Review: Jackie

Year: 2016

Director: Pablo Larraín

Screenplay: Noah Oppenheim

Starring: Natalie Portman, Peter Sarsgaard, Greta Gerwig, Billy Crudup, John Hurt, Richard E Grant

Synopsis is here:

Everything is a tad oppressive in Pablo Larraín’s Jackie. It’s all a little bit constricting. Mica Levi shrieking strings from her Under the Skin score, rear their head once more in new arrangements. The aspect ratio is smaller, tighter than what we are used to. Natalie Portman, who features in nearly every shot gives a deliberate and affected performance. One that peaks on near consistent anxiety.

If separated in some way, it probably wouldn’t have been all that effective. Of course, the point of Jackie is to bring them together in such a way, that everything bears down on the viewer, as it would its titular character. This film about the days Jackie Kennedy spent between the assassination of her husband; President Kennedy and his burial, often seems less like a biopic or insight into grief, and more like an essay of unwanted fame and survivor’s guilt. JFK is only often witnessed in brief glimpses (we even see the infamous moment in grisly detail), yet his presence looms large. Such is the way of Larraín as a formalist. Nearly every aspect of the film seems to highlight how the cloud of this man’s death weighs down heavily on his now widow.

Jackie boils throughout with a quiet intensity. Despite its delicate pacing, there’s a restlessness that burns through every scene. When a man like Kennedy dies, how do you find time to mourn? Usually, when someone dies, those close them are often consumed in the mundanity of grief. Often there’s a privacy to proceedings.  Larraín’s film considers the idea that Jackie, known during Kennedy’s presidency for her wish for privacy and image control, is torn between her own private grief and the desire in to ensure that JFK’s legacy is preserved.

We don’t just see this in the technical aspects, like where Stéphane Fontaine’s camera does all it can to isolate Portman’s Jackie any opportunity it can by either crashing it’s subject with oppressive close-ups or pushing her out into wide empty spaces. We also find it in Portman’s wonderfully conflicted performance. The forced affliction in her voice and wide-eyed apprehension would feel out of place in the hands of a lesser director. Larraín’s control of the film’s form creates a perfect fold for Portman’s anxious performance. During these final days, Jackie wanders the near endless rooms and halls of The White House, like a lost spectre. Through Jackie’s conversations with Kennedy’s remorseful brother Rob (the never bad Peter Sarsgaard), we find a woman who's not only violently displaced by tragic events, but one who has never felt she was a piece of the grand puzzle. 

Despite this, there’s no backing down. The conversations we witness in this film may or may not have happened. That’s not the point. Much like the zany Miles Davis biopic Mile’s Ahead of last year, Jackie this isn’t really about an accurate “truth”. It’s about a heightened emotional one. Jackie never panders, but it certainly does give reasons to ponder. At a time when our political spheres are losing their heads, Jackie coincidently appears at a time when many are rummaging through the dying ambers of a certain kind progressive idealism. It’s fascinating to watch the Chilean director Larraín, explore the opening cracks of where America felt these ideals first began to fray. With Jackie, the filmmaker installs a brittle and enduring resolve that quietly emerges from an individual who helps to cope with a nation's grief with a defiant poise and a steely grace.    

Review: Ex Machina

Year: 2015

Director: Alex Garland

Screenplay: Alex Garland

Starring: Domhnall Gleeson, Alicia Vikander, Oscar Isaac

Synopsis is here

I’m currently reading Dataclysm, an irreverent view of data dating, social science and human behaviour by Christian Rudder, one of the founders of OK Cupid. The book is a sharp and witty insight into how social networks, search engines and the internet are quickly revealing more about ourselves and our urges than we would like to think. Unfortunately, I saw Ex-Machina while I started reading Dataclysm and I found myself more than slightly unnerved.

Ex-Machina holds two moments for me, which not only feel eerily plausible, but frighteningly close. One conversation is between Nathan (Issac) and Caleb (Gleeson) in which we discover how the female A.I. obtains her knowledge. The other is a grander reveal within the plot, which is almost brushed away like a small aside, yet had me wonder why certain, powerful companies have now poured vast amounts of cash into drones and robots. Ex-Machina doesn’t expand too far from an episode of Black Mirror, however the film’s three central leads, and Garland’s evocative screenplay engages with our anxieties with conversations and mind games in a way that feels fresh as well as frightening. 

Garland’s directional debut, reminiscent of Frankenstein, is a remarkable clash of contrasts. It’s deliberately paced yet we always get the feeling we’re hurtling towards something. Its cinematographer Rob Hardy shoots the film with impressive wide angles, and yet the films isolated locations and limited cast, give a grim sense of claustrophobia, much like The Shining (1980). The film lingers on the form and physique of the female Machina, Ava (Vikander) which it wants us to admire, yet the male characters Nathan and Caleb indulge in profound conversations which not only progress the screenplay organically but hint at the ugliness of human nature. This constant disharmony, which appears in so much great sci-fi, is what drew me into the film.   

The film’s leaning on the male gaze, as observed by some female writers, while feeling problematic to some, actually felt to me as an accurate portrayal of the shallowness of human beings and the ease of how their emotions can be manipulated. Also the lead female character, clearly inhabits the most agency. Garland’s film delivers us an A.I. that not only holds our knowledge but may also make better use of our mistakes and flaws. The most fascinating thing about the film however is how the combination of Vikander’s elegant performance and the great use of the film's premise, like Under the Skin (2014), has the audience question both gender politics and human connection in a deeply absorbing way. From a surface view, the treatment of female characters within the film can be seen as deplorable, and yet that is only if you consider the female characters to be “human”. If the film hits you in the right spot, you go with your gut. I do not mean this as a criticism of female writers who find some of the film's sequences problematic. However, I must stress at, not only the motivations behind the more sinister characters in the movie, but also how well the mechanisms work within the story. Even I felt perturbed by some of the aspects I witnessed in the film. I feel this is because I felt for Ava.

Dominic Gleeson and Oscar Issac create the kind of combative foil you would expect from a feature like this. Issac embraces his inner Victor Frankenstein with added boozing, gym visits and creepy dancing. It is a completely bombastic turn around from his performance in A Most Violent Year (2014). Gleeson brings his likable charm to the table. Caleb’s pining for Ava is believable and his paranoia towards his situation is palatable. Watching the three characters trade blows against each other strangely reminded me of Richard Linklater’s Tape (2001), but the resonance I felt between them was far more effective here than anything I found in films such as Her (2014) or A.I (2001).   

Ex-Machina does what good sci-fi should, which is, despite the more fantastical elements we may witness within the narrative, it never loses touch of the human element. My knowledge of the singularity may be a little light, but I found ideas the film poses to be well presented, while the way the story uses those ideas to toy with its characters and the audience to be thoroughly invigorating. Garland’s debut directional feature stride into those darker areas of our grey matter with the sort of confidence that I wish the likes of Transcendence (2014) could attain. Let’s hope Garland can continue making his science fiction so good that it continues creeps me out when I read my non-fiction.

Review: It Follows

Year: 2014 (U.K release 2015)

Director: David Robert Mitchell

Screenplay: David Robert Mitchell

Starring: Maika Monroe, Keir Gilchrist, Jake Weary

Synopsis is here

A friend of mine, warned me about It Follows not being “scary” in the slightest. Informing me of the walkouts he had in his screening, he was quick to label the film as pretentious. Once that word was used I was wary about his reaction. However, when the film made a splash with some of my other film friends last year at the London Film Festival, I was even more cautious. I saw one tweet from an acquaintance labelling it as one of the horror films of the decade. After finally viewing the film on the Saturday of its opening weekend. I can safely say that while I lay somewhere in the middle of both reactions, the film’s unsettling style and thoughtful subtext had me wondering about the film in fascination for a good two days.

It Follows is not scary in the now more conventional sense of long banging jump scares (although one such moment is perfectly handled). The film mines great amounts of discomfort from it’s startlingly simple premise. If you have sex with someone who has had “it” passed on to them, then “it”, a shape shifting apparition, will follow you. It makes a beeline for you. It’s slow, yet unrelenting. It can look like someone you know, or a complete stranger. Once “it” has you, then it leaves your mangled corpse before moving on to the person who passed it before.

Part of the film’s strangeness comes from the various human forms the shape takes. One of the earlier scenes has us witness “it” as an elderly woman. Once you consider the films mechanics, the film becomes more disquieting. It takes forms of people these teens know and love. This not only disarms the youths, but also implies transgressive consanguinity based anxieties, which are difficult to shake off. Two of the key scenes are quick to remind you not only of the absence of adults, but also the destruction of the suburban family. A well-known component of U.S horror, which often rears its head amongst the strongest entries of the genre.

Then the film contrasts this with the way it observes teenage sexually (particularly female) and relationships. Marking them with a keen eye for closeness and rapport. While the dialogue isn't remarkable, the performances do grow as the film continues and the icky creepiness of the premise and the cold deliberate dread of the film then really takes hold. Highlighting relationships, not too dissimilar to the seemingly parentless teens who permeate the films of Larry Clark. A sense of loneliness begins to penetrate throughout. Parents are often heard but never really seen, while most of the information shared between the kids never trickles up to them, only emphasizing the generation gaps and isolation.  

The main reason the film manages to instill such a beautiful sense of dread, is its cinematography. Excuse me for my hyperbole (I’m sure you have before), but I can’t think of a horror film which lies so much fear on such precise compositions. Utilising the widescreen format (as well as autumn, suburb setting) in a way that harks back to one of horror’s granddaddies: Halloween. While so many horror films have attacked the forefront and centre. It Follows, like Halloween, understands just how disturbing things are when we’re not fully focused on them. Things don’t jump out in It Follows, they stalk towards. Close ups make us restless, as due to their tightness, we can’t peer round the frame. Innocuous background characters, suddenly pose threat when walking into the shallow depth of field.  The film becomes a “Guess Who” of the genre, gleefully recalling the “did you see that” feeling of Carpenters 1978 hit feature.

Unfortunately It Follows sometimes suffers from some frustrations. A character informs another of a certain rule and it’s broken with a hint of irony. One could easily place this down to fear and I urge you should for more enjoyment. However, the fact that characters play a little fast and loose with the rules more than once, only reminds me of just how Scream (1996) broke a generation of film goers. The film also feels more than a little indulgent at the best of times. Not all the directorial flourishes always help tell the story or build the character while the music often comes off as more jarring and incessant. 

However, by the end of the film, It Follows posed questions and feelings that, much like Kill List (2009), or Ringu (1998) provoked me with a complexity and ambition that I so often crave from a horror film. Much of the films beauty lies in the fact that despite having elements that will remind folks of Kids (1995), Final Destination (2000), Under the Skin (2014), The Terminator (1984), The Night of the Hunter (1955) or the photographic works of Gregory Crewdson, It Follows never feels like it a list of obvious homages. It never rests on its retro leanings or its laurels. It uses subtext to its advantage and does what I feel a good horror should do: make the mundane feel frightening. It Follows sets a high bar for horror movies in 2015. Unlike my friend in the first paragraph, I hope that the other contenders can keep up. 

Review: Lucy

Year:2014

Director: Luc Besson

Screenplay: Luc Besson

Starring: Scarlet Johansson, Morgan Freeman, Amr Waked, Choi Min-sik

Synopsis is here

Note: The opening of this review contains spoilers for three Scarlett Johansson movies, including this one.

It happened with a hint of humour and romance with Her. It also occurred to a more devastating effect in Under the Skin. Now here, in Lucy, Scarlet Johansson once again gathers all the human information she can, gains a complete understanding of humans as a species, before dissipating into the atmosphere and exiting our existence when her capacity for us have reached her peak. In Lucy, this trait of the actress is perhaps at its most ludicrous and yet still provides a certain amount of engagement.

Lucy is ridiculous in the same way that Neveldine and Taylor are. Our lead character accidentally overdoses on an experimental drug, and begins to level up in percentage figures. It's not enough that we have a dump truck of exposition around every corner. No, said information is often visualised by overtly obvious metaphors. So when you see a wide eyed Lucy quivering like a gazelle mesmerised by a cheetahs glare. The film cuts to a direct, on-the-nose, visual of such an event. Heroes and villains are broadly defined in such a way, I’m surprised we didn't have their name and main characteristic tattooed on their forehead. The premise of the movie is built around the debunked theory that we only use ten percent of our brain. There's a feeling amongst some that brainpower was not at full capacity when thinking of the scripting.

Lucy is part comic, part video game and all lunacy. The film is equal parts Limitless, The Fifth Element and Crank and it revels in its nuttiness, as did I for the most part. The film's channel hopping, A.D.D craziness will irritate some, but I have to admit it's the first piece of Besson tinged madness that I've had a laugh in for quite a while. The fact it's clearly winking at the camera and acknowledging its silliness is one thing, but the gusto and lack of cynicism is quite refreshing. Lucy wants the viewer to hop on for the ride as opposed to push shock buttons obnoxiously. Something that often distracts me from the likes of Nev/Taylor.

A lot of Lucy’s fun stems from its casting. The doe eyed and anatomically pleasing Scarlett Johansson, already showed in Under the skin just how well she can do the flat, distant performance. Demonstrating that segregated from human beings look is difficult to pull off without looking like its “bad” acting. Johansson loses the more serpentine movements that inflections that were noted in Johnathon Glazer’s sci-fi, and instead fuses her overdosing action hero with sharp, analytical head swipes and eye darts. Again Johansson makes the whole not-of-this-realm thing seem effortless.  Morgan Freeman appears to bring forth the necessary “wisdom” to proceedings, kicking off with a tutorial that clearly drives the film's tongue into its cheek. It’s an actioner which drolly muses over its powered protagonist entering God mode. Set pieces don’t last too long here, and why the hell should they? Johansson has pressed iddqd. We shouldn’t expect a near tiresome display of stunts. Although the sequences we see have their quirks. Lucy manages to indulge into the silliness of superheroes with a certain cartoonish aplomb.

Maybe I’m just happy that Besson keeps his expansive (and silly) ideas, light, loose and under 90 minutes. The film doesn't offend me by being longer than it needs to be, although the execution of the film’s last act lacks a certain punch. However, by the time Lucy starts communicating with telecom communications through windscreens, I was already too immersed in films nonsense to mind too much. Feather-brained it may be, but Lucy once again showcases Scarlett Johansson as a sassy alternative to Jason Statham and has Besson finding the right vehicle for his lunacy.  There’s much talk about Johansson’s Marvel’s arrangements, but if Johansson wants to keep pursuing this type of madcap premise, count me in. 

Review: Under The Skin

Year: 2013 (U.K Theatrical Release 2014)
Director: Johnathan Glazer
Screenplay: Johnathan Glazer, Walter Campbell
Starring: Scarlett Johansson 

Synopsis is here

Under The Skin's IMDB score currently stands at a middling 6.5 on its user ratings. This is understandable. For detractors, the film's lyrical pace will merely frustrate. The nuanced transformation of one of the most famous and attractive woman in the world into a blank alien vessel will be ignored and criticised for its alleged flatness. The films lack of exposition will be viewed has plotless, considering how most screenplays labour themselves with tell-all dialogue.

I understand those criticisms, but I do not agree with them in the slightest. When a film has elusive as this appears on screens, people will always confront those who enjoy it and ask: Why do you like this? Truth is, like a good joke, to deconstruct this film, as I am about to do (poorly), will not give the questioner the satisfying answer they require. After watching Under the Skin, I could only exclaim that it was an "experience". A few days on as I write this, I now consider Under the Skin possibly one of the most incisive science fiction films of the year, if not the last ten. I say this with love and apologies to Gravity (2013), Moon (2008), Children of Men (2005) et all.

Beginning with a grand and opulent 2001 style space sequence and finishing with delicate snowfall, Johnathan Glazer's third feature (9 years after the hauntingly tragic Birth), continues his particular detached observations of human life with Kubrickian precision. The protagonist 'Laura' (Johansson) stalks single men with the removed glare of a terminator. She roams the Scottish Highlands in the kind of white van we tell children to stay away from. Her beauty, however, makes it difficult who the horny males she picks up, who see nothing strange with this particular picture.

Despite the pleasantries that are exchanged, there's no free candy. As the men are seduced, they're are submerged into a thick abyss of liquid. What happens to them is best left to the film to explain, although the Michel Faber novel that the film is loosely based on, explains in clearer detail what happens to these poor souls.

Much has been said about Glazer's use of hidden cameras to film the interactions of Scarlet Johansson with the unwitting Scottish locals. The placement of the cameras often feels similar to the disjointed feel of CCTV cameras not only capturing the action and realistic, awkward conversations, but also slim and strange pockets of uneasy negative space. Glazer and cinematographer Daniel Landin capture seemingly banal moments of humanity with the aloofness of a playful street photographer. The most typical aspects of human life appear distinct and unnatural, with Glazer's visuals become a primer of sorts. It's the only way I can describe how he makes some of the films most unnerving sequences seem understandable.

This doesn't not mean justified. We may perceive much of Laura's behaviour as ugly, but when the "person" you're watching doesn't run on the same notions and emotions as ourselves, we're suddenly propelled into a new dynamic. A new plateau in which vacant gaze of Laura, unlocks parts of us we keep hidden. Johansson's placid performance provides an abyss for which we can throw our own feelings of humanity into. A cold, gray beach has Laura impassively watch a tragedy play out in front of us while playing her own part towards affecting the situation. Later we hear the development of what happened and we comprehend the situation. Laura's lack of reaction disconcerts, reminding us of our basic empathy.

Glazer melds base, predatory elements with this dispassionate, alien tone to overwhelming results. The film lacks the wry humour that litters Faber's book, but extracts the elements in-between the lines to create something bleaker in its explorations. Glazer adds sequences you couldn't imagine in the novel. Alison Wilmore neatly capsules how the male gaze is subverted within the film. What makes the film so provocative is, the more time Laura spends on our planet, she doesn't just become more "human" but she also encounters the predatory instinct that lies within men when they are not controlled. A small yet pivotal scene has Laura hounded by drunk revelers attacking her van in a way that reminds us of why the feminist movement should not be silenced. The film's final third lands us in survival mode with Laura facing what so many fear before blasting off into the metaphysical.

Under the Skin has faint shades of The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976) along with tones of Tarkovsky's Solaris (1972) for good measure. Despite this, Glazer maintains his own touch throughout. Laura may be extra-terrestrial, yet she holds the same narrow view of Sexy Beast's (2000) Don Logan or Birth's Anna. Characters that are so unbelievably sure of their aims and goals that anything that displays a different orientation, shatters their comprehension. Here lies the smartness in Glazer's feature, in which, despite how densely alien this being is, she still remains bound by the trappings of the creatures she preys on. Something I'm sure many of us have felt from time to time. The abyss stares back at us.