to see it.

So what is it about then? We follow a day in the life of the mysterious figure Monsieur Oscar (Denis Lavant), during his bizarre odyssey across Paris in the back of a white stretched limo driven by his dutiful chauffer Céline (Édith Scob). His day involves him engaging in a series of ‘appointments’, for each of which he has to perform a new character in public complete with new costumes, make-up and personality. He starts the day as a middle aged banker leaving his art deco home replete with luxury cars and armed security. Throughout the film he plays an elderly crippled woman begging for change, an ordinary man picking up his daughter from a party, an assassin assigned to kill his doppelganger and an actor performing stunts for motion capture animation on a soundstage, amongst several other roles. The reason why he does this is never made entirely clear and the only thing linking them is Monsieur Oscar himself.

To put it bluntly, this film is insane. A very funny series of surrealist stories, Holy Motors is not constructed like or driven by any narrative conventions but instead takes the fundamentals of cinematic form and genre and subverts them, inviting the audience into this strange dreamscape not through narrative engagement but through bold imagery, warped humour and a strong awareness of itself. It’s a massively self-conscious film, filled with loving homages to previous French cinema and playfully running wild with ideas that don’t make much sense together and encourage the viewer to be aware that they are watching a film. Some might get frustrated by its clear lack of structure or purpose but for me the real joy of this film was never being able to guess what was about to happen next. Surrealism is so hard to do but this makes it look easy, making something that can at once be crudely funny, deliciously disturbing or knowingly tedious and existential.

Filled with unique and unforgettable setpieces, Holy Motors is frenetic, vivid and schizophrenic. It is a film about cinema- beginning with a prologue in which the director Carax himself wakes from a dream in a hotel room and breaks through a wall with a giant key embedded in his hand, he emerges at the back of a packed cinema filled with a sleeping crowd. He’s transfixed by this new world, one formed by the artistic visions of the subconscious where anything is possible. Throughout the film, it asserts itself as a cinematic vision. Everyone in it is aware that they are performing for someone watching- indeed it is their professions. Each character M. Oscar plays is within its own cinematic realm- one time it is a violent thriller, another a languid melodrama about death filled with highly emotional performances and overblown cliché dialogue; it even turns into a musical as bizarrely Kylie Minogue turns up and sings a song about loss, heartbreak and change. Clips from early cinema of dancers and male bodies on display are spliced throughout. There’s even an intermission. The best bit is M. Oscar’s third appointment, a masterful sequence; he plays a revolting sewer dweller that emerges in the Père Lachaise cemetery to the theme from Godzilla, where he discovers a photoshoot by a deranged photographer and an American model whom he kidnaps and takes to his underground lair. So ludicrously funny, it’s also a scathing satire of contemporary France (sewers filled with illegal immigrants, a woman being disguised in a burka) and of self-obsessed celebrity culture.

Holy Motors is not like anything else I’ve ever seen recently. It’s refreshing to see something which doesn’t try to force overwrought thematic subtext down your throat. Instead you’re invited to simply enjoy the ride and marvel in the spectacle of a film that doesn’t take itself at all seriously. Certainly some viewers might dislike its unconventionality and puzzling content which is full of questions and secrets, but it’s just so much fun that these don’t matter. They’re not what this is about anyway; this is a hallucinogenic experiment of the capabilities of cinema, so wonderfully formed and put together.

*Spoilers* But seriously, what is it about? It can definitely be seen as treatise on the art of acting and the nature of performance. In his TARDIS-like limo seemingly bigger on the inside and filled with boxes of props, costumes and make-up, we see the upmost care M. Oscar puts into each of his performances, the vast amount of time he spends carefully preparing for each role. The true centrepiece of the film is Lavant’s extraordinary performance, he truly throws himself fully into each character and it’s delightful to watch.

Holy Motors could also be about the performances we ourselves put on everyday- how we mark ourselves in the world through our behaviour, appearance and manner and how this is distinguished from our true selves seen only in private. We catch only brief glimpses of the real Oscar, when he is alone in the limo with Céline- he’s gradually downtrodden and tired as the day continues. One wonders if he’s grown increasingly weary of having to play so many such exacting roles while his real self grows older and is increasingly exerted. We catch a brief snippet of his strain as he takes a sneaky cigarette before entering the house of his final performance of the day, sighing, knowing he has to do it all over again tomorrow. The only glimpses of the real world he ever gets during the day is by watching the Parisian streets glide past on a television monitor in his limo. He spends his day interacting with families and strangers but everything that occurs, all the emotions he feels, are false; he’s definitely a lonely man consumed by a wider societal need to perform, to entertain and to distract. This is applicable to everyone in the film- Céline at the end of the day puts on a mask, this perhaps being the performance she puts on in her personal life (as well as being a reference to the wonderful French horror film Eyes Without a Face (1960) which Edith Scob also starred in). Eva Mendes’s kidnapped model retains her emotionless public persona required for her work, even during the chaos happening around her in the sewers away from the photoshoot.

One theory I want to propose is how Oscar could be developing melancholia over his growing old and his lack of genuine human relationships. Each of his roles could in some way reflect his own phobias and insecurities. He has no genuine family, yet the film is filled with daughters or daughter-figures (the little girl saying goodbye at the start, the self-hating daughter leaving the party, the devoted niece by her dying uncle’s bedside, the chimpanzees), perhaps stating his own desire for a child or something to give him purpose. The sewer monster’s final descent into almost childlike dependency yet one tinged with a creepy sexual undercurrent belays his desperate need for interaction. The assassin’s murder of himself (which is then repeated vice versa) could be a sense of self-loathing. The crippled woman, alone and begging, or at the other end of the scale, the banker attacked in the street, could be his future- isolated and misunderstood by the rest of the world that demands homogeneity.

It seems the world is changing around Oscar- he describes how he started this work and his love of it for “the beauty of the act”, yet he laments the loss of the beholder to appreciate this beauty. This could be a protest at the state of modern technology in the world- he decries how he unable to see the cameras anymore, perhaps because they are too small, and therefore he can no longer be aware of the audience watching him. Further, we can see the acts he performs on the soundstage with the contortionist for the motion capture- here the camera lingers on the fluidity and form of their bodies and ultimately juxtaposes this with the final product their movements are helping to create: a crude animation about copulating dragon monsters. It’s not worthy of their efforts and it masks the real artists at work- the dedicated actors. Finally there is the wickedly silly scene at the very end of the film, where fears of being replaced and made inadequate by new machines are discussed by the limos, complaints about how people no longer want to see anything beyond what they use and want.

One major question is who is Oscar really performing for? It seems he’s in the business of creating filmic fiction for someone- it’s implied he’s be doing this for some time and we meet several other actors also engaged in acting for unseen audiences. Are the crowds unseen, and if so how are they watching? Oscar says he cannot see the cameras anymore, so does that mean they are actually there? Is anyone actually watching, or is this business (that of cinema itself and the art of performance) slowly dying, to be replaced cheap imitations and lazy commercialism? Or is the camera simply Carax’s, and the audience we ourselves watching right now? Few films have taken such measures as to make the viewer alert to the fact that we are watching something artificial and staged, created for artistic and entertainment purposes. Do we simply take for granted the efforts that go into creating cinematic art, and are we ignoring the truly deserving artworks in favour of those that pride novelty, technological gimmickry and convention over creative innovation? Oscar’s performance in the mo-cap studio is restricted and dictated by a demanding unseen voice, telling him exactly what to do; this then compared to his gloriously unhinged performance as the sewer monster.

Frankly, I could be way off the mark with all of these interpretations- Holy Motors is so dense in content which is so hypnagogic that it is open to any number of readings. People could easily hate this film, simply sit back and enjoy what’s happening or try hard to engage with its deranged content, but either way they can never say that they’ve ever seen anything like this before. Its refusal to follow the rules or frankly even simply make perfect sense is inspiring to watch and consider and that’s why for me Holy Motors is the best film of 2012.

Originally posted on my previous blog on 29th December 2012.