The Velvet Underground (2021) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): Todd Haynes’ dazzlingly idiosyncratic music documentary

Posted on December 10, 2021 by kaist455

Todd Haynes’ documentary film “The Velvet Underground”, which was released on Apple+ two months ago, takes an idiosyncratic approach to its main subject, and the result is quite interesting to watch. Although I must confess that I only know a few songs by Lou Leed and his famous band, I observed Haynes’ visual collage of archival footage and interviews with growing fascination, and I was alternatively entertained and enlightened by what is so compellingly presented on the screen during its 2-hour running time.

At the beginning, we get to know a bit about the early life of Leed via Leed’s archival interview recording and several people who were close to him. During his childhood years, he was a rather moody kid who was unhappy with his suburban environment while also quite distant to his parents, and that was probably the reason why he came to pursue his passion toward music more after he grew up to be a teenager. Even before he entered his adulthood, he was already an active musician with several his own songs in his pocket, and, not so surprisingly, he eventually left for New York City for searching for something different in the early 1960s.

Several interviewees in the documentary point out how Leed and his music were unfortunately ahead of their time, but New York City in the early 1960s was actually a right place and time for nurturing his musical talent. As the American society was swept with lots of social/cultural changes during the 1960s, New York City attracted lots of various artists not afraid of doing something new and different, and many of them were associated with Andy Warhol, who can be regarded as one of the leading figures of that revolutionary cultural movement. Under Warhol’s fame and support, those numerous artists often gathered together while constantly trying for more artistic creativity and innovation, and that is how Leed came across John Cale, a Welsh musician who had also been reaching for something different just like Leed.

Cale and Leed clicked together well from the beginning because Cale was also a child who grew up under unhappy parents and then got interested in music later. After coming to New York City, Cale was impressed a lot by many avant-garde musicians in the city including John Cage and La Monte Young, and he came to pursue more of experimental music just like Cage and Young. Now those avant-garde music performances from that time may look merely amusing to you, but they did reach for new kinds of musical expression seriously, and the documentary did a splendid job on conveying the excitement of their artistic activities to us via its kaleidoscopic collage of various archival footage clips from that time.

After Leed and Cale formed the Velvet Underground along with Sterling Morrison and Maureen Tucker, they became a minor sensation in the city even though they did not draw much attention outside New York City probably because of their experimental style and content. After all, not many people wanted to hear their songs including the one which is literally about using heroine, and filmmaker John Waters gladly tells us how much unpopular the band was when it later did a tour concert around the country.

The band kept going on as slowly gaining more popularity mainly thanks to the rising anti-establishment sentiment among young people, but the harmony among Leed, Cale, and the other two band members turned out to be pretty short. Around the time when they released their second album, the conflicts among them were already growing to considerable level, and we get an apt visual presentation on how their different styles clashed with each other instead of generating any harmony in case of their second album.

In the end, Leed and Cale had a breakup to Morrison and Tucker’s dismay, and Leed filled the resulting empty spot with a young musician named Doug Yuel. Although things seemed to be going well for a while, the Velvet Underground became more, uh, conventional around that point, and both Morrison and Tucker were already quite disillusioned as losing all the fun from that experimental period they shared with Cale and Leed. Finally, Morrison decided to quit the band, and that was the end of the Velvet Underground.

Freely flowing from one point to another, the documentary vividly examines and illuminates how the Velvet Underground was shaped and developed during that interesting period, and Haynes and his crew members including cinematographer Edward Lachman, who was previously Oscar-nominated for Haynes’ great lesbian romance film “Carol” (2015), and editors Affonso Gonçalves and Adam Kurnitz deftly keep us engaged from the beginning to the end. Often juxtaposing old archival footage with its new interview clips, the documentary generates the emotional resonance between past and present, and we come to feel and learn more of how the Velvet Underground is one of the enduring cultural legacies from the 1960s while still influencing many musicians out there even at present.

In conclusion, “The Velvet Underground” is another superlative piece of work from Haynes, who has seldom disappointed me since he drew my attention for the first time with “Far from Heaven” (2002). Like his unorthodox Bob Dylan biopic “I’m Not There” (2007), the documentary initially requires some patience from you especially if you do not have much background knowledge, but this is a rich and rewarding experience on the whole, and I am willing to examine it again for more appreciation someday.

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Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised) (2021) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): That forgotten summer of Harlem, 1969

Posted on December 9, 2021 by kaist455

You all probably know about the Woodstock Music and Art Fair, but most of you have probably never heard about the Harlem Cultural Festival, which was incidentally also held during the summer of 1969 just like Woodstock. Mainly based on around forty hours of archival footage shot during the concert, documentary film “Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)”, which won the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award in the US Documentary Competition when it was shown at the Sundance Film Festival early in this year, takes us into that forgotten summer of Harlem in 1969, and the result is quite vivid, illuminating, and enlightening to say the least.

Alternating between the archival footage clips and the interviews from a number of various figures associated with the Harlem Cultural Festival, the documentary initially gives us the overview on the social/historical background of the festival. During the 1960s, many of African Americans became quite more active with their ongoing civil rights movement, and there consequently came a lot more changes in their social status in the American society despite numerous backlashes including the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968.

Meanwhile, soul and several other music genres mainly represented by African American musicians became much more prominent than before, and the Harlem Cultural Festival was one of their notable culmination points. The festival was promoted by an African American guy named Tony Lawrence, and this dude surely knew how to hold a big festival in the middle of Harlem. Via many connections of his with a bunch of different figures ranging from the Mayor of New York City to the agents of numerous African American musicians, he could have his seemingly unlikely concert held in Mount Morris Park of Harlem (It is now Marcus Garvey Park, by the way), and the festival, which was held from late June to late August of 1969, attracted thousands of audiences thanks to those many famous African American musicians who were willing to perform there.

Not so surprisingly, what they gave the audiences during that period was indeed something to behold. After all, the festival had Stevie Wonder, Mahalia Jackson, The 5th Dimension, The Staple Singers, Gladys Knight & the Pips, Blinky Williams, Sly and the Family Stone, the Chambers Brothers, and Nina Simone, and these and other musicians surely gave lots of exciting moments for the audiences to remember. As the festival freely flowed from one genre to another, everyone in the festival gladly went along with that, and that was particularly exemplified by the cheerful performance of The 5th Dimension, who showed the audiences that they were indeed African American musicians despite being criticized for sounding, uh, too ‘white’.

In case of Mahalia Jackson, she fully demonstrated exceptional singing ability in front of her audiences, and then there was an extraordinary moment when she later was about to sing the favorite hymn of Dr. King on the stage. Quite overwhelmed by her mournful feelings toward Dr. King’s recent tragic death, she let her fellow singer Mavis Staples sing the hymn instead of her, and Staples tells us how special that moment was for her besides being one of the highlights in her musician career.

And that was just one of many high points during the festival, and the documentary keeps delighting and exciting us. There is Stevie Wonder’s enthusiastically spellbinding performance, and then there comes the Sly and the Family Stone, and then there is also Gladys Knight & the Pips, who gave the audiences quite an exhilarating time before interacting a bit with them. Around the end of the documentary, we are served with the showstopper moment from Nina Simone, and this great African American singer surely did not disappoint her excited audiences as giving another stellar concert performance of hers. Considering how steadily the festival kept entertaining its many audiences, it is no surprise that many of them did not show much interest when the news on the successful Moon landing of Apollo 11 came in the middle of the festival.

However, what happened next after the festival was not so pleasant. Hal Tulchin, a television producer who supervised the recording of the festival, did try his best during and after the festival, but, due to the overwhelming popularity of the Woodstock, the festival failed to draw much intention, and his vast amount of footage had been left untouched for next 35 years until it is discovered by Joe Lauro, a film archivist of Historic Films Archive.

It subsequently took more than 15 years before this found footage was finally allowed to be used for the documentary, but what is presented in the documentary is fairly good in terms of visual and sound quality, and director Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson and his editor Joshua L. Pearson did a commendable job of giving us an ample and exuberant 2-hour musical experience. I enjoy how he lets those musical moments speak for themselves, and I also appreciate how he provides some extra information and insight via his interviewees for more understanding for us.

In conclusion, “Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)” is an excellent documentary which deserves to be compared with “Woodstock” (1970), and it surely entertained and enlightened me enough during my viewing. To be frank with you, I would not mind watching more footage from the festival, and I will certainly be interested if there comes the extended version of this exceptional documentary. In short, this is one of the best documentaries of this year, and I urge you to check it out as soon as possible.

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Titane (2021) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): You’ll have to see it for yourself

Posted on December 8, 2021 by kaist455

Julia Ducournau’s new film “Titane”, which won the Palme d’Or when it had a premiere at the Cannes Film Festival several months ago and then was recently selected as the French entry for Best International Film Oscar, is wild, provocative, and deranged to say the least. Like her previous film “Raw” (2016), which is about a young woman who must deal with the sudden awakening of her very unpleasant hidden nature, the movie is so crazy, disturbing, outrageous, and shocking that you will wince or roll your eyes more than once during your viewing, but it will firmly grip you right to the end of its loony ride, and, like I did, you may come to admire how boldly and skillfully it goes all the way along with its dark and sensational materials.

The movie opens with the scene showing a young girl deliberately annoying her father again and again while he is driving his car. When her father finally comes to lose all of his patience, an accident unfortunately happens, and the young girl gets horribly injured on the right side of her head. After her following surgery which is depicted with graphic details to make you cringe, she looks like being on the way to recovery, but she is now with a permanent big scar on the right side of her head, and, as reflected by a brief scene between her and her parents, it seems that the accident did not damage her head only.

Several years later, Alexia (Agathe Rousselle) is a young woman now, and cinematographer Ruben Impens’ camera smoothly follows after her as she enters a motor show featuring many showgirls making erotic movements in front of fancy vehicles. She also works there as a showgirl, and she does not disappoint those male audiences at all when she does her work on one of the vehicles.

Not long after the show is over, we get to know Alexia’s dark side hidden by her boldly sensual appearance. When she has an after-show shower along with one of those showgirls, it looks like they are sexually attracted with each other, but then there comes an unexpected moment which will make you wince for a good reason. When she is later followed by some guy with no one around them, she seems to be disturbed by this total stranger, but then it turns out that she is quite ready for such a circumstance like that from the beginning.

Now I have to be more careful about describing the plot for avoiding any possible spoiler, but I can tell you a bit more about how the movie is willing to be more vicious, violent, and bizarre along with its increasingly disturbing heroine. At one point, we get a truly strange moment which is a sort of cross between “Christine” (1983), “Crash” (1996), and “Jumbo” (2020), and that is surely something which must be seen to be believed. In case of one sequence involved with that showgirl who was attracted to Alexia, it tickles us a bit at first, but then it shocks us a lot while never losing its morbid sense of humor, and you may find yourself wondering whether you should be horrified or amused by what is happening on the screen.

Later in the story, Alexia must run away as far as possible, and then there comes another unexpected narrative turn involved with a middle-aged firefighter named Vincent (Vincent Lindon). I will not go into details on why this dude lets Alexia into his residence and then has her work as an apprentice at his fire station, but I can tell you instead that Vincent is also a bit deranged in his own way. Like the hero of Oscar-nominated Belgian film “Bullhead” (2011), he is deeply insecure about his masculinity, and he frequently injects steroid on his buttock, but, to his frustration, his body has already reached to the limit due to its aging status.

As Alexia chooses to stay longer at Vincent’s residence, the movie gives us a number of darkly amusing moments which mainly come from how willing Vincent is to let Alexia stay around him. Regardless of whether he knows who Alexia really is, he gladly lets himself become more oblivious to Alexia’s deception than before because, well, he has never been happier than before. When a certain figure who was once in his life drops by his residence, this person soon comes to see through Alexia, but, after seeing how Vincent is less miserable for being with Alexia, this person lets Alexia go on with her ongoing fraud on Vincent.

In the meantime, there is something which is bound to be exposed from Alexia’s body sooner or later, and the movie has lots of naughty fun with her extraordinary medical status, which is clearly influenced by many body horror films of David Cronenberg. The finale will certainly catch you off guard for its sheer preposterousness, but you may admire how deftly and boldly Ducournau and her cast and crew members handle this climactic part for maximum dramatic effects, and Agathe Rousselle and Vincent Lindon are simply fearless as willingly hurling themselves into their characters’ crazy situation.

On the whole, “Titane”, which deservedly won the People’s Choice Award for Midnight Madness at the Toronto Film Festival, is definitely not something you can casually watch on Sunday afternoon, but it is still worthwhile to watch due to its bold style and crazy spirit, and I appreciate how everything in the movie is somehow held together under Ducournau’s confident direction. I think you will have to see it for yourself, and I assure you that you will never forget it regardless of whether you like it or not.

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The Rescue (2021) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): A vivid and gripping presentation of one risky rescue

Posted on December 7, 2021 by kaist455

Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin’s new documentary film “The Rescue”, which was released on Disney+ in last week, is a vivid and gripping presentation of one risky rescue which drew lots of public attention around the world at that time. Mainly focusing on a bunch of experts and many others involved in this rescue operation, the documentary shows us not only their enormous efforts but also how things could have gone disastrously wrong at any point during that time, and you may come to brace for yourself more than once even though you know how this remarkable real-life story eventually ended.

At the beginning, the documentary provides the overview of what happened inside the Tham Luang Cave in northern Thailand on June 23th, 2018. Although this cave was supposed to be closed in July due to the upcoming monsoon season, the weather on that day was quite rainy to say the least, and 12 local adolescent soccer team members and their 25-year-old coach became trapped somewhere deep inside the cave once the cave got flooded with lots of rain water not long after they entered the cave.

The rescue team was quickly assembled from Day 1, but it soon became clear to everyone that the situation was pretty daunting in many aspects. There were a group of local navy soldiers with some diving experience, but none of them had ever tried cave diving, and the condition inside the flooded cave was not very good to say the least. As rain kept coming from the sky during next several days, the cave became more flooded day by day, and that made the rescue mission much riskier than before. In addition, the rescue team had no idea on where those trapped boys and their coach were exactly inside the cave, let alone whether they were really still alive.

In the end, Vern Unsworth, a British financial consultant who joined the rescue team because of his considerable cave diving experience, suggested that they should call for several cave diving experts, and that was how Rick Stanton and several other cave diving experts from England entered the picture. Although they are technically amateurs who often pursue their passion toward cave diving during their free time, these guys do know a lot about diving into underwater cave, and, once they dove into the cave, it did not take much time for them to gain the trust from the local rescue team members.

However, the situation turned out to be much more daunting than everyone expected. At a middle spot inside the cave where the boys and their coach were presumed to stay, they found four other people who were also trapped at the same time, and the subsequent transfer of these people along the underwater passage of the cave presented a big obstacle for the rescue team. Often very dark and murky, the underwater passage of the cave could be quite scary and dangerous for anyone inexperienced, and Stanton and his colleagues came to see how it would be much more challenging for them to rescue those trapped boys later.

Nonetheless, they and many other rescue team members did not stop all. Outside the cave, lots of soldiers and volunteers constructed a makeshift dam which would prevent rainwater from entering the cave, while others tried hard to drain the water from the cave. Although the cave remained to be flooded as before, Stanton and his colleagues were finally able to dive deeper inside the cave, and, to everyone’s surprise and joy, they eventually found all the boys and their coach mostly alive and well at a spot quite distant from the entry of the cave.

Of course, that was the easiest part of the rescue mission, and the rescue team subsequently had to devise any possible way to transfer the boys and their coach as safe as possible along the long and treacherous underwater passage of the cave. Although they fortunately did not have much rain during last several days, it goes without saying that the cave would be soon flooded more and more due to the eventual beginning of the monsoon season, and the circumstance became all the more urgent when the oxygen level at the spot where the boys and their coach were surviving became dangerously low. At one point, the oxygen level was no more than 15%, and that will alarm anyone who, like me, knows that is lower than the safety limit for our body.

Thanks to one of Stanton’s colleagues who is also a doctor, they eventually found a way to transfer all the boys and their coach to the entry of the cave, but that required extreme caution to say the least, and a part showing what they did during next several days is pretty gripping to watch. Yes, I still remember well the outcome of this rescue mission, but I was captivated by how the documentary skillfully juxtaposes interview and archival footage clips with a number of remarkably realistic reenactment scenes, and the final several minutes of the documentary surely felt uplifting to me.

Overall, “The Rescue” is another excellent documentary from Vasarhelyi and Chin, who previously won an Oscar for “Free Solo” (2018). Although it is a bit shame that the documentary could not focus on those trapped boys and their coach as Netflix already bought the rights to their harrowing experiences, Vasarhelyi and Chin and their crew members did as much as they could within their territory, and I hope the upcoming Netflix documentary film will be equally compelling besides complementing its counterpart.

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The Beta Test (2021) ☆☆☆(3/4): He had it coming, you know

Posted on December 7, 2021 by kaist455

“The Beta Test” is a vicious and morbid black comedy which often goes wild with its edgy sense of black humor to our horror, embarrassment, and amusement. Mainly revolving around one very unlikable Hollywood dude who surely deserves all those predicaments poured upon him, the movie sharply and cheerfully examines and dissects toxic masculinity to the extreme, and we are not so surprised when it later enters a surreal territory of paranoia and online conspiracy.

Everything begins from one mysterious purple letter sent to Jordan Hines (Jim Cummings), who is your average hot shot Hollywood agent and is also about to have a couple of big changes in his life. Along with his partner, he is soon going to get a considerable financial support for their agency thanks to some very rich Chinese businessman, and he is surely determined to get the final agreement from that Chinese dude – even when he feels quite humiliated for getting his certain body part groped by that Chinese dude.

In case of his personal life, Jordan and his fiancé are busy with preparing for their upcoming wedding which will be held a few weeks later, and that is where that mysterious purple letter intrudes. It promises him a secret sexual encounter with a total stranger with complete anonymity, and he soon finds himself tempted by this offer even though he knows well that cheating on his fiancé now is not a good thing to do at all.

Once he sends his response in the end, Jordan receives the instruction on what to do next. He goes alone to some nice hotel located somewhere in the middle of LA, and then he enters a certain marked room where some young woman is waiting for him while being blindfolded just like he is as instructed. Due to their blindfolded status, it takes some time for them reaching to each other, but then everything goes pretty well once they touch each other, and he comes to experience a sort of power trip as gladly letting himself swept by passion and excitement.

As promised to him in advance, everything ends fairly well with no string attached, but then Jordan soon comes to realize that he probably made a very big mistake. It seems that he is entangled with some insidious scheme involved with sex and blackmail, so he attempts to search for any clue which may lead him to the origin of that mysterious purple letter, but his situation only becomes all the more baffling and frustrating to his exasperation.

In addition, as already shown to us right from the opening scene, he is not the only one who got into this kind of trouble. I will not go into details here, but I can tell you instead that the mood later becomes more ominous as Jordan comes to learn of the other cases and their eventual consequences. If he does not find any solution to his ongoing circumstance, he may also have to pay a heavy price just like others, and that drives him into more dread and paranoia.

Rather than showing any pity of sympathy to its hero, the screenplay by directors/writers Jim Cummings and PJ McCabe has lots of mean fun with its hero’s increasingly aggressive male attitude, and it surely makes a big point on how his toxic masculine behaviors annoys and hurts others who happen to be around him. At one point, Jordan cruelly intimidates one female employee working under him just because he is quite angry and pressured, and I was not so surprised to learn later that this and several other hurtful moments in the film are actually based on the directors’ interviews with a number of people who had similar experiences at their workplaces in real life. Although those deplorable Hollywood figures like Harvey Weinstein and Scott Rudin were finally exposed for their violence and cruelty during recent years, I guess there are still lots of monstrous people like them in Hollywood.

As Jordan becomes more unlikable along the story, we naturally come to observe him from the distance without much care, but Cummings’ intense comic performance grabs our attention via its raw manic energy. We often cringe and wince as observing more of what a jerk Jordan really is, but Cummings is often electrifying to watch thanks to his deft handling of comic lines and precise comic timing, and we become more interested in what will happen in the end even though we do still not care much about his character.

What is eventually revealed at the end of Jordan’s bumpy journey is rather anti-climactic compared to what has been built up to that point, but that part still has enough naughty fun for us. During one certain scene around the end of the story, Cummings throws us another big moment to watch, and we get a sort of comic catharsis as his character finally becomes a lot more honest to himself than before.

On the whole, “The Beta Test” is another distinctive work from Cummings, who previous gave us “Thunder Road” (2018) and “The Wolf of Snow Hollow” (2020). Although I did not like “The Wolf of Snow Hollow” enough mainly due to its jarring combination of different genre elements, it and “Thunder Road” showed that Cummings is an interesting filmmaker who knows one or two things about male anxiety and insecurity, and “The Beta Test” confirms that again to us. Yes, it may be a bit too edgy and feverish for some of you to enjoy, but I think you should give it a chance someday nonetheless.

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Belfast (2021) ☆☆☆(3/4): Branagh’s little personal work set in Belfast, 1969

Posted on December 6, 2021 by kaist455

Kenneth Branagh’s new film “Belfast” is a little likable coming-of-age drama which looks into its hero’s small world with considerable affection and a bit of bittersweet nostalgia. While often recognizing the alarming social tumult surrounding him and many others in one little neighborhood of Belfast, Northern Ireland in 1969, the movie also has a number of intimate human moments to be cherished, and you can clearly sense how much Branagh cares about the story and characters, which are loosely based on his own childhood experience in Belfast during the 1960s.

During the opening sequence, the movie introduces to us a young boy named Buddy (Jude Hill), and we soon watch how his usual afternoon playtime with those neighborhood kids is suddenly interrupted by a bunch of Protestant rioters quite determined to wreck a havoc on many Catholic neighbors’ houses. Although he and his mother and older brother are mostly safe because they are a Protestant family, what is happening outside certainly disturbs them all, and his mother accordingly becomes more concerned about her boys’ welfare.

And then there comes a possible solution via her husband, who has been often absent due to his current job in England. Because he may have to spend much more time in England due to possible promotion, Buddy’s father suggests to his wife that the family should move together to England for safety as well as stability for all of them, but his wife cannot help but hesitate over this suggestion. Sure, England will probably be much safer in comparison, but she also has lots of doubts on whether they can actually leave behind their dear hometown and their family members and neighbors.

As Buddy’s mother and her husband conflict more with each other over this important matter, the situation in Belfast becomes more volatile day by day. As more TV reports about riots and demonstrations come, their neighborhood is soon guarded by not only vigilantes but also British soldiers sent into the city, and Buddy’s father finds himself often threatened by local Protestant thugs who demand that he should make a certain political choice sooner or later. As a decent good man, he does not like the increasing social/political conflict between his Catholic and Protestant neighbors at all, but being neutral is not an option at all if he and his family continue to live in Belfast.

In case of Buddy, this serious situation in Belfast is not much of a concern to him as his innocent mind is usually occupied with small matters of his. For example, he wants to get closer to a certain young girl in his elementary school class, so he tries his best for drawing more attention from that girl, though his supposedly clever strategy backfires later to our little amusement.

And there are also his paternal grandparents, who always welcome their grandson whenever he drops by their nearby house. Although they sometimes bicker with each other a bit, it goes without saying that Buddy’s grandparents still love and care about each other a lot, and there is a little sweet moment when they show their enduring love and understanding at one point.

Leisurely flowing from one episodic moment to another, Branagh’s screenplay steadily maintains its gentle overall tone, and he and his crew members including cinematographer Haris Zambarloukos did a commendable job of transferring us into Belfast in the late 1960s. Mostly shot in black and white film, the movie is filled with nice period details to be observed, and you may also appreciate how it occasionally bring colors back into the screen for accentuating Buddy’s growing fascination with stage plays and movies.

I must point out that the movie is somehow curiously distant as frequently observing its story and characters from the distance. As a matter of fact, it does not delve that deep into many of its main characters as often limiting itself within its young hero’s narrow viewpoint, but it still has lots of charms besides its authentic period atmosphere to be appreciated, and newcomer Jude Hill is quite likable as giving one of the most memorable child performances of this year. Whenever Buddy wields his lively spirit on the screen, we cannot help but smile for his unadorned cheerfulness, and Hill did a good job of bringing considerable life and personality to his role.

Several notable cast members revolving around Hill are also impressive while never overshadowing him at all. Caitríona Balfe, an Irish actress who has been mainly known for her performance in TV drama series “Outlander”, is terrific as Buddy’s struggling mother, and she and Jamie Dornan, who demonstrates here again that he is too good to be remembered only for “Fifty Shades of Grey” (2015), click well with each other especially during one key scene between them. In case of Judy Dench and Ciarán Hinds, they are dependable as usual, and Hinds is particularly touching when his character gives a sincere advice to Dornan’s character later in the story.

In conclusion, “Belfast”, which incidentally won the People’s Choice award when it was shown at the Toronto International Film Festival several months ago, is rather modest compared to Branagh’s more ambitious works such as “Henry V” (1989) or “Hamlet” (1996), but it is better than his recent middling commercial products including “Thor” (2011) and “Murder on the Orient Express” (2017). He is surely back in his element as going for something more personal, and I am glad for his humble but substantial achievement.

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Nine Days (2020) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): Before Life

Posted on December 6, 2021 by kaist455

“Nine Days” is a little thought-provoking drama film which willingly delves into those familiar matters of life. After initially quite intrigued by its offbeat fantasy setting, I willingly followed its simple but thoughtful narrative as often admiring a number of poignantly human moments in the film, and I found myself gradually reflecting a lot on how I have lived my life during last 38 years – and how I should live during the rest of my life in the future.

At first, the movie lets us immersed in a small isolated world inhabited by its hero Will (Winston Duke) and a few other characters in the story. Although nothing much is explained about it, we come to gather that this world, which looks like being in the middle of some vast remote wasteland, is a sort of spiritual checkpoint before getting born into our world (Imagine a far plainer and more barren version of the Great Before in Pixar animation film “Soul” (2020)), and Will and his colleagues’ main job is monitoring the everyday lives of souls who were born into our world after being evaluated and then selected by them.

Via a bunch of old televisions assembled together in the living room of one cozy house assigned to him, Will often watches how those people selected by him live their respective lives day by day, and he has been particularly interested in a young woman who grows up to be a talented violinist. Although all of those selected souls are supposed to remember nothing once they get born into the world, she was somehow able to remember a bit about Will during her early years, and that is why Will has been particularly affectionate toward her for years.

And then something quite tragic happens in her life later, and that turns Will’s seemingly uneventful daily existence upside down as he becomes increasingly obsessed with how that could happen. He begins to check one record after another for finding whether there was actually anything seriously wrong in her life, and his colleague/best friend Kyo (Benedict Wong) is naturally concerned about him, though he cannot possibly give Will any nice pep talk as an entity who has never lived a life unlike Will.

Meanwhile, there soon comes a very important time when Will will handle a number of different candidates to be evaluated by him during nine days. During this period, Will must eliminate most of them one by one according to how they respond to a series of ambiguous tests, and the only one candidate will eventually remain to be ready for living a life.

Although he phlegmatically eliminates one candidate after another, Will remains as calm, gentle, and compassionate as before, and he also does his best for providing comfort and consolation whenever he notifies to a candidate of getting eliminated from the process. Although eliminated candidates will not exist sooner or later, they are given a chance to re-experience their most precious personal memory before their inevitable non-existence, and the screenplay by writer/director Edson Oda, who made a number of short films before making a feature film debut here, accordingly gives us several achingly humanistic moments not so far from Hirokazu Koreeda’s “After Life” (1998), a great Japanese film which is about a bunch of sincere spiritual entities helping souls moving onto afterlife with each own personal memory to cherish forever.

In the meantime, one of the few remaining candidates comes to draw more attention from Will. That candidate in question is Emma (Zazie Beetz), and she seems to be interested in Will as much as living a life out there. As she talks more with Will, she sees through him more, and Will slowly comes to reveal a bit of himself to her even though he still sticks to his ongoing duty as before. To him, it looks like Emma is a better candidate than Kane (Bill Skarsgård), but he also does not want her to get closer to him as a man who has been accustomed to emotional detachment, and that consequently generates some emotional tension between them.

Even at that point, the movie firmly maintains its meditative style and attitude not so far from Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life” (2011). As a matter of fact, Oda and his cinematographer Wyatt Garfield often provide us a series of vividly impressive bits of life just like Malick’s film, and we come to muse more on our existence on the Earth. Furthermore, we later get an interesting discussion on life among Will and several other main characters, and you may find yourself agreeing to both of two very different viewpoints on life.

Most of you will probably not be surprised by the ultimate result of Will’s selection process, but the finale is undeniably touching mainly thanks to the quiet poignancy of Winston Duke’s good lead performance. While usually functioning as the stable counterpoint to the other stellar cast members including Zazie Beetz, Bill Skarsgård, Tony Hale, and Benedict Wong, Duke comes to have several moments to show more of his character’s humanity along the story, and you will not be disappointed with one powerful showstopper moment which he delivers magnificently to say the least.

In conclusion, “Nine Days”, which received the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award when it was shown at the Sundance Film Festival early in last year, is a small but admirable film, and it surely deserves more attention considering how it was quickly put aside after it was unceremoniously released in US several months ago. In short, this is one of the better films of this year, and I assure you that you will not be disappointed especially if you admire “The Tree of Life” and “After Life”.

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The Card Counter (2021) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): The Gambler in the room

Posted on December 6, 2021 by kaist455

Paul Schrader’s new film “The Card Counter” is another compelling character study which deserves to be mentioned along with many of his notable works. Just like “American Gigolo” (1980) or “First Reformed” (2017), the movie presents an austere but intense character drama about one particular solitary hero, and it is often captivating to observe how its detachedly confident hero deals with a few other characters around him while frequently holding cards behind his back.

In the beginning, the movie succinctly establishes its hero’s unorthodoxly stoic handling of his life and profession. While he was incarcerated in a military prison for several years due to a reason to be revealed along the story, William “Tell” Tillich (Oscar Isaac) had thoroughly mastered how to play and count trump cards because that gave him something to focus on during his long incarceration period, and he has utilized his mastery of cards fairly well since his release at many gambling spots, but he has always been cautious and rigorous about that. He usually wins, but he never tries that too much for avoiding drawing any unwanted attention from those casino management and security guys, and that is how he has been under radar with a constant stream of cash for him.

When he is not ‘working’, Tillich mostly stays in motel room, and he only concentrates on cards or writing his personal journal there. As observing how he always covers the furnitures of his motel room with white sheets in advance, you will sense a sort of religious devotion from him – and how lonely and isolated he really is just like many of Schrader’s memorable movie heroes including the agonized priest played by Ethan Hawke in “First Reformed”.

And then two different people unexpectedly come into Tillich’s small world. At one big casino, he happens to be noticed by a woman called La Linda (Tiffany Haddish), and she is willing to connect him with some investors to promote him at a series of big national poker tournaments to be held around the country. Tillich is not particularly interested as he wants to stick to his solitary independence as usual, but, as he talks more with La Linda, they come to feel more mutual attraction between them.

Meanwhile, he also encounters a lad named Cirk (Tye Sheridan) at a certain big conference into which both of them come for each own personal reason. After instantly recognizing Tillich, Cirk tells Tillich a bit about his personal plan involved with one certain speaker at that conference, and, though he sharply points out how unprepared Cirk is in many aspects, Tillich eventually lets Cirk accompany him as a sort of protégé in addition to accepting the offer from La Linda.

As these three main characters come to roll together from one point to another, the movie comes to feel like a mix of gambling and road movie, but it continues to intense and reserved just like its hero. While we later get to know more of his dark past associated with not only Cirk but also Cirk’s target, we are never quite sure about what exactly Tillich is planning behind his back – even when he confides his feelings and thoughts to his little diary as usual.

Steadily maintaining the level of its subtle tension beneath the screen, the movie shows some sense of humor at times. I was amused by the frequent appearance of a cocky gambler who is quite different from Tillich in many aspects, and I also enjoyed how Tillich and La Linda often push and pull each other during their little private moments. Tillich prefers to stick to business as usual, but he cannot help but feel more attracted to her vivacious warmth, and she seems to be willing to go further if he lets his guard down a bit more for her.

In the end, Schrader’s screenplay culminates to a crucial point where its hero must handle two different situations together, but it does not lose any of its calm attitude even around that point. I will not describe this part in details for not spoiling any of your entertainment, but I can tell you instead that how the movie deftly hands out surprises for us like a skillful croupier, and the eventual finale is satisfying on the whole although its delivery feels a little too hurried in my inconsequential opinion.

Above all, the movie is carried well by another excellent performance from Oscar Isaac, who has been one of the most interesting actors of our time since his notable supporting turn in Nicholas Winding Refn’s “Drive” (2011). In addition to being dry, slick. and confident as required by his character, Isaac masterfully depicts his character’s inner turmoil and conflict without exaggerating at all, and he is especially captivating when his character must do something very drastic to Cirk at one point later in the story.

A few notable performers around Isaac are equally solid. While Tye Sheridan complements Isaac well with his naïve appearance, Tiffany Haddish dials down her usual comic intensity to some degree for showing a more serious side of her talent, and Willem Dafoe, who previously collaborated with Schrader in “Affliction” (1997) and “Adam Resurrected” (2008), is insidious as another substantial supporting character in the story.

Overall, “The Card Counter” is a fascinating piece of work to be admired and appreciated, and Schrader demonstrates here that he is still one of the most intelligent American filmmakers. Yes, he has unwisely caused several controversies during last several years, and I personally think he deserved that, but I also have to admit that he is still a talented one as before.

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Wild Indian (2021) ☆☆☆(3/4): When the past returns to him

Posted on December 6, 2021 by kaist455

“Wild Indian” is a calm but unnerving thriller about two different Indigenous American men who come to face their old dark childhood secret in the past. As slowly rolling its story and characters to the expected narrative point, the movie examines not only their respective guilt but also their gloomy past, and the result is alternatively harrowing and chilling while revealing more of what has been tormenting them for years.

The early part of the movie, which is set in the reservation area of one Indigenous American tribe in 1984, casts a long gray shadow over the rest of the film. We meet two Indigenous American kids who often hang around with each other as close friends, and the movie mainly focuses on how things are miserable and hopeless for them and many others in the area due to poverty and unemployment. In case of Mawka (Phoenix Wilson), this sullen boy has been frequently abused and neglected by his parents who have no idea on what to do with him as well as their own life, and his detached face speaks volumes about his growing anger and resentment.

When Teddo (Julian Gopal) later shows Mawka a rifle belonging to his father, we instantly sense a trouble, and something quite horrible does happen in the end. I will not go into details here, but I can tell you that the resulting incident affects the lives of Teddo and Mawka a lot even though they manage to cover up everything without raising any suspicion from others.

The story subsequently moves forward to 2019, and we observe how much things have changed for both Mawka and Teddo, respectively. Not long after that incident, Mawka, who is now played Michael Greyeyes from this point, left his hometown, and he is currently a successful businessman living in California with everything he wanted. While a certain big business deal for him and his close colleague has been going pretty well, he also has a Caucasian wife and their little son, and now she is going to give him the second kid.

Everything seems fine for him on the surface, but we come to discern that the past is still living well inside Mawka. Although he changed his name to a more, uh, American one, he cannot help but conscious of his race, and there is a little awkward scene where he deliberately throws at his close colleague a possibly sensitive question about his hairdo. When his wife announces to him the upcoming arrival of their second child, he feels rather stiff and baffled, and he is actually more honest to himself when he shows his darker side to a young woman he meets at a strip club later.

Above all, his hidden guilty about what happened at that time still feels strong to him as before. We see Mawka desperately praying alone at a church, but nothing gets better for him nonetheless, and he is also still keeping a certain little incriminating object. Is this a constant reminder of his guilt? Or, is it simply a morbid souvenir from what he managed to get away with?

In the meantime, the movie also pays attention to the current status of Teddo, who is now played by Chaske Spencer. Since that incident, Teddo got himself involved with a number of serious criminal deeds, and he has consequently been incarcerated in a prison for several years, but he is now released with lots of uncertainty in front of him. While he manages to get a job, there is still no future for him, and the only consolation comes from his two family members who come to care a lot about him as living with him for a while.

However, as he tries to make a new beginning for his life, Teddo cannot help but feel more guilt about what happened at that time, and that consequently threatens what Mawka has built for years. While caught off guard by the unexpected return of his old dark past, Mawka is quite willing to suppress it by any means necessary, and the screenplay by director/writer/co-producer Lyle Mitchell Corbine Jr. steadily follows his following struggle as revealing more of his darker side. At one point where he approaches to a certain person who may cause more trouble for him, he initially looks mild and courteous, but then he shows his old contempt and resentment toward the world he left many years ago, and that is quite chilling to say the least.

As Mawka becomes more heartless and dastardlier along the plot, we come to observe him from the distance with more disgust and horror, but the movie still holds our attention thanks to Greyeyes’ strong lead performance. While never making any excuse on his character, Greyeyes is often intense and compelling as ably conveying to us his character’s guilt, torment, and determination, and I hope we will see more of this talented veteran performer in the future. On the opposite, Chaske Spencer, who previously played a supporting character in the Twilight movies, is also effective in his role, and he and Greyeyes are flawlessly connected with young performers Phoenix Wilson and Julian Gopal, who hold their own place well in the beginning.

In conclusion, “Wild Indian” is worthwhile to watch for its competent storytelling and solid acting, and Corbine, who previously directed several short films, makes a fairly good feature film debut here. As far as I can see, he is a good filmmaker who knows how to engage the audiences, and it is will interesting to see whether he will become another interesting American filmmaker to watch.

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The Summits of Gods (2021) ☆☆☆(3/4): Following after a mountaineer

Posted on December 5, 2021 by kaist455

At first, Netflix animation film “The Summits of Gods”, which was released a few days ago, draws our attention for its odd combination. Although it is based on a Japanese manga series of the same name written and illustrated by Jiro Taniguchi (It was developed from Baku Yumemakura’s 1998 novel, by the way), the film is actually made in France, and you may find it rather awkward to see those Japanese characters in the film speaking in French, even while admiring those gorgeous visual moments rendered in cell animation.

The story begins with a photographer named Makoto Fukamachi (voiced by Damien Boisseau), who is doing his latest assignment for a mountaineering magazine around Everest of the Himalayas during the opening scene. Although he does his best for capturing a bunch of Japanese mountaineers trying to climb on Everest, but these mountaineers’ attempt is soon aborted due to an unexpected bad weather, and everyone returns to Kathmandu in the end.

When he is drinking along with others at a local bar, Fukamachi was approached by someone trying to sell a certain old camera to him. According to that person, this camera once belonged to George Mallory, who attempted to climb Everest in 1924 but was unfortunately gone missing while presumed to be dead somewhere in Everest. Fukamachi naturally does not believe that at all, but then he comes across a mountaineer named Habu Joji (voiced by Eric Herson-Macarel), and, after witnessing Joji taking away the camera from that person, Fukamachi becomes convinced that that camera really belonged to Mallory.

And we hear from Fukamachi about why Mallory’s camera is so important. As many of you know, Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay are officially the first ones to succeed in reaching to the top of Everest, but it was also speculated that Mallory actually succeeded first. If he did photograph his moment of success as he promised before trying to climb on Everest, that camera will surely give a big news to surprise the world.

However, as he embarks on searching for Joji, Fukamachi is reminded again and again of how elusive and anti-social Joji has been throughout his whole life. Since he was young, Joji has been quite passionate about climbing mountains, but he did not get along that much with his fellow mountaineers, and he often let himself ostracized by many of others around him. Always looking more serious in comparison, he even did not hesitate to say that he will definitely save himself first instead of letting himself and his partner die together under a certain impossible circumstance, and that certainly killed the mood among him and others.

Of course, such a situation like that soon happened to him as expected when Joji subsequently tried to climb on a big rock wall along with a young man who had worshiped him from the beginning. What eventually happened after a long and grueling period between both of them is pretty devastating to watch to say the least, and that consequently pushed Joji into more solidarity as he kept driving himself into more risk and peril. At one point, we see Joji attempting on one of the most dangerous climbing routes in the Alps, and that is followed by a literally chilling scene where he must not only deal with the extreme weather condition but also confront his growing guilt about that unfortunate incident.

Around the point where Fukamachi is approaching closer to Joji than before, the film gives us a bunch of impressive visual moments to behold. Director/co-writer Patrick Imbert and his crew did a fairly good job of evoking the texture and details of Japanese animation on the screen, and they certainly did their best in case of the scenes depicting those snowy landscapes of the Alps and the Himalayas. These scenes look quite striking on the screen, and I particularly like one involved with a big and wide crevice which looks pretty daunting for its unfathomable depth.

Meanwhile, the story brings some human depth to both of its two main characters. While that camera eventually turns out to be more or less than a MacGuffin (Is this a spoiler?), we get to know more about Joji’s constant attraction toward climbing onto those high mountains, and we also come to sense more of why Fukamachi was drawn to that camera as well as Joji. As one slowly follows the other later in the story, the film gradually becomes a sort of meditation on human nature, and those gorgeous depiction of cold and snowy summits in the film come to feel more haunting than before.

On the whole, “The Summits of Gods” is a fairly solid piece of work reminiscent of several notable mountaineering documentaries ranging from “Touching the Void” (2003) to “14 Summits: Nothing Is Impossible” (2021), which also is incidentally available on Netflix at present. Although the story and characters are rather simple and broad in my humble opinion, the film compensates for this weak aspect enough via its excellent visual depiction of the risks and challenges of climbing on those high rocky places, and that reminds me again of why cell animation is sometimes better than digital animation in terms of style, mood, and drama. Yes, as I said you before more than once, I am your average indoor guy who never dreams of climbing onto such risky spots like Everest, and I surely winced more than once while watching “The Summits of Gods” at last night, but I am willing to savor its several good moments again someday.

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