The Card Counter [2021]

 Paul Schrader took his viewers on a gritty, brooding and voyeuristic ride into a man’s personal purgatory and nihilistic redemptive journey, in The Card Counter. It featured an unsettling and implosive odyssey of his quintessential “god’s lonely man” – which he’d turned into an anarchic icon in Taxi Driver – through guilt, self-loath and the rotten underbelly of America’s military-industrial complex. William Tell (Oscar Isaac) is an enigmatic, poker-faced gambler who learnt card counting during his long incarceration in a military prison, and makes discreet use of that – so as to operate under the radar – as he compulsively criss-crosses the USA from one casino and gambling joint to another, while carefully masking – through a sterilized identity and obsessive habits – his dark former association with special ops forces during the Iraq War when he was involved in the torture of inmates at the notorious Abu Ghraib detention facility. He, however, decides on a detour from his anesthetized existence upon meeting Cirk (Tye Sheridan), a troubled young guy who wants to take bloody revenge on a private defence contractor (Willem Dafoe) who’d trained soldiers – including Tell himself – on “enhanced interrogation techniques”, but escaped its repercussions on account of being a powerful civilian consultant. Tell wants to avoid the slippery slope of violent vengeance, and hence agrees to a collaboration proposition with an acquaintance (Tiffany Haddish) in order to help put Cirk’s life back on track. Things, understandably, don’t go as per plans. Schrader grabbed attention through fine set-pieces – the deadpan run-down on card counting and nightmarish flashbacks, including a terrific tracking shot, were the standout ones – and these were held together by Isaac’s commendable turn, moody atmosphere and a lingering sense of fatalism.

 

 

 

 

 

Director: Paul Schrader

Genre: Drama/Psychological Drama/Political Drama/Crime Drama

Language: English

Country: US

Annette [2021]

Coming nearly a decade after his previous feature – the manic, befuddling, flamboyantly experimental and absolutely fabulous avant-garde gem Holy Motors – Annette was perhaps a culmination of Leos Carax’s love affair with musical rhapsodies. While they made for memorable sequences in his earlier films, he decided to make a full-fledged musical, or a rock opera if you will, along the lines of an effusive “Classic Hollywood” romantic paean, meets the world of Jacques Demy where even spoken dialogues were sung, meets a twisted fairy tale that was his own. The resulting work – borne out of his collaboration with Ron and Russell Mael of Sparks, who wrote the story and also composed the songs – was, on one hand, maximalist and unapologetically grandiose, while also, on the other, maudlin, superficial and oftentimes uninvolving but for a few bold bursts. Suffice it to say, therefore, that despite infusion of a dark world-view, brooding atmosphere, commentaries on toxic masculinity and consumerist exploitation, and moments of striking sexuality and violence rarely associated with this genre, it was otherwise too simplistic, straightforward and psychologically shallow to create much of an impact. The tale revolved around the tragic relationship between a provocative stand-up comedian (Adam Driver) and famous opera singer (Marion Cotillard) – two people who couldn’t be more different – and the truly weird eponymous kid that they give birth to. An ingenious opening sequence, featuring the song ‘So May We Start’ shot in a glorious single-take, set the ball rolling, but balance songs, for most parts, weren’t as engaging as I’d hoped for. Further, while Driver brought in a raw, destructive energy to the role, it was unfortunate that an actress as talented as Cotillard remained under-utilized.

 

 

 
 

 

 

Director: Leos Carax

Genre: Musical/Romance/Showbiz Satire

Language: English

Country: France

Compartment No. 6 [2021]

 The premise of Compartment No. 6, viz. formation of an unlikely bond between two strangers while traveling on train, had reminded me of Kawalerowicz’s Night Train and Linklater’s Before Sunrise; admittedly, a bit more of the former, as the chances of a Russian movie being tonally closer to a Polish film seemed relatively higher, despite the pointless comparisons to the latter. However, on hindsight, this charming, earthy, offbeat, gently eccentric and delectably anachronistic film was as similar to them as Russian vodka is to Polish lager and American bourbon. Laura (Seidi Haarla) is a Finnish woman fluent in Russian who’s studying archaeology in Moscow and is having an affair with her professor (Dinara Drukarova). The two had planned a rail trip to Murmansk in order to see the ancient petroglyphs there; but when the prof drops out at the last moment – she’s looking at ending their relationship, unbeknownst to her love-struck student – Laura embarks on this massive cross-country journey herself to the sparsely populated and bitingly cold little Arctic town. Sharing her tiny compartment is Lyokha (Yuri Borisov), a rough young miner. The two oddball characters couldn’t be further apart – she’s fidgety, luckless, sensitive and forlorn, while he’s hard-drinking, foul-mouthed, coarse and loutish – and yet, to the director’s credit – and arguably the two excellent actors’ too, in the way they so effortlessly brought forth their characters’ vulnerable and lonely inner cores – they gradually develop a warm, quirky and endearing relationship. The 90’s setting – with its analogue devices, handicam, and electronic music played on Walkman and old car stereos – along with the captivating juxtaposition of claustrophobic interiors with harsh exteriors, made it all the more joyous, melancholic and nostalgic.

 

 

 

 

 

Director: Juho Kuosmanen

Genre: Drama/Comedy/Romance/Road Movie

Language: Finnish/Russian

Country: Finland