Varda Replies 1971 – 1980

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Sorry about the long delay between segments, anhedonia is a terrible thing and has prevented me from engaging the way I wish I could. But I’m hoping that some brute force can get me back in the swing of things.

The 1970s were a less prolific period of time for Varda, but in the pieces she did put out, she strongly developed her cinematic voice, filling the films with motifs that may have been in their infancy in the periods before, but starting these years sprout and will continue to flower through the years to come.

Nausicaa

Another unfinished project, but while in previous unfinished projects we only received clips and voiceover, Nausicaa was mostly complete, it was just missing its post-production. What exists of the film is a semiautobiographical picture of a women who falls in love with a Greek refugee after a right-wing coup took over the country. Nausicaa plays into many of Varda’s themes, left winged politics, mixing narrative with documentary, fourth wall breaks where characters talk directly to Agnes. While it may lack some polish, the film encapsulates many of Varda’s motifs and is a great summary of her work.

Daguerrotypes

One of Varda’s naval gazing films, Daguerrotypes is an innocent exploration of the shops 50 feet from Varda’s front door. This film encapsulates one of Varda’s tendencies to find magic in the mundane. She makes this extremely evident by juxtaposing people doing their job with a literally magic show. Varda finds something worth filming wherever she goes, and this theme will continue into later films.

Women Reply

A short film all about women’s empowerment. While viewed under 2024 lenses it comes off as rather transphobic as much of the film was about possessing a woman’s body and giving birth, the line that stood out, that I’d like to think was Varda’s intention was “Being a woman means having a woman’s head too”.

One Sings the Other Doesn’t

The clear highlight of the decade, One Sings the Other Doesn’t is Agnès Varda’s pro-abortion film, a message which sadly hits just as hard today. Staring two lovely women as leads Apple (Valérie Mairesse) and Suzanne (Thérèse Liotard) two friends who come into and out of each other’s lives frequently involving abortions or childbirth. The film embodies a womanly warmth as groups of women give what little they have in order to make the other’s lives easier. Even the most melodramatic of plot points feel slight and manageable because of the power of womanly friendship.

The Pleasure of Love in Iran

What is essentially a deleted scene from One Sings the Other Doesn’t, The Pleasure of Love in Iran briefly expands upon the budding relationship between Apple and her Iranian partner Darius (Ali Rafie). The love between the two young romantics is mirrored in the country as they explore it’s beauty.

While the first two films this week were largely about Varda herself (a topic she will return to again and again in the later part of her career), The last three films create the overarching theme for this decade. Varda was extremely interested in the passion that Women have for others, and in particular other women. One Sings the Other Doesn’t is the clear standout of the 70s and exemplifies this theme the best. The relationship between Apple and Suzanne is representative of the bond between women, especially when they’ve experienced something unpleasant together, and the power that women can behold when working together.

New Release Mondays – Inside Out 2

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Pixar returns to the sequel machine for its 2024 endeavor, but this time instead of making a sequel of a less critically received film (ala cars), they turn the machine to one of the most beloved films in their catalogue, Inside Out. Does the beloved 2015 film survive the sequlization? Well yes and no. Inside Out 2 is definitely the lesser of the two films, but it does stand on its own at least decently well.

In the first Inside Out, a young girl, Riley is transplanted from her home in Minnesota to San Fransico, a change that she was not ready for and did not acclimate well to. During the film, the personified emotions that run her evolved from distinct feelings (i.e. Riley either felt nothing but Joy, or Sadness etc…) un-mixing in their control, to something more complex. The concept of bittersweet (a combination of Joy and Sadness) was especially prominent in the film as Joy, the head emotion, was forced to accept that she would have to share her responsibilities with the other emotions, especially Sadness.

In the sequel, Riley is on the precipice of high school and finally content in her new life in California, The emotions in her head have running her down to a well oiled machine, that is until the night before she starts hockey camp when a puberty alarm starts to go off, and suddenly Joy and the gang are confronted with a group of new emotions headed by Anxiety. From there the original bunch are removed from the brain so that anxiety can take over and run Riley from this point on.

In theory setting a second Inside Out around puberty makes sense. It feels like it could be a story people actually wanted to tell and not just some sinical cash grab, and I believe it does cross that hump. The introduction of anxiety who “protects her [Riley] from the things she can’t see” as opposed to fear who “protects her [Riley] from the things she can see” is a great piece of character development and sets the film out well. Anxiety’s control of Riley leads her to take more nuanced decisions in life rather than just following the easy path to immediate joy. Anxiety is more worried about future joy for the young girl. But when Anxiety works too hard without the other emotions, it leads to tossing and turning in the night, and worst of all a really affecting portrayal of a panic attack.

Unfortunately, the film has the same resolution as the first film, that all the emotions need to work together and that one alone cannot run Riley’s life. The shared resolution is a common theme that plagues sequels, and while I would have hoped that with a novel enough setup Inside Out 2 could have beat this pattern, it succumbed like many others.

Technically the film looks extremely polished, as all Pixar films are, though I am tired of the Disney and Pixar look that encompasses much of animation landscape. Voice actors were well chosen with Amy Poehler reprising her role as Joy and bringing as much excitement to it as ever. Maya Hawke gave the deepest performance capturing her love for Riley as she was actively making her life worse.

Another sequel for Pixar, another film that fails to live up to the magic of the original, and while certainly not a bad film, I doubt it will make my rotation of Pixar films I go back to of which the original is solidly in. Something is just missing in the Pixar formula when revisiting a space. Maybe it’s the magic of seeing something new and unique for the first time?

Panthers Roses (… and Varda) 1966 – 1970

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In this period, Varda’s far left political leanings were at the forefront of her filmmaking. Between documentaries about leftist figures, filming the Black Panther movement, and a combined effort on North Vietnam, she left no secret as to who she believed was fighting for change. She also aligned herself with the Hippie movement in Southern California during this time.

The Creatures

A film about the creative process, Michel Piccoli plays a writer who with his mute wife (played by the marvelous Catherine Deneuve) take up residence in an old fortress on a sparsely inhabited island. While they keep mostly to themselves Piccoli does enter the village from time to time to pick up food and plenty of wine, but his real motive is to observe the locals for inspiration for his next writing project. The film uses checkered patterns as a motif throughout which come into play in the end as in Piccoli’s book he sees himself playing a game of chess with the people of the town as his pawns. The film sets out to explore the morality of this, but it does not quite stick the landing. Still another good film by Varda though.

Elsa La Rose

Part of a pair of films she made with her husband Jacques Demy, Elsa La Rose is a documentary short about Elsa Triolet as Narrated by her husband Louis Aragon. Both were prominent communist writers in the day. The film is Louis’s love letter to Elsa where he proclaims “My universe, Elsa, my life.” This does stand in slight contrast with the sentiment we get from Elsa herself where she doesn’t love Louis’s poetry about her because it puts her on a pedestal and diminishes himself in the process.

Christmas Carol

Another unfinished project of Varda’s that the Criterion Channel has saved what little exists over. In 4 minutes of fragments of scenes it’s hard to know what could have been, but it does deal with a trio of friends a theme which would be revisited in Lions Love (… and Lies).

Far from Vietnam

A piece of counter propaganda about the Vietnam War, Far from Vietnam is a collaborative piece between Jean-Luc Godard, Joris Ivens, William Klein, Claude Lelouch, Chris Marker, Alain Resnais, and Agnès Varda, the film explores the North Vietnamese prospective either directly, through the defecting southern Vietnamese, or the various protests in America. It’s unfortunately hard to tell what Varda’s part if any (she’s listed as “Credited only” on IMDB) is in the film to compare it to the rest of her oeuvre.

Uncle Yanco

The first of Varda’s California pieces, Uncle Yanco is a personal piece about Agnès meeting her Uncle Jean (Yanco) Varda. The short explores Agnès’s ancestry as narrated by Yanco, as well as Yanco’s hippie lifestyle in the “Aquatic suburbia” in which he lives. A loving tribute to the artist who proclaims “Hell is doing what you don’t like to do”.

Black Panthers

One of Varda’s most conventional film, Black Panthers is a documentary short exploring the organization of the same name as they rally for the release of one of their head members Huey Newton who was accused of shooting a cop even though no witness ever saw a weapon in his hand. The documentary fits with the far left politics that Varda has prescribed to and is powerful in its portrayal of the movement.

Lions Love (… and Lies)

Varda introduces Lions Love (… and Lies) as “the utopia of success without the effort of work” which equates to two hours of hippie bullshit, but I say that in the most affectionate way. Staring Viva of Andy Warhol fame, the film follows her and the two men in her throuple as they lackadaisically frolic through life, only to have to contend with reality when Bobby Kennedy and Andy Warhol are shot the same week their house guest Shirley (played by director Shirley Clarke) overdoses on sleeping pills. Though scripted, the film is most curious about being a fly on the wall of the hippie movement during that tumultuous time.

While 1963’s Salut les Cubains may have been the start of Varda’s fascination with far-left movements, the late 60s was when she made it her obsession. Excepting The Creatures, and possibly the unfinished Christmas Carol, every film she made in the later half of the 60s was an examination of far-left culture. A trend noticed in many of her films, is that she likes replicating shots of important moments, especially first meetings, in her film. In Elsa la Rose for example, she shoots Elsa entering the bar where she first met Louis 4 or more times to draw attention. Overall what this period in Varda’s filmography lacked in compelling narrative features it gained in meaningful documentary work.

Varda from 61 to 65

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Two of her most famous films, a silent short inside of one of those films, a historical snapshot of a country in the midst of revolution, and a lost film mark the entries into the second entry on Agnès Varda.

The Fiancés of the Bridge Mac Donald

The 1920’s era short slapstick film that can be found in the middle of Cléo from 5 to 7. The film stars acclaimed director and actress Jean-Luc Godard and Anna Karina. The short is a fun bit of levity that cuts the drama in Cléo. The film is slight in comparison to Varda’s greater oeuvre but is a fun novelty.

Cléo from 5 to 7

Quite possibly Varda’s masterpiece Cléo highlights 90 minutes in a woman’s life as she awaits news about a medical test. The film focuses on the insecurities of Cléo as the men around her belittle her troubles and focus instead on her beauty. Her partner even exclaims “your beauty is your health”. When Cléo is alone, or at least without men, the film focuses on the frivolities of femininity, but it never judges it. Hat shopping is just as important as her music lessons because they both bring her joy. When shefinally meets a man who respects her strife she finds a man who sees her as an equal, and through that finds comfort even when the test result is less than ideal.

Salut Les Cubains

Agnès Varda’s view into dost revolution Cuba reflects her and the French New Wave’s radical left politics. When taken as a snap shot of 1963, before Fidel proved to be nothing but a dictator, Varda captures the enthusiasm and joy of the Cubans at the time. She does this through the Afro-Cuban music of the time and by making her still shots dance on the screen to the beat of the ethnic music.

The Children of Museum

Unavailable online or on physical media

Le Bonheur

An uncritical viewing of Le Bonheur would assume it is nothing but a bit of twee filmmaking from it’s pastel colors and swelling score. However, upon closer inspection it becomes clear that in Le Bonheur, Varda created her version of a horror film. The film delves deep into the replaceability of women in the eyes of men. If they look pretty, take care of the kids, and provide sex to the man, the man doesn’t care which one he has. The speed at which François replaces the even uncredited Thérèse with Émilie is terrifying.

In her features especially in this time period, Varda was interested in looking at how men saw women in the early 60s. In Cléo from 5 to 7 the men in Cléo’s life infantilize her and diminish her health concerns by stating that a woman’s beauty is her health. Even more insidiously, Le Bonheur investigates the relative replaceability of women in men’s eyes as they are less equals to men as they are servants. Even the short film The Fiancés of the Bridge Mac Donald plays on this replaceability motif. The only film that doesn’t fit these motifs is the documentary short Salut Les Cubains where Varda’s far left politics are more on her sleeve than the cagey way she presents them in the features.

Early Varda 1955 – 1960

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The first or even prototype French New Wave film, an experimental film about pregnancy, two infomercials for French tourism, a scene from an otherwise un-shot film, and a missing piece of cinema history make for an invigorating start to the photographer turned film director Agnès Varda.

La Pointe Courte

Coming out 3 years before the French New Wave officially began with Claude Chabrol’s Le Beau Serge (at least according to Wikipedia) it is hard to deny that Varda did it first. La Pointe Courte is a film in two parts: a pseudo-documentary about fishers in the Pointe Courte fishing sector of Sète, and a married couple contemplating their marriage. The documentary plays out very cinéma verité style, just observing the men who do the fishing and the women who help from on shore. This style stands in stark contrast with the highly stylized uncanny feeling of the married couple. They deliberate the merit of their marriage not like a married couple but rather like philosophers questioning what it means to be married.

L’opéra-mouffe

L’opéra-mouffe is an experimental film that Varda shot while she was pregnant and living in Paris. In the film she captured the high highs of joveul drunks to the low lows of people freezing to death on the street. She juxtaposes those images along with matching score. The film for all its disparate  parts has a theme that is capitalized by the recurring appearances of the lovers, two naked bodied actors in love.

Ô saisons ô chateaux

Varda’s first bit of commercial film making saw her creating a tourist video showing the Loire Valley castles. Juxtaposing the ancient castles with a contemporary jazz score brings life to the old buildings. Adding to that local models Varda elevates a simple commercial to something reminiscent of a classic musical.

Du côté de la côte (aka Along the Coast)

If Ô saisons ô chateaux was Varda experimenting what was acceptable in her for hire commercial work, Du côté de la côte was her seeing what all she could get away with. While apparently selling the idea of tourists coming to the French Riviera, she immediately disparages them by calling them “Imported Sleepers”. Varda does take time to focus on the beauty of the region, but juxtaposes that with images of the tourists engaging in only the most basic of attractions, all while focusing on their fashion more than the beauty around them. Dissatisfied with just commenting on the tourist class, Varda takes a vicious stab at the bourgeoisie who keep the Riviera’s greatest beauties locked behind private gates, whose dead get to experience a greater beauty of the area than the alive tourists.

La Cocotte d’azur

Lost media. While rumors are that a print still exists somewhere in France, it is not available for public viewing under any methods.

La Mélangite

Set to be Varda’s second feature, funding fell through and all that exists is a single audioless scene. The Criterion channel shares this scene with commentary from Varda herself on what the film would have been.

Even from the beginning Varda was showing her potential to be one of the greatest filmmakers to ever pick up a camera. Her first feature arguably started the French New Wave movement, and her two travel commercials showed a humorous voice and disdain for the bourgeoisie that would stay with her for the rest of her life. As a filmmaker her prior experience as a photographer really shines. She has an eye for what will look good on the camera and captures that, even when it’s not the people talking. La Pointe Courte may be a hard place to enter Varda’s filmography, especially for those unfamiliar with the French New Wave, but that difficulty shows a lot of skill. Those looking for the easier entry into Varda will have to wait for next week.

New Release Mondays – Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

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9 years after his award-winning return to the world of Mad Max with Mad Max: Fury Road auteur George Miller once again tackles the Australian wasteland, but this time with a heroine Furiosa as the title character. Charlize Theron passes the baton to Anya Taylor-Joy and the young Alyla Browne to play Furiosa in this prequel.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is a pretty straight forward revenge film, but being straight forward is not a deterrence, contrary, the simplicity of the story allows for Miller’s signature style to build upon that basic skeleton into something fantastical. Furiosa is kidnapped as a child and forced to watch her mother perish at the hands of her captor Dr. Dementus (Chris Hemsworth). After Furiosa escapes Dementus’s hands – into the equally bad control of Immortan Joe (Lachy Hulme) – she begins planning her escape and eventual revenge.

While the film is advertised as a showdown between Anya Taylor-Joy and Chris Hemsworth, Alyla Browne deserves much more credit than she is getting. She performs as the titular Furiosa for at least half if not more of the film, and her physicality in acting at such a young age is commendable. When it is time for Anya Taylor-Joy to take over she steals the show as she does in everything she touches. Unfortunately, the acting of Chris Hemsworth is spotty at times as he struggles to capture the appropriate tone of campy but not buffoonish.

In the slog of action flicks, most of them superhero movies, that have plagued the box office for the past 15 years, it’s a marvel to see what miller can do with a similar budget. While most of the superhero films feel very sanitized and all run into one another they are so similar, Furiosa has action that one can feel, and that looks unique. He even found a way to add to the action repertoire of the last film by adding airborne militia. While long action scenes tend to leave this reviewer with her eyes glazing over, there was enough life in this film that it kept me engrossed throughout.

The main question on many people’s minds is bound to be, how does Furiosa compare to Fury Road? The major difference between the two is the pacing. Fury Road was almost a single action scene stretched out for over two hours, while Furiosa takes place over time with a heavier emphasis on story. This change of focus naturally leads to the action being a bigger part of Fury Road, and while the action in Furiosa is not any worse than that of Fury Roads, Fury Road’s ability to extend that action for 2 straight hours without being bogged down is such an impressive feat that it is a hard film to live up to.

While Fury Road will likely stand up to the years better than Furiosa, that says everything about the exquisiteness of the former rather than any downfall of the latter. Furiosa is still an invigorating watch, and if you are a fan of Chris Hemsworth’s schtick, you’ll be even higher on the film than I am.

New Release Monday – I Saw the TV Glow

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A forward: I understand that this film won’t be for
everyone, some people will not be receptive to the trip that this film takes
its viewers on, and I’m sure this will have its fair share of 1-star reviews.
What I am telling you though is that if this film does resonate with you, you
cannot afford to miss it because it could very easily become a self-identifying
piece of media. I’m going to gush about this film for the next 1000 words or so
and I understand that some people may resent me if I make them see it, but I am
under the film’s spell, so this aggressively positive review is all I am
capable of. Also be warned this will go into spoilers as I feel I need to to
flush out the themes. Please go see this film and then come back after.


Three years after making the cult classic We’re All Going
to the World’s Fair (a film this reviewer will be catching up with in the
upcoming week,) Jane Schoenbrun returns to the big screen with what is destined
to go down as on of the quintessential Millennial pieces of filmmaking, I
Saw the TV Glow.

Taking place in the mid-90s, the film is about two teenagers,
two years apart, who form a bond over a young adult teen show The Pink
Opaque. Owen, Ian Foreman and Justice Smith as young and old Owen respectively,
is the younger of the two, and is unable to watch the show when it airs because
of his mother’s strict bedtime requirements for him. Alone and desperate for
someone to share her interest with, Maddy, Brigette Lundy-Paine, invites Owen over
one night to watch if with her, and then supplies him with taped copies of
episodes to watch when he is able.

One week when Owen spends the night at Maddy’s and she
convinces him to run away with her next weekend. Owen, scared to leave the
comfort of the life he knows doesn’t, show up and Maddy is left to run away on
her own. The film then jumps 8 years to when she returns and tries to explain
herself to Owen in the coolest looking and sounding queer bar caught on screen.

The live music in the bar is the peak of one of many
highlights from the film, the music both score and soundtrack. Schoenbrun had unprecedented
control over the music in her film having budget from A24 to create 12 to 15
original pieces of music. With this much control over the soundtrack,
Schoenbrun and musician Alex G were able to sculpt the exact soundscape that one
would expect the physical manifestation of a memory of a dream. It uses current
artists and techniques but It is such an ethereal sound that it makes sense to
score the 90s because that’s what a memory sounds like.

Stylistically I Saw the TV Glow relies on nostalgia. The
Pink Opaque is clearly a play on Buffy the Vampire Slayer or other
such TV shows that would be passed around on VHS. And while the picture quality
is crisp, the whole movie has a feel of being taped onto VHS. The soundtrack
relies on a lot of distorted synths, and footage of the show in particular are
rather distorted. Everything just feels like it lives in the late 90s, like the
film itself was a relic of the time only with deeper meaning being interjected
from the present.

Much of the deeper meaning that I Saw the TV Glow contains
comes from its surface level and more allegorical queerness. After the first
time skip, Owen approaches Maddy about watching The Pink Opaque together
again, and Maddy announces “You know I like girls right?” clearly announcing
herself as belonging to the LGBTQIA+ spectrum. In this way, she represents the
confident queer person who while they existed in the 90s were rather
countercultural.

Owen on the other hand represents the repressed queer
identity so uncomfortable with the concept that he was scared to admit it to
himself. When explain that he believes that he is ace, he describes it as thus:
“I can take a shovel and dig that part of me out and I know there’s nothing in
there, but I’m terrified to open it and look.”

Both of these ways of “dealing” with one’s queerness in the
90s capture one inevitability from that era, isolation and loneliness. Either
you live open and people reject you or you hide yourself and are too miserable
to have a thriving social life and the loneliness comes for you anyway.

The trans allegory is not a subtle one, Owen wears a dress
in a dreamlike state multiple times, and his father, randomly played by Fred
Durst, dismisses The Pink Opaque as a show for girls. The television
show itself and Owen’s relationship to it take supernatural form, and this
connection represents Owen’s transness. As a child watching the show is
something he keeps from his family, and it can be assumed that Maddy is the
only person he is open about it with. Many kids from that era (myself included)
would have that one friend to which they felt comfortable being open.

After Maddy disappears Owen keeps the show, his transness,
to himself. He becomes obsessed with the show as if the show has power over him.
When Maddy finally does reappear she exposes to him that The Pink Opaque was
more than a show, and that he is not who he thinks he is. She leads him to a
place where he can be reborn as his true self.

Confronted with the truth of who he is, he runs scared to
take the jump. This moment takes place in 2006, and it makes complete sense
that Owen would be scared to make the jump. It was an unknown at the time, and
risking the life he had, even if it has this loud ghost haunting him is at
least familiar. The problem with this decision is that The Pink Opaque never
leaves, in fact it grows like a tumor.

As a trans person myself, I instantly felt like this film is
an inextricable part of me. The pink TV static runs through my body, and brings
comfort to my isolated, closeted childhood self. Jane Schoenbrun created a film
that speaks directly to her, and like years of therapy has offered her a place
to call home. I Saw the TV Glow just resonates with whatever part makes one
feel isolated from the rest of the world. It is more than just a perfect film It
lives on with the viewer who is willing to accept it and becomes a part of
them.



New Release Monday – Evil Does Not Exist

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After a breakout 2021 that saw a double feature’s worth of brilliant Japanese, arthouse cinema (Drive My Car and Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy) Ryûsuke Hamaguchi was effectively crowned the international arthouse director to aspire to, and with his newest offering, Evil Does Not Exist, he reasserts that he deserves the title. His newest film follows in Hamaguchi’s motifs common throughout his past work with long conversations being common, and possessing a level of complexity that extends beyond the text. Evil Does Not Exist may also have his most textually complex ending to date.

The main premise of the film comes from a situation that Hamaguchi was experiencing first hand while deciding on his next film, and it involves a company buying land amongst a village, Mizubiki, where the residents live a ecofriendly lifestyle where they all rely on the natural spring water to survive and thrive. When the real estate company presents the citizens with their proposal to add a glamping facility to their village, dozens of concerns are aroused most of which revolve around the cleanliness of the spring water.

After meeting with the village, presenters Takahashi (Ryuji Kosaka) and Mayuzumi (Ayaka Shibutani) realize that they have empathy with the villagers and their demands, a fact which doesn’t sit well with their manager or consultant. However, instead of creating an adversarial relationship there, the two set off on a task given their boss’s advice and then he and the supervisor are never heard from again. The film instead focuses on how these two acclimate to their temporary residency.

The closest thing the film has to a protagonist is Hitoshi Omika as Takumi, a single father to the 8-year-old Hana (Ryo Nishikawa) and self proclaim odd-jobs man. Through him the audience is introduced to the village and the way of life it entails. He is also the lens through which Takahashi and Mayuzumi open up to the holistic way of living that is common in Mizubiki.

Omika was a tremendous actor considering this was his first time ever in front of a camera. His passive enjoyment of ever day life in the woods, chopping wood, filling up containers of spring water shows a lot of restraint that it takes some actors years to learn. He comes at most things with a laissez-faire attitude that builds an aura of mystery around him and his performance. It is possible that no professional actor could have play this role as it give so little that everything has to be inferred.

Without getting into spoilers, the ending must be remarked upon because it designates a change in Hamaguchi’s direction. While Hamaguchi has previously always worked in the immediate for his film making, the ending on Evil Does Not Exist sees him playing with time and reality in a way that leaves the viewer begging for a second watch in order to fully comprehend what happened.

Hamaguchi once again delivers a masterful film which’s subtext will keep the viewer busy for days processing everything the director wanted to say. Phenomenal acting. a score it is almost criminal I did not dive into detail about, and tight, measured direction leads to one of the best films in the first half of the year.

New Release Monday – Challengers

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Director Luca Guadagnino has done his share of passionate love stories in the past, so the complex love triangle of 2024’s Challengers made perfect sense for his next film. The film staring Zendaya, Mike Faist, and Josh O’Connor as each side of the triangle uses the world of professional tennis as its backdrop, and while the tennis cinematography is exceptional, it is the off the court drama that sells the film.

The film primarily takes place during a challenger event where Art (Faist) and his now wife/coach Tashi (Zendaya) are participating as a warmup for the upcoming Open, while the shunned Patrick (O’Connor) is playing for his chance at a spot in the qualifier tournament for the same Open. The story of the three is then told in flash backs with each arch of the relationship between the three provides more salacious drama than the last.

The jumping through time aspect of the film works well because rather than go for a story arch, the film goes for an intrigue arch. While the flashbacks are primarily in chronological order, when the film deviates from this strict order, it is to hold back emotional punches for when they would be better appreciated. Guadagnino layers the film such that the intensity is always increasing with affairs and backstabbing filling up the latter half of the film.

While not the purpose of the film per se, the tennis playing needs to be commented on, and specifically the cinematography of the tennis. The playing is shot head on like most tennis in movies, this allows for the actors to be facing the camera while also removing the need for the actors to actually carry out a volley, but something small that director of photography Sayombhu Mukdeeprom chose to do that was unique was shoot the balls flying into the camera like it was a 3D movie. This little change ups the excitement of the tennis scenes tenfold.

Much of the film marketing attempted to sell Challengers on the sexiness of the three young, attractive actors and the risqué script. Unfortunately, that is the one aspect of the film that really falls short. Early in the film, there is a threesome sequence that while cut short hints at the heat the rest of the film promises, and yet, after that scene nothing is shown. Sex is implied to have occurred between various pairs of actors, but nothing is caught on camera. Not implying that the film needed to be X rated, but when the sex appeal is marketed upon so heavily one cannot help but expect a little more steam.

Misgivings about the sexiness of the film aside, Guadagnino delivers again. Challengers is an excellently paced invigorating watch. The cinematic landscape is significantly more chaste than it was in say the 90s, so any push in a more salacious direction is welcome. And more pictures by Guadagnino are welcome as well. He has a distinct voice, and his films always bring quality, and Challengers is no exception.

New Release Monday – Civil War

On By LaurenDolceVitaIn Movie Reviews, New Release Reviews, New Releases, New ReleasesLeave a comment

Known for making some of the best science fiction films of the past decade (Ex Machina (2015) and Annihilation (2018)), Alex Garland set his sights to an alternate present rather than future with his newest film Civil War. Setting a film called Civil War in the US during the current political unrest is a dangerous endevor in which to partake, but by eliminating specific politics (so much so that California and Texas share a side), Garland gets his message across with out alienating, or worse enraging, half the nation.

Kirsten Dunst plays Lee a famous war photographer, who along with her coworker Joel (Wagner Moura) has her sight on the biggest photograph of her career, an exclusive photo of the president before the Western Forces (Texas and California) can breach Washington DC and execute him. They are joined by longtime friend and fellow press member Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson) and Jessie (Cailee Spaeny) a young aspiring war photographer who looks up to Lee. Once they depart, the film structure becomes that of many vignettes as their van stops or is stopped for various reasons.

The vignette style is used to provide the viewer with snapshots of what the US would look like with the country torn apart. It focuses on the dehumanization that Americans would suddenly see for their brethren as soon as the government labels a subset of them enemies. From gleeful lynchings to depraved mass graves, without the connection of country, Garland shows how Americans would resort to their basest of instincts and inflict violence on the people they no longer consider one of their own.

Assigning multiple characters as photographers, one would hope that Civil War would have some beautiful cinematography, and director of photography Rob Hardy delivers with some stunning camera work. The video is accompanied by still photos representing what Lee or Jessie shoot, and especially the black and white photos by Jessie are stunning.

Civil War is definitely a political film, but the politics are not what one would expect given the premise. There is no right and left, conservative and progressive, only people A and people B. By refusing to take a stance on the hot button issues of today, Garland instead peaks deeper at the soul of an American, and at the price of war.

Garland displays a rather bleak view of Americans. He portrays a country that is so caught up in loyalty, that even if the cause of the split is unspoken, the people will immediately align with their “side” and otherize/ dehumanize the other people. Civil War has an extremely misanthropic view of Americans, and given the partisanship expressed in reality, it is not hard to see why.

The other hidden politics of Civil War is to help Americans to see the terror of war. America is constantly fighting or funding wars, and the images on TVs do little to express how ugly wars are to the places where they take place. By setting the bloodshed in American streets it helps to awaken the viewer to the atrocities that are committed in the name of war, and how awful it must be to experience it.

A strong, complex message combined stunning photography and brilliant acting (Kiki delivers another perfect performance) make Civil War one of the best films in this still young year.