April 8, 2013
Review - Bestiaire

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In the Middle Ages, bestiaries were books made up of illustrations of animals accompanied by descriptions containing moral lessons for the reader. With Bestiaire, Côté has reclaimed this tradition, merging elements of the documentary, the essay film and the art film to craft a superb cinematic equivalent.

The film consists almost exclusively of static shots portraying several dozen species of exotic animals held at a Quebec safari park. Although without extra-diegetic soundtrack and virtually free of dialogue, Bestiaire derives much of its impact from the perfect synergy between image and sound. The first half, for example, shows the animals held in a warehouse during the park’s winter closure. In depicting these beautiful animals in a world of concrete and corrugated metal, the meticulous composition of the frame heightens the scene’s artificiality while the menacing ambient sounds of the warehouse – the echoing laments from other enclosures, the hollow reverberations of clanking hooves and banging cages, the snowstorm raging outside – compound the already violent absurdity of the image, rendering it immediate and inescapable.

While indisputably haunting, to consider the film an animal rights treatise would be reductive. Côté’s bestiary is not didactic; it invites introspection. Never tedious or repetitive, the film’s masterly executed minimalism generates a deep level of empathy in the viewer, which then inevitably reflects back, engendering a confrontation with one’s own morality that reaches far beyond the gates of the safari park

Bestiaire | Directed by Denis Côté (Canada/France 2012). Opens April 25 for a week-long run at the fsk - Kino am Oranienplatz. It will also screen on April 18 at the Arsenal as part of their Denis Côté retrospective.

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Originally published in the April 2013 issue of Exberliner.

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November 13, 2012
Review - Argo

Considering the way in which Iran dominated the U.S. presidential debate on foreign policy, Ben Affleck’s Argo, released in the States a month before the election, arrives just in time to stoke the fires of paranoia and xenophobia.

Recently declassified information revealed that during the 1979 hostage crisis at the U.S. embassy in Tehran, six members of staff managed to escape. They hid in the Canadian ambassador’s residence until the CIA camouflaged them as the Canadian film crew of a nonexistent film and ushered them out of the country on a commercial flight right under the Iranian officials’ noses. A true story this unbelievable would be any filmmaker’s dream; too bad it landed in the hands of a filmmaker with about as much tact as a Tea Party zealot.

Even ignoring the politics for a second, it’s not a particularly good film. Consider this painfully formulaic structure: a maverick (Affleck himself – who else?) presents an outlandish scheme to save the day; his superiors first dismiss him and then give in, mainly because of his charisma and wisecracks; he assembles a team of equally wisecracking experts; a number of obstacles arise, all of which threaten to destroy the mission but are heroically overcome at the last second; the day is saved, the maverick is a hero and his former sceptics are forced to admit that he was right all along.

Not only is nothing new, but everything is overdone. The relentless wisecracking is truly unbearable – you’d think everyone in the CIA spoke solely in witty one-liners, regardless of how drastic a diplomatic crisis lay at hand – and the number of mission-threatening obstacles piled up in the last 10 minutes becomes so ludicrous, it completely kills the suspense it so desperately tries to build (yet again, we know they made it, so how suspenseful could it really get?). 

Now for the politics, which upgrade the film from trite to despicable. Reminding us that Cold War-style dichotomy is alive and well in Hollywood, Argo presents the Americans as upstanding champions of freedom, democracy and all other values that are good and righteous, while the Iranians, what little characterization they get, are shown to be but a bunch of violent and deranged animals, barking their incomprehensible language while waving Kalashnikovs in the air. Yes, there is one exception, included no doubt to absolve the film of the criticism levied here: the Canadian ambassador’s servant who refrains from betraying the hostages. However, not only is she in her teens, still too young to have been corrupted by her nefarious environment, but her character isn’t given so much as a minute of screen time – to consider her inclusion as providing a balanced portrait is like arguing that the single shot depicting a pile of bodies in Roberto Benigni’s farcical Life is Beautiful does justice to the horror of the Holocaust.

Vilifying an entire population evidently wasn’t enough and the film’s climax makes sure to extend the discrimination just that comfortable bit further. Even though the plane has taken off, the group is still terrified and it’s only once the captain announces that alcoholic beverages may again be served that they start celebrating their escape. Ah, alcohol, that good old signifier for freedom. Affleck probably cut out the next bit, where one of the hostages happily munches on a bacon sandwich while his wife quips that now he has to start respecting her again – that wouldn’t have been subtle.

Argo | Directed by Ben Affleck (USA 2012) with Ben Affleck, Alan Arkin, John Goodman. Opens November 8

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Originally published in Exberliner.

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Filed under: Argo Ben Affleck Reviews 
August 31, 2012
Review - Was bleibt

What happens when bourgeois families congregate in arthouse films? Crisis! Such is the case in Was bleibt, except with the customary fireworks replaced by passive aggression and bitter rancour.

All the elements for a good film are there: a convincing script, strong performances – Corinna Harfouch and Lars Eidinger as the mother and elder son are particularly noteworthy – and solid direction and cinematography. And yet, though there’s nothing bad about it, there isn’t anything particularly good either, resulting in a well-executed but bland and ultimately redundant rehash of truisms as old as the bourgeoisie itself.

Was bleibt (E: Home for the Weekend) | Directed by Hans-Christian Schmid (Germany 2012) with Lars Eidinger, Corinna Harfouch, Sebastian Zimmler. Opens September 6.

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Originally published in the September 2012 issue of Exberliner

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August 25, 2012
Review - Holy Motors

Considering his frequent dismissal as little more than a talented yet over-sensationalist fanboy fixated on the Nouvelle Vague, Leos Carax’s first feature in 13 years works as an exultant re-affirmation if not redemption of all the schismatic idiosyncrasies that have characterised his style, plus an extra bucketful thrown on top for good measure.

Without a narrative to speak of, Holy Motors follows Carax regular Denis Lavant as he’s driven around in a stretch limo that doubles as a dressing room, setting up a series of loony vignettes that see him transformed into ever-more outrageous characters: from the leader of a parade of bare-chested skinhead accordion players raging through a church, to Monsieur Merde, a flower-munching, erection-wielding goblin worthy of Rabelais, to a latex-clad cyber-pornstar performing a ‘sex’ scene so bizarre, it’ll have psychoanalysts frothing at the mouth.

In structure and intent, it’s strongly reminiscent of Italo Calvino’s lit classic If on a winter’s night a traveller. Just as Calvino celebrated literature by offering the opening chapters of ten different novels that were never written, so too Carax celebrates cinema by giving us a glimpse of ten different films that could have been. Unfortunately, the film also shares the book’s weakness: while most of the episodes are brilliant, those that fail kill its momentum and, lacking anything concrete for the viewer to be invested in, highlight a lack of substance beneath the stylistic flourishes and unbridled intertextuality.

Regardless, in sheer lunatic audacity and ambition, it makes for a laudable and incredibly refreshing spectacle.

Holy Motors | Directed by Leos Carax (France/Germany 2012) with Denis Lavant, Michel Piccoli, Kylie Minogue, Eva Mendes. Opens August 30.

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Originally published in the September 2012 issue of Exberliner

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August 5, 2012
Review - We Need To Talk About Kevin

Horror films have often dealt with a mother’s fear of bearing a wicked offspring. Rosemary’s Baby and The Omen took it literally, bestowing the seed of Satan on their heroines. What if, however, there are no demonic forces involved? The child is yours and as much as you tried, you’ve never been able to convince yourself that you truly wanted him. Despite all your best efforts and sacrifice, you watched him grow from a harrowing baby, to an insufferable brat, to a full-blown sociopath, and just before turning 16, he commits an unspeakable act of terror designed specifically, it seems, to bring your whole world to ruins – what if you aren’t blameless after all? 

Brilliantly adapted from Lionel Shriver’s best-selling novel of the same name, We Need To Talk About Kevin features Tilda Swinton as the protagonist Eva, mother of the wicked offspring Kevin. Her performance is phenomenal (even for her incredible standards), perfectly conveying both Eva’s torments raising Kevin and her devastated psychology after the horror. Ezra Miller is also excellent as the sinister and frighteningly intelligent son and his muted yet palpable hostility towards Eva creates a terrifying tension that gradually builds up to a fierce climax.

Complemented by stunning cinematography and a perfect soundtrack by Radiohead’s Johnny Greenwood (also the composer for There Will Be Blood), this film’s instilment of genuine horror into suburban domesticity is a real tour de force.

We Need To Talk About Kevin | Directed by Lynne Ramsay  (UK/USA 2011) with Tilda Swinton, Ezra Miller, John C. Reilly. Opens August 16.

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Originally published in the July/August 2012 issue of Exberliner

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July 8, 2012
Review - 360

Describing itself on iMDb as a “vivid, suspenseful and deeply moving tale of love in the 21st century”, 360 by erstwhile Cidade de Deus (City of God) director Fernando Meirelles is a veritably trite affair that despite its arthouse and Altman-esque pretensions is only a step above such star-studded atrocities as Valentine’s Day and New Year’s Eve.

The film depicts the various romantic tribulations of a multi-generational, multi-national ensemble cast as they jet around the world, ‘randomly’ run into one another and have improbably intimate interactions in airport lounges, hotel lobbies and other such cinematically apposite locales. A twenty-something girl (Flor) leaves London for her native Brazil to embrace promiscuity after her boyfriend (Cazarré) cheats on her once too often; a woman nearing middle age (Weisz) ends her affair with aforementioned boyfriend — who else? — while in Vienna her husband (Law) resists picking up a prostitute; an old man (Hopkins) looks back at his adulterous life with regretful wisdom in a monologue delivered at an AA meeting in backwater USA…

360 is painfully formulaic and tries to mask the fact that it has absolutely nothing original, meaningful or even charming to say with a pseudo-complex plot of parallels and interconnections rendered only more artificial and blatant through heavyhanded cinematic techniques such as the overused and highly irritating split screens. Cidade de Deus was a sensational film in so many respects — the scriptwriter Bráulio Mantovani went on to pen the not-so-borderline fascist Tropa de Elite (which, yes, did win the Golden Bear) and Meirelles to make this… what happened?

360 | Directed by Fernando Meirelles (UK/Austria/France/Brazil 2011) with Rachel Weisz, Jude Law, Anthony Hopkins, Ben Foster, Moritz Bleibtreu, Jamel Debbouze, Juliano Cazarré, Maria Flor. Opens August 16.

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Shorter version of review originally published in the July/August 2012 issue of Exberliner

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July 3, 2012
Review - Metéora

With its story of an orthodox monk and nun living in monasteries perched atop opposing mountains and lusting for one another, Metéora purports to explore the conflict of spirit vs. flesh. Featuring almost no dialogue and even less action, it’s one of the most insipid renditions of a theme favoured by some of cinema’s greatest directors (Buñuel, Fellini, Bergman, Scorsese, to name only a few).

With such a spectacular setting (the titular, UNESCO-protected monastery in Greece), the cinematography could have been its saving grace. Instead, the entire film is shot slightly out of focus, at first giving the impression that the projection is badly calibrated. No such luck — the effect is intentional and utterly baffling as it grants the film an ugly and persistently irritating TV aesthetic completely bereft of any evocative potential. Although skillfully executed Byzantine-like animation sequences illustrating the protagonists’ spiritual struggle provide interesting interludes, these alone are not enough to offset the film’s oppressive tedium.

Metéora | Directed by Spiros Stathoulopoulos (Greece 2012) with Theo Alexander, Tamila Koulieva-Karantinaki. Opens July 26

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Originally published in the July/August 2012 issue of Exberliner

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June 11, 2012
Review - Alpeis

A mysterious group meets regularly in an empty gymnasium. They call themselves ‘Alps’. Their codenamed members (‘Mont Blanc’, ‘Monte Rosa’, ‘Matterhorn’…) seek out recently bereaved families and offer their service: to act as surrogates for the deceased – dress in their clothes, adopt their habits and tastes, fulfil their familial obligations – and thus alleviate the grieving process.

Treated with the same deadpan absurdism, staccato storytelling and clinical cinematography that so distinguished his breakthrough Dogtooth, this deliciously macabre third solo feature sustains Lanthimos’ promise as one of today’s most innovative and intelligently provocative auteurs.

Alpeis (E: Alps / D: Alpen) | Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos (Greece 2011) with Aggeliki Papoulia, Ariane Labed, Aris Servetalis. Opens June 14

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Originally published in the June 2012 issue of Exberliner

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June 3, 2012
Review - Les Adieux à la reine

Opening in Versailles on July 14, 1789, the date of the storming of the Bastille, the film depicts the following three days of escalating panic and crumbling loyalties as realization of the old regime’s impending collapse spreads through the royal halls.

Certainly rich material for a juicy period piece, but director Jaquot is intent on keeping the sensationalism muted. This approach, rather than offering a novel portrayal of a much-reviewed period of history, in effect just dulls it terribly.

Almost entirely set within the palace, the story unfolds primarily from the perspective of Sidonie Laborde (Seydoux), Marie Antoinette’s blindly devoted reader. The film’s dramatic focus is her unrequited love for her queen, who is herself hopelessly enamoured of the Duchess de Polignac (Ledoyen). This love triangle fails to generate any pathos however, thanks both to Sidonie’s complete lack of a personality (or of much discernible emotion beyond a permanent sulky pout) and to Kruger’s over-theatrical performance as Marie Antoinette, which alternates between grating and farcical.

The film does include some inspired scenes in its depiction of the lily-livered aristocrats, as when they are grouped together in a hallway at night, trembling in their nightgowns as they frantically search for their names on the list of heads claimed by the people. Too bad these elements are relegated to the background of a tedious and fictional love story rendered no less insipid by having clear symbolic overtones.

Les Adieux à la reine (E: Farewell, My Queen / D: Leb wohl, meine Königin!) | Directed by Benoît Jaquot (France/Spain 2012) with Léa Seydoux, Diane Kruger, Virginie Ledoyen, Xavier Beauvois. Opens May 31

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Originally published in the June 2012 issue of Exberliner

Les Adieux à la reine was the opening film of this year’s Berlinale. Read the review I wrote during the festival on my Exberliner Berlinale blog here.

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May 18, 2012
Review - Archipelago

Describing Archipelago as dreary would be a gross understatement. The plot (in the most liberal definition of the term) revolves around a middle class family renting a cottage on one of the Isles of Scilly for a holiday. The father isn’t there and the only other people on the island with the mother and two adult children are their hired cook and a paint instructor who also doubles as the most jejune, uncharismatic philosopher ever given a platform.

Deep-rooted and unresolved conflicts are suggested but left unexplored and instead the viewer is treated to two hours of small talk and would-be evocative but in effect exasperatingly dull scenes, such as the interminable five minutes the family spends deciding which table to occupy in an empty restaurant.

With its sparse dialogue, impassive characters and isolated island setting, the film is evidently striving for an expression of existential angst in the vein of Antonioni or Bergman. The characters, however, are a blend of constipated and emasculated, failing to induce even the slightest sympathy or interest, and the film’s incredibly drab colour palette saps all beauty and strength from the potentially stunning panoramic shots. Even the production design is bland to the point of caricature.

With the camera always immobile and the interior shots endlessly depicting characters walking through the house or reading in bed, the film increasingly feels like watching CCTV outtakes from the most uneventful Big Brother series imaginable.

Archipelago | Directed by Joanna Hogg (UK 2010) with Tom Hiddleston, Christopher Baker, Kate Fahy. Opens May 24

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Originally published in the May 2012 issue of Exberliner

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