Hausner’s Little Joe

It could almost be a cousin of Audrey II, but it is subtler and more insidious in its pursuit of world domination. It still represents a plant-based peril, but it is man-made this time around, rather than extraterrestrial. Genre film lovers get a serious, auteurist take on a flower of evil in Jessica Hausner’s Little Joe, which opens this Friday in New York.

Alice Woodard is a bit guilty she lets her dedication to experimental botany take so much time away from her son Joe, yet she refuses to change her ways or concede more custody time to his father. As some sort of consolation, she names her revolutionary genetically engineered flower, “Little Joe” in his honor and sneaks him a potted sample, in violation of every company rule and protocol.

The whole point of Little Joe is its mood-transforming effect. Its pollen stimulates parts of the brain that release feelings of happiness. However, it might do other things too. One of Woodard’s colleagues is convinced her dog’s personality was profoundly altered by exposure to Little Joe. Her age and disappointing career trajectory make it easy for others to dismiss her warnings, but Woodard starts to suspect there might be something to what she says when her research partner (and frustrated suitor) Chris also starts acting strangely different.

Although Little Joe contains surface similarities to the classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers, it comes at the material in a sharply contemporary, medicated-to-live-your-best-life kind of way. The science is also provocative. It even echoes Jurassic Park in an unexpected twist. Woodard has deliberately engineered Little Joe to be sterile, but she fears this may have perversely kicked in its survival imperative. “Life will find a way,” Ian Malcolm always says.

For some, Little Joe might be too cool and cerebral for its own good. Hausner largely drains out the emotion from her story (co-written by Gerardine Bajard), in favor of cold, hard rational analysis and guarded paranoia. Essentially, Hausner maintains a tone that is a lot like Yorgos Lanthimos’s The Lobster, but it is more realistic and human-like. The comparison is particularly apt since Ben Whishaw appears in both films.

Amour Fou: the Poet Said Suicide is Painless

Could anyone be less lovable than a Romantic era poet? Heinrich von Kleist is a perfect case in point. Perennially disappointed in the world, he makes everything about him. Not surprisingly, he has trouble finding a partner for a proposed suicide pact, but an untimely (and perhaps inaccurate) medical diagnosis will convince the upstanding Henriette Vogel to unexpectedly accept his invitation. They take a long and awkward final exit from life in Jessica Hausner’s Amour Fou (trailer here) which opens this Wednesday at Film Forum.

As a married woman of considerable social standing, Frau Vogel completely accepts the gender hierarchies of early Nineteenth Century Berlin, declaring herself contentedly subservient to her husband Friedrich Louis. Her only hint of subversion is her fascination with von Kleist’s novella The Marquise of O. Meeting von Kleist in person is a bit disappointing at first, but a platonic friendship slowly develop between them.

Kleist’s first choice for a dying companion is his cousin Marie, for whom he has carried an ambiguously romantic torch, but she is too sensible for his foolishness. He then propositions Vogel, assuming her life as a wife and mother must necessarily be one of quiet desperation, but again he receives a polite demurral. Tragically, when a series a fainting spells leads to a long distance diagnosis of a malignant tumor, Vogel’s perspective changes drastically. However, von Kleist is less enthusiastic about the pact knowing she has her own reasons for accepting rather than the great honor of meeting her end at his side.

Hausner’s screenplay will convince audiences von Kleist was the most miserable and narcissistic amongst the self-absorbed lot that were the Romantics. In many respects, it savagely satirizes his self-indulgence angsts and melancholia. Unfortunately, we still have to spend an awful lot of screen time with him.

Yet, the potential for subversive comedy is mostly undone by the severity of the atmosphere and the bloodlessness of the performances. Only Birte Schnöink’s Vogel and—ironically—Stephen Grossmann as her husband occasionally show any hint of real emotions. In contrast, as von Kleist, Christian Friedel drifts through the film like a petulant vampire. Of course, that all seems to be part of Hausner’s plan. She tightly controls the film with her coldly rigid sense of composition. Granted, at times her visuals are striking, bit they are also distancing. At times, Amour Fou hardly seems like a motion picture at all, but series of frozen tableaux.

Amour Fou is a handsomely crafted period production, but it fatally labors under its excessively Teutonic discipline. It might sound like a natural companion film to Beloved Sisters, but it lacks the passion and sweep of Dominik Graf’s historical romance (featuring Friedrich Schiller). Hausner shows flashes of mordant wit that help considerably, but she never overcomes the anti-climactic nature of a film that inexorably builds to suicide. Unsatisfyingly reserved, Amour Fou is only for those who prefer their films cerebral and German. It opens this Wednesday (3/18) in New York, at Film Forum.