Dolan Ups the Ante in Mommy

OK, this is yet another spectacular offering from the precocious Xavier Dolan, filmmaker in Montreal.  Anne Dorval stars as a single parent (Diane Despres), opposite young Steve (Antoine-Olivier Pilon), who suffers from ADHD (Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder) and is a "cutter."  As in Laurence Anyways the dialog is explosive.  An angel face with the temper of a grizzly bear, Steve is a living nightmare, a Gordian knot of raging and libidinous impulses barely held in check by his medication. But he is her son, wrathful yet adoring, and Diane is a fighter, determined to save him against all odds. To temper the manic and claustrophobic co-dependence of this explosive oedipal duo, Dolan introduces a strange and attractive neighbor into the mix, the withdrawn and stammering Kyla (Suzanne Clément) who will try to homeschool Steve.

The movie is filmed claustrophobically in a perfect square 1:1 aspect ratio.  The film frames the faces of its characters skillfully, leading the viewer to concentrate on them rather than their surroundings.  Dolan found this to be more humble and private, more fitting to the lives being examines.  Cinemascope (2.35:1) would have felt pretentious, especially for scenes in small apartments.  There is a funny scene in the film where Steve reaches his hands around the frame perimeter and increases the aspect ratio.  This is some sort of post-modern effect no doubt and quite amusing.  Most viewers might not even notice.  It mimics Steve’s mind, offering no escape save in fleeting expansive moments.  Trish Ferris (Sight & Sound) opines It is also a clever way of demonstrating their emotional states and the reality they live in. It almost feels as if these individuals are stuck in this perfectly square box, their world opening up to full screen only during certain moments of pure joy and release, merely to have the walls slowly close in on them once more, as the certainty of life eventually catches up to them.

Young Xavier Dolan Makes Extraordinairy Film in Laurence Anyways

Laurence Anyways is a 2012 Canadian romantic drama film written, edited, and directed by 24-year-old Québécois wunderkind Xavier Dolan. The film competed in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival where Suzanne Clément won the Un Certain Regard Award for Best Actress.  It explores the volcanic relationship between Laurence, a transgender woman (Melvil Poupaud) and Frédérique ("Fred"), her female lover.  At the age of 35, Laurence, a respected literature professor in a happy, long-term relationship, announces that he has been “stealing the life of the woman [he] was meant to be,” and embarks on the process of transitioning from male to female.  The support that Fred offers Laurence is unexpected and uplifting, she doubles down on her commitment level.  Yet in the end, it’s clear that there is no resolution for the couple’s problems. Fred loves Laurence, but longs for “a man’s arms”; Laurence needs Fred, but can’t continue being a man (or apologize for his decision to become a woman). They remain true to their desires, because that’s the best they can do.

Violet Lucca (Film Comment) opines  the prejudices confronting trans, homeless gay youth and non-Caucasian gays are more pervasive and entrenched than those faced by their white, upper-middle-class counterparts who live in (or have the economic freedom to move to) gay-friendly metropolitan areas, as the 41% attempted-suicide rate of trans people makes clear.  Straight viewers may not pick up on the scene where a "world-weary fag hag" quips “It gets better, my ass,” upon seeing the eponymous Laurence’s bloodied, beaten face after a barroom brawl. This swipe at gay advice columnist Dan Savage’s highly visible awareness campaign appears amid nearly 3 hours of melodrama interspersed with soaring music video sequences. Anatomizing the disconnect between progressive idealist orthodoxy and the realities of day-to-day life, the film tackles the shallowness of broadly defined “gay culture” (parties, fashion, catty wit, sloganeering)—and the shallowness of desire.

As an only child, Dolan was raised in Montreal by women after his parents separated.  The film confirms his respect for strong women.  It is noteworthy that the bulk of the film’s screentime and attention actually goes to Fred, Laurence’s girlfriend.  Yet Laurence fails to internalize Fred's difficulties in coming to terms with him and satisfying her own needs.  This interplay between "selfish" and "selfless" may resonate with a broad spectrum of viewers, straght and gay.

Simon Howell (Sight & Sound) notes that Laurence shares with Les Amours Imaginaires a fascination with pop music (Depeche Mode, the Cure, and, of course, Fever Ray are all present and accounted for) as well as slightly abstruse framing decisions (shot-countershot patterns in which Fred and Laurence’s faces obscure each other in a none-too-subtle visual nod to their increasing emotional separation).

Jeffrey Eugenides collides with Karl Ove Knausgaard

Eugenides does a brilliant set up on Knausgaard in his book review.  Text below:

“The last time I was in New York,” Karl Ove ­Knausgaard wrote recently in The New York Times Magazine, in his account of traveling through the ­United States, “a well-known American writer invited me for lunch. . . . I tried desperately to think of something to say. We had to have something in common, we were about the same age, did the same thing for a living, wrote novels, though his were of considerably higher quality than mine. But no, I couldn’t come up with a single topic of ­conversation. . . . When we got back to Sweden, I received an email from him. He apologized for having ­invited me to lunch, he had realized he never should have done it and asked me not to reply to his email. At first I didn’t understand what he meant. . . . Then I ­realized he must have taken my silence personally. He must have thought I didn’t find it worth my time talking to him.”

Knausgaard doesn’t reveal the identity of the American writer he had lunch with. But I will: It was me. I may be the first reviewer of Knausgaard’s autobiographical works who has appeared in one of them. Therefore, I’m in a perfect position to judge how he uses the stuff of his life to fashion his stories. Ever since Knausgaard turned me into a minor character, I have an inside track on what he’s doing.

Gia Coppola's Palo Alto Strikes a Nerve

First, some Coppola family tree.  Gia was named after her father Gian-Carlo, who died in boating accident before she was born.  His sister is Sofia Coppola, both offspring of Francis Ford Coppola, famous director (God Father, Apocalypse Now). Val Kilmer has a bit role in the film, but his son Jack Kilmer stars.  Emma Roberts also stars, her aunt is Julia Roberts. Nepotism serves this film well.

This is a hyper-realistic film about teenage angst against a background of drinking, weed, and girls resorting to fellatio as a bonding tool, set amidst suburban ennui.

The film coincides with alarming suicide rates in Palo Alto's Gunn School, which is currently embroiled in a pedophilia case.  It is based on James Franco's book Palo Alto.

In one scene a chainsaw is usede to fell a tall tree.  Palo Alto means "tall tree."

Boyhood is a Stunt, and a Very Successful One

This simple film requires very little thinking.  Not much happens.  As John Lennon said "Life is what happens while you're busy making plans."  Richard Linklater filmed the characters, beginning in 2002, for a week every year for 12 years.  The result is profound.  And hard to walk away from.  It is a time-lapse study of Mason (Ellar Coltrane) from toddler to awkward teen to handsome man.  And he is indeed so awkward.  This film is cinematic realism at its best.  It is a Bildungsroman for modern cinema.

I have two observations: the parents all seem to feel sorry for themselves and there is a scene featuring a successful Olivia (Patricia Arquette) as college professor teaching B.F. Skinner and John Bowlby who espouses that human survival depends on falling in love.   Now that's cool.

Smuggled Film from Iran Echoes "Ceci n'est pas une Pipe"

Arguably, René Magritte's most famous painting is Ceci n'est pas une Pipe (1929). The Belgian painter was simply making a statement that the painting itself is not a pipe.  It is merely an image.  In this documentary of dissident filmmaker Jafar Panahi, the film explores the difference between describing a film and the film itself.  “This Is Not a Film” promises to test our idea of what form a film can take. Required to play all the roles, Panahi is overcome by emotion and interrupts himself, asking, “If we could tell a film, then why make a film?” The way he sees it, description cannot possibly do justice to the power of cinema. Think of the pipe.  Panahi frequently worries that the footage is turning out to be a lie.

Much of the film is shot through an iPhone except where fellow cinematographer Mojtaba Mirtahmasb shoots through a professional camera.  Panahi is aware that under house arrest, it is better to let others direct.  This film is a courageous act of nonviolent protest.  The film was smuggled into France by hiding a flash drive in a cake for a last-minute submission to Cannes. The documentary is a veritable "Message in a Bottle" (The New York Times).

Panahi is under house arrest awaiting the result of appeal of a 6-year prison sentence.  On the day of shooting we hear fireworks on the street below from the Chaharshanbe Suri festival, which unsettles the filmmaker.  As “This Is Not a Film” unspools, Panahi’s involvement comes to feel more and more like direction in the traditional sense (Peter Debruge, Variety). At first, he is careful to remain the only character on camera, ostensibly a precaution in case others might be punished for colluding with him on the project. Then his pet Iguana, Igi, makes a cameo, followed by a yappy dog belonging to Panahi’s downstairs neighbor, Shima (she remains out of frame). A delivery man hands a bag of food through the door, unaware that he’s guest-starring in Panahi’s non-film. Finally, a friendly college student drops by to collect his trash, temporarily subbing in for the building custodian. Panahi can’t help making an actor out of him, with the lad reminiscing about the day the authorities came to arrest Panahi as the two share an elevator ride together....Standing at his balcony, filming the firecracker  revelry with his iPhone, he seems to be saying that directing is more defiant an act than lighting a firecracker or two. Debruge comments: Truth be told, Panahi’s poignant “Film” is infinitely more explosive.

Julia Loktev Transcends in The Loneliest Planet

Julia Loktev, born into Jewish family in St. Petersburg, had visited the dramatic topography of the Georgian Caucasus.  Filmed in the Kazbegi and Juta regions of Georgia, the landscape takes on the role of character, perhaps the most dramatic in comparison to the adventure-seeking couple, Nica (Hani Furstenberg, Israeli-born American) and Alex (Gael García Bernal).  Their guide is played by Georgian mountaineer Bidzina Gujabidze), who has summitted Everest twice.  The film's title evokes the Lonely Planet travel guides for the backpacking set, but there is a deeper meaning.

This is a film filled with tension, both from external forces as well as the sexual dynamic between the three travelers.  Loktev is a minimalist director.  You can hear a pin drop on the set and she wants you to dial in to every sound.  The film dwells on the unsaid and the unsayable.  We may indeed all be fundamentally unknowable, but perhaps more damningly, to quote from the passage Nica reads aloud, “we are overwhelmed and remain silent” (Jay Kuehner in Cinema Scope).

The director injects an amazing sensuality into the film, the sex scenes are hyperealistic.  Have you ever seen a man pull out his lover's tampon ?  It happens all the time, but not in front of the camera. There's not much dialog other than the practicing of Spanish verb conjugations.  But ultimately, this is a film about what us not said.

Avoiding a spoiler, let us say that Nica is confronted by crisis in an incident with a man that might have killed her and another who hopes to exploit the situation.  The couple's bond is corroded by crisis.  Alex and Dato represent the polar opposites heterosexual women feel they must choose between (Garcia, Film Review, 10/25/2012).  Nica is effectively "the loneliest planet."  Nica feels her invincibility is the equal of the other men around her.  After the incident, Nica falls victim to two other sexual assaults.  The real intimacy exists between Nica and Dato because the setting for Nica's individuation is Dato's home ground of perilous landscape. Loktev explores the savagery of a world in which our spiritual needs are undermined by physical reality (Garcia, ibid.).