A random collection of films for a wintry January.

Leave the World Behind (2023), directed by Sam Esmail. A very large herd of deer stand menacingly reminding us of Hitchcock’s birds. Oh, and speaking of birds, we have a small flock of flamingos swimming in a house pool. Something is wrong, folks, although just what this may be remains murky. By the film’s end we get the distinct impression that a civil war may be in progress, something viewers of the film may find unsettling. The film gives us end of the world storytelling. The paranoia is clear, and even well-founded. Everything comes to us through innuendo, like Amanda’s (Julia Roberts) racism. The film takes a look at the human response to disaster. It does this in snippets, discrete scenes such as the one in which Amanda’s husband Clay (Ethan Hawke) drives willy-nilly looking for a nearby town. He finds only a lonely woman standing in the middle of nowhere. She speaks only Spanish and Clay does not understand Spanish. He leaves her there in the middle of nowhere to – what? I don’t know. Then we have survivalist Danny (Kevin Bacon) who threatens to shoot his neighbour and friend, G. H. Scott (Mahershala Ali) ostensibly to protect his family. This is a film of big moments – the beaching of an oil ship, the crashing of a passenger jet – and moments of haranguing intimacy between the characters. It is overly long, but then this is the way of big films these days. It is also nicely in tune with the zeitgeist. 

Landscape with Invisible Hand (2023), directed by Cory Finley. Adapted from M. t. Anderson’s 2017 novel, Landscape with Invisible Hand takes a dystopian look at our planet’s near future, after a successful invasion by creatures called the Vuvv. It seems the future is an extension of the present, only now the rich live in floating sky cities, and the aliens amuse themselves watching the behaviour of humans. They seem specially amused by the 1950s TV series Ossie and Harriet. The film is chock full of ideas from its take on the excesses of capitalism, to its concern for art and its place in a community, to family dynamics and the willingness of humans to do demeaning things to survive poverty, to voyeurism and the end of privacy. All this is delivered well. The actors are convincing. The special effects are effective (I like the way the Vuvv communicate and I also like the way they walk or scramble about). The design of both the places on earth and the few places we see in the sky city are well done. In short, I like the film. 

 

The Whale (2022), directed by Darren Aronovsky. This film about suicide-by-obesity gives us a stellar performance by Brendan Fraser as the titular hero. He’s the great white whale confined in his Idaho apartment and confined in his enormous 600-pound body (CGI enhanced). The story is rather melodramatic with Charlie (Fraser) struggling about his apartment trying to manipulate his bulk while confronting a few people, the would-be missionary young man Thomas (Ty Simkins), the nurse and sister of Charlie’s deceased lover Alan, Liz (Hong Chau), the pizza delivery person Dan (Sathya Sridharan), his daughter Ellie (Sadie Sink), and briefly, his ex-wife Mary (Samantha Morton). What we have is a tear-jerker, saved by the performances of Fraser and Chau. I guess this is supposed to be a story about redemption, although why Charlie needs redemption is a bit murky to me. Saddened by the death of his lover, he begins to eat himself to death. His obsession with his daughters eight-year-old school essay on Moby Dick connects Charlie with a whale, but really, what is this supposed to mean? Moby Dick was responsible for Ahab losing his leg and I suppose he did this without malice or even forethought. Does this mean that Charlie’s actions – leaving his wife and daughter for a man – somehow crippled his wife and daughter? The wife, Mary, is now an alcoholic and the daughter, Ellie, is a nasty teenager seemingly without compassion or any other redeeming quality. Charlie’s attitude to his daughter is sappy. I’m not sure any of this deals directly with obesity. But I repeat: Brendan Fraser is convincing and even compelling in this role. The film derives from a stage play and the theatricality shows. Finally what we have here is a whiff of Grand Guignol. 

Berlin Alexanderplatz (2020), directed by Burhan Qurbani. This is a modern adaptation of Alfred Döblin's 1929 novel that tells of a refugee arriving in Berlin with hopes of a good life. He finds only sorrow. This modern adaptation has Francis (Welket Bungue) from Guinea-Bissau washed up on shore after what we have to imagine was a refugee boat that has capsized. Francis’s back story is only partially give in scenes with an imposing bull or ox, a machete, and a dwelling of some kind. We also know he has done terrible things and now wants to start a new life and be a good person. I guess he tries, but when he meets Reinhold (Albrecht Schuch) things go awry. Reinhold is a drug dealer with a screw loose, but he somehow captures Francis’s affection. So too does the hooker Mieze (Jella Haase). Much of the film takes place in dimly lit rooms, rooms often dimly lit in red. Francis finds himself in the Berlin underworld, and it is Dantesque indeed. To be honest, I am not sure what director Qurbani is trying to communicate here. Despite the racial slurs directed at Francis by a few of the characters, the film does not appear to be forthrightly confronting the plight of refugees. Rather it gives us a character who wants to be good, but finds himself in situations that bring out the worst in him. The production has something of an operatic feel to it, and a tragic inevitability. The character of Reinhold is creepy to a degree, and played with relish by Mr. Schuch. The running time of three hours moves along well enough. However I did not find the film as engaging as I think it should have been.

Troll (2022), directed by Roar Uthaug. For those of you who enjoy movies with the likes of King Kong or Godzilla, this Norwegian entry into the monster film world might just be your cup of tea. Scenes with the huge Troll are clearly reminiscent of the Kong and Godzilla films, but the setting is different and the folklore behind the film is different. The action is fast, and the characters nicely drawn. I won’t go over plot and character in any detail because I doubt these would be the reason for watching the film. The script is good for such a film, and the special effects are, as we would expect these days, excellent. The passing reference to Greta Thunberg lets us know that the film has an environmental theme, although this lies buried beneath the surface, as it were. The scenery is breathtaking.

 

Hotel Mumbai (2018), directed by Anthony Maras. The film is based on the three-day terrorist attacks in Mumbai in November 2008. It is a troubling film precisely because it purports to chronicle these deadly events. As a work of docu-fiction, as it were, it plays out as a fairly conventional thriller with plenty of gunfire and explosions, after the early set-up in which we meet several people, most importantly the Hotel chef Oberoi (Anupam Kher), the Hotel employee Arjun (Dev Patel), the American guest David (Armie Hammer) and his wife Zahra (Nazanin Boniadi), their infant and his nurse Sally (Tilda Cobham-Hervey), and the Russian Vasili (Jason Isaacs). These people will give the viewer characters to root for as things get dicey. The young terrorists remain, for the most part, ciphers. They take orders from a person called Bull who speaks to them over the phone. This person is safe in Pakistan. Yes, the film has much tension and suspense as we follow events over the three-day siege. The senseless killing of innocent people is disturbing, and I guess this is the point. The motive for the attacks (several took place in various places in the city) is suggested in the anger directed at the wealthy and at wealthy foreigners. The opening of the film makes very clear the contrast between the poor and abject and the wealthy and privileged. And yet what matters here is the downright ugliness of killing and the manipulation of people. Does this film offer edification or exploitation? To be honest, I am unsure.

 

Man of Tai Chi (2013), directed by Keanu Reeves. The cinematographer here is Elliot Davis and the stunt choreographer is the renowned Woo-ping Yuen. This is a martial arts film about, what else? – honour and tradition. The main character is Tiger Chen (Tiger Chen), a young student of tai chi who has a day job as a delivery person. His master is Yang (Hai Yu) who lives in an ancient temple now slated for demolition. Meanwhile we have this bad guy, Donaka Mark (Keanu Reeves), who runs an illegal fight cub that specializes in fights to the death. Donaka is a very bad dude, and he has his eye set on making Tiger one of his fighters because Tiger brings something different – tai chi – and also because Tiger is an innocent and Donaka gets off in seeing innocence ruined. Then there is Inspector Suen Jing Si (Karen Mok), a persistent police officer bent of bringing down Donaka’s criminal enterprise. This is entertaining, if a bit wan. We have seen the plot before. But Davis’s fine camera work and Yuen’s brilliant fight choreography make this one worth watching. In terms of tai chi, I think Twin Warriors (1993 – aka Tai Chi Master), directed by Woo-ping Yuen and starring Jet Li and Michelle Yeoh is more interesting and engaging. As an aside, I note that Tiger Chen was a stuntperson on the second two Matrix films.

Shazam! (2019), directed by David F. Sandberg. Although the name is never mentioned, we have here C.C. Beck’s creation for Fawcett Comics in 1940, a character known as Captain Marvel, the Big Red Cheese. This is the one about the foster kid, Billy Batson, who utters the word Shazam (Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles, Mercury) and transforms into the superhero Captain Marvel, or as this film has it Red Cyclone or Captain Sparklefingers. Sparklefingers is, of course, a comic version of Superman, just as Billy Batson is a child version of mild-mannered Clark Kent. Shazam! is played for laughs, although the foster home with Rosa and Victor Vasquez (Marta Milan and Cooper Andrews) proves to be a lesson in love and diversity, so much so that by the end this diverse family has morphed into a diverse band of superheroes. As for the villain, we have Dr. Sivana (Mark Strong) who brings gravitas and even death to those he does not like. As superhero films go, this one has its charms. It also has lots of CGI and crashes and bangs and booms and blowing up things.

 

Living (2022), directed by Oliver Hermanus. This is an unabashed remake of Akira Kurosawa’s Ikiru (1952). It is faithful to the original, perhaps to a fault. Anyone who has seen Kurosawa’s film may spend the time watching this film for the connections with Ikiru. Perhaps the only difference between the two films is the inclusion of the character, Peter Wakeling (Alex Sharp), who serves as a surrogate for the audience. Bill Nighy, in the role of stiff civil servant Mr. Williams, gives a masterfully nuanced performance. It is worth seeing the film for Nighy’s performance of a man re-evaluating his life. Also noteworthy is Aimee Lou Wood as Margaret, the young woman who catches Mr. Williams’s interest. The first third and a bit of the film is rather slow, as if everything was moving in slow motion. However, once we reach mid-point, and especially after Mr. Williams’s funeral (!), things pick up. The sense of a life spent in a stultifying job is powerful, and the release of finding purpose is clear. The script by Ishiguro Kazuo makes the tightly-held emotional lives of the characters palpable. This is a film that does not refashion its precursor; rather it faithfully follows that precursor with just one or two tweaks (e.g. dropping the voice over, and dropping the gangsters that Mr Watanabe (Takashi Shimura) beards in the original). Both films, of course, derive from a short story by Leo Tolstoy, “The Death of Ivan Ilyich.”

 

Maudie (2016), directed by Aisling Walsh. This film tells the story of Maud Lewis (Sally Hawkins), Nova Scotian folk artist who lived with debilitating arthritis and a cantankerous fishmonger husband, Everett (Ethan Hawke). Although the film does present Everett as both verbally and physically abusive, this aspect of the story is kept at a low level as we watch Maud and Everett slowly come to appreciate each other and form a bond. Perhaps the money that Maud collects for her painting helps Everett come to terms with having to live with another person who expresses independence. Yes, Maud is an independent spirit, even if she presents this spirit quietly, modestly, and even shyly. Like other films of this sort, this film's cinematography celebrates a natural environment of distinctive beauty, here coastal Newfoundland standing in for coastal Nova Scotia. What sparkles here is not only Maud’s painting, but Hawkins’s performance. Her role demands both a physical as well as an emotional expression, and Hawkins brings this off well. She gives us an inkling into how the creation of art can be therapeutic for the artist, as well as transforming for space. In art there is joy, even art created despite pain and suffering. As for Hawke, he brings roughness and emotional confusion to his role. This may be a paint-by-colours film, in that is follows a well-worn pattern, but it nevertheless triumphs with Sally Hawkins’s performance, a stunning landscape, and some attractive art.

 

Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018), directed by Peyton Reed. A sequel to Ant-Man (2015), this film has energy, wit, and nifty special effects. The plot is simple: Dr. Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) and his daughter Hope (Evangeline Lilly) enlist the help of Scott Lang (Paul Rudd), aka Ant Man, to rescue Janet (Michelle Pfeiffer), wife of Hank, mother of Hope, from the Quantum Realm. Meanwhile gangster-capitalist Sonny Burch (Walton Goggins) and Ava Starr (Hannah-John Kamen), aka Ghost, are, for their own reasons, trying to thwart Hank and Hope’s quest by stealing their scientific discoveries. Things are played for fun, and we have allusions to such stalwarts of Hollywood cinema as Them (1954), The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957), Attack of the 50-Foot Woman (1958), and probably several others I missed. The special effects are impressive, I think this deserves second notice. What raises the bar here are the characters who actually do have some dimension. Although the film is part of Marvel’s universe with references to other films from the studio’s output, you can view it on its own with pleasure.