Is the publishing
industry at a tipping point wherein digital will eventually turn its offline
counterpart moribund? Does the convenience of Kindle outweigh the satisfaction
of reading physical books? Can blogging be taken as seriously as writing, or is
Twitter akin to modern-day Haiku? The quintessentially self-conscious,
opinionated, articulate and casually philandering world of Parisian
intellectuals formed the setting for Assayas’ Non-Fiction, a amusing, warm-hearted, playful and Rohmer-esque verbose
chamber comedy-drama filled with restrained charm, deadpan humour, cheeky meta-elements
and self-deprecatory zeitgeist. The film’s plot comprised of existential
dilemmas, intellectual musings and interconnected extra-marital relationships
of 5 characters – Alain (Guillaume Canet), the well-known chief executive of an
influential publishing house who’s initiated strong steps of going digital,
despite being deeply ambivalent about it at a personal level; his wife Selena
(Juliette Binoche), a middle-aged actress who wants to get off the policier TV series she’s in which is
more suited to binge watching over NetFlix and do something more meaningful
in-sync with her real-life personal; Leonard (Vincent Macaigne), a talented writer
of thinly veiled autobiographies masquerading as fiction, or auto-fiction, on
his ex-relationships which many finds scandalous and even dishonest; Leonard’s
wife Valerie (Nora Hamzawi), a passionate if didactic political strategist
whose leftist naiveté contrasts others’ cynicism; and Laura (Christa Théret),
an ambitious millennial who’s leading the digital transition of Alain’s firm;
meanwhile, the straight-faced façade of stable marriages is counterpointed with
Leonard’s and Alain’s affairs with Selena and Laura, respectively, though,
ironically, there’re always casual suspicions which never really boil over. The
brilliantly enacted and scripted film’s most engrossing aspect lay in its
tongue-in-cheek juxtaposition of seemingly opposing themes – permanence
vis-à-vis transience, conservatism vis-à-vis progressiveness, analogue
vis-à-vis technology.
Director: Olivier Assayas
Genre: Social Satire/Marital Drama/Romantic Comedy
Language: French
Country: France
One of the most compelling
characters in popular comic universe received a fascinating origin story in the
gripping and visceral Joker, the gold
standard for which so far was the Alan Moore - Brian Bolland graphic novella The Killing Joke. Anarchistic,
subversive, nihilistic, unsettling, incessantly bleak, politically provocative
and undeniably daring, with an incendiary stance against neoliberal capitalism
and right-wing populism, and filmed with the arresting zeitgeist of 70s Hollywood
seedy urban grit and existential angst, the film brilliantly worked even as a
standalone without overt references to Batman and his arch-nemesis. Joaquin
Phoenix, with the arduous challenge of not getting bound by Heath Ledger’s iconic
turn in The Dark Knight, gave a
magnetic performance as Arthur Fleck, an unfunny stand-up comedian and psychologically
unstable loner who pops seven different pills to keep a frail check on his insanity,
and uncontrollably cackles up due to a neurological disorder as opposed to,
ironically, being happy. His job as a party clown, his frail mother (Frances
Conroy) who he takes care of, the alluring next-door single mom (Zazie Beetz) he’s
attracted to, and a popular talk-show host he admires (Robert De Niro, in a
reversal of his turn in The King of Comedy) are the threads holding together his tenuous stability; but, they soon
snap and his spectacular meltdown gets juxtaposed with the increasing anti-rich
sentiments in the city, making him, inadvertently, the face and symbol of the raging
and militant antifa protest movement. Along with Scorcese’s films, influences
of Moore’s V for Vendetta (Guy Fawkes
replaced with the Clown mask) and the rise of populist authoritarianism across
the world were also perceptible in this audacious, moody and fabulously photographed
film with a striking here-and-now feel.
Director: Todd Phillips
Genre: Drama/Crime Drama/Psychological Thriller
Language: English
Country: US
Broken Embraces, a stylish fusion of melodrama and noir, had the
unmistakable stamp of Almodóvar – vibrant colour palettes of the visual stylist,
string of meta and self-referential elements, and meditation on a multitude of
themes (obsessive passion bordering on insanity, voyeurism, homophobia, guilt,
and, not least, the medium of cinema itself). While influences of three
cinematic masterpieces, viz. Buñuel’s El,
Hitchcock’s Vertigo and Powell’s Peeping Tom, were most prominent, direct
nods to classic noirs also abounded – Malle’s Elevator to the Gallows starring the irresistible Jeanne Moreau,
Viscontini’s Ossessione, Jules
Dassin, etc. Mateo (Lluís Homar), a former filmmaker who became a scriptwriter with
the phony alias of Harry Caine after losing his eyesight many years back, and
taken care of by his agent and former lover Judit (Blanca Portillo), reminisces
on an episode he’s never escaped from upon being informed that notorious
Chilean millionaire Ernesto Martel (played with sinister deadpan by José Luis
Gómez) has died. The common link between them was the stunning and alluring Lena
(a remarkable and ravishing Penélope Cruz), an ex-call-girl who’s become the
mistress and subject of dangerous obsession for Ernesto. Upon learning of her decision
to act in a movie being made by Mateo, he finances it in order to have full control on production, including using his son (Rubén Ochandiano), whose
sexuality he despises, to spy on Lena with his camera. When Mateo begins a
sizzling affair with Lena, things, therefore, take an expectedly bad turn for
all. Ironically, the film within the film turns out to be a rehashed version
of Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, with Almodóvar’s former muse (Carmen Maura) replaced with his
then current one.
Director: Pedro Almodovar
Genre: Drama/Romance/Post-Noir
Language: Spanish
Country: Spain
Romanian theatre artist
and filmmaker Horațiu Mălăele’s Silent Wedding had little overtones of the
kind of deadpan politically charged black comedies that the Romanian New Wave is
most renowned for; the more prominent influence here, instead, was Kusturica’s
boisterous signature style and grandiloquent splash. A bucolic farce that
gradually, and in darkly funny ways, escalates into a grim tragedy, this is a
fantastical fable centered on a rambunctious, gregarious, closely-knit village
where – as Bohumil Hrabal would’ve said – time stands still, which gets
converted into a ghost town due to the village folks’ inability to dampen their
joie de vivre and carefree defiance. Set
in 1953 in a lively little village that loves to eat, drink, fight, fornicate
and be merry, and is glibly unconcerned with the political forces of the world
outside, prepares for a raucous wedding of a young couple – who’ve been romping
cacophonously everywhere from open farms to secluded sheds – with music, leery
jokes and a grand feast. However, on the day of the wedding, they are informed
that a week of national mourning has been announced on account of Stalin’s
death and hence any celebrations during this period would be treated as high
treason. The villagers, therefore, plan for the titular silent wedding in the
middle of the night – an elaborate gag that is bound to end in disaster.
Chronicled through flashbacks, wherein the dull, drab, gray present was juxtaposed
with the magical, overblown past shot in saturated colours, the film, with its
ensemble cast, was enjoyable for its madcap, risqué and oftentimes hilarious comedic
elements, albeit tad limited by its simplistic morality, tone bordering on
caricature, pastiche of Fellini’s masterful Amarcord
and over-the-top goings-on.
Director: Horatju Malaele
Genre: Comedy/Black Comedy/Political Satire/Ensemble Film
Language: Romanian
Country: Romania
Philippe Garrel
crafted a magnificent example of personal filmmaking – thematically and formally
– with the haunting, introspective and intensely self-critical masterpiece I Don’t Hear the Guitar Anymore. This
extraordinary chapter in his faux autobiographical series, which he’d begun
with L’Enfant Secret and Emergency Kisses, touched upon diverse
subtexts – impermanence, the veneer of marital bliss, reconciliations between
past and present, how time often converts a bohemian into a bourgeois before
one even realizes it. Melancholic and subtly affecting, yet avowedly
unsentimental in its portrayal of complex transitions in relationships, it was
lacerating in its self-infliction on incredibly personal memories. Dedicated to
his former lover Nico, the German pop-icon with whom he had a decade-long
affair, the film chronicled their turbulent journey filled with emotional
upheavals and poignant intimacy, including trysts with reckless freedom,
disregard for conventional mores, heroin addiction, moments of doubt and
insecurity, falling apart, and futile attempts at moving on. Johanna ter Steege
gave an unforgettable turn as the frizzy-haired, freckled, impulsive, self-destructive
and tragically beautiful Marianne, with whom Gérard (Benoît Régent) has a
doomed affair. When their relationship collapses, he gets married to Aline (in
a courageous turn by Garrel’s then-wife Brigitte Sy) – but Marianne continues
to haunt both even in her absence, and more so when she makes a fleeting
reappearance into their lives that ends up putting in disarray the fragile equilibrium
in their domestic bliss, ironically presaging Garrel and Sy’s real-life marital
dissolution as well. Shot in muted, washed out colours, and set to a low-key,
mournful score, I was almost expecting Leonard Cohen’s heartbreaking So Long Marianne to be played as the end
credits rolled for this alternately blazing and poetic pièce de résistance.
Director: Philippe Garrel
Genre: Drama/Romantic Drama/Marital Drama/Film a Clef
Language: French
Country: France
