The Exorcist: Believer (2023) ☆☆(2/4): Friedkin Wept

Posted on October 19, 2023 by kaist455

“The Exorcist: Believer”, the latest installment of the series which started with William Friedkin’s “The Exorcist” (1973), did not scare or disturb me at all. While it surely tries to bring some freshness into its utterly familiar genre formula, the result is messy and mediocre to say the least, and it is not even as unintentionally hilarious as John Boorman’s “Exorcist II: The Heretic” (1977), which is incidentally still the bottom of the series.

This time, no less than two young girls are possessed, and we get to know a bit about one of these two young girls and her widow father during the first act of the film. Since he lost his wife who gave birth to their daughter shortly before her unfortunate death caused by a big earthquake in Haiti, Victor Fielding (Leslie Odom Jr.) has been quite protective of his adolescent daughter Angela (Lidya Jewett), but he has not talked that much about her mother, and that eventually leads Angela to a little attempt on the world of spirits. Without telling her father anything, she and her classmate Katherine (Olivia O’Neill) go into a local forest area for performing a small ritual for contacting with the spirit of Angela’s mother, and then they are gone missing for no apparent reason.

Naturally, their respective parents are quite concerned as fearing for the worst, and then the girls are eventually found a few days later. However, it does not take much time for not only Victor but also Katherine’s parents to realize that something is going very wrong with the girls. Both Angela and Katherine begin to show one disturbing behavior after another, and their parents are more unnerved as a number of other weird things happen around them.

Of course, there eventually comes a point where the girls’ parents come to see that the girls are going through something much more disturbing than they thought at first, and that is where Victor’s neighbor Ann (Ann Dowd) gets herself more involved into this increasingly alarming circumstance. As a nurse who was also an ex-nun, she instantly sees that the girls are possessed by some powerful demon, and she later recommends to Victor that he should consult with someone who knows much about demons and exorcism rituals.

That figure in question is none other than Chris MacNeil (Ellen Burstyn), who was that tormented mother in “The Exorcist”. After going through what happened in the “The Exorcist”, MacNeil has devoted herself on studying many different rituals of exorcism besides the one practiced by the Catholic Church, and she surely has a lot to tell when Victor visits her residence later in the story. Although she merely functions as a link between the movie and “The Exorcist”, Burstyn, who is soon going to have the 91st birthday, acquits herself mostly well while playing her material as straight as possible, and I hope that we will continue to see her more during at least next several years.

Just like Burstyn, the screenplay by director David Gordon Green and his co-writer Peter Sattler, which is developed from the story by Green, Danny McBride, and Scott Teems, tries to be as serious as possible, but its rather overblown attempts often lead to hollow silliness. When the story eventually arrives at its expected climactic part, the movie applies no less than three different religions on this part, but they do not mesh well together instead of generating any kind of dramatic synergy, and their mushy result only makes me wonder whether there will be a rabbi or an imam or a Buddhist monk in the two planned sequels after the movie.

In case of the devil in the film, who is, not so surprisingly the same one who possessed that poor girl in “The Exorcist”, the movie surely throws lots of grotesque moments you can expect from a case of demonic possession, but none of them particularly sticks on my mind much as often resorting to lots of digital special effects. As a matter of fact, this reminds me again that the climactic part of “The Exorcist” may look a bit dated at times but still retains its utterly disturbing qualities even at present thanks to the deft utilization of practical effects.

In addition, the screenplay feels flat and quotidian in case of character development, and many of its notable main cast members are often wasted while struggling a lot with their cardboard roles. Leslie Odom Jr. who has been steadily moving onto TV and movie since his Tony-winning performance in Broadway musical “Hamilton”, is suitably earnest, and he and young performer Lidya Jewett are convincing in their several scenes early in the film, but then the movie simply push their characters into more misery and horror without any substantial narrative development. In case of Jennifer Nettles, Norbert Leo Butz, and Ann Dowd, they fill their superficial parts as much as possible, and young performer Olivia O’Neill surely looks as committed as Jewett during the climactic part.

Overall, “The Exorcist: Believer” is not as awful as I feared, but it is still a disappointing opener for whatever may come next, and I came to reflect more on the undeniable artistic achievement of “The Exorcist”, which I happened to revisit not long after hearing about Friedkin’s death a few months ago. That film still makes us believe in its intense depiction of demonic possession because we come to believe in its realistic story and characters first, but “The Exorcist: Believer” does not have anything to make us believe in its story and characters from the beginning, and I also must point out that there have already been many better horror films about demonic possession out there since “The Exorcist” came out. Seriously, I do not know whether there will actually be some improvement in the next film, but, so far, “The Exorcist: Believer” just depressed me instead terrifying me, and that is all, folks.

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Blue Giant (2023) ☆☆☆(3/4): All for Jazz

Posted on October 19, 2023 by kaist455

Japanese animation film “Blue Giant” is simply riveting whenever it conveys to us that ecstatic quality of jazz music performance. Probably because of being singled-minded as its main characters’ artistic pursuit for sublime perfection, the movie often feels a bit too thin in terms of storytelling and characterization, but its every weak aspect is almost forgiven as it reaches for more musical intensity and excitement, and I found myself quite enthralled more than once even while recognizing its weak aspects from time to time.

At first, the film introduces us to a 18-year-old lad named Dai Miyamoto (voiced by Yûki Yamada), and it quickly establishes this lad’s considerable artistic passion and dedication as observing his lonely saxophone practice in the middle of one cold winter night. As he later reveals, he only started to play a saxophone just for a few years, but he is evidently quite confident as well as very talented, and we are not so surprised when he subsequently leaves his small hometown for going to Tokyo. Right from his first day in Tokyo, he starts to search for any suitable outdoor spot where he can practice alone, and he surely feels exalted when he finally finds the right spot for him.

Of course, Dai needs a place to stay while pursuing his big dream of becoming a great jazz musician, and it turns out that there is a hometown friend currently living in Tokyo. Although he does not welcome Dai much at first, Shunji Tamada (voiced by Amane Okayama) lets Dai into his small residence, and Dai shows some appreciation via paying some rent to Shunji once he begins to do a part-time work at a construction site.

Things seem to be going nowhere for Dai for a while, but there come a couple of fortunate encounters for him. As looking for any suitable jazz club, he happens to enter a little jazz bar owned by a nice middle-aged lady, who gladly allows him to practice there after sharing their common passion toward jazz between them. When he attended a small jazz concert during one evening, he happens to spot a young pianist named Yukinori Sawabe (voiced by Shôtarô Mamiya), and it does not take much time for them to befriend each other as they later talk a lot about their artistic passion with each other.

Both Dai and Yukinori soon come to feel that they really need a drummer to hold the ground for their respective performances, and, what do you know, Shunji suddenly finds himself trying on playing drum. Although he does not have any previous experience, Shunji comes to discover his own musical passion while supporting Dai and Yukinori as much as possible, and Dai gladly encourages his friend despite Yukinori’s skepticism. After all, their main goal is performing at a certain prestigious jazz club in the downtown area of Tokyo, and it goes without saying that Shunji can be a major handicap for them.

It is not much of a spoiler to tell you that Shunji actually improves his drumming skill more and more while constantly practicing as hard as, say, the hero of “Whiplash” (2014) – and that he and his two colleagues eventually give one hell of performance to surprise and impress a bunch of audiences. Director Yuzuru Tachikawa and his crew members have a field day as dynamically illustrating a number of performance scenes in the film, and their stylish result is lovely and exhilarating to say the least with the effective score provided by Hiromi Uehara.

However, what is supposed to be the center of the story feels bland and hollow in my inconsequential opinion. Besides his irrepressible artistic passion and dedication, we never get to know much about Dai except a few personal details, and the film comes to distance itself from him more as occasionally inserting the interview clips of several supporting characters reminiscing about him. They keep saying how awesome his talent is, and, to our disappointment, that is all they can tell us about him.

Instead, I come to care more about the other two characters surrounding him, who actually have more interesting narrative arc. Although he knows well that he may not be as good as his two colleagues, Shunji continues to push himself more and more, and his efforts eventually get some respect and admiration from audiences while also having a fulfilling artistic experience of his own. In case of Yukinori Sawabe, he seems to be almost flawless as Dai, but then he later gets a painfully honest criticism on why his performance still cannot reach to the level of sheer distinction just like Dai, and that certainly frustrates him a lot for some time until he comes to realize how to lose and open himself for more artistic expression.

During the last act, the story becomes melodramatic as taking a sudden left turn, but that does not dampen the mood at all as its main characters are still willing to go further for, yes, a performance to remember. The finale might have looked a bit too contrived and preposterous in live-action film, but it works better than expected in the context of animation film, and you will certainly root for them more than before while also being more exhilarated than before.

In conclusion, “Blue Giant” is another solid Japanese animation film of this year after “The First Slam Dunk” (2022) and “Suzume” (2022), and I enjoyed its good mood and style even though the story and characters sometimes feel plain and predictable compared to that. Yes, it sounds a little too familiar in terms of genre conventions, but it knows and plays its music well on the whole, and I certainly left the screening room with enough entertainment satisfaction.

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The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial (2023) ☆☆☆(3/4): William Freidkin’s last work

Posted on October 18, 2023 by kaist455

Willaim Friedkin’s last film “The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial”, which incidentally came out a few months after his death, is a modest but engaging legal drama to watch. While looking inherently theatrical at times, the movie is also compelling enough to hold our attention to the end, and it is certainly nice to see that Friedkin was still a good filmmaker even during the last chapter of his long and illustrious filmmaking career.

The movie is based on Herman Wouk’s 1953 play of the same name, which was adapted from his 1952 Pulitzer-winning novel “The Caine Mutiny”. Wouk’s novel was later adapted into Edward Dmytryk’s Oscar-nominated 1954 film starring Humphrey Bogart, and that was followed by several TV movie adaptations of Wouk’s play including the one made by Robert Altman in 1988. Besides moving its period background to the post-9/11 era, Friedkin’s adapted screenplay mostly sticks close to Wouk’s play, so, like Altman’s 1988 version, it simply focuses on what is going on during its titular court-martial till the eventual finale.

At first, the case of its titular court-martial looks pretty simple on the surface. A US Navy ship under the command of Lieutenant Commander Queeg (Kiefer Sutherland) happened to have an extreme case of emergency in the middle of the sea area between Iran and Saudi Arabia, and one of Queeg’s officers, Lieutenant Maryk (Jake Lacy), quickly decided to relieve Queeg of his post because he had believed that his commander was not mentally fit enough to command the ship. In the end, the ship and everyone inside it managed to avoid a possible disaster, but now Maryk is charged for mutiny, and he may end up being incarcerated for more than 10 years at least.

Maryk’s only chance for avoiding that dire consequence is his defending lawyer Lieutenant Greenwald (Jason Clarke), who comes to handle the case with understandable reluctance as nobody else is willing to defend Maryk. Unlike Maryk, Greenwald apparently has a clear understanding of not only how that incident happened on the ship but also what he should do as Maryk’s lawyer, and we gradually come to sense that he is not so eager to do his unenviable task despite his compassion on Maryk.

Friedkin’s dryly unobtrusive direction allows his main performers to shine in one way or another along the story. Cinematography Michael Grady’s camera usually observes the performers from steady positions, and I appreciate how subtly it focuses on them bit by bit as we listen to their words. As Maryk and several other crew members including Lieutenant Keefer (Lewis Pullman) and Lieutenant Kieth (Tom Riley) testify one by one, we get a fairly good idea on how things went wrong under Queeg’s command, and we come to wonder more about whether Queeg was really unfit for commanding the ship as believed by Maryk during that nearly catastrophic happening. While Jake Lacy is effective as a simple-minded dude who still does not have much understanding of his situation even around the end of the story, Lewis Pullman and Tom Riley are also solid as the two other officers on the shop, and Jay Duplass, Elizabeth Anweis, and Francois Battiste have each own small moment as several experts brought to the court-martial.

Queeg is surely a key witness at the court-martial, and, thanks to Greenwald’s wily strategy, the court-martial comes to focus more on Queeg’s questionable mental state instead of the confirmation on Maryk’s supposedly mutinous act. Keefer Sutherland, who can be quite intense as shown from TV drama series “24”, deftly dials up and down his character’s apparent neurotic side during his two substantial scenes, and he is quietly devastating when Queeg belatedly comes to realize how he gets himself exposed and embarrassed in front of the others at the court-martial.

As Greenwald and the lead prosecutor, who is played well by Monica Raymund, often clash against each other throughout the court-martial, the head judge, played by late Lance Reddick, intervenes between them with stern authority at times. Although his supporting role looks rather thankless, Reddick, who was an ever-reliable character actor as recently shown from “John Wick: Chapter 4” (2023), firmly holds the ground, and he is particularly good when his character makes a bit of admonition on Greenwald’s morally murky strategy later in the film.

Greenwald surely goes for the jugular at the court-martial as much as required, but there is some bitter undertone in Jason Clarke’s seemingly straightforward acting, and that is evident especially when his character makes the final statement in front of the judges presiding over the court-martial. Greenwald keeps his attitude straight and unflappable, but his feelings about the case are more palpable to us than before, and this later culminates to a scathing dramatic moment at the very end of the movie.

Overall, “The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial” may look like a mere footnote compared to many notable works of Friedkin such as “The French Connection” (1971) and “The Exorcist” (1973) but Friedkin did a competent job of bringing Wouk’s acclaimed play to the screen with enough skillful touches to be appreciated. Although his prime period unfortunately passed after “To Live and Die in L.A.” (1985), he kept working at least as making a few more good films such as “Bug” (2006) and “Killer Joe” (2011), and “The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial” surely deserves to be included in that bunch.

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Leap of Faith: William Friedkin on the Exorcist (2019) ☆☆☆(3/4): How he made it

Posted on October 17, 2023 by kaist455

William Friedkin, who sadly left us a few months ago, has always been associated with “The Exorcist” (1973), one of the iconic classic horror films in the 1970s. To be frank with you, I was not so scared when I watched it for the first time around 27 years ago, but I came to appreciate more of its skills and techniques as becoming your average serious cinephile, and my recent revisit to “The Exorcist” confirmed me again of how memorably disturbing the result of the efforts from Friedkin and his cast and crew members is.

Alexandre O. Philipp, who is no stranger to film analysis documentary considering his previous film “78/52: Hitchcock’s Shower Scene” (2017), simply lets Friedkin talk in front of the camera. While he surely has lots of things to talk about his monumental horror film, Friedkin is also a first-rate raconteur who knows how to engage and then entertain us, and it is seldom boring to watch him reflecting or recollecting on the making of “The Exorcist”.

While he may not have much faith, Friedkin believes in fate a lot, and he dryly muses on how he accidentally got into movie business. During his childhood years in Chicago, his parents took him to a local movie theater for the first time, and that was how he became drawn to the power of cinema. Several years later, he happened to encounter Orson Welles’ “Citizen Kane” (1941), and this great film made him become all the more determined to become a filmmaker someday.

After his modest career beginning in the 1960s, Friedkin made a number of documentaries and feature films including Oscar-winning movie “The French Connection” (1971), which made him into one of the most prominent directors working in Hollywood during the 1970s. Now he could choose whatever he wanted to do next, and then there came a fateful moment via William Peter Blatty, who handed him his new novel, yes, “The Exorcist”. Right from when he read Blatty’s novel, Friedkin got the idea of how he could make it into a movie, and then he went all the way with his cinematic vision once he got attached to the following movie production by the Warner Bros. Pictures

When I recently revisited “The Exorcist”, I was quite impressed by how the movie subtly sets the unnerving tone via the prologue scene set in Northern Iraq, and Friedkin enthusiastically tells us about how he conceived and then shot it at the real locations in Northern Iraq. Nothing much is explained during this part, but a number of small and big touches on the screen generate the ambiguously disturbing undertone, which lingers beneath the seemingly mundane atmosphere of the first half of the film.

For filling the first half of the film with documentary-like verisimilitude, Friedkin and his crew members including cinematographer Owen Roizman made everything on the screen look as realistic as possible, and he also paid lots of attention to the casting. Except Max von Sydow and Ellen Burstyn, nearly all of the other cast members in the film including Linda Blair and Jason Miller were not recognizable performers, and this certainly contributed a lot to the considerable realism in the film.

As a filmmaker more drawn to spontaneity and improvisation, Friedkin prefers to do a few takes unlike Stanley Kubrick or David Fincher, and he is pretty frank about how he pulled out right moments from his performers by any means necessary at that time. For example, he used a gunshot for making Miller really startled in front of the camera, and he also suddenly hit a certain cast member for getting the right emotional reaction during the shooting of a key scene (That cast member thanked him because, as a non-professional performer, he could not play his part that well before Freidkin took that drastic measure).

In case of Mercedes McCambridge, who provided the voice of the devil in the film, she and Friedkin were ready to push the envelope as much as possible. Once her strenuous efforts were combined with some sound manipulation, the result was much more disturbing than before, and the documentary clearly shows us the difference as comparing between the two different versions respectively featuring McCambridge’s and Blair’s voice.

Friedkin also tells us an amusing episode on the music of “The Exorcist”. He initially approached to Bernard Herrmann, but then he and Herrmann came to disagree a lot before he eventually let Herrmann go. He subsequently hired Lalo Schifrin, but then the result was not exactly what he wanted, so he finally decided to stick to his temp track consisting of various kinds of works including Mike Oldfield’s “Tubular Bells” (There are actually less than 20 minutes of music in the film, by the way).

Under Philipp’s competent direction, “Leap of Faith: Willian Friedkin on the Exorcist” works as an engaging supplement essay to “The Exorcist”, and it is worthwhile to watch mainly thanks to Friedkin’s engaging presence. Although I wish the documentary asked Friedkin anything about how he feels about all those redundant sequels and countless imitators made after “The Exorcist”, I also understand that the documentary intends to be all about the making of “The Exorcist”, so I will not complain at all.

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The Conference (2023) ☆☆☆(3/4): A deadly conference

Posted on October 16, 2023 by kaist455

Swedish Netflix film “The Conference”, which was released a few days ago, is a viciously violent but undeniably amusing at least. Although its setting is derived from many other similar genre films ranging from “Friday the 13th” (1980) to “Severance” (2006), the movie competently handles the story and characters with enough humor and suspense, and you may actually come to care a bit about who will survive in the end.

The movie opens with the arrival of a group of civil servants at a spot located in the middle of some remote rural region. Because their department recently permitted the construction of a big shopping mall in this region, they will do some preparation work in advance via their little conference, and they are also going to have a fun time together as being served by the small staff of their staying place.

However, some of them are not particularly eager to have a fun as we get to know more about them. In case of a young woman named Lina (Katia Winter), she recently returned to her job after recovering from some unspecified trouble at her workplace, and it is apparent that she would rather be alone instead of hanging around with her co-workers. Furthermore, she and several colleagues of hers do not feel that comfortable with how their department gave the permission for building the shopping mall despite lots of objection from local residents, who incidentally did not get much benefit or compensation for this huge change in their living environment.

Not so surprisingly, it turns out that one of those local residents is quite pissed about how the shopping mall is going to ruin their region. Although the identity of this figure is mostly hidden throughout the film, we can clearly sense the murderous intention of this figure right from his very first scene in the film, and the mood soon becomes quite disturbing as this figure subsequently begins to eliminate the staff members in grisly ways one by one.

In the meantime, the movie provides a series of absurdly humorous moments as Lina and her colleagues casually go through their conference schedule under their haughty but ineffectual supervisor. At one point, the supervisor eagerly presents a cheesy promotional video clip for the shopping mall, and many of other employees show understandable skepticism without much interest, but the supervisor does not listen to any of them at all as mostly occupied with the upcoming ceremony for the construction of the shopping mall.

And Nina becomes more suspicious about how Jonas (Adam Lundgren) got the job done during her absence. As looking more into a number of documents associated with the permission on the construction of the shopping mall, she comes to have more doubt, but the supervisor willingly looks away for avoiding any unnecessary trouble, and most of other employees do not have much problem with that.

Meanwhile, the mysterious killer continues his murderous plan. When this figure later comes across the head of a silly mascot representing the shopping mall, we can instantly see that this object will function in the same way as Jason Voorhees’ infamous hockey mask did in many of Friday the 13th sequels, and that brings more absurd creepiness to this figure. When this figure later appears in front of the company employees while wearing the head of that mascot, they think it is just a little prank at first, but then…

What follows next is often pretty gory to say the least, and director Patrik Eklund and his crew members have a lot of bloody fun with dispatching one main character after another along the story. In case of one particularly horrific moment involved with a motorboat engine, you will surely wince a lot, but you may also laugh a bit as appreciating how the movie cheerfully handles this extremely violent moment.

In addition, the screenplay by Thomas Moldestad, which is based on the novel of the same name by Mats Strandberg, pays some attention to character development. Many of its main characters are more or less than targets to be eliminated by the killer in the story, most of them have much more personality compared to those forgettable young victims in the Friday the 13th movies, and that is why some of those killing scenes in the film are dramatically effective. In case of the killer, the movie does not reveal that much about this figure even in the end, but this figure has a lot more understandable human motive than Jason Voorhees, and it goes without saying that some of the victims in the film actually deserve to be punished.

While Katia Winter comes to hold the center as the most sympathetic figure in the bunch, several other cast members of the film are also solid in their respective roles. Adam Lundgren makes a good contrast with Winter as the most unlikable member in the group, and you will surely have some dark laugh on how his character is punished much more than several other victims in the story.

In conclusion, “The Conference” mostly stays inside its genre territory, but it does provide enough fun and entertainment via its well-balanced mix of horror and comedy. As a matter of fact, I am even considering showing the film to my co-workers at our upcoming workshop during this weekend, and I am really interested in how they will respond to it.

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The Burial (2023) ☆☆☆(3/4): Two different men against a big corporation

Posted on October 16, 2023 by kaist455

“The Burial”, which was released on Amazon Prime on last Friday, is a modest but engaging drama about the legal battle of two different men who came to stand against a big corporation. While it does not exceed our expectation that much, the movie does its job well at least as taking its time on story and character development, and it is also anchored by the compelling contrast between its two reliable lead performers.

Tommy Lee Jones, who has been one of the most dependable actors working in Hollywood during last several decades, plays Jeremiah O’Keefe, a funeral director living in Biloxi, Mississippi. Since he inherited the family company from his father not long after the World War II, O’Keefe has diligently run it in addition to becoming not only a proud father and husband but also a respectable member of his local community, but he comes to face a serious business problem which may be beyond his control in 1995. After consulting with his family lawyer Mike Allred (Alan Ruck), he eventually decides to sell some of his family business to a large funeral home company named the Loewen Group, so he and Allred comes to have a meeting with its CEO Raymond Loewen (Bill Camp) in Vancouver, Canada.

At first, everything seems to be going well for O’Keefe as the Loewen Group promises a deal supposedly benefiting both sides, but then O’Keefe soon senses something fishy about this deal as the Loewen Group keeps delaying signing the contract on their deal. Hal Dockins (Mamoudou Athie), a young African American lawyer who is incidentally a friend of one of O’Keefe’s children, tells O’Keefe that they should be more active about this ongoing problem because the Loewen Group was apparently not interested in signing the contract from the beginning for a good reason, and O’Keefe eventually agrees to take a legal action against the Loewen Group.

Because the following lawsuit will be handled at a local court whose area happens to have lots of African American people, Dockins suggests that O’Keefe should hire an African American lawyer instead of being just represented by Allred, who is incidentally a white American just like O’Keefe. There is a well-known African American lawyer in Florida who has been mainly known for personal injury cases, and Dockins is confident that this lawyer, Willie E. Gary (Jamie Foxx), is suitable for O’Keeffe’s legal battle against the Loewen Group, though O’Keeffe has some understandable reservation because, after all, Gary does not have much experience or knowledge on those contract laws.

Jamie Foxx, who has gradually been back in his element during several recent years, plays his showy character with pure gusto right from his first scene in the film. While he is surely your average ambulance chaser, Gary is also pretty good enough to convince the court and the jury members in one way or another, and O’Keefe is certainly impressed when he and Dockins come to watch Gary handling his latest case.

When he is later approached by O’Keefe and Dockins, Gary understandably does not show much interest at the beginning, but, after Dockins makes a good argument on how O’Keefe’s case can make Gary all the more famous than before, Gary agrees to represent O’Keefe. He promptly takes the lead position of O’Keeffe’s counsel team to Allred’s annoyance, and he is also ready to tackle against those several high-profile lawyers representing the Loewen Group, who are all African American as expected.

One of Gary’s opponents is a young female lawyer named Mame Downes (Jurnee Smollett), and one of the most entertaining moments in the film comes from when Gary and Downes has a little unofficial meeting before the first day of their trial. While their casual conversation is tinged with some playful respect, Downes tactfully warns that she will not be easy on Gary and O’Keefe at all as doing her job as usual, and Gary has no problem with that as her main opponent at the court.

What is unfolded at the court is quite conventional to say the least, but the screenplay by director Maggie Betts and her co-writer Doug Wright, which is based on the 1999 New Yorker article of the same name by Jonathan Harr, keeps us engaged as steadily paying more attention to character details. Yes, Gary and O’Keefe surely come to have some conflict between them during the trial, but they also come to respect and admire each other more as they continue to stand up against their opponent, and they become more determined as coming to learn more about how sneaky their opponent has been in its rather aggressive business expansion.

While Jones and Foxx ably complement each other along the story, several notable cast members including Alan Ruck, Bill Camp, Mamoudou Athie, and Jurnee Smollett, whom I still fondly remember for her powerful performance in Kasi Lemmons’ great film “Eve’s Bayou” (1997), have each own moment to shine. Smollett clicks so well with Foxx during several key scenes between them that I would not mind watching them playing against each other again someday (I can easily imagine them appearing together in the remake of Steve Soderbergh’s “Out of Sight” (1998), for example). In case of Camp, who has been one of the most interesting American character actors during last several years, he is particularly fun to watch when his despicable supporting character finally comes to the court later in the story.

Overall, “The Burial” mostly sticks to its genre conventions, but the result is still good enough for recommendation thanks to Betts’ competent direction and the commendable efforts from her main cast members. I was not surprised, but I was satisfied with its fairly solid storytelling and performance, so I will not grumble for now.

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Vesper (2022) ☆☆☆(3/4): One defiant girl in the middle of a post-apocalyptic world

Posted on October 14, 2023 by kaist455

Post-apocalyptic science fiction tales are dime a dozen, but “Vesper” distinguishes itself via its vividly barren and strange background. Although it is rather modest in terms of scope and production budget, the movie did a fairly good job of filling the screen with enough mood and details to engage us, and we gladly follow its young plucky heroine’s story while coming to root for her more.

At first, the movie explains a bit about its post-apocalyptic background. After the global disaster caused by the reckless genetic engineering, all the edible plants are almost wiped out from the Earth along with animals and most of the entire human population. While the majority of human survivors struggle to eat and live day by day in their stark environment, there are special places called “Citadels”, and those privileged people of the Citadels have had the nearly absolute power over the population outside their areas via occasionally selling the precious crop seeds genetically modified for only one harvest.

Vesper (Raffiella Chapman), a 14-year-old girl living alone with her invalid father, has tried to crack the genetic code of those genetically modified seeds for totally being free from the Citadel in her region. When she is not going around here and there outside along with a drone connected with her father’s brain, she usually spends her time at her little shabby laboratory, but there has not been much progress for her yet, and things get more frustrating for her due to a big problem in her residence.

Because of that problem, Vesper has to ask for a little help from her uncle Jonas (Eddie Marsan), who has been the de factor leader of some other survivors in the region. As reflected by his first scene in the film, Jonas is not so kind or generous to anyone at all, and, not so surprisingly, he demands something from Vesper in exchange of a little help. Vesper has no choice but to accept the deal, and there is a brief but disturbing moment between her and her menacing uncle as he regards her with some interest.

Meanwhile, something unexpected occurs in the remote area surrounding Vesper’s house. Not long after a flying ship from the Citadel in her region crashes into the area, she comes across a mysterious woman named Camellia (Raffiella Chapman), who turns out to be one of the two persons in that flying ship. Camellia requests Vesper to help her and her companion who is still in that crashed flying ship, and, because Camellia promises that she will take Vesper and her father to the Citadel, Vesper is determined to help Camellia as much as possible, though her father shows understandable suspicion and skepticism as a guy who once worked for the Citadel before becoming invalid.

The situation becomes more tense when Vesper’s uncle gets involved with the ongoing situation later in the story, but the movie takes its time as before while building up its post-apocalyptic world more. At one point, Vesper shows Camellia a little special place of her own, and the mood becomes a little more relaxed as Camellia appreciates the results of Vesper’s various genetic modification experiments. As a guy with a PhD degree in biological scientist, I found the biological technologies in the film quite preposterous, but the movie is not a realistic science fiction at all from the beginning as being more like a sort of medieval fantasy tale at times instead.

Besides providing enough details for the world inhabited by its few main characters, the screenplay by directors Kristina Buožytė and Bruno Samper and their co-writer Brian Clark also focuses on the human drama surrounding its young heroine. Although Vesper and her father communicate with each other only via his drone, we come to sense more of how much they care about each other, and there is a poignant moment when her father willingly chooses to do what should be done for his dear daughter. While their initial interactions are awkward to say the least, Vesper and Camellia come to open themselves to each other more as time goes by, and it is touching to see when Camellia describes to Vesper a bit about several extinct animals in the past.

The main cast members of the film are believable as embodying their respective archetype characters. As the center of the film, young performer Raffiella Chapman is constantly compelling as her character defiantly struggles with one obstacle after another, and she ably balances her character between vulnerability and resilience while often reminding us of Jennifer Lawrence’s haunting performance in Debra Granik’s “Winter’s Bone” (2010). As Vesper’s invalid father, Richard Blake speaks volumes even his character does not say via that drone, and Rosy McEwen exudes certain alien qualities as required by her role. In case of Eddie Marsan, who has been one of the most dependable character actors since his breakout supporting performance in Mike Leigh’s “Happy-Go-Lucky” (2008), he is effectively seedy and deplorable, and my only complaint is that his character’s eventual comeuppance comes a bit too easily.

In my humble opinion, “Vesper” has a sufficient amount of style and mood to be savored, and its two directors and their crew members including cinematographer Feliksas Abrukauskas skillfully immerse us into its curious futuristic background. Although it requires some patience from you due to its rather slow pacing, the movie is a rewarding experience on the whole, so I recommend you to give this little but impressive genre flick a chance someday. ‘

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Benediction (2021) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): The final film by Terence Davies

Posted on October 10, 2023 by kaist455

“Benediction”, which is now the last film by Terence Davies after he died a few days ago, is a melancholic collection of personal memories from a real-life British poet who had a fair share of bitter anger and sadness as often reflected by his several poems quoted throughout the movie. While broadly covering his life story, the movie calmly and sensitively focuses on vividly illustrating his personal feelings and thoughts in front of our eyes, and the overall result is often hauntingly poetic to say the least.

At the beginning, the movie shows how things have been hopeful and promising for Siegfried Sassoon (Jack Lowden, who steadily carries the film with his solid acting) and his brother before the World War I begins. We see them going to a tailor’s shop for their suits, and then we see them enthusiastically waiting for the beginning of the performance of a certain groundbreaking work by Igor Stravinsky, but then everything becomes quite grim and serious both of them are drafted to the British Army after the war is started not long after that.

Subsequently devastated a lot by not only the death of his brother on a battlefield but also what he saw during his military service, Sassoon makes a public statement protesting against the ongoing war, and that gets him into a big trouble because he is still in the army. He actually could be put into a court martial, and he is not afriad of that, but, thanks to his good friend Robbie Ross (Simon Russell Beale, who previously collaborated with Davies in “The Deep Blue Sea” (2011)), he is ordered to be examined by a military medical board instead for his supposedly unstable mental state.

As Sassoon tries to process his feelings and thoughts on all those tragic human casualties of the war, some of his poems associated with World War I are quoted while a montage of archival photographs and film clips convey to us a bit of the horror of the war witnessed by him during that period. His bitter and anxious feelings generated from the war experience still haunt him even around 30 years later, and that is the main reason why older Sassoon, played by Peter Capaldi with weary but brittle bitterness during this part, chooses to convert to Catholicism later, though that does not seem to give much peace or comfort as he wants.

After clashing a lot with those officers of the military medical board on his adamant opinion on the war, Sassoon is eventually sent to a military hospital located in Scotland for “recovery”, and, to his little surprise, he finds some comfort and sympathy as staying there a for while. Although the chief medical officer of the hospital, played by late Julian Sands, is not so friendly at all, Sassoon’s doctor is much more sympathetic in comparison, and Sassoon also befriends a young soldier who comes to share a lot of artistic passion with him.

It does not take much time for us to sense that Sassoon and this young soldier come to feel more than friendship between them, though neither they nor Sassoon’s doctor dares to talk or discuss directly about what is going on between them. After all, homosexuality was regarded as an unspeakable abnormality during the early 20th century, and it is rather amusing to observe how Sassoon and his doctor talk about homosexuality in very, very, very discreet ways while not admitting too much.

After the war gives him another bittersweet memory not long before it eventually ends, Sassoon continues to go on with his artistic career, but his personal life comes to have some melodramatic ups and downs in the meantime. At one point, he happens to get romantically involved with famous musician Ivor Novello (Jeremy Irvine, who is brimming with your typical bad boy vibe), but, as even noticed by Sassoon’s mother right from the beginning, Novello is not a very good lover to say the least, and Sassoon certainly gets quite frustrated no matter how much he tries to tolerate and accept his lover.

In the end, just because of being afraid of being lonely for the rest of his life, Sassoon chooses to marry a girl willing to marry him despite knowing quite well about his homosexuality, but, as bitterly illustrated by a brief but sad fantasy moment showing him joylessly dancing with several partners in his life one by one, his marital relationship with this young woman does not give him much consolation at all. During one flash-forward scene, the movie shows how loveless their relationship has become, and it is implied that their estranged relationship also affects Sassoon’s strained relationship with his defiant son.

In the meantime, the memories of the war keep haunting Sassoon’s mind, and Davies gives us several artificial but undeniably striking visual moments for conveying more to us on his hero’s emotional state. When one of the poems appearing in the film is quoted around the end of the story, it is accompanied with the visual presentation of the content of the poem, and the result is quite powerful even when the camera simply regards Sassoon’s deeply troubled face from the distance.

Since I happened to watch his deeply personal documentary “Of Time and the City” (2008) in 2009, I have admired Davies’ distinctive filmmaker career while impressed a lot by “The Deep Blue Sea” and “A Quiet Passion” (2016), and “Benediction” is surely another excellent drama film. Although he is not with us anymore now, he left a number of fine works to be cherished, and he certainly deserves to be remembered as one of the most interesting filmmakers in our time.

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Juliet of the Spirits (1965) ☆☆☆1/2 (3.5/4): Her spiritual journey of self-discovery

Posted on October 9, 2023 by kaist455

Federico Fellini’s “Juliet of the Spirits” baffles me a lot in good ways. When I watched the film for the first in 2005, I felt like not totally understanding how it is about or what it is about, and that impression was not changed much when I revisited it at a local theater during this afternoon. Nevertheless, its many haunting stylish moments linger on my mind as I am struggling to process them even at present, and it is surely another highlight in Fellini’s long and illustrious filmmaking career besides being his first feature film shot in color.

Unlike his two preceding films “La Dolce Vita” (1960) and “8 1/2” (1963), the movie is pretty modest in terms of narrative. Usually sticking to the occasionally unreliable viewpoint of a plainly affluent housewife named Giulietta Boldrini (Giulietta Masina), the movie follows her increasingly confounding personal struggles, and you may not be entirely sure about her reality even when she eventually arrives at the supposedly soothing end of her bumpy emotional journey.

At the beginning, everything feels mostly fine to Giulietta as she prepares for her and her husband’s wedding anniversary party along with her two maids at her big house decorated here and there with a number of colorful stuffs. Although he has been often known for striking images shot in black and white film, Fellini deftly moved onto color film without much difficulty in this film, and he and his Oscar-winning art director/costume designer Piero Gherardi, who deservedly received two Oscar nominations for the movie, surely have a field day here.

While she is enjoying the party along with her husband and a group of guests, Giulietta happens to participate in a séance along with several others just for casual fun, and that leads to something quite unexpected. After experiencing an inexplicable incident, she somehow begins to sense something supernatural hovering around her, and this occasionally makes her mind go astray into the realm of dreams and memories.

Because she does not believe much in mysticism, Giulietta is just mildly annoyed with this sudden happening at first, but then she only finds herself immersed more into dreams and memories along the story, and the movie surely goes all the way for Fellini’s usual idiosyncratic surreal moments. At one point, Giulietta attends a meeting presided by some old mysterious figure as asked by her friend, and that is followed by a series of baffling words associated with mysticism until Giulietta comes to have a little private meeting with that old mysterious figure. As an agnostic atheist, I think this part merely feels like full of mumbo-jumbo at times, but Fellini presents this part with enough style and a playful sense of humor at least.

Meanwhile, Giulietta’s personal memories and many people in the past keep popping out here and there in her mind. One of them is her teacher father who got ostracized simply because of following his heart, and his liberal presence, which is exemplified well by your average Felliniesque circus sequence in the middle of the film, is contrasted with the stern Catholic repression mainly represented by Giulietta’s sour mother, who still exerts considerable influence over Giulietta even at present.

As Giulietta becomes more reflective about her life and herself, it does not take much time for her to realize that her husband has been cheating on her for some younger woman, and that leads her to ask herself on what she really needs or wants. In case of one sequence involved with a tall and handsome foreign guest of her husband, its mood feels so dreamy that you may wonder whether this hunky dude is no more than the projection of her romantic yearning, and you will also be moved to see how her face is more brightened up than before.

However, she still flinches from the possibility of freedom and desire. Later in the story, Giulietta visits the house of a flamboyant neighbor living next to her house, and then she is caught off guard by a series of odd moments pulsating with sexuality and pleasure. She surely feels tempted, but then she becomes as terrified as a model girl scout would be in the middle of red-light district.

In the end, everything around Giulietta culminates to another big surreal moment which leaves us with some ambiguity about her state of mind. Does she finally free herself via embracing whatever is still speaking to her from somewhere? Or, does she actually become quite delusional after coping so much with her personal issues? To be frank with you, I am not that sure even at present, but I can tell you that Giulietta Masina, who was Fellini’s wife for almost 50 years till his death in 1993 and was also quite unforgettable in her husband’s two early films “La Strada” (1954) and “Nights of Cabiria” (1957), gives another sublime performance as ably anchoring the whole film with her gently sensitive presence. Usually looking docile and passive on the surface, Masina subtly conveys to us her character’s inner turmoil without exaggerating it at all, and Fellini surely handles his wife’s work with lots of care and affection – especially when the movie depends a lot on her beautifully expressive face during its last 20 minutes.

In conclusion, “Juliet of the Spirits” feels like an acquired taste compared to Fellini’s relatively more accessible works such as “Amacord” (1973), but it will come to you as a rewarding cinematic experience if you give it a chance. I mostly admire it instead of enthusiastically loving it, but I think I will soon revisit it someday for more fascination and amusement.

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I vitelloni (1953) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): A group of village slackers

Posted on October 9, 2023 by kaist455

Federico Fellini’s “I vitelloni”, which means “The slackers” in Romagnol slang, is a dry but funny comedy drama film about a group of young but pathetic village slackers. Although it may not be one of Fellini’s best works in my inconsequential opinion, the movie is still compelling to watch for showing Fellini’s gradual transition from the Italian neorealism to his own artistic territory during the 1950s, and it is surely one of crucial steppingstones in Fellini’s early filmmaking period.

The movie mainly revolves around five aimless lads living in a little beach village on the Adriatic coast: Fausto (Franco Fabrizi), Leopoldo (Leopoldo Trieste), Riccardo (Riccardo Fellini, who is incidentally the brother of Fellini), Alberto (Alberto Sordi), and Moraldo (Franco Interlenghi). During the opening scene unfolded in the middle of a local beauty contest, the movie quickly establishes these five young characters one by one, and then it suddenly pushes one of them into a very serious situation. Fausto’s girlfriend Sandra (Leonora Ruffo), who is also Moraldo’s sister, turns out to be pregnant shortly after being announced as the winner of the beauty contest, but Fausto only comes to show what a lousy boyfriend he is – before being eventually forced to take the full responsibility for Sandra’s big trouble.

Meanwhile, the movie leisurely observes how the lads spend days and nights without much thought on what to do with their life. While Riccardo and Alberto are not particularly interested in getting any job to earn their living, Leopoldo is mostly occupied with writing his ambitious play whenever he is left alone, and Moraldo, who turns out to be more aware of their current pathetic existence, remains indecisive about his future as continuing to hang around with his friends as before.

When the time for carnival comes later, the mood becomes a lot more cheerful among them and many others in the village, and this part gives us some foreshadowing of Fellini’s later works as he throws lots of spirit and excitement onto the screen. As the score by Nino Rota, who began to collaborate with Fellini in Fellini’s previous film “The White Sheik” (1952), often energizes the screen, the main characters are joyously mingling with many others in a big local theater, but then the mood becomes quite melancholic when the night is almost over, and that impression is further accentuated by a few main characters still trying to have more fun.

As reflected by that memorable moment, it becomes more apparent to Moraldo and his friends that their jolly good time is being over, no matter how much they try to look away from that hard fact of their reality. While Alberto is so absorbed in having a fun with his friends, it turns out that there is a big domestic problem involved with his sister, and there is nothing he can do when he belatedly realizes her subsequent decision. While he seems settled with Sandra and her family for a while, Fausto remains reckless and thoughtless as before while believing that he can get away with anything via his usual charm, and, not so surprisingly, that gets himself into a trouble more than once. Watching his almost incorrigible behaviors in the film, I could not help but think of that famous line from Orson Welles’ “Citizen Kane” (1941): “If it was anybody else, I’d say what’s going to happen to you would be a lesson to you. Only you’re going to need more than one lesson. And you’re going to get more than one lesson.”

While it may have some pity on its young main characters, the Oscar-nominated screenplay by Fellini and his co-writers Ennio Flaiano and Tullio Pinelli never overlooks how silly and pathetic they are, and that is where many of its sharp laughs come from. In one of the most amusing scenes in the film, Leopoldo cannot help but gush on and on about his precious play in front of some famous theater, who happens to drop by the village for a special performance of his. That star actor seems to be really interested in his artistic passion and talent for a while, but then Leopoldo belatedly comes to sense what he is actually more interested in.

As observing more of how his friends are not very good companions to hang around with, Moraldo is naturally more disgusted and disillusioned than before, and that is why it is touching to see a couple of sensitive scenes showing his genuine friendship with a little local boy who looks up to him like an older brother. They may have nothing much in common, but Moraldo can be more sincere and honest to that boy than he can to his other friends, and their little but meaningful relationship later comes to function as the emotional base of the finale.

Compared to more ambitious and flamboyant works in Fellini’s filmmaking career such as “La Dolce Vita” (1960), “I vitelloni” looks rather modest while clearly influenced by the Italian neorealism as reflected by its shabby but realistic mood and details. Nonetheless, it shows that Fellini was already a confident filmmaker bound for greatness even though it was only his second solo directorial work after “The White Sheik”, and, as many of you know, he subsequently moved onto a string of awesome achievements ranging from “Nights of Cabiria” (1957) to “Amacord” (1973).

By the way, when I watched the film at a local theater during this afternoon, I noticed that Moraldo’s surname is Rubini, which is incidentally the surname of Marcello Mastroianni’s gossip journalist hero in “La Dolce Vita”. I do not know whether “I vitelloni” can really be regarded as a sort of prequel to “La Dolce Vita”, but now I want to wish more good luck on Moraldo.

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