Rendez-Vous ’18: Waiting for the Barbarians

Surrender your electronic devices. That is the first thing the aesthetically singular Eugène Green would have us do to escape the influence of the barbarian hordes. It is probably good advice. Although a prolific filmmaker, his heart famously remains in the Baroque era. However, he conflates both Medieval times and our current era in Waiting for the Barbarians (trailer here), which screens during the 2018 Rendez-Vous with French Cinema.

Green just isn’t working towards the same goals of other filmmakers. Influenced by the Baroque dramatic tradition, Green’s films embrace and amplify the artificial nature of the theater (and cinema) rather than attempt to create an illusion of verisimilitude. When they work, they still create a rapturously beautiful canvas upon which his narratives play out—La Sapience and The Portuguese Nun being prime examples, whereas The Son of Joseph was a weirdly smarmy misfire we shall henceforth pretend never happened. Barbarians is something of a return to Spartan form for Green, even though it may very well be his most demanding film yet.

Produced as part of a workshop, Barbarians is experimental in its ethos. Six modern-dress refugees fleeing unseen barbarians hordes take refuge with a Medieval Mage and his wife, the Magess. However, right from the start, it appears doubtful the barbarians really exist. They are just projections of our modern anxieties. Perhaps the six asylum-seekers will come to understand this when they finally start talking honestly among themselves. They will also have help from the ghost of the Mage’s daughter, who died tragically young, as well as the Arthurian parable their hosts stage as a play for their guests’ edification.

Obviously, this will appeal to a very narrow stratum of cineastes, but for the open-minded, the hushed, airless vibe is quite arresting. Despite the minimalist production, Green’s faithful cinematographer, Raphaël O’Byrne gives it an evocative glow. The cast also adapts to Green’s rigorous style quite well. Indeed, he demands a deceptive deadpan that is outwardly stoic, yet suggests the speaker is connected to things much deeper and mysterious than are dreamt of in our philosophy.

Green is not exactly inclined to hand the audience his takeaways on a silver platter. Yet, this film seems like a subtle rebuke to those who would live in perpetual fear and outrage focused on the Trumps and Le Pens of the world. Clearly, the Mages suggest the best way to counter barbarism is to live a rich, productive, and cultured life, but that means we must refocus from without to within. Or perhaps not. Implying meaning on Barbarians could be an endless parlor game for an intrepid few. Recommended as a rebound for Green’s elite followers, Waiting for the Barbarians screens tomorrow (3/13) and Friday (3/16), as part of French Rendez-Vous ’18, at the Walter Reade.

NYFF ’14: La Sapienza

You do not often see ghost stories that double as tutorials on Baroque Italian architecture, but Eugène Green is no ordinary filmmaker. Often he reminds us spirits need a space to abide, so what could be more appropriate than the chapels designed by Baroque master builder Francesco Borromini? A contemporary architect will explain the history to us as he learns his own lessons in Green’s La Sapienza, which screens as a Main Slate selection of the 52^nd New York Film Festival.

The story is deceptively simple. In hopes of repairing their ruptured marriage, Aliénor Schmidt accompanies her husband Alexandre on a trip through Italy and the Italian speaking regions of Switzerland, as he pretends to research the book on Borromini he always meant to write. However, their plans are upending at Lake Maggiore, where they encounter the fainting Lavinia and her protective brother Goffredo, a prospective architect student. Taking a shine to chronically ill Lavinia, Aliénor stays on to offer her support and friendship during her latest recuperation, sending Goffredo in her place with Alexandre. Initially, Schmidt is not particularly enthusiastic about the arrangement, but he too is soon won over by Goffredo’s earnestness.

If you are expecting teary sentimentality, guess again. As a leading Baroque dramatic revivalist, Green has a distinctive aesthetic that is guaranteed to be divisive at NYFF. There will be no conventional theatrics to dilute the film’s central ideas. At times, Sapienza has the feel of Baroque drama informed by post-modernism when characters essentially recite their dialogue standing side-by-side.

Yet, Green would argue his dramatic austerity is actually a much closer approximation of nature. Indeed, as the lead actors in the plays of our lives, our delivery is often rather flat and uninspired, even though it might take on greater significance later. After all, when couples argue, how often are they really engaging in dialogue or merely taking turns speaking?

Ironically, despite Green’s stylistic severity, he offers significant distractions in the absolutely gorgeous visuals (gloriously lensed by cinematographer Raphaël O’Byrne) and the accompanying baroque soundtrack. This film is such an exquisite feast for the eyes and ears, anyone ought to be able to bask in its surface beauty. Still, there is considerably more going on beneath the surface.

There are ghosts of a sort in the film, but tellingly, the terms spirit and light are used interchangeably. Arguably, all four major characters are haunted to some extent. Mr. Schmidt is saddled with guilt and shame for emotionally undermining his late partner (somewhat mirroring Borromini’s relationship with his rival, Bernini), while Ms. Schmidt still mourns their ill-fated baby. In contrast, their youthful friends are tormented by ghosts that do not exist yet: the fear that the sister will eventually succumb to her persistent ailments in his absence and the concern that the brother will sacrifice his promise out of sibling loyalty.

Green’s principles faithfully execute his vision, giving utterly egoless performances. Nevertheless, as Lavinia, Arianna Nastro’s eerily incandescent presence shines through unabated. Green himself also throws a heavy sinking curve ball as an Aramaic-speaking Chaldean holy fool in what is just slightly too substantial to be deemed a cameo.

La Sapienza is a rapturously lush film, with genuine spiritual heft, but it never spoon-feeds viewers. As a filmmaker, Green demands the audience meet him more than halfway, which asks quite a bit. However, there is definitely a there there to engage with. Like an especially potent after dinner liqueur, you would not want a steady diet of Green’s films, but it is nice to have one every four years or so. Highly recommended for architecture nerds and fans of challengingly literate cinema, La Sapienza screens this Saturday (9/27) at Alice Tully Hall and Sunday (9/28) at the Beale as part of this year’s NYFF.

Green’s Portuguese Nun

For his latest film, Eugène Green did not set out to adapt The Letters of a Portuguese Nun, the scandalous epistolary romance now attributed to the Comte de Guilleragues, but he plays a director shooting such a project. Yet, even that film-within-a-film is highly unorthodox in Green’s oddly spiritual The Portuguese Nun (trailer here), which opens this Friday at the Anthology Film Archives.

Julie de Hauranne is a Portuguese-French actress fluent in her mother’s language, but making her first trip to Lisbon for Denis Verde’s avant-garde re-working of The Portuguese Nun. There will be no dialogue and few scenes of her together with her co-star. Instead, they are filming the visuals that will accompany their pre-recorded voice-overs. Those rather easy set-calls allow her plenty of time to explore the city. In doing so, she makes a fleeting, but perhaps deep connection to D. Henrique Cunha, a would-be aristocrat disgraced by his family’s connections to the Salazar and Caetano regimes. She also meets Vasco, a veritable street urchin and becomes fascinated with a real Portuguese nun, Sister Joana, who prays nightly at the candlelit Nossa Senhora do Monte Chapel, a place where the spirit could move even an avowed atheist.

If nothing else, Nun will convince viewers Lisbon is a spectacularly beautiful city. The word “picturesque” just does not cut it—not even by half. Its architectural splendor is perfectly matched by a soundtrack of exquisitely sensitive fados. These things are particularly noticeable since Green seems determined to keep the audience at arm’s length from the on-screen drama.

Rarely do Nun’s verbal cadences ever approach anything realistically conversational. Instead, there is a distinctly recitative quality to the dialogue, which Green emphasizes all the more by regularly directing his cast to deliver their lines straight into the camera in self-conscious close-ups. Though de Hauranne is frequently in motion roaming through the city, the film often feels static, like a series of frozen tableaux. Despite the sparkling sheen of Raphaël O’Byrne’s cinematography, Nun has the rigid formality of medieval paintings. Appropriately, it also takes questions of religious faith just as seriously.

Though one suspects the “North American born,” French naturalized Green leans somewhat to the left, there are absolutely no cheap shots taken at Catholicism in Nun. Instead, meeting Sister Joana is a transformational experience for de Hauranne. In an exchange one could never find in a Hollywood film, the saintly Nun explicitly connects faith and love with words that are powerful, because they are spoken with humility. Likewise, instead of being a snarky Bill Maher, the worldly actress’s questions elicit heartfelt responses, because they are meant in good faith, so to speak.

Frankly, Nun is a strange film to get a handle on. At times, Leonor Baldaque is so deliberately inexpressive as De Hauranne, she could be mistaken for a bad CGI effect. Though essentially playing himself, Green is nearly just as stiff when appearing as Verde. Conversely, Diogo Dória’s turn as the haunted Cunha is deeply compelling and fundamentally humane, while Ana Moreira radiates piety as Sister Joana.

In terms of method and tone, Nun almost approaches experimental filmmaking, yet it has a romantic soul and a respect for the transcendent faith of Sister Joana that borders on genuine reverence. It also shows unexpected flashes of a sardonic wit. Clearly, Nun is intended for an exclusive, self-selecting audience, yet it has moments of arresting beauty well beyond the sights and sounds of Lisbon. It would surely baffle multiplex audiences several times over, but the elusive Nun is highly recommended to the stylistically adventurous. It opens this Friday (10/22) in New York at the Anthology Film Archives.