Briefly, the film focuses on a group of prisoners tasked with the horrifying job of herding people to their death and cleaning up the aftermath (adding insult to injury is the fact that they themselves are waiting to be on the chopping block, and they knew it). Amongst these so-called Sonderkommando is Saul, who functions as well as anyone could under the circumstances. During one of his work shifts, he discovers a boy's body who may or may not be his son (he's convinced, but his fellow mates aren't so sure). He then sets out to acquire a rabbi who's willing to help him properly bury the boy in the Jewish tradition. The rest of his Sonderkommando mates have their own agenda, and the film goes on to pitch the need of one (Saul's humanity) against the need of many (liberation, knowledge be photographed to the world, etc.).
There's much to be admired about the craftsmanship of László Nemes' holocaust film. It recalls at its best the restrained and claustrophobic feel of Robert Bresson's A man escaped. For a subject as exhaustively done in films as this one, it's to Nemes' credit that he's able to deliver something a little different. The decision to go right into what gives the holocaust its name could have turned out quite exploitative, but his camera takes care to focus on our protagonist's shell-shocked but determined face rather than lingering on the mass of bodies strewn about. Wisely, the external horror lurks within frame, but just right on the periphery, so we can fill in the blanks with what it must have been, somewhat assured by the composed man-on-a-mission's presence.
The theme of the film's critique, if one can call it that, can be summed up in a line spoken a couple of times by one of Saul's fellow Sonderkommando: "You sacrifice our future to bury the dead" (or was it "You let down the living for the dead?"). It's literally true in the film, as his mission bears an immediate cost to the greater cause. Yet, the film seems to champion our protagonist's self-motivated actions: there implies the risk of losing our self and the spiritual growth of humanity if we were to simply dispose of our dark past. In trying to hang on to tradition, preserving the last shred of humanity in a very inhumane place, Saul's seemingly futile effort gets a living witness. One can only hope the future remembers what it has seen.
Abraham Attah in Beasts of No Nation
Beasts of No Nation (Fukunaga)
Like Son of Saul, child soldier is not exactly what one would willingly pick to sit down to view on, say, a Friday night. Unlike Son of Saul, however, the subject doesn't get much treatment of any kind in the mainstream cinemascape, so it arrives freshly picked for its viewers.
Fukunaga does a lot of good things with the film: it's horrifying without exploitative, meditative without abandoning narrative, and it imbues humanity in its characters without turning a blind eye to the evil of their actions. He spends enough time with our child soldier pre-war to ensure the viewer knows what light is like for him before darkness envelops. The performances are natural and haunting, particularly Abraham Attah in the main role of Agu. The music knows when to leave and enter the screen. The cinematography is beautiful, if not a little overly so. Unfortunately, the film falls short of greatness when it draws from the vocabulary of previously celebrated films in the war genre, namely The Thin Red Line.
The film is narrated, almost like a good yarn, by Agu, via voice-over. He's given mature, adult-like reflections and internal dialogue as he walks us along the horror he witnesses and engages in. Never mind that it makes the film feel unnatural (a shame, given its naturalistic context), the voice over soothingly frames the story, thereby softening the blows and inadvertently distancing its viewer even as it attempts to shed light into the internal world of Agu. For such an important, relatively rare (cinematically speaking)
fictional account of very real horrors, such stylistic choice seems at
best redundant, and at worst, offensive. In the final confession frame, Agu is given a line that blatantly, and unnecessarily, tips off the film's moral hand. It makes the film seem a little disrespectful of its own gravity.
It's uncertain how far Beasts could've reached if it hasn't tried to simply preach to the converted. As it is, it may contend with being admired for efforts taken, rather than gripped by the depth it could've gone.
Let me tell you about the surface narrative of the film for a bit. Then, I'll tell you about the other story I got out of Dheepan.
This Palm D'or winner from Jacques Audiard is constructed with a clear, traditional three parts arc. In the beginning, we see a Tamil Tiger soldier seeking escape from death and destruction in his home land. That journey begins with a necessary lie: he arrives in France with a family not his own, cobbled together from the ruins of survivors, the witnesses of human destruction. They begin their new life in what seems to be a project housing in the middle of Nowhere, France. In the second arc, our protagonist and his faux family try to figure out their new place in the current world, and we get the usual immigrant fish-out-of-water dramedy. For a while, they could pretend it's like "a movie" (as the wife character says), watching but not really being a part of it. It doesn't last, of course, as violence is embedded within their new life as well, always threatening to surface. The drama of three strangers trying to survive together unfolds as expected, and the third act deals with the inevitable disintegration of this fragile tapestry.
There's a richness to the number of possible stories here: the immigrant experience, survivors of wars, senseless violence and destruction in modern life. All of them, however, leave a bit to be desired. Each seems a little less interesting as a film on its own, without elements of other stories. As such, any interpretation relying on these separate stories may leave you wondering, "what's the big deal?" Where's the "truth", so to speak, to this exercise?
Perhaps, the truth is painted on the elephant in the film, figuratively and literally speaking.
On two separate occasions, the head of a speckled elephant appears, demarcating the middle arc from the first and the third one. Any time an animal is used in the film, it's a cued entry into the spiritual / psychological world. Without fail, as in A Prophet (Audiard's previous film that I've seen), here lies what I believe to be the experiential truth. Forget the other stories; let's retrace our step.
SPOILERS ALERT Dheepan, one must remember, is a false name. He carries with him the trauma of the burned dead, into what is essentially a No Man's Land (at one point he declares a No Fire Zone in the film), or as it is called in the film, Le Pre (the Field). This Field, nondescript and full of lost souls, is a false world. Here, he exists without living (the film made a point of him having no sense of humour), a purgatory of sort. From a psychological point of view, trauma survivors live in a sort of limbo state of experience. The past haunts the present; every day life is a little removed, a little surreal, and always threatened by the possibility of being subsumed by what the survivors carry with them. One can also map this holding place onto the adjustment period for new immigrants, wherein the displaced people haven't quite yet found their true "present," holding onto the home land in their memory while waiting for admission into their new cultural home.
Emotion-Focused Therapy theory postulates that to have a healthy psyche again, to be able to live fully in the present experience, one needs to "correct" the maladaptive emotional experience as it is being experienced. The correction begins with the allowance for the painful, emotional experience to come alive in the present. Out of it rise the unspoken human needs and desires unmet. The correction completes with an integrated experience of the self, and a new narrative emerges from the crumbled haunts of the past.
Dheepan's pain of having lost loved ones is allowed to come alive in his new family and the new, yet familiar place of violence and disconnection. This kind of pain is a lonely one: he screams, sings, and loses control on his own at first. It is only when the circumstances present an opportunity for him to act out what he probably wishes to have done or admonishes himself for not having done, that his spirit/psyche rises to the occasion (literally up the stairs), and the need to reconnect to humanity is met. Only then, the angels sing, signalling the leaving of this limbo phase, and the arrival of a new beginning.
As it exists on this plane, the film is a beautifully realized and constructed story. Sometimes, it helps to dig a little deeper when struggling with "is this it?" coming out of a film. It may or may not place the film in a different context that's perhaps more rewarding for the viewer. There just has to be enough in the experience itself to warrant the exploration, and the elephant does it for Dheepan.
So, it's, like, two weeks late. But I'm going to finish what I started, because I'm sick and apparently a stickler. First, the winners:
Birdman
BEST PICTURE: Birdman BEST DIRECTOR: Alejandro González Iñárritu - Birdman BEST ACTOR: Eddie Redmayne - The Theory of Everything BEST ACTRESS: Julianne Moore - Still Alice BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: J.K. Simmons - Whiplash BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Patricia Arquette - Boyhood BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Birdman BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: The Imitation Game BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY: Birdman BEST FILM EDITING: Whiplash BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN: The Grand Budapest Hotel BEST COSTUME DESIGN: The Grand Budapest Hotel BEST MAKEUP & HAIRSTYLING: The Grand Budapest Hotel BEST SOUND EDITING: American Sniper BEST SOUND MIXING: Whiplash BEST VISUAL EFFECTS: Interstellar BEST ORIGINAL SONG: Selma, Glory BEST ORIGINAL SCORE: The Grand Budapest Hotel
BEST ANIMATED FILM: Big Hero 6 BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM: Ida BEST DOCUMENTARY: Citizenfour
Laura Dern in Alberta Ferretti
Ana Faris in Zuhair Murad
Emma Stone in Elie Saab
Reactions: Best dressed: Laura Dern, Ana Faris, Emma Stone. Best win: Interstellar, because I wasn't sure it was going to win anything, and nothing in this category is more deserving. Best predix prowess: I killed in the technical categories. Yeah. Best hosting surprise / gag: I really thought Neil Patrick Harris was going to play safe, but he went out there. Even if his (?) jokes were sometimes off, they were anything BUT safe. I really did enjoy the random gag with Miles Teller playing his drums while NPH ran on stage in his underwear. Brilliant. Surprise take-over: Budapest did gangbusters on the tech side! Undeserving win: Birdman for Cinematography? Speechifying: Wow did they ever hit all the sob points with speeches about suicide and MS and freedom fries. Best cheer: Seeing Wes Anderson clapping beside his ears for his fellow Budapest people made me happy. Best cryer: Did anyone see Chris Pine shedding manly tears after Glory was sung? Best nominee reaction: Emma Stone clutching her Lego Oscar. So cute. WTF: I'm not sure if it was scripted or not, but man, Oscars is not doing anything for John Travolta. What was with the face touching? WTF 2: The Lego song performance. Best thing of the night, hands down. Made me sad to remember the film wasn't nominated. Unnecessary segment: Lady Gaga may be showing off her range, but I knew that already, and it was totally unnecessary. Unnecessary miss: Why didn't the Oscars show any work during the In Memoriam segment? And Joan Rivers was left off - that's not classy, Oscars, even if the lady wasn't known for class.
Even though there was a dip in frequency and quality of film experience for me this past year (compared to the previous year), I'm thankful I'm still able to be wowed at the theatre. I did cry buckets at The Look of Silence, go on a space trip at Interstellar, have a perma-smile whooshing through The Grand Budapest Hotel, get taken aback by the ASL language barrier for a non-deaf audience member like me while watching The Tribe, and wonder incredulously at just how far along the absurdity scale the car chase in Wild Tales would go. In the rush to get this post in before the Oscars ceremony, and having missed some films I'd wanted to see at TIFF (and not having them played at reasonable times/places afterwards), I'm sure this list will be modified once I see the Uncharted. Until then, I'm moderately confident that most of these spots are pretty solid. Ha, what endorsement! But, for serious, here's the top 10, and other stuff.
Force Majeure
01. The Look of Silence (Oppenheimer) ****1/2
Joshua Oppenheimmer returned to the crime scene in Indonesia to give us a necessary companion film to his previous documentary extraordinaire, The Act of Killing (Cinemaps' champ of 2013). This time, in place of shockingly content and dissociated perpetrators, we followed the grieving process of a mild-mannered optometrist whose older brother was one of these murderers' victims. Adi, our protagonist, agreed to confront his brother's killers in some of the most uncomfortable, heart-breaking, rage-provoking civil conversations I've ever borne witness to. There was so much pain, and yet so little cathartic opportunities for the audience on film
that I ended up with an overwhelming ball of anger in my ribcage by the
time the credits rolled. The making of these films in itself was the definition of courage, both from
the people who made it and the people whose stories were told. I learned through the Q & A at TIFF (Adi & Oppenheimer were there - they were given the longest standing ovation I've witnessed) that in return for this injustice to be brought to light, so that perhaps the many people whose lives forever scarred by this senseless atrocity could have some closure, Adi paid the price of political refugees: his own family fled from the area, his parents were placed elsewhere hidden by friends. While Killing allowed for shock and awe as human's darkness took center stage, Silence gave space for exorcism, with light, love, clarity, and an enduring, unbreakable desire to live.
02. The Grand Budapest Hotel (Anderson) ****
Nobody else could have made this but Wes Anderson. In the hand of a less talented but equally precious director, this would have been too cutesy to work as an adult picture. But, here I was, watching with giddy delight at the nostalgically retold fairytale of a bygone era for the riches. Everything felt as light and scrumptious as the pastries they made in the film. Most impressive was the framing of every picture: nary an element was out of place. It even retained the kinetic energy of films from early cinematic time. And just how good did Ralph Fiennes look?! In the so-far-duds-free Anderson oeuvre, I'd rank this somewhere between Rushmore and Fantastic Mr. Fox. I think that means I loves it.
03. Plemya (The tribe; Slaboshpitsky) ****
I got majorly educated watching this intense and unique thriller (that's right) about a deaf teenager's induction into a 'tribe' at a special boarding school for deaf students in Ukraine. I learned, from this experience, how frustrating it was to watch something in a completely different language that I had no translation at hands (pun intended) for. How do deaf people see films? I'd imagine they'd read subtitles, which, as a warning, you'd not get with this film. I also learned that I got used to guessing after a while, based on my basic understanding of people in general (and teenagers in particular). Except for the very big sensory difference (which came into play as instrumental to the characters' lives in unexpected ways), the basic needs to belong and to be loved were the same for all the world over. And these forces can really pull you in places you never thought possible. I'm so glad Slaboshpitsky steered clear of sentiments and made a gritty film about people struggling with challenges, and not necessarily the one I may assume they'd have.
04. Turist (Force Majeure; Östlund) ****
The film followed a Swedish family on their five-days ski vacation, with threats of disintegration bubbling ever so carefully underneath their seemingly perfect exterior. You know that expression, "shooting fish in a barrel?" This was like fishing starving fishes in a barrel, poking at them, releasing them, then throwing a hand grenade in there for good measures. It was cruelly relentless, and so on point. The laughs came easily - Östlund took the situation just far enough that it was still within the realm of possibility for us to recognize the relatable elements, but it was absurd enough that we could laugh at it. Well, some of us anyway (I had a brief conversation with someone who found it so brutal that it was not possible to laugh about it). Beautifully shot, well acted, and a great conversation fodder: what was the Academy problem not nominating it for best foreign picture?
05. Relatos salvajes (Wild Tales, Szifrón) ****
Six short stories, each vying to be the wilder tale in the bunch, were expertly strung together to form a tapestry of modern relationships. And it could not be a more fun yarn spinning time. My favourite was not the wedding story that built to an exclamation mark at the end; it was the road-rage story to end all road-rage stories somewhere in the middle. Almodóvar would be so pleased.
06. Interstellar (Nolan) ****
Thank goodness for Nolan's insistence on EPICNESS. Go big, or go home, eh? His movies generally aren't terribly profound, but they make up for it in their ability to transport viewers to their reality. And transported, I was. Interstellar was no 2001: A Space Odyssey. But it was no one-trick technical Gravity either. Here, as with his other films, Nolan started with a concept, an idea of "what if?" and built a groundswell of technicality around it. But unlike his other central-concept films, he opted to iron out a few story knots and adopted a rare thing for his films: sentiment. Perhaps people reacted more strongly to this unexpected development for a Nolan film, but it was perhaps an effort to secure a wide audience for the more impressive technical achievements of the film. Going through with this film, I felt like I time traveled and went to space, experientially. Just what were people complaining about? Who cares? I went to space! Space, people! Could you not feel it? The visceral experience was incredible, I did not want to leave. What a trip.
07. Under the skin (Glazer) ***1/2
Forget that Scarlett Johansson was full on nude in this hypnotic film. She stripped down further than that - under the skin, indeed - and gave us an incredibly nuanced, unrecognizable performance as an alien performing 'human' to lure victims for their, um, innards? This was almost Birth-level performance (Glazer's previous film starring Nicole Kidman in one of her best roles). I can't tell you if you'd find "eroticism" in this; you'd definitely find "strange," and sometimes, shockingly, even "beautiful."
08. En duva satt på en gren och funderade på tillvaron (A pigeon sat on a branch reflecting on existence; Andersson) ***1/2
That title, I don't know. But this was straight bananas, all impeccably framed.
09. Hanja (Snowpiercer; Bong) ***1/2
So much more fun and off-kilter than Chris Evans' presence would ever suggest (he, of such Serious variety), and deserving praise for execution in tight quarters. The post-apocalyptic sci-fi film would best be taken in figurative, symbolic sense as it tackled class-ism and politics; under realistic scrutiny, it may fall apart. I was happy to see it on screen finally, as I'd heard about its production from the director way back when I mingled with him (the perks of being a part of an international film festival, le sigh).
10. Ida (Pawlikowski) ***1/2
If I had to put into words what Ida's journey was about, I'd say it mirrored the film itself: a precisely aware form that gently inquired about the holocaust, and then went on its way. C'est la vie.
Godzilla
Grin and Pulse The most fun I had watching a movie this past year
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Interstellar
Wild Tales
Godzilla
The Lego Movie
Director Confident storytelling, with a touch of "wow"
Joshua Oppenheimer, The Look of Silence
Wes Anderson, The Grand Budapest Hotel
Miroslav Slaboshpitsky, Plemya (The Tribe)
Ruben Östlund, Turist (Force Majeure)
Christopher Nolan, Interstellar
Performance I feel you
Scarlett Johansson, Under the Skin
Yana Novikova, The Tribe
Antoine Olivier Pilon, Mommy
J. K. Simmons, Whiplash
Erica Rivas, Wild Tales
Philip Seymour Hoffman, A Most Wanted Man
Joaquin Phoenix, Inherent Vice
Josh Brolin, Inherent Vice
Tilda Swinton, Snowpiercer
Ralph Fiennes, The Grand Budapest Hotel
Writing Create interesting, layered, cohesive universe; would make for a great read on its own
Wes Anderson, The Grand Budapest Hotel
Ruben Östlund, Turist (Force Majeure)
Damien Szifrón, Wild Tales
Miroslav Slaboshpitsky, Plemya (The Tribe)
Roy Andersson, A pigeon sat on a branch reflecting on existence
Interstellar
Editing Interesting, effective cuts and stitches that support and move the story visually
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Interstellar
Under the Skin
Wild Tales
A pigeon sat on a branch reflecting on existence
Cinematography Takes my breath away
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Interstellar
A pigeon sat on a branch reflecting on existence
Godzilla
Ida
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Art Direction / Production Design Transportive, impactful set design
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Snowpiercer
Interstellar
A pigeon sat on a branch reflecting on existence
Birdman
Effects Movie Magic
Interstellar
Godzilla
Edge of Tomorrow
Snowpiercer
Under the skin
Sound Amplify the visuals and enrich my sensory experience
Godzilla
Whiplash
Edge of Tomorrow
American Sniper
Birdman
Score Was it memorable?
Interstellar
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Under the skin
Only lovers left alive
Uncharted Films I've yet to see that could make a dent on the list above
Winter sleep
Tale of the princess kaguya
Babadook
A girl walks home alone at night
Clouds of Sils Maria
Maps to the Stars
Charted
****1/2
The Look of Silence (Oppenheimer)
****
The Grand Budapest Hotel (Anderson)
Plemya (The tribe; Slaboshpitsky)
Turist (Force Majeure; Östlund)
Relatos salvajes (Wild Tales, Szifrón)
Interstellar (Nolan)
***1/2
Under the skin (Glazer)
En duva satt på en gren och funderade på tillvaron (A pigeon sat on a branch reflecting on existence; Andersson)
Hanja (Snowpiercer; Bong)
Ida (Pawlikowski )
Whiplash (Chazelle)
Foxcatcher (Miller)
Gone Girl (Fincher)
Leviafan (Leviathan; Zvyagintsev)
Mommy (Dolan)
Boyhood (Linklater)
Guardians of the Galaxy (Gunn)
***
A most wanted man (Corbijn)
Deux jours, une nuit (Two days, one night; Dardenne & Dardenne)
Captain America: The Winter Soldier (Russo & Russo)
The Lego Movie (Miller & Lord)
Edge of Tomorrow (Liman)
Godzilla (Edwards)
Song of the sea (Moore)
Virunga (von Einsiedel)
Nightcrawler (Gilroy)
Birdman (Iñárritu)
X-men: Days of the Future Past (Singer)
**1/2
Obvious Child (Robespierre)
The Imitation Game (Tyldum)
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (Reeves)
American Sniper (Eastwood)
Inherent Vice (Anderson)
The Interview (Rogen & Goldberg)
Locke (Knight)
**
The Hobbit: the Battle of the Five Armies (Jackson)
The Hunger Games: The Mockingjay Pt. 1 (Lawrence)
Only lovers left alive (Jarmusch)
The Raid 2: Berandal (Evans)
Lucy (Besson)
*
Adieu au langage (Goodbye to lanuage: 3D; Godard)
Subscribe
