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Criterion Puts a Legend Back in the Spotlight with LA BAMBA
“My dreams are pure rock and roll!”
La Bamba is one of those movies I can somehow clearly remember from my youth, despite it not being one of my favorites. Because it was on constant rotation on HBO back in the 80s and because my father was a Ritchie Valens fan, the film played in our house constantly to the point that a handful of scenes have always been able to replay in my head as if I’d just watched them yesterday. Watching La Bamba today with more age and experience under my belt, the movie hits a little differently. What I considered a minor staple from my cinephile youth now played like a slightly campy biopic that was more melodramatic than I remembered, but also more deeply meaningful in ways I didn’t expect.
Director Luis Valdez brought the story of Ritchie Valens to the screen in 1987 with this account-based retelling of how a lower-class Hispanic youth rose to fame with hits such as “Donna,” “Come On, Let’s Go,” and of course, the titular track. Starring Lou Diamond Phillips as Valens, Esai Morales as his brother Bob, Elizabeth Pena as his sister-in-law Rosie, Danielle Von Zerneck as his high-school sweetheart Donna, and Rosanna DeSoto as his mother Connie, the film tracks the journey of one of the most influential musicians who had ever lived.
It has to be because of all the film knowledge that I’ve soaked up in the decades since La Bamba came out that is responsible for the way it plays today. What hits the most from a cinematic perspective is the shakiness of the movie’s nuance. For every scene that works, there are two more that don’t thanks to a lack of modulation of dramatic levels. Case in point, virtually every scene that shows Richie and Bob’s rocky relationship, specifically the Christmas sequence in which the latter can hold in his jealousy of the former ‘s success no longer. There’s not a lot of grace behind the camera, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t moments which are instantly indelible. The sequence showing the origins of “La Bamba” is a key scene where the film strikes a natural, beautiful chord. By the time the third act rolls around, any shortcomings are more or less forgiven thanks to the powerful way Valdez shoots the fateful moments leading up to Richie’s death and his family being delivered the news.
Where La Bamba succeeds the most is in the area of identity. The movie’s chronicling of Valens’ life is done at such a breakneck pace and with not enough of the kind of finesse it deserves. Yet the film still manages to make an upfront comment on the Mexican-American experience that, unlike most of the movie, is wisely left alone and allowed to play out subtly. The scene where “La Bamba” is born (at least, the version as we know it today) is a highlight, especially in seeing how emblematic it was of Valens’ own experience as someone living in two cultures. When we see him perform the song in front of an audience, bringing them to their feet, it becomes obvious that he’s the only one who could have made that happen. It’s so easy all these years later to overlook how revolutionary that song was. Yet watching Richie lay down the vocals in the recording booth, we watch him find his sound, and in a sense, himself. It’s a telling and poignant moment for anyone who has ever carried two cultures side by side.
Valdez’s directing career never achieved higher heights than it did with La Bamba, despite some notable highlights. The filmmaker’s adaptation of the musical Zoot Suit is an eternally electric experience. But La Bamba remains his crowning achievement. In 2017, the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress selected the film for inclusion in its long list of titles which have come to represent the best of cinema. According to the registry, the films selected are chosen because they are “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant,” which describes La Bamba perfectly. It’s unfortunate that the movie is somewhat less than the sum of its parts. But the parts that soar do so with gusto, heart, and the kind of “ganas” that made Valens both an innovator and an icon.
La Bamba is now available on Blu-ray and DVD as part of The Criterion Collection.
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ALL OF US STRANGERS Looks for Connection in One of the Best Films of the Year
Andrew Haigh’s ethereal All of Us Strangers is staggering. It’s an exploration of loss, loneliness, and, ultimately, connection. It’s about the inherent messiness of being human and the miracle of empathy, the most priceless gift we can give each other. Every moment in our lives is fleeting, and it’s the moments where we shut ourselves off from the world that will linger longest. Whether it’s time with friends and family taken for granted or a run in with a stranger cut off before it has a chance to develop, All of Us Strangers shows that it’s the connections, and the missed ones, that have the power to transcend.
Adam (Andrew Scott) lives a life of solitude. The movie starts off with him sitting in his apartment, wasting the day away. He snacks and falls asleep in front of his TV. He stares at his laptop screen, struggling to write anything. A neighbor, Harry (Paul Mescal), drunkenly knocks on Adam’s door. Adam politely declines Harry’s invitation to hang out. Haigh lets the camera linger on Adam’s face after he shuts the door. He shakes his head and smiles. It feels like he knows he should’ve said yes but is too afraid. Well, maybe that’s not the right word. He might be too damaged to open himself up to more potential hurt. Plus, he has a script that he needs to write. All he’s written is a slug line for that references a place (a home) and a year (1987). Adam ends up going out to visit his childhood home where he sees his Mum (Claire Foy) and Dad (Jamie Bell), or he thinks he does. Mum and Dad died in 1987.
From there Adam splits his time between visiting his parents and his burgeoning friendship with Harry. Is Adam imagining this? All of it? Some of it? Or has he found a way to connect with his parents beyond this mortal plane? The fascinating thing about Haigh’s script, which is based on Taichi Yamada’s novel Strangers, is that it could be any of those. It could also be all inside Adam’s head, a writer concocting a way to excavate his past and present. That’s up to each viewer to decide for themselves. Real or not, the scenes between Adam and his parents are the heart of the movie. Separated for good when Adam was only 12, he’s now the in the same age range as his parents were when they died. It makes for an unnerving image with Mum and Dad forever youthful while Adam looks older and more world weary. The age disparity, or relative lack thereof, highlights how much they’ve all lost. The lives they could’ve led, individually and together. By this point they’ve been separated longer than the twelve years they had together, and the enormity of that loss comes sharply into focus. Scott, Bell, and Foy are tremendous in these scenes. There’s a small moment between the three, buried beneath the catharsis of their other conversations, that I haven’t been able to shake. Mum asks a question about their deaths, which the audience already knows the answer to, and Adam gifts his parents a bit of dignity and grace when he answers. It’s a seemingly small moment, but the way Mum react is lets us know it’s anything but. The depth of the empathy in this moment took my breath away, and the film is full of similar moments.
After breaking hearts in Aftersun, Mescal plays many of those notes again as Harry, with similarly devastating results. Just like Adam, Mum, and Dad, Harry’s life hasn’t exactly played out like he hoped. Mescal plays Harry as an someone eternally open to life. This approach has brought him more pain than joy. But where Adam has shut himself off from the world, Harry continues to put himself out there. Whatever they are searching for in life, the answer certainly is not in an empty apartment. The funny thing is that both men act out of self-preservation, and it’s brought them together at this specific moment in time.
There’s just never enough time.
That manifests in ways that are obvious, like first dates we wish would never end. Then there are the realizations that can only come from lived experience, but those life lessons are perhaps the most bitter. Like coming to understand that someone can be a part of your life for as long as you’ve been alive and still have so much to learn about each other. All of Us Strangers posits that the only way to bridge the gap from person to person is to be in the moment with whoever you’re with, whenever you’re with them, however you’re with them. Those moments of connection, no matter how brief they are, can make us eternal. Haigh has built a career out of depicting the staggering highs and lows of human connection. All of Us Strangers lands somewhere between the flash in time romance of Weekend and the decades-long marriage at the center of 45 Years. Like those films, All of Us Strangers is beautiful and haunting.
All Of Us Strangers opens in theaters December 22nd
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Lost Souls Are Found in ALL OF US STRANGERS
“I’ve always felt like a stranger in my own family.”
All of Us Strangers is an incredible film, with each piece, from the acting to the script working to create the kind of magical cinematic experience that’s rewarding in every way possible. One aspect in particular in which the film soars is cinematography. Jamie Ramsay’s lensing of the film’s two distinct worlds is so sublime, that it’s easy to feel transported onto the screen and into the space the characters are inhabiting. This is not surprising since all of writer/director Andrew Haigh’s films share this trait. Be it 45 Years or Lean on Pete, there isn’t an effort the filmmaker has created that didn’t have the kind of look that makes whatever film the audience is watching come across like a piece of art. At a time when other higher-profile films will be given accolades in this area, I felt that before I heap praise onto it, I commend All of Us Strangers for being one of the most richly shot and exquisite-looking films of the year.
Based on the novel by Taichi Yamada, All of Us Strangers follows Adam (Andrew Scott), a single screenwriter living alone in London. Frustrated by his writer’s block, Adam decides to take a train ride to the town he lived in as a child until his parents’ death. Once there, he finds himself transported back in time and encounters the ghosts of his father (Jamie Bell) and mother (Claire Foy), who are still living in Adam’s childhood home. Meanwhile, in the present day, Adam starts to develop a romantic relationship with his neighbor Harry (Paul Mescal).
The way Haigh guides his audience into the past is so gentle and subtle, that you don’t even notice the switch right away. Beginning with the way Adam’s father finds him in the park (almost like he’s a lost little boy), everything in the world that was left behind feels so authentic, it makes us yearn for the fantasy at hand to be real. Finding his parents right where he left them at the exact time they died takes Adam for a loop at first, but he very quickly embraces the fantasy by realizing that in his mind they haven’t aged and they never will. It’s so beautiful to watch the conversations Adam never got to have with his parents play out as he is able to find closure at long last and allow himself to finally have the moments that were taken from him, both the sweet ones and the hard ones. None of this would work as beautifully and believably as it does here were it not for Haigh knowing how to move past the initial “gimmick” (for lack of a better term) and focus on the beauty and truth of the moment at hand. The filmmaker also knows it’s just as important for Adam’s parents’ ghosts to unburden themselves on their son, thereby giving their souls peace. All of it makes for a collection of stellar exchanges in some of the best scenes of the year.
It’s interesting to see Adam’s existence in the present altered by his visits to the past. From the film’s early scenes, we recognize him as a somewhat fractured individual who is simply doing the best he can. With Harry’s introduction into Adam’s life, so much is understood about both of their realities. We see the difficulties of connecting as well as the struggle between wanting to connect and not knowing how. Both Adam and Harry represent prime examples of a specific generation of gay men who largely only had themselves to rely on, emotionally, at least. These are men who lived with a need to be held, a need to be seen, and a dominating fear of both those feelings. All of Us Strangers takes great care to show how such a fear can be spurred by the kind of trauma and grief both Adam and Harry have experienced in their own ways. It’s also in the present-day scenes where the “strangers” of the film’s title becomes the clearest, referring to the collection of gay men whose families never knew them, could never possibly know them in the way other “strangers” like them could. In so many ways, Haigh’s film belongs to them, to that generation of gay men who were lost at one point, and especially to those who were never found.
Scott’s portrayal is what makes the two sides of All of Us Strangers work. The film has such a strong emotional throughline that can only work if it moves like a freight train. In Scott’s hands, it does thanks to the way the actor gives himself to the material, allowing all of his character’s pain and regret to wash over him. Bell and Foy are both given deceptively complex roles, which they master by playing their characters’ reality as a reality and responding to Scott with such beauty and groundedness. Finally, Mescal invests so much into Harry, exposing his weaknesses and fragility so much, that the character becomes an important part of Adam’s journey, rather than just a peripheral figure.
When Adam has to lose his parents again, it’s almost too much to bear despite also knowing how necessary it is for the character. This realization is the biggest testament to Haigh’s talents as a storyteller. In what has become his trademark, the director manages to touch his audience in a very quietly human and organic manner. With a mesmerizing score and seamless scene transitions, All of Us Strangers does well by balancing its haunting nature with the kind of tenderness that feels safe and familiar in the best of ways. Regardless of anyone’s opinions on ghosts and the afterlife, most will (and should) find it incredibly hard not to give into the catharsis and elegiac qualities of Adam’s experience, especially those who wish they could have one of their own.
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Unboxing 88 Films’ LONG ARM OF THE LAW PARTS I & II
An in-depth look at the physical package of the new box set
Newly available on Blu-ray, the box set for crime saga Long Arm of the Law Parts I & II is the latest from one of our favorite new international distributors, 88 Films, whose recent output of Hong Kong classics has been revelatory.
I’ll be posting a review of the Blu-rays and movies in a separate article, but first here’s a pictorial look at this beautifully crafted set.
The package includes each film on their own Blu-ray disc with extras and keepcase, housed together in a rigid slipbox. Each movie boasts a double-sided cover insert, providing the option to display classic or new artwork. The package also includes physical extras; a double-sided poster with the classic artwork of both films and a very meaty illustrated booklet with an analysis by Tom Cunliffe, 40 pages cover to cover.
External Box
with J-Card 
with J-Card 
without J-Card 
without J-Card 
J-card Detail Keep-cases/Discs
Reverse Art (classic) 
Reverse Art (classic) 
Part I inner view (w/booklet insert) 
Reverse Art (classic) 
Reverse Art (classic) 
Part II inner view (w/poster insert) 
Booklet (housed in Disc 1 case)
Double-sided Poster (housed in Disc 2 case)
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SHAW BROTHERS CLASSICS VOL. 2: LADY OF STEEL & BROTHERS FIVE
When the prospect of digging into yet another Shaw Brothers box set came up, I have to say I was more than up for the task. This time from Shout Factory!, it’s the Shaw Brothers Classics series, which seems to focus on the more obscure and underrated titles in the Shaw catalog. Coming in at the second set, I thought I would tackle these reviews in the manner I’m viewing them 2 at time as double bills: While every film does have its own individual Blu-ray disc, they are cased as pairs. My first pairing proved a rather fun surprise.
Leading off this set are 1970’s Lady of Steel and Brothers Five, two films that came out shortly after King Hu’s 1966 wuxia classic Come Drink with Me, featuring many of the same stars of that film. Come Drink with Me is such an odd film in the Shaw Catalog because of its prestige leanings, and with these two films you get to see these great actors do more of the kind of films you expect from the studio, while delivering a similar caliber of performances as Drink.
LADY OF STEEL (1970)
Lady of Steel that reunites Yunzhong Li, Cheng Pei-pei and Yueh Hua from Come Drink with Me for a brutal Wuxia revenge-o-matic. Directed by Meng-Hua Ho (Black Magic) the film has Pei-pei playing a swordswoman who while on an errand for her master to deliver a letter, is framed as a traitor by the man who murdered her family when she was a child. She then must team up with Yueh Hua to clear her name and expose the plot and kill the man responsible to get revenge for her family. It’s a lot, but at 90 minutes the film is a strong start to the set.
While a more traditional Wuxia entry than Drink, Lady of Steel is still a brisk battler that is worth your time. The film appears a bit rougher around the edges, but that might have been due to rushing it out to capitalize on the success of their previous team up. The chemistry between Cheng Pei-pei and Yueh Hua is always a treat and Yunzhong Li always makes a great heavy here. He reminds me of a Chinese Ernest Borgnine and like Borgnine is likable even as a bad guy, and memorable here as a charming ne’er do well.
BROTHERS FIVE (1970)
Paired with Lady of Steel is a bloody beat’em up, Brothers Five by Wei Lo (Fist of Fury and The Big Boss), which also stars Yunzhong Li, Cheng Pei-pei and Yueh Hua also from 1970, which makes this another attempt to cash in on Drink. This time Cheng Pei-pei plays Lady Yen who is on a mission from her recently deceased father to gather five brothers of her father’s best friend who was killed and his grand palace stolen by a bandit lord. In order to hide the brothers they were spread to five different families to give them all a different specialty when fighting. Strangely enough the brothers who were all raised into righteous warriors to have their own reasons for landing on the doorstep of their former palace that has become a well known haven of villainy.
The key thing Brothers Five gets right is what the Venom Mob films always seemed to struggle with, is how it deals with these five personalities, while giving them all a satisfying story, keeping the characters all distinct enough to follow. Wei Lo effortlessly weaves the stories of the five brothers together in a way that makes sense. Cheng Pei-pei is clearly the standout here as the orchestrator of the plan, and the one who keeps the ball rolling. She even gives the brothers a Kung-Fu manual that will give them an unbeatable fighting style called “Uniting the Five Tigers”. As ridiculous as this was, it involved all five brothers uniting into a configuration on top of one another shoulders and spinning around, like a human Voltron. I gave the ridiculousness of it a full out pass because the build up just worked and it was so over the top.
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THE IRON CLAW Retells One of Wrestling’s Darkest Tragedies
Obsession, family and violence collide in this dark sports biopic
Professional wrestling has its fair share of tragedy. Some of it is manufactured, parts of the melodramatic narrative that happens within the squared circle that essentially stretches across the past century and beyond. But a lot of it is the real stuff, actual horrific occurrences that disrupt the fantasy of the melodrama to bring it down to crashing reality. There are enough of these stories that Vice has centered a whole television series on them. And among the most heartbreaking is the story of how the Von Erichs, the first family of Texas wrestling, quickly unraveled after a series of hardships. Centered around four wrestling brothers, three of the quartet met untimely ends, all when they are set to make their ascension in the brightest spotlight of the sport. Von Erich’s have come to be a byline for the saddest, most heartbreaking corner of the world of professional wrestling, which has its fair share of heartbreak to go around.
The Iron Claw, the new film from writer-director Sean Durkin (Martha Marcy May Marlene), explores the crannies of this grappling tragedy, with the oversight of the surviving Von Erich, Kevin. By tapping into a story that is well known by wrestling aficionados, and perhaps few outside that circle, Durkin is able to utilize the trappings of a traditional sports biopic to present a story of family, obsession and the inescapable need for acceptance and glory. The film is a series of traps, setting you up for a traditional story of ascension and eventual recognition, only to continually pull the rug out from under you as the next wrecking ball crushes through the family. It is a balancing of tones that Durkin has generally been masterful of in his interesting, if selective, filmography, and with the assistance of grounded and heartfelt performances it pulls it off here. But if you know where the story is going, if you’re aware of the specific pains this family went through, the eventual destination feels like a slow unfurling, a sense of dread that will be missed by those unfamiliar with the Von Erich curse.
That curse is actually mentioned early in the film. Kevin, played in the film by Zac Efron in a performance equal parts tender and grimacing, tells his new girlfriend Pam (Lily James) that people say his family is cursed, partially because his father Fritz took his wife’s maiden name for his ring persona. He mentions that there was another brother who died as a young child, but reflexively argues he doesn’t think about him much. You can tell in his eyes he’s lying, or at the very least is trying to convince himself that’s the truth.At our point of entry into the story, Kevin is the only one of the brothers who is actually wrestling. A bulking physical presence, he moves with fluidity and power in the ring, but struggles when it comes to the more charismatic, personable parts of the business. He’s all body and id, a manifestation of pure physical ability, while his younger brother David (Harris Dickinson) is more comfortable on the microphone, providing the much needed balance of humanity to the pure violence. They are eventually joined by Kerry (Jeremy Allen White), who turns to wrestling after the 1980 American boycott of the Olympics sidetracks his Olympian dreams. Together they strive towards building a dynasty, gaining in-roads for their region on the national stage.
Of course none of this is really their dream; it’s their father’s. Fritz Von Erich, played with menace by Holt McCallany, infects his sons with the desire to create a wrestling legacy. As Kevin puts it in his film, his mother gave them religion and his father gave them wrestling. He constantly pits them against each; at one point Fritz ranks how much he loves his sons, but that his affection is always open to be swayed. The main way to win his love? Success in the ring, meaning that all of the Von Erichs, including Kevin from whom the film’s point of view rests, place their entire self worth upon their ability to succeed as wrestlers.But of course wrestling is part athletic ability and a lot of politics. And while Fritz can be aggressive in his political movements, he is also pushing a boulder uphill against a system that actively rejects him. Thus his son’s affections, at least for their father, is pit against an impossible task. The end result? Breaking them down one-by-one, roped into his own quest for legacy. The youngest brother, Michael, has his own passion for music, but that falls on deaf ears when he is called upon to fulfill his destiny as a Von Erich.
Thus the whole film becomes a balancing act of loving family, and funneling that love through the fickle world of professional wrestling which is ultimately a heartless trap. Thus the stakes for Kevin in general is to find some peace, to take care of his family, and to be the heir to his father’s careful arranged legacy. But that burden is enough to crush anyone; the tension lies in if he will be able to escape. But even if he does, what will be the cost?
This all plays into Durkin’s favorite themes of unsustainable power structures, and the effects they have on the psychosis of the individuals. By marrying those themes with the familiar rise-and-fall rhythms of a sports biopic, it creates a crushingly dark portrait of how family and addiction can intermingle to mangle those who are trapped within it. The story of the Von Erich curse then is not one of a metaphysical dark destiny that is inescapable. As Pam tells Kevin, she doesn’t believe in curses or luck. But the journey for him to come to that conclusion on his own will take him through hell and back, and will cost his family far more than can be imagined. For all these reasons, the Iron Claw of the title refers to not just the brothers’ father’s crushing finishing maneuver, but the very gravity of destructive cycles that grips them all. The drama of if any of them will escape it underlines the dread, and ultimate tragedy, of the film.
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Getting Caught in the Grasp of THE IRON CLAW
“Ever since I was a child, people said my family was cursed.”
It remains unclear to me why Sean Durkin remains less celebrated than he should be in the world of indie filmmaking. His debut feature, 2011’s Martha Marcy May Marlene, remains one of the most unnerving tales about the world of cults that’s ever been made. Even if The Nest, Durkin’s 2020 follow-up didn’t connect the way that it should have, those who did embrace it found themselves wowed by a story that showed the dangers of reaching for an existence that was never meant to be a reality. Now, the filmmaker has returned with The Iron Claw, an offering that offers up a series of firsts for Durkin in terms of genre, budget, and star power. Despite the slow trickle of acclaim that has come his way, Durkin does seem to be moving up the industry ladder. It’s a well-earned climb, and judging by The Iron Claw, it looks to take him higher.
Based on the true story, The Iron Claw takes place in the late 70s/early 80s and follows the Von Erik family, who made a name for themselves in the world of wrestling. Following patriarch Fritz’s (Holt McCallany) end to a once-promising career, his three sons Kevin (Zac Efron), David (Harris Dickinson), and Kerry (Jeremy Allen-White) each seem poised to carry on where he left off as mother Doris (Maura Tierney) and youngest brother Mike (Stanley Simons) watch from the side. However, Kevin’s budding relationship with Pam (Lily James) and a string of personal tragedies look to end everything the family has fought to build.
The Iron Claw is being sold as a story about wrestling, which in many respects is very true. There are some scenes and sequences that show how the family made their name in the sport and how they all but became a dynasty of wrestlers. These are well-shot, effective moments in The Iron Claw which not only shows Durkin’s versatility as a director but also his knack for allowing him and his camera to be consumed by the world he’s trying to capture. Whenever he’s not in the ring, Durkin ensures that The Iron Claw never loses its wrestling movie credibility by looking at the mentality required to exist in such a world. In Kevin, Kerry, and David we see the different sides of the wrestler’s mind, and what the sport means to each of them. While one wants to please his father, another aims to make a name for himself, while the other sees it as a natural duty that he must fulfill, regardless of what it costs. If each brother borders on obsession, their father is flat out held captive by it, determined that his sons carry him to the glory he believes was always meant to be his.
It’s when Durkin focuses on the side of life outside of the ring that The Iron Claw feels like a Sean Durkin film. The film is at its best when it operates as a story about the familial bond, what it means to each member of the Von Erik family, and the person each one becomes when another tragedy befalls them. Fueled by their part of the legacy they’re leaving behind, each brother is given his own moment of struggling to be seen as a viable member of the family while also trying to exist as the person he naturally is. At each brother’s heels is Fritz, who remains steadfast in his praise of whichever son is currently proving himself to be the best. It’s hard not to feel the pain in each brother’s heart as Fritz pushes him aside to dote on another, especially when the family’s supposed curse starts to take effect. Once the dust settles and the curse has wreaked havoc on the Von Erik’s by claiming one life after another, the real tragedy that emerges is not what has been lost, but rather what was missed, and what probably never had a chance to be.
While he’s top-billed, I can’t say that Efron’s work in The Iron Claw is remarkably good, but he is as good as he’s ever been. The film borders on being an ensemble piece, but Kevin is definitely the soul of the film and Efron takes great care to make sure the audience clocks the growing anguish that will never leave his character’s soul. As his brothers, Simon is heartbreaking, Allen-White makes good use of his Bear hiatus, and Dickinson continues his rise as an actor whose work is to be anticipated. James and Tierney give what could have otherwise been simple stock characters real life, while longtime character actor McCallany turns in what might be his finest hour on film.
As I said before, The Iron Claw functions as a Durkin film thanks to both the director’s exploration into a world he’s not yet ventured into and his attraction to the raw humanity at the root of it. If there’s one moment that all but cinches The Iron Claw‘s heart, it’s the film’s final scene in which a broken Kevin sits in a grassy yard all alone. It’s a striking scene in which the once-promising athlete finds himself overcome with emotion as he watches his young sons playing in the yard. Seeing his children be allowed to freely be children, it finally sinks in how much he gave to his family, and how much they all gave to an entity that destroyed them in ways none of them could have ever imagined. You’d be hard-pressed to find a better way to end the story, or a better testament to a filmmaker whose work only keeps getting richer.
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THE ZONE OF INTEREST: Jonathan Glazer Once Again Delivers Masterpiece-Level Filmmaking
There’s a moment in The Zone of Interest, Jonathan Glazer’s (Under the Skin, Birth, Sexy Beast) brilliantly disquieting, provocative adaptation of Martin Amis’s 2014 novel, where Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel), the Nazi commandant of the Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II, stops at a staircase, almost retching as the camera hovers at a discrete distance. Interpretations will vary but will seem like a minor, even tangential moment likely isn’t. Coming as it does after Höss celebrates what qualifies as his greatest personal and professional success, his involuntary spasms might represent anything from a badly prepared meal, the rot destroying what’s left of his soul, or the last, dying embers of his curdled conscience.
The Zone of Interest opens several months earlier with Hoss, his wife, Hedwig (Sandra Hüller), and their five children enjoy a bucolic afternoon on an isolated, tree-lined river in Poland. Nothing out of the ordinary occurs during the family gathering: The children play in and around the river, Hedwig cares for the youngest, an infant, while the stoic, taciturn Rudolf occasionally stands apart, presumably lost in the monstrous thoughts that will define his legacy as a monster among monsters, albeit a monster with an ordinary, human face, devoting his talent as a logistical problem-solver to the issues surrounding the mass extermination of the Jews and other undesirables who arrive on train transports multiple times a day.
A not unpredictable case study in – to borrow Hannah Arendt’s phrase in describing Adolf Eichmann sixty years ago – the banality of evil, Glazer’s adaptation de-fictionalizes Amis’s novel by using the Höss’s family real names (Amis used pseudonyms), focusing on the day-to-day activities in and around the Höss household, a spacious (but not too spacious according to Hedwig) home that sits uncomfortably outside Auschwitz’s gates and walls. Working from footage culled from hundreds of hours taken from fixed cameras set up around the set they constructed for the fictionalized Hoss family, Glazer methodically details the denial necessary for Rudolf, Hedwig, and their children to live lives of comfort and – in their eyes – respectability. In effect, Rudolf and Hedwig have created a cocoon of complicity around the Höss family.
As much a film about what we don’t see but hear (gunshots, screams, the ever-present hum of the camp’s machines of death), The Zone of Interest demands an atypical level of intense engagement from the audience: To imagine the unimaginable, the dehumanizing, industrialized murder of tens of thousands just outside the frame, and in imagining the unimaginable, becoming an active, complicit part of the filmmaking process itself. Glazer hints at the atrocities occurring offscreen through aforementioned sound and image, the latter via the red-brick walls topped by barbed wire surrounding the house and Hedwig’s garden, the puffs of white smoke associated with trains arriving in Auschwitz, and the black, bilious smoke emanating from the crematorium.
Glazer recognizes the immense psychic cost involved with living in a constant, heightened sense of denial, segregating yourself – as both Rudolf and Hedwig repeatedly do – from the consequences of your actions and life choices. Pretense, Glazer would likely argue, can only get you so far and no further. Even when Rudolf and Hedwig reminisce about a spa trip, the laughter that follows seems disproportionate to the humor involved (because it is). Later, Rudolf’s rudimentary paternal instincts emerge briefly when another trip to the river with two of his older children ends abruptly after a gruesome discovery and a sudden rainstorm filled with ash from the crematorium.
There too, Glazer takes a similarly oblique, elliptical, anti-sensationalistic approach, letting the audience discern for themselves the horrors Rudolf has created on the other side of the wall and the minute impingements of those daily horrors on Rudolf and his family. A telling episode involves a visit by Hedwig’s mom to the Hoss home: It goes contrary as planned for the prideful Hedwig. Her eagerness to impress her mother with the residual power, prestige, and privilege of her position as the camp commandant’s wife gradually gives way to revulsion and disgust in her mother.
Glazer emphasizes the incidental, the tangential over what usually passes as dramatic conflict in mainstream narrative filmmaking. Only temporary friction over an impending promotion for Rudolf and a possible relocation for his family would qualify as conflict. Even that source of friction eventually resolves itself, ending with the scene of Rudolf at the staircase. Glazer, however, paradoxically splices a modern-day scene into the Rudolf staircase scene. Once again, Glazer asks audiences to critically interrogate their biases, prejudices, and attitudes towards history, how we consume and interact with history and the Holocaust.
The Zone of Interest opens in New York and Los Angeles on Friday, December 15th, before expanding to additional markets on Friday, December 22nd.
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Cozying Up with Some AMERICAN FICTION
“Potential is what people see when what’s in front of them isn’t good enough.”
There’s a scene early on in American Fiction where Jeffrey Wright’s character Monk sees his class interrupted by a student who has a problem with the fact that they are covering a work by Flannery O’Connor that contains a racial slur in the title. The student says she finds the word offensive to which Monk tells her that they are looking at it concerning the work of literature they are studying. When the student says it doesn’t matter because the word makes her uncomfortable, Monk tells her that if he can get over it, she can too. Eventually, the camera cuts to the student leaving the class in tears. The scene gives us a great introduction to the character of Monk, as well as the kind of topical ideas American Fiction is setting him up to tackle. What the audience doesn’t know is that American Fiction will force Monk to tackle not just the current landscape, but just how much a part of it he is.
In American Fiction, Wright plays Thelonius “Monk” Ellison, a revered writer whose literary career has hit an impasse. Monk can’t get his latest novel published and he finds himself fed up with the current brand of black writers who are receiving praise for books which he feels plays into the stereotypes of black America. Out of frustration, Monk writes a novel under a pseudonym that’s filled with the kinds of characters and tropes he despises, only to have it be a surprise success. At the same time, he’s forced to confront the issues he has with his family, including sister Lisa (Tracee Ellis Ross), mom Agnes (Leslie Uggams), and brother Cliff (Sterling K. Brown).
It’s easy to feel Monk’s struggle with the black literary scene around him; a struggle which only grows when he finds himself becoming a part of it in a way he hadn’t anticipated. Monk has spent ages proudly condemning those who conform to stereotypes, both creatively and culturally, as well as those who heap praise on them for their supposed authenticity. His disdain for works that embrace stories from the ghetto and characters whom Monk feels are not well-spoken angers him the more celebrated they become. It’s more than clear that he resents that side of black America, especially since he’s spent so much of his life proving that there’s another side to the culture. Yet when he is confronted with the opportunity to compromise and sell out, he finds himself both incensed and flabbergasted. Monk does eventually agree to let the novel be published under absurd conditions, all of which his publishers remarkably agree to. The more outrageous his unexpected success becomes, the more believable American Fiction feels as both character and film look at these types of works and question: Is it pandering to write such stories, or is it exposing something that some, like Monk, would prefer to keep hidden?
The flip side of American Fiction takes Monk back to Massachusetts where he must deal with his somewhat dysfunctional family. For a while, it feels as if the film wastes too much time on his relationship with the people from his past. Yet these scenes eventually prove instrumental when it comes to exploring who Monk was before we met him and do manage to give strong motivations to his actions. It’s here where we meet the real Monk; who he was and how it shaped him as a writer. In seeing him trying to hold it together amid Agnes’ dementia and Cliff’s somewhat hedonistic lifestyle, we watch Monk cling to his pretenses as armor, making sure he doesn’t sacrifice too much of himself to his family at this stage of his life. Eventually, Monk realizes (as we all do at some point) that he’s living a novel of his own, one over which he has very little authorship over. What kind of novel is he living? What kind was he living before? The answers to these will differ according to each audience member who will walk into American Fiction with their own relationship to the culture they come from. How much they allow themselves to be defined by that culture is what will either allow them to identify with Monk, or turn away from him altogether.
We’ve all waited for Wright to have a role that allows him this much room and freedom to shine, which he undoubtedly does. For years the actor has made a career playing characters on the sidelines which usually come in, make an indelible impression, and then sadly depart. American Fiction is the role that was made for Wright, drawing on his emotional depth, hypnotic timbre, and presence which has been his calling card for decades. Quite simply, it’s one of the most stunning performances of the year. The actor is in good company here, allowing his fellow players to share the spotlight with some especially good work coming from Brown, Uggams, Ross, and Erika Alexander as Coraline, Monk’s love interest.
If the title American Fiction might not be the most flashy for a movie whose aims are high and bold, it’s certainly one of the most provocative. Monk’s story in many ways is the story of a part of America that deals with a very specific social experience. It’s the story of someone who has used where they’ve come from to fashion themselves into an image and persona that represents the person they want to be, rather than who society assumes they already are. There’s a continuous struggle between race, culture, and class within oneself that exists in virtually every moment, regardless of whether or not it’s the subject of the scene, and to the movie’s credit, its direct comments on such themes are dealt with in actions rather than through a string of monologues. American Fiction will not be the film many think it will be going into it. But it’s one that takes a lot of the questions that many of us have avoided for so long and dares to answer them.
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Hopkins, Goode Both Show Up for FREUD’S LAST SESSION
“We are all cowards before death.”
Looking at the synopsis for Freud’s Last Session, one would assume it to be a straightforward chamber piece; the kind of stagey two-hander in which a pair of characters aim to break each other down before the end credits roll. While there’s some truth to what I’ve just described when it comes to the kind of film this actually is, the reality is that it’s far more than that. Freud’s Last Session is a stirring period drama that’s accentuated by clever editing, handsome cinematography, and an incredibly rich production design. More visually appealing than the setup would have you believe, the film is the kind of cinematic experience that most cinephiles typically long for but seldom get. At its center, however, beyond the many cinematic flourishes, is an exploration into two of the greatest minds ever to emerge from the 20th century and how they may (or may not have) left a mark on the other’s world.
Co-written and directed by Matt Brown, Anthony Hopkins stars as a the famed psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, who is battling oral cancer and a compromised relationship with his daughter Anna (Liv Lisa Fries). One day, he agrees to have a meeting with an Oxford alum named C.S. Lewis (Matthew Goode), who has a desire to meet with Freud to discuss a variety of subjects. As the two men engage in intellectual sparring, they find the tables turned on them and are forced to confront their pasts.
The filmmakers behind Freud’s Last Session have made sure that equal time is given to both figures so that we can note the traits that gave them their reputations and also to get to know them as individuals away from those reputations. The best device the film has up its sleeve to gain insight into the men on the screen is the use of flashbacks, which tell us almost better than anything else, how Freud and Lewis became who they were. Both of these flashbacks have different strengths; Lewis’ is somewhat fantastic and slightly magical, while Freud’s is emotionally charged. In each instance, both men are stripped down to his most rawest, natural state for events that will be an instrumental part of their lives. But the film makes some missteps as well when it comes to trying to delve into the psyche of these two. The scenes with Freud and Anna are repetitive (truthfully, it’s a subplot that still needed a great deal of extra work to have a reason to exist) and a virtually lifeless narration by Lewis sends the movie back a few steps every time it comes around again.
Freud’s Last Session really sparkles when it stays on the two men as a unit going back and forth to prove something to each other, and themselves. Among the many discussion topics they cover are belief in God (specifically, the mythology and mythologizing of God), the natural state of homosexuality, the horrors of war, and the effects of man’s own creations. For a film that aims to cover as much ground as this one hopes to, strong dialogue is key. The script here works more than it doesn’t, although there are the inevitable times when certain scenes can’t help but feel like they’ve been taken from a college lecture. Overall, however, the script allows both lead characters enough room to stand their ground as two generations with very different schools of thought continuously challenge each other. Yet the most surprising moments between the two come when they allow themselves to be human in front of each other. An air raid sequence sees Freud give vital comfort to a PTSD-stricken Lewis, while the latter comes swiftly to the former’s aid when his cancer becomes too much to bear at one point.
If anyone were to think that The Father was the last breath of brilliance that Hopkins had left in him, they would certainly be proven wrong with his first scene here. His Freud is as commanding as the world thought he was, but also remarkably down-to-earth. The legendary actor seamlessly accomplishes both sides in what is some of his most solid, later-era work. Goode is a well-matched cinematic partner for Hopkins. The actor gives great life to Lewis and delivers what feels like his most layered and vulnerable performance since his turn as Robert Evans in The Offer. Elsewhere Fries as Anna and Jodi Balfour as Dorothy, her secret lover, provide great supporting work even if the film doesn’t know what to do with them most of the time.
The film’s premise reminds me of Nora Ephron’s 2002 play, Imaginary Friends, which told the story of writers/archrivals Mary McCarthy and Lillian Hellman being forced to face each other in the afterlife. It’s a setup that worked just as well then as it does now because there’s always something so tantalizing when it comes to the idea of some of the greatest and most influential historical figures meeting and (perhaps) changing the course of history, from a “what if” scenario at least. Freud’s Last Session accomplishes this, but not without a few rough spots. Besides the aforementioned moments of patchy dialogue, you can feel the screenwriting during the times when the film tries to overanalyze the analyst. Elsewhere, Lewis’ war flashback goes on so long, that the whole movie becomes something different entirely. But none of this hurts what is a well-made, compelling look at a time in history through two fascinating and unique perspectives.
