Noe’s Lux Æterna

Benjamin Christensen's Häxan is probably the first horror documentary. Its images are so eerie, it has been excerpted and edited into dozens of subsequent films. (Being in the public domain also makes it attractive.) Once again, it sets the mood for a film about witches, but the lunacy that follows the opening snippets is all Gaspar Noe. First, they talk, then they go crazy in Noe’s Lux Æterna, which opens Friday at the Metrograph.

Throughout the film, Noe uses a split-screen, very much like the so-called “Duo-Vision” of Richard L. Bare’s notorious Wicked, Wicked. Of course, Noe’s film is also all very meta, with the cast playing loosely fictionalized (and improvised) versions of themselves. It opens with director Beatrice [Dalle] talking to her star, Charlotte [Gainsbourg], while the rest of the crew prepare (haphazardly and chaotically) for a big stake-burning scene.

Clearly, Beatrice and Charlotte respect each other, because of their common experiences in the industry. However, the crusty old cinematographer and sleazy producers are openly contemptuous of the inexperienced director (most of whose work has been in front of the camera). It all comes to a head when the shoot nose-dives into Hell, but when that happens on a Noe production, it is simply called a Tuesday.

The film opens with an epileptic strobe warning, with good reason. It is short, but strange—and relentlessly flashing. Lux Æterna is not even an hour long, but it would be hard to watch much more without your eyeballs exploding. A lot of the split-screen use is just as gimmicky as Bare’s 1973 cult favorite, but the visual explosion of the climax is vintage Noe.

Arguably, this is very much a horror film—a pretty shocking one in fact. It just really takes its time on the build-up. After all, there is a long tradition of artsier horror films, gravitating towards witches and witchcraft, including the Visconti/Pasolini/De Sica anthology The Witches and good old Häxan. Like many of those films, there is also a pronounced feminist angle here, particularly when it comes to the film production process. Ironically, Noe might up indicting himself, in retrospect—given what he puts his cast through.

NYFF ’17: Ismael’s Ghosts, Director’s Cut

It is like Day for Night mixed with a little le Carré, but it is all very Arnaud Desplechin. Ismaël Vuillard (the protag of Desplechin’s Kings & Queen, again portrayed by Mathieu Amalric) is supposed to make a movie about notorious diplomat and possible spy Ivan Dedalus, who certainly sounds related to Paul Dedalus, a recurring character in three other Desplechin films, also played by Amalric. Everything is related and possibly everyone is Desplechin in Ismaël’s Ghosts (trailer here), which screens as a Main Slate selection of the 55^th New York Film Festival.

This is not the version of Ghosts that garnered Cannes jeers. Instead, we get a “director’s cut” that is twenty-minutes longer. Frankly, the long version is still pretty confused, but it must be even harder to follow with pieces carved out. Vulliard is supposed to be telling the story of Ivan Dedalus, a notorious diplomat and spy from a working-class background, who ironically was often attached to missions precisely because he was suspected of dealing with the Russians.

However, Vulliard’s personal drama keeps getting in the way. Depending on what point Desplechin flashes back to, the surrogate character is either romancing Sylvia, the shy astrophysicist, preparing his mentor-father-in-law Henri Bloom for a retrospective tribute in Israel, or dealing poorly with the sudden reappearance of his long presumed dead wife Carlotta Bloom. Eventually, the stress gets to be too much for Vulliard, forcing his long-suffering friend and line producer Zwy to track him down.

Even if Desplechin added an additional hour, Ghosts would probably still be a jumbled, herky-jerky affair. The constant flashing forwards and backwards can leave your head spinning, but the whole point is how everything is supposed to be mixed up in Vulliard’s head, so you just have to roll with it.

In fact, there is a lot of good stuff in here. Louis Garrel is almost unrecognizable as the intriguing Ivan Dedalus, so much so, we wouldn’t mind seeing Desplechin return to his character. Amalric and Charlotte Gainsbourg’s Sylvia also have some appealingly fresh and mature chemistry together. Hippolyte Girardot also shows a flair for physical comedy as the poor, put-upon Zwy. Surprisingly, it is Marion Cotillard’s sequences as Carlotta Bloom (dig the Vertigo reference) that mostly muddy up the film.

It hardly matters if viewers have not seen Kings and Queen, because the significant events of that film are barely referenced in Ghosts. Anyone who can write up a cogent, detailed five-page synopsis of it has our respect. Yet, one could argue the old joke about the weather also applies to this film. If you are not enjoying it, just wait five minutes and it will change. Frankly, Ghosts is more briskly paced than the equally Proustian My Golden Days, but it has none of the whiny teen angst. Better than reported, Ismaël’s Ghosts, Director’s Cut is recommended for patrons who enjoy unpacking films when it screens tomorrow (10/13) and Saturday (10/14) during this year’s New York Film Festival.

3 Hearts: the Mister and the Two Sisters

Could you fall for a taxman? Two women from the provincial French town of Valence will do exactly that. Their similar tastes make sense, considering they happen to be sisters. Complications will necessarily ensue in Benoît Jacquot’s 3 Hearts (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Marc Beaulieu is a revenue agency bureaucrat based in Paris, but he sometimes ventures out into the field for an audit. He missed the last train home on his first fateful night in Valence—the sort of sleepy town that rolls up the streets after eleven o’clock. However, Sylvie Berger is also roaming through the shuttered nocturnal streets. She guides him to a hotel, but they spend most of the night gliding through the quiet sidewalks together. Little is said, but a connection is formed. Beaulieu leaves for Paris in the morning, but they make hasty plans to rendezvous at the Jardin des Tuileries, but a few mild hassles like a heart attack make Beaulieu prohibitively tardy.

Naturally, the two would be lovers never exchanged cell numbers or even properly introduced themselves. That would have killed the mood, which is admittedly intoxicating. We wish the film would return to that vividly in-the-moment romantic vibe, so we can understand why Beaulieu will do some truly reckless things later in the film to recapture it.

For the time being, life goes on. Berger agrees to move to Minneapolis with the underwhelming boyfriend she had just broken up with, resigning herself to a crummy relationship and cold winters. Returning to Valence on business, Beaulieu looks for Berger, but instead he finds her sister Sophie weeping in the tax office over the state of her returns. Of course, the name Berger means nothing to him. Taking pity on her, Beaulieu straightens out her bookkeeping, winning her heart as a result. Through a carefully contrived set of circumstances, he never figures out who the absent sister is until their wedding plans are well underway.

When they finally come face-to-face, it is rather awkward. Sylvie Berger tries to avoid her new brother-in-law as much as possible, but their mutual ardor is constantly at risk of boiling over. As Beaulieu becomes rasher, the threat of scandal grows. Clearly, it is all building to a bad end for several sides of the love triangle, as Bruno Coulais’s surprisingly moody and somewhat discordant score has foreshadowed right from the beginning.

3 Hearts could be considered the dark analog of films like Brief Encounter and An Affair to Remember. While the romanticism of the initial meeting is overwhelmingly potent, it leads to an obsession that becomes toxic over time. Frankly, love at first sight is not a healthy proposition in 3 Hearts.

Much will be made of Catherine Deneuve once again portraying the mother of her real life daughter Chiara Mastroianni, but Madame Berger plays a tangential role in this drama. The real show is Mastroianni and Charlotte Gainsbourg complimenting and contrasting with each other as the needy insecure Sophie and the reserved but passionate Sylvie, respectively. They are totally credible as the closest of sisters, but it is a bit harder to understand why they are both so profoundly attracted to a wheezing, walking coronary like Beaulieu. Regardless, Benoît Poelvoorde is uncomfortably compelling as the compulsive, self-destructive auditor.

While 3 Hearts sounds like a straight drama on paper, its tone approaches that of a thriller. Jacquot constantly maintains the nagging sense something dreadful might happen in the very next scene. It is tenser and more unsettling than most infidelity films, including those that venture further into violent or noir territory. Consistently effective despite, or because of its openly melodramatic inclinations, 3 Hearts is recommended for Francophiles when it opens this Friday (3/13) in New York at the Lincoln Plaza Cinema.

Fantastic Fest ’14: Jacky in the Kingdom of Women

Islamist apologists always assure us that Muslim women feel more comfortable and empowered in restrictive clothes. Here’s their chance to try the burqa on for size. It the backward fictional nation of Bubunne, women have all legal authority and subjugate their uneducated men like chattel. One sad sack man-victim harbors a deep crush on the supreme leader’s heir apparent-daughter, but he has lost his ticket to the grand ball in Riad Sattouf’s satirical Cinderella-riff, Jacky in the Kingdom of Women (trailer here), which screens during the 2014 Fantastic Fest.

As a male “pleb,” Jacky is about as low as it gets in Bubunne, but women find him attractive (there’s no accounting for taste in this militarist theocracy), so he has always hoped General Bubunne XVI’s daughter, logically known as The Colonel, would choose him to be her “Big Dummy.” Unfortunately, when Jacky’s mother dies, his mean aunt and uncle give his ticket to the cattle-call ball to his ugly cousin. Yet, through a series of misadventures, Jacky will somehow gatecrash the soiree, disguised as a woman, Twelfth Night style.

Although the official religion of Bubunne venerates horses instead of a prophet, it is not hard to see what it is based on. Given the chadors worn by men, the frequent denunciations of blasphemy, public executions, and rampant sexism and homophobia, if you cannot recognize Bubunne as an analog for the Islamist regimes, you are willfully blind enough to work children’s protective services in Rotherham.

It is therefore little exaggeration to describe Sattouf’s screenplay as extraordinarily bold, but Twenty-First Century viewers might wish his satire came with more jokes. However, the audience that could probably stand to gain the most from seeing the gender tables turned is not exactly known for its collective funny bone. Subtlety can also be an iffy proposition, but Kingdom’s depiction of religiously justified oppression should be in-your-face enough to register some kind of response (like a fatwa).

Charlotte Gainsbourg’s performance as the Colonel is also rather brave, for a host of reasons that would be spoilery to explain. It is safe to say she is a good sport, whose mysterious screen presence perfectly suits the film. However, Vincent Lacoste’s Jacky is so passive and pathetic, viewers will want to bully him along with the rest of the film’s villains. At least Michel Hazanavicius brings some redemptive verve as Julin, an underground propagandist who was close friends with Jacky’s late father. Anémone (co-star of the beloved holiday classic, Santa Stinks) also shows a flair for physical humor as the miserable old General.

Kingdom earns considerable points for satirizing subjects that consider themselves off limits to such treatment, but the characters and narrative never really engage on an emotional level. Still, when it is funny, the jokes also land with a sting. Recommended on balance for free-thinkers, Jacky in the Kingdom of Women screens again this coming Monday (9/22) as part of this year’s Fantastic Fest. 

Lars Volume One

When Lars von Trier and the increasingly controversial Shia LaBeouf collaborate on a film, it creates a certain level of expectations. Add in a generous helping of explicit sexual content and you would anticipate of perfect storm of provocation. Instead, it will be fans of the Dogma 95 co-founder who will feel vindicated by his latest bout of risk-taking. Far from a source of joy, sex is an act of existential alienation in von Trier’s Nymphomaniac, Volume One (trailer here), which opens tomorrow in New York.

Seligman is a good Samaritan, who offers to take Joe to a hospital when he finds her battered in the street. She firmly demurs, only reluctantly allowing the older man to patch her wounds in his nearby flat. Joe not only blames herself for her alarming state, she rather seems to think she had it coming. She will explain why over a hot cup of tea.

Joe discovered her power turn men into animals at a young age. Like a playboy notching his belt, she regularly challenges her chum B to a contest of who can score the most men in a given period. However, B starts breaking one of their cardinal rules, allowing affection (or worse still, love) to influence her erotic pursuits. As a result, Joe becomes a solitary seducer, who deliberately leaves broken lives in her wake. Yet, Seligman insists on finding redemptive elements in each of her tales—or so he tries, in between fishing analogies and literary allusions.

Nevertheless, Joe’s self-indictment is consistently and cumulatively damning. In a particularly memorable episode, Mrs. H outdoes Medea, shaming her wayward husband and the trampy Joe by crashing their vice-pad with her shockingly young sons. Yet, Joe really is not shamed. She is already hollow inside, desensitized by her carnal compulsions.

Yes, there is a lot of sex and nudity in Volume One, but it is not the least bit seductive or titillating. Instead, this is an unrated morality tale, which explicitly cautions viewers of the dire consequences wrought by divorcing sex from love (or least like to a reasonable extent).

It should be noted, this all applies solely to Volume One seen independently of Volume Two. Based on the teaser that runs during the closing credits, von Trier apparently cranks up the lurid content of the concluding installment. Whether or not this anticipated foray into Shades of Grey territory will come with a disingenuous claim of “empowerment” remains to be seen. Nonetheless, Volume One ends at an oddly logical and unsettling point.

Frankly, it is not the naughty business that is interesting, but the conversations between the not-as-young-as-she-used-to-be Joe and Seligman. Von Trier’s language is highly literate and rich with meaning. Past von Trier alumni Charlotte Gainsbourg and Stellan Skarsgård quickly develop the darnedest screen chemistry, encompassing morbid fascination and humanist compassion. Despite the film’s explicit content, von Trier assembled quite a cast, including Uma Thurman, who knocks the wind out of viewers as the ferocious Mrs. H.

In a case of trial by fire, Stacy Martin makes a bold screen debut as the twenty-something Joe, but her character is so glacially reserved, the role better demonstrates her willingness to serve the needs of a film rather than her emotional range, per se. On the other hand, Christian Slater cannot shake off his snarky b-list persona as Joe’s henpecked father. (By the way, if any von Trier fans are wondering, Udo Kier will duly appear in Volume Two.)

With Volume One, von Trier stakes a claim to being a truly subversive contrarian. He makes sex look like no fun whatsoever. In fact, hedonism takes a toll on the soul and inextricably leads to some very dark places. Better to go fishing instead. Recommended for mature, fully informed audiences as a film in its own right, Nymphomaniac Volume One opens this Friday (3/21) in New York downtown at the Landmark Sunshine and uptown at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center.

Von Trier’s Melancholia

It is the end of the world or the end of Lars von Trier’s career. Whichever it is, it will finish with a bang. After this year’s Cannes, Melancholia is infamous for all the wrong reasons. Yet, it is worth considering von Trier’s Melancholia (trailer here) separate and apart from extraneous controversies. A rich gift for those who love to debate and analyze film, Melancholia finally opens in New York theaters today, with no small amount of baggage in tow.

Frankly, Justine would probably welcome the apocalypse on her wedding day. Hours late to her own reception, family tensions are already boiling over. Her hotelier brother-in-law John resents footing the bill for the lavish shindig when she does not even appear to take it seriously. Her very divorced parents are eager to start clawing at each other again, while her crude boss chooses the ostensibly happy occasion to play a weird round of mind games with his newly promoted employee. Claire, her slightly less highly strung sister, tries to hold the night together, but chaos is inevitable.

As Melancholia’s second part opens, Justine is now a basket case, having driven the adoring Michael away. Through Claire’s insistence, she is staying with her sister’s family, acting weird and getting on John’s nerves. In addition to her family drama, Claire is increasingly anxious over doomsday scenarios regarding Melancholia, a hitherto unknown planet projected to cross uncomfortable close to the Earth. As an amateur astronomer, John assures her she should not pay attention to such media claptrap, but it is clear viewers should give her concerns credence.

Melancholia has been dubbed Another Earth’s evil doppelganger. To an extent, this is a valid analogy, particularly in the manner both films use science fiction concepts in what are otherwise very personal and intense human stories. Yet, the comparatively free-wheeling first half of Melancholia feels more closely akin to fellow Dogma 95 filmmaker Thomas Vinterberg’s The Celebration. Indeed, it is a joy (though perhaps a slightly sadistic one) to watch Melancholia’s top shelf cast tear into each other.

The Best Actress winner at Cannes, Kristin Dunst really is quite unsettling as Justine. The term hot mess could have been coined with her in mind, yet she is never excessively showy in the role. Charlotte Gainsbourg and Kiefer Sutherland might sound like the most unlikely of couples, but they are quite convincing together as Claire and John (though at times we would not mind watching him open up a can of Jack Bauer on sundry family members). Not surprisingly, the old pros Charlotte Rampling and John Hurt nearly upstage everyone as the bickering exes, luxuriating in their tart sarcastic zingers. They also look perfectly cast as Gainsbourg’s parents (though maybe not so much for Dunst). Yet, the biggest laughs (and they are considerable) come from von Trier regular Udo Kier as the snippy wedding planner.

In the moodier, more impressionistic second part, Gainsbourg and Sutherland largely shoulder the dramatic burden, which they handle quite adroitly. In fact, Sutherland’s nuanced work might be the biggest surprise of the film. The notorious von Trier also stages the end of the world quite inventively, employing a simple but very cinematic device to depict the rogue planet’s advancing approach.

Though accessible for general audiences, Melancholia is not the sort of film one can give a pat nutshell response to. Rather, it is the sort of film one studies and revisits over a period of years. A fascinating example of big picture movie-making on an intimate scale, Melancholia is the cineaste event-film of the year. Highly recommended, it opens today (11/11) in New York at the Angelika Film Center.

NYFF ’11: Melancholia

It is the end of the world or the end of Lars von Trier’s career. Whichever it is, it will finish with a bang. After this year’s Cannes, Melancholia is probably carrying more baggage as well as more laurels than a porter in the Roman Senate. Yet, it is worth considering von Trier’s Melancholia (trailer here) separate and apart from extraneous controversies when it screens during the 49th New York Film Festival.

Frankly, Justine would probably welcome the apocalypse on her wedding day. Hours late to her own reception, family tensions are already boiling over. Her hotelier brother-in-law John resents footing the bill for the lavish shindig when she does not even appear to take it seriously. Her very divorced parents are eager to start clawing at each other again, while her crude boss chooses the ostensibly happy occasion to play a weird round of mind games with his newly promoted employee. Claire, her slightly less highly strung sister, tries to hold the night together, but chaos is inevitable.

As Melancholia’s second part opens, Justine is now a basket case, having driven the adoring Michael away. Through Claire’s insistence, she is staying her sister’s family, acting weird and getting on John’s nerves. In addition to her family drama, Claire is increasingly anxious over doomsday scenarios regarding Melancholia, a hitherto unknown planet projected to cross quite close to the Earth. As an amateur astronomer, John assures her she should not pay attention to such media claptrap, but it is clear viewers should give her concerns credence.

Melancholia has been dubbed Another Earth’s evil doppelganger. To an extent, this is a valid analogy, particularly in the manner both films use science fiction concepts in what are otherwise very personal and intense human dramas. Yet, the comparatively free-wheeling first half of Melancholia feels more closely akin to fellow Dogma 95 filmmaker Thomas Vinterberg’s The Celebration. Indeed, it is a joy (though perhaps a slightly sadistic one) to watch Melancholia’s top shelf cast tear into each other.

The Best Actress winner at Cannes, Kristin Dunst really is quite unsettling as Justine. The term hot mess could have been coined with her in mind, yet she is never excessively showy in the role. Charlotte Gainsbourg and Kiefer Sutherland might sound like the most unlikely of couples, but they are quite convincing together as Claire and John (though at times we would not mind watching him open up a can of Jack Bauer on sundry family members).

Not surprisingly, the old pros Charlotte Rampling and John Hurt nearly upstage everyone as the bickering exes, luxuriating in their tart sarcastic zingers. They also look perfectly cast as Gainsbourg’s parents (though maybe not so much for Dunst). Yet, the biggest laughs (and they are considerable) come from von Trier regular Udo Kier as the snippy wedding planner.

In the moodier, more impressionistic second part, Gainsbourg and Sutherland largely shoulder the dramatic burden, which they handle quite adroitly. In fact, Sutherland’s nuanced work might be the biggest surprise of the film. The notorious von Trier also stages the end of the world quite inventively, employing a simple but cinematic device to depict the rogue planet’s advancing approach.

Though accessible for general audiences, Melancholia is not the sort of film one can give a pat nutshell response to. Rather, it is the sort of film one studies and revisits over a period of years. A fascinating example of big picture movie-making on an intimate scale, Melancholia is the cineaste event-film of the year. Highly recommended, it screens this coming Monday (10/3) and Thursday (10/6) at Alice Tully Hall as a Main Slate selection of the 2011 New York Film Festival.

The Family that Prunes Together: The Tree

Their mother is French-British-Australian. Dad is a tree. It is not magical realism, but simply the projection of a young girl still grieving her father—at least most likely. The family issues are certainly real enough in Julie Bertuccelli’s The Tree (trailer here), the closing night selection of the 2010 Cannes Film Festival, which opens this Friday in New York.

The O’Neils live an idyllic hardscrabble life. Their father, Peter, earns enough to cover the necessities, while their mother, Dawn, looks after the kids. Simone has the entire Australian wilderness as her backyard, but more often than not, she plays with her siblings in the enormously cinematic fig tree shading their house. Tragically, she is with her father under that same tree when he dies of a freak heart attack. As she struggles with bereavement, Simone starts to believe her father is whispering to her through the wind in the tree’s leaves.

Her mother accepts Simone’s attempts to commune with father, perhaps even encouraging them, because she too has not yet been able to let go. However, as the tree’s roots begin to breach the foundation of their home, some painful decisions will have to be faced.

Based on the novel by Australian Judy Pascoe, a former circus acrobat (a fact not especially germane but interesting nonetheless), Bertuccelli minimizes the fantastical vibe, focusing on the mystical but terrestrial beauty of the natural surroundings. A credit to the scouting team, the titular tree truly evokes deep archetypal images. Indeed, as cinema, The Tree is quite accomplished, featuring some impressive storm effects worthy of a bigger budgeted film.

In every sense though, Charlotte Gainsbourg is the glue holding it all together. She has warm and inviting screen presence that is difficult to put into words. She certainly exudes an earthy sexuality, but she is also quite mom-like, altogether well suited to Bertuccelli’s story of family drama. She also forges some smart and realistically grounded chemistry with Marton Csokas as George Elrick, her employer, plumber, and halting love interest.

Frankly, that domestic angst gets layered on a bit heavy at times. However, Bertuccelli realizes that a wide shot of the still sprawling Aussie wilderness is always a nice palate cleanser and a tight shot of Gainsbourg immediately refocuses the audience. Cinematographer Nigel Bluck definitely evokes the look and feel of early Peter Weir films, which is high praise indeed.

If kids really bug you under any circumstances, than you have to pass on The Tree. However, those who can deal with them for short intervals will be struck by an achingly sensitive performance from Gainsbourg and perhaps the most photogenic backyard in the world. Recommended for Gainsbourg fans and readers of women’s fiction a cut above Oprah Book Club selections, The Tree opens this Friday (7/15) in New York at the Village East.