War Pony

There are two or more good films struggling to get out of this one, which in itself is not bad but somehow does not quite manage to satisfy.

Set on a native reservation in South Dakota it tells two concurrent stories.  One is that of Bill (Jojo Bapteise Whiting), a charming if disparate and rather irresponsible 23 year-old.  

He has two children from different mothers, one of whom is in jail for some minor offence.  He struggles to hold down a job or perform his fatherly duties andn dreams of making it rich – his latest scheme is to buy a poodle and breed her, selling the puppies. 

 In the middle of this he does get a job with local white turkey rancher Tim (Sprague Hollander) who employs him for odd jobs at the farm and to ferry his native Indian girlfriends around.  It is not clear but Tim has some sort of sex ring going on and a disenchanted and racist wife Allison (Ashley Simpson) who has a patronizing attitude towards Bill.

The other story involves Matho (Ladainian Crazy Thunder), a 12 year-old with an addicted and drug dealing father, no visible mother and a bunch of same age friends who are all as silly as each other.  Matho steals some of his father’s drugs and adulterates them and then sells them on the reservation so we are off to a great start.  His father kicks him out of the house, Matho ends up in a safe house with Auntie (Iona Red Bear) who herself is dealing and has to move on from there when he gets into trouble at school.

The two stories hurtle towards each other like runaway trains and although the finale could have been worse it is not a happy ending for either.

Written by Franklin Sioux Bob and Bill Reddy, both natives of the Oglala reservation together with co-director Gina Gammell, War Pony is very much on the bleak side of the ledger.  It’s pacy enough and Bill’s charm and ready lip lighten some scenes but on the whole I felt a pervading sorrow during the film.  Given that the directors (Riley Keough is co-director) have chosen to tell stories that illustrate reality inside the reservation, I felt that a lot was missing.

Are there really no adults at all that can serve as role models?  Those we see are either drugged or resigned?  What role do the traditions still play?  We see some rituals and a funeral but it is as if the tribal values have pretty much gone.  Maybe they have but how and why is not addressed.  There is a school, a police force, etc.  What role do they play in trying to improve the lives of locals?  And if they play no role, why not?  Perhaps it is a similar situation to some aborigine communities in Australia but I felt we needed to be given more information.  I’m not so worried that the film was directed by two white women as to the fact that there seems to be so much darkness in it.

Acting largely by non-professionals from the Lakota reservation is generally fine and we do get to feel we are actually there.

So, mixed feelings here.  I think there are better films to make on the subject.  At least War Pony is something to be going on with.

3 stars

The Painted Bird

One of the hardest films I’ve ever had to watch or assess.  The violence in it meant I watched an episode a day, and then put it aside to focus on nicer things.

Based on an award-winning novel by Jerzy Kosinski it follows a young Jewish boy in his struggle to survive in WW2 Poland.  Left with an elderly lady in the countryside, her death obliges him to wander the land at the mercy of the people he meets along the way. Each episode relates to one or two of these people: a witch, a miller, a bird keeper, a priest, a free spirited woman, a sniper, a soldier, the bosses of an orphanage and more.

The rub is that in virtually all these situations the boy, Joska, is subjected to violence, either to himself, to others or to animals and birds.  It is constant in a society torn apart by war and resorting to ancient hatred, extreme tribal positions or simply displays of vicious power.

Instead of dropping the film as apparently many cinema goers have done – it’s not a film for a date or a relaxing night out – I stuck with it asking myself “Why did the director choose to film this barbaric book?”  Because it’s not the showy gun battles and crashes of a Hollywood action film which are just as violent but can be regarded as a sort of fantasy.  This is a film of ordinary people performing violent actions from their narrow and twisted perspectives.  Some of them are affected by the war, some are natural bullies allowed to get away with murder in wartime.

By persisting with the movie, you get to see your own threshold of tolerance for violence.  You ask yourself, would I step in to stop this violence or look the other way?  It is shocking how often we would do the latter.  We understand that mass violence in wars quickly becomes a wallpaper that we ignore and despite the scandalous numbers of deaths it is often only one or two we can cope with and that when genocide occurs we become inured to it.  We also see that acts of kindness are not always such.  

The priest (Harvey Keitel) who saves Joska from the Nazis later hands him over to a paedophile parishioner (Julian Sands). There is a message there about the Church and its record in wars.

Finally, we get to see the effects on the boy.  Rendered mute, he comes away from this trusting no one, learning violence and revenge himself and getting a very twisted view on sex.  Critics say that too many bad things happen to him but these stories are not unknown and some individuals in peacetime even manage to accumulate constant bad experiences at the hands of others.

What Joska is screaming out for in his muteness is compassion, respect and safety and in this movie these are in short supply. Notably, he receives them not from women but temporarily from the priest and the sniper (Barry Pepper).  

At the end of the day Czech director Vaclav Marhoul is inviting us to reconsider the way we treat others and the way we treat children, the examples we set them.  We as a people are not doing well enough.

To tell this story in a film with a silent protagonist and limited dialogue is an achievement, helped immensely by the photography of Vladimir Smutny. The images are real and yet sublimely artistic at the same time in black and white.  He gives us the eyes of the protagonist to see through. The film is lengthy and I’d not want to watch it again for a long time but I am glad I did so. Petr Kotlar as Joska is perfect and the toll of these events are seen in his face and body as the movie progresses.  Udo Kier, Stellan Skarsgaard Julia Valentova and Aleksey Kravchenko are among the international cast that fit in perfectly.

A long grueling film like Come and See and Sobibor, the care with which it is made and the messages it carries justify the discomfort.

4 stars plus

The Damned Don’t Cry

Anglo-Moroccan filmmaker Fyzal Boulifa surprised us with Lynn + Lucy a couple of years back and returns to his homeland for an equally satisfying melodrama.  The subject is a mother and son.  Fatima-Zohra is a solo mother, blowsy and losing her looks but still hot on make-up and a seductive smile for any man who approaches.  Yes, she has made her living sleeping with men in the absence of a husband in this religious society.  She has brought up her son Selim on the way.  He is now about 17 and roughly educated since the pair kept moving from place to place whenever Mum outstayed her welcome. At the beginning of this movie it happens again and they skedaddle out of town.  Mum thinks its time Selim meets his grandparents but the reception in her village is frosty to say the least and more family secrets are revealed.  Time to move on.

Arriving in Tangiers, Selim gets a job as a labourer in a sort of air ‘bnb’ being done up by a Frenchman (Antoine Reinartz) and Fatima-Zohra tries to get the pair a better flat by charming the bus driver who brought them to the city.  This man, Moustapha (Moustapha Mokafih) has an invalid wife and while he is religious he is also tempted.  

Fatima-Zohra gets work in a jeans factory and is immediately called out for her makeup and then is the target of religious do-gooders who want to get her back on track.  To a degree she is willing as she realizes she can’t go on forever on the grift.

Meanwhile Selim is realizing that drugs and sex are part of the world he has got himself into and although he initially furiously rejects the advances of his boss, he starts to come around.

As they lurch from crisis to crisis, mother and son fight a lot, make up and fight again.  Two sides of the same coin.

The film explores a number of themes: the mother-son relationship, adultery and unmarried parents in a conservative society, homosexuality in same, exploitation of Moroccans by foreigners and by Moroccans of Moroccans.  Mostly, it also conveys the precarious lives of those who lack a fixed abode, job and even ID papers (Selim  has no ID card as he has no declared father). So, while this pair make some monumental blunders in their choices, the society and its rules are partly responsible.

Aicha Tebbae gives a towering performance as Fatima-Zohra, very complete and authentic for a first-timer.  Abdellah El Hajjouji is very solid as he dour Selim and the support cast combine to give us a good look at Moroccan society today.  

Excellent photography by Caroline Champetier but the music by Nadah El Shazly was a little too intrusive in parts.

Boulifa is turning out to be a very good young director and his next work will be keenly awaited.

4 stars

A Love Song

Another minimal indie movie which I felt had a lot to say and did so with very little dialogue. Faye (Dale Dickey) is a 60-something widow who is camping on the side of a dull lake in an arid part of Colorado.  Her daily routine is to get up and make coffee, do her chores, catch crawdaddies in a trap in the lake, cook and eat them and go to bed.  She has a book of local plants to study by day and a book on star watching for the night.  It is a life of immense solitude punctuated only by visits from the postman, a lesbian couple camping across the lake and a family group of cowboys who want Faye to move her trailer because they want to dig up their father buried beneath it. (Yes, the bit parts all tend towards the absurd).  All else we know is that Faye is waiting for someone.  And finally, he arrives.  Lito (Wes Studi) was a schoolmate in primary school and he has been widowed too.  

Their meeting is to see where they stand after all these years and to see whether some sort of relationship is possible going forward.  At first, they are awkward like shy teenagers but gradually they reveal more but only so much and much of the understanding between them is unspoken.

The loneliness and self-sufficiency of old age are major themes here mixed in with the grief caused by the loss of someone.  Faye is aware she may never meet anyone else and she tells the lesbian couple to commit to each other while they can. On the other hand, Faye has a closer relationship to nature because of this free time and this dry hauntingly beautiful part of Colorado is well-captured on film by Alfonso Herrera Salcedo.

This is a competent and confident first feature by Max Walker-Silverman who writes and directs and gives us a taste of heartland USA.  There is a sense of Nomadland about it but here Faye remains close to her original home and is comfortable with where she is at physically, if not emotionally.  Dale Dickey with her lined, lived-in face gives an excellent memorable performance in the lead, often using minute gestures to hint at what she is thinking and with small giveaway habits she shows her shyness and her respect for others.

The slow minimal nature of the film will not suit everyone but in its yellows and beiges and browns it is a rich and textured piece of work.

4 stars

Los Fuertes (The Strong Ones)

After some doom, gloom, hysteria and the like, it is nice to get back to a simple human movie with ordinary dilemmas and emotions.  Los Fuertes is a Chilean film from 2019 set on the coast near Valdivia, a place I haven’t seen on film before. Lucas (Samuel Gonzalez) is visiting his sister in the area before taking up an architecture scholarship in Canada.  His career is one reason for his move to Canada, the other, apparently, is the negative relationship he has with his parents who don’t accept his homosexuality. Sister Catalina (Marcela Salinas) isn’t exactly in the best moment either.  She’s a dentist but her relationship with husband Martin (Rafael Contreras) is going through a rough patch.  Almost all of this is suggested by the screenplay rather than spelt out in words. 

While Lucas is there he meets Antonio (Antonio Altamirano), grandson of the woman who helps Catalina, a local fisherman cum handyman cum actor in recreations of a local historical battle performed for tourists. Antonio and Lucas get on immediately and are soon hooking up which also causes jealousy from fellow fisherman Roca (Nicolas Corales) who may be bisexual and has designs on Antonio.  

And so we follow the romance which lasts the length of Lucas’s visit. The big question is what happens next.  The couple are clearly keen on each other but Antonio’s life is in the area and he wants to get his own boat.  Lucas doesn’t want to give up his scholarship and this causes the main dramatic climax in the story.  All very low-key.  

Omar Zúñiga debuts with this very touching tale in which the landscape plays a moody important role – shades of Galicia or Northern Spain.  Alberto Fuguet, noted Chilean writer and director was an advisor.

The lead couple act well and have plenty of chemistry making this a refreshingly honest film about alternative relationships in a conservative backwater.

3 stars plus

Senior Year

If this movie was a school student you’d be picking it for a complete fail at the end of the school year.  But sitting down to discuss marks it turns out that you can’t write it off completely and it might just scrape through as a begrudgingly awarded pass.

Steph Conway (Angourie Rice and then Rebel Wilson) is an Australian High School student in the US who is new and unpopular.  

She sets about changing that by becoming Cheerleader captain and her aim is to beat Tiffany, her arch rival, to become Prom Queen.  Typical American stuff.  A cheerleading trick goes wrong and she ends up in a coma, waking up 20 years later in the boy of a mature woman with the mentality of a 17 year-old. (Wilson takes over here).

Steph is determined to finish her senior year and get to be Prom Queen 20 years late.  A lot has changed. Her friend Marth is now the principal, her secret admirer and bf Seth is now the school librarian, Tiff married HS jock Blaine and have a daughter Bri, who is, no kidding, the number one influencer queen in school.  Bri is super woke and doing good deeds everywhere.  She is going out with the top boy Lance (Michael Cimino of Love, Victor fame!) And there is no Prom as it was regarded as out of date and inappropriate for the school.  Steph in her 37-year-old body sets out to revert all that and fulfil her dream.

So, we have masses of poetic licence to accept but since we are here to see Rebel Wilson we’ll put up with the incongruities.

So, what didn’t work?  Well, like My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3, a lot of the script seems more like jokes and punchlines in search of a proper story and real characters.  These characters end up being stereotypes at the service of a joke rather than appropriate to the context.  And considering there is a whole dedication to wokeness, the political non-correction just seems far too obvious. Some of the characters like Lance are a mess, supposedly gender fluid one minute and hot jock the next. 

Tonally it is all over the place mixing crude jokes with serious conversations with cheap gags.  And there really are lots of missed opportunities to compare school 20 years ago and now.

What saves it then?  The energy of the whole show is great and it moves long smoothly if you can forgive the problems mentioned above.  There is a talented cast with Sam Richardson as Seth, Zoe Chan as Tiffany and even Alicia Silverstone, one-time queen of this type of film.

And then there is Rebel.  She gives us her physical slapstick comedy again, her rather crude jokes and it is still pretty funny but I did keep feeling I want to see her under good direction try something more serious.  I suspect she could be good (Jojo Rabbit was still a comic role) and just broaden her range of tools.  She would need a firm director for this.

And there are two or three scenes, such as the one at the screening of Deep Impact which are genuinely funny, if nothing especially new.  It’s all in the timing!

So, the plus points just allow Senior Year to scrape out of the bunch of lemons but not by much.  And yet, recently reviewed Bottoms, a modern version doesn’t rate too far ahead either.

2 stars

Saltburn

Emerald Fennell’s second feature has attracted a lot of attention recently as a sort of cross between Brideshead Revisited and The Talented Mr Ripley.

Set in and around 2007 when Fennell herself was at Oxford, it tells the story of Oliver Quick, a nerdy scholarship student from near Liverpool who gets to go to Oxford and then ingratiates him with Felix Catton,

one of the golden boys and son of a rich family who have their palatial mansion Saltburn.  Felix seems a compassionate type who feels sorry for the way Oliver is treated on campus and invites him to spend the summer with his family.  

The first thirty minutes sets this all up and seems to recreate the period well with the usual abuses of drink drugs and sex on campus. 

Then we move to Saltburn for most of the rest of the film. Apart from the luxury and history of the stately home, we meet Sir James Catton (Richard E Grant), a somewhat vague man, his waspish wife Elspeth (Rosamund Pike), daughter Venetia (Alison Oliver) a hedonist, nephew Farleigh (Archie Madekwe) who is sponging off his uncle, a family friend and hanger-on Pamela (Carey Mulligan, in a great cameo), the butler Duncan (Paul Rhys).  

Oliver fits in as best he can and joins in the family’s lazy activities and constant social criticism of others.  The film seems to be almost a satire on the very rich here and on their “deservedness”.  Money seems no object as they turn on events to amuse friends and locals.  But as things move along some darker turns occur.  Is Oliver in love with Felix?  Why does he try to pick off all the family members?  What secrets does he hold?  Before you know it, the film hurtles towards some quite shocking conclusions much like Promising Young Woman, Fennell’s first work.

I’m not sure that the end product is quite as strong as the intentions.  The social commentary seems to get hijacked by the thriller twists later on and we are not sure what to end up feeling.  Is it only a story of one young man and his summer or can we draw broader conclusions?

That said, there is much to praise.  Barry Keoghan as Oliver is excellent and really inhabits this role with its two sides,

Rosamund Pike is hilarious as Elspeth and Jacob Elordi conveys the golden boy character really well. 

 Oliver and Makedwe do well in minor roles.  The setting is glorious but I didn’t really go for Linus Sandgren’s dark camerawork.  The script is generally spot on.  

Well worth a look and it may garner some awards but not perhaps a classic.

3 stars plus

Sorjonen (Bordertown) (series 3)

One of the flagship Nordic noir detective series set in a city near the Finnish/Russian border, this is the last season of 3.  Shown in 2020, it was a dark affair for the most part, hence my occasional watching.  Bingeing it would have been indigestible.

As with the other two series, some of the stories were convincing and well-done – especially one involving a religious community.  Other stories including the last one which wound everything up and covered plot points dating back to the previous series required a bit of suspension of belief.  In this series police procedure and logistics seemed sloppy and the way Lasse Maasalo

escaped their clutches time and time again and the way Janina seemed constantly exposed to threats and kidnapping was unreal.  Get your daughter some protection Sorjonen!

In this series Pauliina, Kari’s wife dies of a brain tumour and leaves Kari and daughter Janina processing their grief for most of the series.  

Quite interesting and non-linear at times. Pauliina appears as a ghost figure throughout the episodes – fitting as Kari has highly developed intuitive powers.

Lena, Katia and Niko are somewhat underused in the show and Taina only reappears at the end.  We also get more of the Degerman family, Robert and Anneli whose family business were involved in shady dealings.

I liked the aesthetic again.  Carefully designed in shades of white, grey and black with the setting in midwinter adding to the cold experience.  I feel it is generally filmed with much care and class even if sometimes the narrative is a little woolly.

Ville Virtanen (a complete performance) as Kari, Anu Sinisalo as Lena and Matleena Kuusniemi as Pauliina star again with Lenita Susi as Katia

and Olivia Ainali as Janina function well in support.

Farewell to a solid series set in an exotic location!

3 stars plus

Norwegian Dream

Indie film from Trondheim, Norway which is basically a coming-of-age story featuring 19 year-old Robert, a Polish worker in a fish factory.  

Robert has come to Norway to help his mother pay family bills and when looking for extra work, he accepts a gig with Ivar, a local colleague.  When Robert discovers that Ivar is doing a drag show, he runs away but he has been bitten and he slowly returns back to Ivar and accepts his gay status.  

Then, Maria, his mother, comes at a moment when the workers in the factory are up in arms because of poor conditions and dubious payment.  They join a union and go on strike and this includes Ivar who is the manager’s adopted son.  But Robert needs the money.  What should he do?  He is offered a great deal by the owner to break the strike.  But will this put his burgeoning relationship in jeopardy?

The relationship part is the least interesting feature in fact.  The state of Polish workers in Norway, the way immigrants are treated and the extent to which one has to be responsible for one’s parents are all issues that prove more attractive and sensitively handled here.  The director Leiv Igor Devold is Norwegian of Polish origins and he combines with main screenplay credit Justyna Bilik to produce a thoughtful work on the interface between Polish workers and Norwegian firms, which have their pros and cons.  No saints there either.

Hubert Milkowski does well as Robert, somewhat more convincing than Karl Bekele Steinland as Ivar in his first role.  Solid photography and music but a story that is overall on the simple side even if the context is new to us.

2 stars plus

Barbie

One of the summer hits in the northern hemisphere, Barbie is something of an accomplishment even if, in my opinion, it doesn’t achieve all it sets out to do.  To make a film that is basically pure product placement and make it both entertaining and thought provoking is pretty impressive all the same.  

Greta Gerwig directing alone and screenwriting with her partner Noah Baumbach whizz us along in a story that involves Barbie’s world, a perfect Truman show land, at least for the female Barbie’s, if not so much for the Kens.  Our lead Barbie, the stereotypical, played to a tee by Margot Robbie starts to “suffer” human symptoms like flat feet and tears. She returns to the real world to get help, principally from Mattel, the company that invented the doll.

Ken (Ryan Gosling) accompanies her and discovers to his delight that men have much more power in the real world and sets about getting ideas to set up a patriarchy in Barbie World which is soon to become Kendom.  

Meanwhile, Barbie learns that her bimbo appearance is not so valued in California and she encounters a mother Gloria and daughter Sasha with very firm ideas about this.  Eventually, these three return to Barbie’s world escaping from the board of Mattel led by Will Ferrell.  This is a satirical touch that is a little overdone.  There is even a meeting with her maker, Ruth Handler, the grandmother who designed her for Mattel and a run through many of the versions of Ken and Barbie over the years.

Of course, this is all a pretext to discuss the meaning of people’s lives.  What are Barbie and Ken here to do?  And to explore the role of men and women.  

There is a key scene involving Gloria (America Ferrera, great) who gives a speech about what women have to be and do to be respected.  This scene will surely be studied and analysed for years.

Décor and photography by Rodrigo Prieto is very well done and reminiscent of Asteroid City by Wes Anderson.

Many of the songs are great but towards the end I felt that the pace was lost a bit with overlong speeches and songs.

So, in sum, it is an ambitious film with lots to like but perhaps tries to be too much.  

4 stars