A few films to begin the new year.
Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016), directed by Taika Waititi. This film is a mish-mash of such films as Rambo, Thelma and Louise, Bonnie and Clyde, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Searchers, and perhaps even Where the Wild Things Are. It has the feel of a good fairy tale. And it has two main characters who, despite their curmudgeonly demeanor, charm us. Ricky Baker (Julian Dennison) is the foster kid with an attitude who aspires to be a rap artist and who is forever making up haiku. He is overweight. He is, in short, charismatic. His fellow traveller in the New Zealand bush is Hec (Sam Neill), a misanthrope of few words and much scowl. Together they strike out against the establishment in a very satisfying manner. The look of this film is also worth admiring, awash in light and offering splendid vistas of the New Zealand outback. The film is funny and serious. It has a bit of Mr. Fantastic in it.
Jojo Rabbit (2019), directed by Taika Waititi. As A. O. Scott in the New York Times notes, this film is in the vein of Roberto Benigni’s Life is Beautiful. It takes on the same sensitive subject, and infuses it with charm and, for the most part, lightheartedness. The film does have shocking moments, and it also uses its humour for bursts of violence; for example, when young Yorki (Archie Yates), a butterball of a young soldier (11 years old), sees his friend Jojo and drops the bazooka he is holding effectively setting it off. The film brings Wes Anderson’s palette to the screen presumably to emphasise innocence, youth, and hope. Not everyone will appreciate the tone of this narrative of the Nazi horrors. Its focus on children and women, however, carries its own unsettling message. At the heart of the film is young Jojo’s relationship with his imaginary friend, Adolf Hitler. Playing off this imaginary friend is Sam Rockwell’s burnt-out soldier who also happens to be gay. There is cleverness here. Aside from the main characters, others remain stereotypes, but this seems appropriate in a satire. I mention satire, and yes this film is satirical, but not in a militantly ironic manner. This is, after all, a comedy, and appropriately for a comedy, we have dancing to finish things off. I have not outlined the plot. Suffice to say we have a loving, and apparently single because of the war, mother who secretly harbours a young Jewish girl behind the walls of her apartment. Once this mother's young son, Jojo, discovers the secret, an uneasy friendship begins to develop.
Blackkklansman (2018), directed by Spike Lee. This is a major contribution to the conversation about race in America today. Set in the early 1970s, the film manages to speak to conditions we see today and the continuing racial injustice in America. The final shots using contemporary news footage are chilling, disturbing, and powerful. Just as powerful are the clips from early Hollywood films such as Birth of a Nation and Gone With the Wind that point out the lengthy history of racial insensitivity in culture production. The narrative is a somewhat rambling account of a Black policeman in Colorado Springs, Colorado, who in the 1970s manages to become a full-fledged member of the Ku Klux Klan, even having extended conversations on the telephone with David Duke, grandmaster of the KKK. The film is funny, unsettling, and melancholy. The melancholy emanates from the clear understanding that what we are watching is both bizarre and yet actual. This is an important film.
Mapplethorpe (2018), directed by Ondi Timoner. This biopic of the artist Robert Mapplethorpe is a tepid affair, and Mapplethorpe himself has little depth and less likeability. The film glosses his relationship with Patti Smith, and she leaves the scene earlier than she did in actuality. We get the obligatory scenes of interaction with family, with lovers, with New York nightlife, and so on. We also get scenes of Mapplethorpe taking pictures, instructing his subjects to hold themselves tighter or spread their knees, or take their cocks out of their trousers. All this seems rather perfunctory. The photographs themselves, especially as the end credits run, are impressive. But the film gives us no insight into how the artist captured light or conceived of his subjects beyond compositional objects. Even the controversial aspect of Mapplethorpe's work gets thin treatment. Of course the Aids epidemic arrives near the end, but again, we have little in the way of the actual grimness of what transpired.
Another Mother's Son (2017), directed by Christopher Menaul. The film tells the story of Louisa Gould, a woman living in the island of Jersey during the Nazi occupation. With the aid of her family, she hides a Russian prisoner of war for about three years before quislings give her up and she ends in a concentration camp in Germany. The story is based on actual events and people. As you might expect, the action pulls at the heart strings. There is not much in the way of spectacular action; things move along at a quiet pace with much riding of bicycles. And yet the tension gathers and the characters resonate. The Russian soldier has to practice social distancing along with the others, except for close family gatherings. And so this seems an appropriate film to watch these days. The cast is uniformly good, the scenery lovely (although it was shot in and around Bath, not on Jersey), and the story compelling.
Jellyfish (2018), directed by James Gardner. This is Gardner's first film and it is sobering, to say the least. In the tradition of British realist film from the likes of Ken Loach and Mike Leigh, the film gives us a glimpse of a dreary life, the dreary life of Sarah, 15-year-old caregiver to her bipolar Mom and adult protector to her younger siblings. Set in Margate, the film gives us not only a life under duress, but also a place seeking an elusive improvement. The shots of a tawdry arcade and down-at-heel seaside and less than attractive abodes provide an unsavoury mise en scene. Margate here aspires to the condition of Brighton, an aspiration unlikely to be fulfilled while Sarah is there. Sarah's life is relentlessly downbeat, yet compelling. This is a noteworthy first film. Let's hope Sarah can harness all the anger and sorrow and become a stand-up comic.
Assassin (2015), directed by Hou Hsiao-hsien. This film looks as if it is going to be an example of wuxia, a martial arts film. However, it is something else indeed, a mood piece with a plot that is both simple and daringly opaque. Unlike most martial arts films, or films in general these days, Assassin moves at an excruciatingly slow pace, with moments, long moments, of silence and stillness. The few bursts of action punctuate the stillness forcefully. Mostly we have beautiful people in beautiful costumes placed carefully in beautiful sets or in beautiful landscapes. The plot has the eponymous character exiled in order to prove herself a ruthless assassin, and the film places the viewer in something of an exile too. Do we have the patience to see the film to its end? Well, we do, and we did. And the assassin, Nie Yinniang (She Qui) proves herself a woman with heart and compassion. She wanders off with the maker of mirrors.
