Hazy Days: Les Blank's "A Poem Is a Naked Person"

I can only imagine the reaction if Les Blank's "A Poem Is a Naked Person" had actually been unleashed on the movie-going public when it was finished in 1974. Following alt-rocker Leon Russell around for a three year period in the boondocks of Oklahoma during various recording sessions three years prior, documentary filmmaker Les Blank's film is a meandering portrait of backwoods culture and hazy rock and roll lifestyles that feels like the anthropological template for the films of Robert Minerva and even Harmony Korine decades later.

Rarely shown outside of personal events for more than 40 years, "A Poem Is a Naked Person" only saw the real light of day in 2015-2016 after Blank's death, when it was remastered and released through Criterion.... with the support of Blank's son and especially Russell himself. What emerges in this crusty document of early 70's rhetoric is a blast. Darting from a wedding of a band member in Russell's very Southern gothic mansion to interviews with a very entertaining man who eats glass at an Oklahoma air show, "A Poem Is a Naked Person" is just as weirdly poetic as its title suggest. One does get a ton of Russell's earthy alt-country/rock music (and even more cameos from friends as diverse as Eric Anderson, JJ Cale and Willie Nelson), but the intention of the documentary is to replicate a time and place not through aggrandizement, but a down-and-dirty synthesis of creative artistry and all the weird freedom that brings with it.

All of that freedom (and glass eating) aside, "A Poem Is a Naked Person" fills a documentary gap that had been brewing for some time. Even though the grandfathers of the genre, such as Frederick Wiseman, D.A. Pennebaker and Haskell Wexler, were playing hard and fast with the rules of the form, what Blank ultimately creates with his effort is an explosive step forward. Yes, in a sense this is a musical documentary, but one that continually side-steps the music for a loose interpretation of whatever else caught his (or Russell's rag tag fellow musicians) eye. In the basic sense of the word, unless one is crafting a History channel documentary meant to educate a classroom, isn't that what the truest documentaries are supposed to do? In the case of Blank's film, he not only captures some musical momentum, but also the wild, unpredicatble and hazy world around that momentum.

 

Star Children: Kiyoshi Kurosawa's "Before We Vanish"

A science fiction invasion film as seen through the (mostly) serene eyes of Kiyoshi Kurosawa, "Before We Vanish" brews at the same temperature as most of the auteur's previous work- that being part somnambulist before raging a bit brighter towards, in this case, ultimate apocalypse. Like Koji Yakusho in "Cure" (1997) or any one of the wide-eyed victims in his masterpiece "Pulse" (2001), the characters that populate "Before We Vanish" take some decoding before coming into sharp focus. But when they do, the film moves ahead with an entropic force that's hard to deny.

Opening on a mass murder as teenager Akira (Yuri Tsunematsu) stands over the bloody mess with pacified fascination, the echoes to "Cure" speak volumes. But before we get the chance to understand what this violent opening means, her story line is soon replaced by worrisome Narumi (Masami Nagasawa) as she cares for her husband, Shinji (Ryuhei Matsuda) whose mysterious sickness seems to be a neurotic imbalance that causes him to flop around and seemingly have to learn to walk again. Enter marooned news reporter Sakurai (Hiroki Hasegawa) snooping around the opening Akira murder story when he's approached by blank faced Suzuki (Ken Mitsuishi). It's here we finally get some explanation when Suzuki tells the report he's one of 3 aliens walking Earth, stealing "concepts" and ideas from humans in advance of an alien invasion. Sakuria begrudgingly agrees to be his 'guide' and chauffeur the stranger to various destinations looking for the other two body snatchers.

"Before We Vanish" certainly plays with lofty ideas. In the various scenes where the aliens come into contact with other humans, they engage in conversation (or create their own confrontations as Shinji does with one homeowner) forcing the human to focus on an idea (i.e. possessions, labor and the most complex of them all love) before stealing them away with a touch to their forehead like an innocent E.T. The only problem- the concept is then completely lost on the human being, leaving them a floundering soul in a world devoid of their understanding. Naturally, this begins a mysterious pandemic that sees the Health Ministry and the armed forces mobilizing to solve the unknown problem.

 

Suzuki does eventually meet Shinji and Akira, and the film devolves into more of an action parody with sub machine guns and rudimentary technological gadgets needed to communicate to the heavens than anything else as the trio struggle to complete their "mission". But before that (and as with all Kurosawa films) there's an attention to mood and style that's unmistakable. The film is at its best when its dealing with the tug and pull love between Shinji and wife Narumi. She wants to believe her husband is suffering from some sort of amnesia, but is finally forced to realize he really might be an idea-sucking extra terrestrial. And the way their relationship plays out to the very end is heartbreaking and complex, especially in her last request that may have saved the world after all.

There are some faults with "Before We Vanish", such as Kurosawa's forced world building of pandemonium breaking out across the city. Something tells me, for once, a tight focus (and perhaps a minuscule budget) prevented the filmmaker from truly expanding his canvas of panic and public menace outside of a single hospital scene.

Still, as a society who've just begin to marginally emerge from a worldwide pandemic, the unknown creeping horror presented in "Before We Vanish", and so many other terrific Kurosawa films does strike a deep chord of recognition. Released in 2017 but never proceeding further than the festival circuit, "Before We Vanish" may strike one as unnerving, but its central idea of someone losing their very sense of self to an inexplicable force is even scarier.As one alien explains to Sakurai, Earth probably would not have lasted another 100 years anyway. At times today, with the morass of greed, selfishness and in-fighting plaguing us all, perhaps now is as good a time as ever for an invading alien force.

Mood

My favorite moment from any Hou Hsiao-Hsien film.

The Last Few Films I've Seen, Spring 2021 edition

1. Bloody Kids (1980)- Stephen Frears' film about two young boys (Richard Thomas and Peter Clark) surging through the nocturnal wasteland of new-wave dead end Essex, England after a prank goes horribly wrong is a masterpiece of anarchic energy. With a propulsive soundtrack that swaggers from inspired spaghetti-western theatrics to thudding heavy metal and a camera that swoops and glides around its characters with breathless energy, "Bloody Kids" captivates from the very opening. It only gets better when one of the young boys hooks up with a group of older men and women (led by the manics of Gary Holton) and the film sinks into an orgy of anti-establishment nose thumbing and petty criminality. Made for television and released in 1980, this is a film that deserves a rediscovery for its nervy ambition in representing the nihilistic attitude of punk rock Britain in the late 70's. For the record, the cops (and supposed adults) in this film don't get off easily either.

 2. Papa, the Little Boats (1974) -  One of four Nelly Kaplan films available on the Criterion channel. Psycho-sexual deception as screwball comedy. Not as good (or biting) as her previous assault on the bourgeoisie, "A Very Curious Girl". 

3. Dear Comrades! (2020) - Andrei Konchalovskiy, now in his 80's, is probably best remembered for his long ago Hollywood action hits like "Runaway Train" and "Tango & Cash". With this film, he retraces the appaling tragedy when Russian soldiers opened fire on a protesting factory group. The violence is swift and shocking, and its black and white cinematography adds a layer of grace to the whole affair.

4. The Taste of Violence (1961) - One of my favorite directors to discover over the past few years has been actor-director Robert Hossein. Producing a string of low-key thrillers and bastardized westerns with nary a hint of release on any video format (or streaming) here in the US, it's somewhat thrilling to continue finding small gems like this, as if I'm the only one who knows about them. This 1961 western tracks with the rest of his work, barreling though a variety of themes such as the almost wordless anti-hero Hossein himself plays, a Stockholm syndrome kidnapping, and superfluous camera moves that feel needlessly pompous and so freaking perfect at the same time. Hossein plays Perez, the leader of a band of Mexican outlaws who kidnap the president's daughter (Giovanna Ralli) and then tear themselves apart with jealousy and greed over her return to other revolutionary forces. Often filmed with searing landscapes behind them and never afraid to shy away from horrifying tableaux (such as a group of men hanging alongside a cobblestone street like heavy pinatas), "The Taste of Violence" is a western quite unlike any other.

5. Luz The Flower of Evil (2018) - It looks pretty and all, but the idea behind this slow-burn psychological horror film about a devout rural religious "prophet" and the hell he puts his 3 daughters through isn't pretty at all. I wanted to like it, but just couldn't connect.

6. All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace (2011) - More Adam Curtis films will soon follow as I really dig the rabbit holes he often goes down. This three part, 3 hour documentary enraptures for the first two-thirds, and I don't quite always follow the strands he attempts to weave together, but his image selection and musical cues are second to none.

7. Love, Gilda (2019) - One sort of knows the mediocrity one will get from these CNN Films. I didn't know a ton about Gilda Radner besides her terrific Saturday Night Live presence and that wonderful childhood favorite of mine, "Haunted Honeymoon". It's a well meaning effort, but one that doesn't dig far enough beneath the surface, even when it uses her own words to describe the turmoil and humor.

8. Pretend It's a City (2021) - This is very old-man-screaming-at-the-sky stuff. Watched as an obligatory Scorsese completest.

Cinema Obscura: Bertrand Tavernier's "Captain Conan"

Towards the very end of Bertrand Tavernier's rambling but masterful "Captain Conan", the titular character (played with bull headed narcissism  by Phillippe Torreton), tells his sometimes adversary/mostly war buddy lawyer (Samuel Le Bihan) that the people in his small village where he's retired to "should have seen him when he was alive". 

Alive- in the mind and soul of Conan- involves his reckless bravery during World War I and the eventual French occupation along the Russian border when he and his small band of troops would run headfirst into gun fire and attack the enemy at close range, taking an almost gleeful pleasure in killing with knives and detached bayonets. The first third of the film deftly follows this in choreographed long takes up hills, around explosions, and into the shadowy depths of smoke and fire. In this role, Conan is a god.

Things shift a bit in the second part of the film when the violence is largely over and Conan and his French soldier cohorts are charged with occupying and maintaining order in Belarus. It's here that Tavernier's real motives emerge. The glorification of violence in the muddy, treaded trenches and hills of World War I turns inward and the film asks questions about masculinity and the toxic attitude that pervades during peacetime. Some of my favorite films are about this murky point in history when the war is over, occupying lines are crossed and no one seems to understand (or care) about the norms of society. Think of Christian Petzold's "Phoenix" (2014). Rosselini's "Germany, Year Zero" (1948) or Carol Reed's "The Third Man" (1949)- all films that exquisitely map the rubble existence of black marketing, self debasement and moral compromise in a world where everyone's scratching for something. Conan throws himself into this void of morality with the same ferocity he did in war, covering up for his soldiers when they commit atrocities or burying himself in alcohol. 

All of this contradicts the narrow view of law and life that Lt. Norbert (Le Bihan) is forced to deal with, whether he owes anything to the swaggering heroics of Captain Conan or not. Tavernier sets up a complex back and forth as the French soldiers grind against the accepted and its up to Norbert to see some sort of justice is meted.

 

 

Eschewing any single point of view, Tavernier (who also wrote the impressive script) directs the hell out of the film. From the opening war images to the almost hilarious shuffling of bureaucratic duties among military leadership tired of nagging relatives or superfluous documents, "Captain Conan" takes the title of one man but slowly opens up to conflate the whole experience of war. It's easy to create an anti-war film, but Tavernier does the impossible and makes a statement that war is perhaps necessary for some people and then simultaneously corrosive for the same.

Moments of the Year 2020

Inspired by the now defunct Film Comment "Moments Out of Time" series and the great Roger Ebert's year end recap, this Moments of the Year list (now in its 22nd edition) represents indelible moments of my film-going year. It can be a line of dialogue, a glance, a camera movement or a mood, but they're all wondrous examples of a filmmaker and audience connecting emotionally.

 

 

 Bill Nighy and his predilection for fire place screens in “Emma.”

A gunshot and a dog scrambling from the scene. Haunted memories and regret that plague an informer in “The Traitor”

In "The Sound of Metal", the single scene of Mathieu Almaric and Riz Ahmed in a kitchen together as a father who knows more than he says, and his silence speaks volumes as he allows a couple to reunite for the last time.

A woman (Mackenzie Davis) walking down a hallway, casting a shadow and another light shadow eerily stalking behind her.   “The Turning”

The way Fay (Sierra McCormick) says “stop smiling” twice to her friend when she asks about Everett (Jake Horowitz)    “The Vast of Night”

Sarah Bernhardt (Rebecca Dayan) coming backstage to meet "Tesla" (Ethan Hawke) as if she's exiting a psychotropic rave

Black water slowly recessing in a toilet to reveal….. A thing.   “Amulet”

A kitchen pot rocking itself out after being thrown to the floor during a police raid.  “Mangrove”

The desperate faces fixated on an unknowing man (James Northern) as he peels an orange and then throws the peel to the floor, causing a small scuffle from the rabid group of poverty-stricken people.  “Mr. Jones”

Wisdom from Abel Ferrara in “Sportin’ Life” when he states “old keys don’t open new doors, man.”

Willem DaFoe initially going out to chastise a homeless man yelling in the street beneath his window, and the scene that unfolds afterwards between the two men.   “Tommaso”

In “Texas Trip”, the performance of body horror by Mother Fauker.

The badly drawn Obama tattoo.  “The King of Staten Island”

When Tutar (Maria Bakalova) states she wants a nice cage like her female neighbor. Cut to a woman in a cage giving us the finger in “Subsequent Borat MovieFilm”

The way the camera slightly shakes alongside Jean (Rachel Brosnahan) as she learns to shoot a gun in “I’m You’re Woman”

A wedding reception and the alleyway into a street. Regret and time passing slowly for two different people in “The Traitor”

"His House" and the anxiety of waiting for a flip of the light switch to a netherworld of terror

A dinner scene with a group of hearing impaired people having a conversation in sign language, and then an abrupt cut to allow us to hear the innate noise caused by all the hand gestures and mouthing. Just one of the ways sound design is used brilliantly in "Sound of Metal"  

Hands connecting from opposite sides of a subway pole. "Never Rarely Sometimes Always"

In "A White White Day", the simple time lapse of a house and field over an undisclosed amount of time as weather and the passage of time take its toll.

A radio controlled car.  "Train To Busan: Peninsula"

We Are What We Are: On Chloe Zhao's "Songs My Brothers Taught Me"

On the receiving end of widespread acclaim with her latest film "Nomadland", it would behoove anyone interested in Chloe Zhao as a developing filmmaker to visit her feature length debut, "Songs My Brothers Taught Me". As a filmmaker wholly interested in presenting complex stories of individualistic wandering among a community rarely experienced on-screen, all of these tenets are present from the get go.

Like she did with her sophomore film "The Rider" (2018), "Songs My Brothers Taught Me" takes place with people mostly portraying themselves.... or at least thinly veiled fictional recreations of themselves. And it wouldn't be far off to wonder if that later film didn't rise out of the barren-land ashes of this film as Zhao's camera often becomes much more interested in the rodeo bucking community that fraternally rubs against her Indian reservation-set debut. But regardless of its foundations, "Songs My Brothers Taught Me" is an amazing film for the way it never seems to be in a rush of narrative. Things happen and great developmental arcs occur, but the film just captures a sense.... a time... and a place with generous acuity.

The story that eventually develops involves teenager John (Johnny Reddy) and his twelve year old sister Jashaun (Jashaun St. John) who live on a South Dakota Indian reservation. In the first few minutes, we learn their licentious father has died in an accident. It bothers the two siblings, but the film isn't about their sadness over his death. Instead, we observe as they figure out who they want to become in life. John is involved with a local girl (Taysha Fuller) and their amorous plans to leave town together loom. Meanwhile, young Jashaun observes her brother's burgeoning adulthood from outside, eventually becoming friends with her heavily tattooed stepbrother (one of about 19 children from her father around town), freshly released from prison and battling to stay afloat in a world that constantly offers little escape.

Beyond that, "Songs My Brothers Taught Me" is a mood thing. Zhao often frames the activity around the reservation in long shot, allowing for streaks of lightning to cascade in the background or curtains of sunset light to bathe the screen. The mixture of nature and man- that is so prevalent in all her work- gets first attention here. It's a beautifully rendered atmosphere for John and Jashaun to bounce around this big sky country with dour, internalized permutations of angst and unsuredness. We feel for them because although they reside in a place largely foreign to my experience, the emotions and depth of confusion in growing up are universal. Zhao seems to excel in creating these types of stories and I look forward to following her long and beautiful career.

My Fav Movies of 2020

As posted at Dallas Film Now: 

My favorite movies of the year, in descending order:

15. Tesla

14. Zappa

13. Undine

12. Saint Frances

11. The Assistant

10. Miracle Fishing

9. Sound of Metal

8. Never Rarely Sometimes Always

7. To the Ends of the Earth

6. Portrait of a Lady on Fire

5. Mangrove

4. Crip Camp

3. The Vast of Night

2. Tommasso

1. The Traitor

The Best Non 2020 Films I Saw in 2020

10. Greaser's Palace (1972), directed by Robert Downey 

The story of Christ transposed to the American West.... where Christ wears a purple zoot suit and brings back to life the same man about a dozen times. Absurdism isn't quite the right word. Hysterical, it is. In one scene, two men try and ride away on a horse but continually fall off. I'm not sure if this was intended commentary on the trajectory of our expectations on the genre or just something that happened and director Downey decided to use it since the entire crew and cast were probably stoned The whole film is like that.... not quite a parody but wallowing in the excesses of hippie filmmaking to create something altogether unique. And the film stops down for not one but two extended song and dance sequences that only furthers its individualistic attitude about subverting things. I'm not as warm to Downey's other works, but "Greaser's Palace" is marvelous.

 

 9. A Vigilante (2018), directed by Sarah Daggar-Nickson

What drew me to Sarah Daggar-Nickson's film, "A Vigilante", was the star headliner Olivia Wilde. But what emanates from this film long after its over is the ferocious attention to sorrow and the unique/challenging ways that specific emotion can branch out into the world and provide relief for others. And I don't use the word "ferocious" lightly here. As an abused woman whose taken her harrowing ordeal to great heights, Wilde becomes a helper to other women who can't escape their own toxic plight. This sort of rationalization of violence has been the stalwart narrative device for lots of previous films (mostly male driven), but in "A Vigilante", Daggar-Nickson taps into a special force that Wilde embodies with passionate dedication and steely resolve. This is a film that will make you wince.... nervous.... angry..... everything Wilde experiences, the film mirrors in intensity. It's jagged timeline of events doesn't make anything easier. "A Vigilante" is a film with an unassuming title, but one that deserves its place in the catalog of lean, driven revenge films but asks that you don't necessarily cheer for its protagonist, but get just as angry with her about the culture of abusive violence. The least we can do is recognize the anger behind its action-film facade and do our best to listen and help those living this fiction for real.

8. Laughter In the Dark (1969), directed by Tony Richardson

Like his best film "The Loved Ones" (and one of the truly great films to earn the moniker of black comedy), director Tony Richardson's adaptation of Nabokov's "Laughter In the Dark" is uneasily funny and consistently unnerving, especially in its final third after free-spirit Anna Karina has successfully and insidiously evaporated the posh lifestyle and marriage of an art dealer (Nicol Williamson). She's not fully to blame, since Williamson laser-sets his attention on Karina upon first sight....like a similar sexual compulsion that spins the eerie attraction within Nabokov's most recognizable work "Lolita". "Laughter In the Dark" is so good because it can be read as an attack on many things: the end of the 60's as free love and flower power turned dark and the hippies settled into the burgeoning halls of power and innovation around the world.... as sexual compulsion literally blinding someone.... and as a potent exploration of man and woman's shifting, destructive power over each other. This film deserves a proper release (seen here through a copy obviously spliced together from an old worn VHS tape). Anna Karina has never been better as sensual exploiter with a strong head for absurd manipulation. 

7. Reign of Terror (1949), directed by Anthony Mann

Though taking place within the Robespierrian subterfuge of late 18th century France, Anthony Mann's "Reigh of Terror" walks, talks and looks like a 40's American noir. With barely a frame of sunlight to brighten the elusive motivations of its various double and triple agents- all searching for a little black book of names that could derail or save France's future- the film is heavy in both mood and tempo. It's also a white-knuckle ride of close calls and searching deception. One of Mann's best films produced directly after "Border Patrol" and among a string of original noir films that feel effortless.

6. A Dark Song (2016), directed by Liam Gavin

Every now and then, a horror film comes along that understands the true value of slow burn. Liam Gavin's "A Dark Song" is one such effort. Like Rob Zombie's adrenalized "House of 1,000 Corpses", Gavin's film won me over in the final third when all the wicca magick and supernatural elements that provided a faint dusting of atmosphere in the first half give way to a mind-boggling climax of horror and outrageousness in its second half. In it's own twisted way, this is a film that has more to say about faith and the invisible lines between heaven and hell than most of those Christian produced I Believe films.

 

5. Fever (1981), directed by Agnieszka Holland

Agnieszka Holland's "Army of Shadows" and a bold early masterwork from a filmmaker whose had her definite highs and lows. Focusing on a roundelay of characters and never settling one just one, the film follows each revolutionary socialist in their relationship to the possession or harboring of a bomb intended to assassinate the czar. Just as doom-laden as Melville's earlier Resistance drama, "Fever" is an apt title, representing either the fervor each character feels for his/her revolutionary temperament and ideals or the sweaty impulse it imbues in the viewer as a series of double crosses, internal expulsions and coincidental incidents continually stifle their violent purpose. Hard to find, but well worth the search.

4. To the Ends of the Earth (2018), directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa

Kiyoshi Kurosawa swerves in yet another endearing direction with "To the End of the Earth". Essentially a travelogue film about a young TV show host named Yoko (pairing again with K-pop star Atsuko Maeda) and her camera crew slugging around Uzbekistan searching for human interest stories and locales, Kurosawa slyly opens up a nuanced portrait of culture clash and homesickness. Initially a cipher for the direction of her cameraman and producer instructing her what to do and say, Maeda's Yoko gradually becomes the silent beating heart of the film as she wanders around, gets into trouble for filming a restricted area and faces heartbreaking challenges from back home. And it's revealed that she, really, only wants to be a singer in life. But for all the film's stasis during it's first two thirds (with the exception of a freed goat and its ultimate repercussions), "To the Ends of the Earth" subtly shatters your heart in its final thirty minutes as Yoko breaks free from the constricted nature of her role and does something for herself. And the final moments are overwhelmingly sweet and hopeful in a film that, up until that point, made the case that leering eyes at outsiders and the inability to clearly communicate are terrifying ways to live day by day. Kurosawa has crafted a magnificent film that not only completely pivots from his other work, but reveals the master still hasn't lost a step no matter what direction he chooses to go. (edit: it appears this film has received a very quiet year end release in 2020.)

3. Seventeen Years (1999), directed by Zhang Yuan

Released in 1999- during the explosive and now legendary year of new Hollywood classics produced by expressive individualistic talents- Zhang Yuan's "Seventeen Years" deserves its overdue status as a masterpiece in the midst of this towering cinematic year. Essentially an observational travelogue film about a recently furloughed prisoner and the prison guard who unselfishly escorts her to her holiday destination, it eventually becomes an overpowering examination of regret and forgiveness. I dare anyone to watch the final few minutes and not get emotionally floored in the way Yuan stages a reunion scene where eyes, guarded body language and the gentle unspoken curl of lips says more about the inner workings of this family's trenchant relationship than any screenplay could ever deliver.

2. Border Incident (1949), directed by Anthony Mann

 

Made right before his run of film noirs would be over and he'd embark on a series of westerns throughout the 50's, Mann's "Border Incident" feels especially dark, full of heroic compromise and real-world nihilism that cancel each other out. It's also quite the prescient film. If not for a somewhat tacked-on voice over that closes the film with a hint of optimism, "Border Incident" could be released today and we'd all nod and agree that the problem is as divisive and violent as ever. The story, which delves into the illegal smuggling of Mexican labor forces across the US border, is half a cop story (as undercover agent Ricardo Montalban tries to infiltrate the criminal organization) and half brutal social commentary. This is the type of film in which a man is crushed by a tractor and it doesn't even blink an eye. With this film and "Reign of Terror", at number 7 on this list, filmmaker Mann reached his epoch of beautiful fatalism.

1. The River (1951), directed by Jean Renoir

Made smack in the middle of Renoir's second life in cinema, rooted in Hollywood after fleeing Europe during World War II, I'm repentant it's taken me this long to see this film (as if the case with so many late career Renoirs). Washing over one like a golden memory, "The River" introduces itself like an easy memorization  of languid colonialism, and soon transforms itself into an interior examination of what it means to actually remember those metamorphic moments that make us the people we are today.
Often praised for its Technicolor sharpness (and no doubt it looks incredible), but the real hook of the film is it's gentle spirit of the intimate. Focusing mainly on three young women- teenage daughter Harriet (Patricia Walters), friend Valerie (Adrienne Corri) and adopted Indian daughter Melanie (Radha)- the family lives in a sprightly existence. Prone to poetry and introspection, Harriet serves as the film's narrator, trying her best to objectify the subjectivity that happens along the way. And what happens along the way is the appearance of Captain John (Thomas Breen), a wounded war veteran who comes to live with the family, setting off fireworks between all three females on the property.
But far from a glib tale of unrequited love or possession, "The River" (based on a novel by Rumer Godden) is much too smart for such a thing. Each woman steadies a distinct relationship with Capt. John and the film carefully measures out the mood of each. With Valerie, the relationship is seductive and adult. With Melanie, it's tenuous since they both come from staggeringly different backgrounds. Their relationship feels like the one that would overtake the rest of a much more slight effort. And with Harriet, "The River" finds its true footing, which is an examination of a young woman trying to make sense of both her flowering adulthood and the cruel world around her. None of the three relationships drown the other out, and each compliments the film as something attuned to the gentle rhythms of growing up.

Shocktober 2020 #1

 House of Dracula

Featuring some moments of intrigue, "House of Dracula" (1945) is most remembered for its ill-advised move to conflate the stories of Dracula, The Wolfman and Frankenstein into its very short 80 minute run time for a chiller that falls more flat than fleet. A piano scene in which the magnitude of Dracula's hypnotism comes out and the above use of shadows and terror are the best things about this film. For Universal monster movie purists only.

 

The Night Eats the World

How does one keep the zombie genre alive and kicking? It's become the most tackled subset of the horror genre for over 40 years now. Dominique Rocher's "The Night Eats the World" succeeds where few else have tried, emphasizing the mundane over the maniacal. With the exception of AMC's "The Walking Dead" (which can do such a thing because of  its expansive length), here's a zombie film that, yes features some rabid flesh-eating creatures, but more importantly focuses on the quizzical nature of daily survival and the impacts of deadly loneliness. As Sam, Anders Danielsen Lie is spectacular as one of the lone survivors of an apocalypse when he falls asleep and wakes up well after the world has gone up in bloody flames. Sheltering himself in the massive Paris apartment he finds himself in, Rocher's film is part comical (in the way he relates with an elderly zombie played by Denis Lavant) and part agonizing horror film as he's forced to stay alive with the bare essentials. "The Night Eats the World" nails both genres with strong direction and some gasp-worthy twists that position the film as one of the great modern zombie films.

The Creeping Flesh

 "The Creeping Flesh" hits all the sweet spots. Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. A moldy, foggy Victorian England setting. Escaped raving lunatics. Botched chemistry experiments. An especially oozy latex creature-feature. So much good in this and a perfect Halloween watch.

Threshold of the Void

A quick check of French filmmaker Jean-Francois Davy's ouevre shows a hardworking man of..... erotica. Or, to put it more bluntly, porn. "Threshold of the Void" shows none of those proclivities. Instead, his tale of a mysterious black room that inspire creativity but seep the literal life (and youth) out of poor young women is an eerie and assured peculiarity. Emotionally damaged and alone in Paris, painter Wanda (Dominique Erlanger) rents a room from a nice old woman, only to be told never go through the locked door adjacent to the room. Of course, she does, and strange things begin to happen. While "Threshold of the Void" barters more in trippy psychedelic menace than outright gore, it's a film that earns its unnerving title even if its Polanski-era theatrics seem to be its main inspiration. This one may be hard to find, but worth the effort.

The Current Cinema (at home) 20.2

Never Rarely Sometimes Always

Filmmaker Eliza Hittman seems especially attuned to the vagaries of adolescent torture.... as if this cesspool of emotions and stunted psychology doesn't get its fair share of examination. But with her latest film, "Never Rarely Sometimes Often", she scrapes away at the trauma of a teenager (Sidney Flanagan) not only dealing with a major life choice, but setting her afloat in the concrete jungle of New York with little compass or means besides her cousin (Talia Ryder) who tags along for support. Both young actresses give astounding performances, where confused glances and pursed lips say more about their pained understanding of the uncaring world than any dialogue ever could. Filmed in hectic, handheld bursts whose images seem fleeting but ultimately tell just the right amount of story, "Never Rarely Sometimes Always" tackles complicated themes without compromising its characters. Like she did for male anomie in her previous (and also wonderful) "Beach Rats", Hittman has fashioned a lean, acute oeuvre of young outsiders struggling and coping with some heavy stuff. That all her films come off as bracingly honest is the highest praise one can receive.

Tommaso

"Tommaso" is Abel Ferrera's most personal film since tearing the sheets from James Russo and Madonna in "Dangerous Game" (1993) and revealing the existential/psychological hell that is making a movie. And since one of his previous films explored the tortured landscape of legendary Italian filmmaker "Pasolini" (2014), this time around Ferrara simply re-calibrates the idea as his own tortured landscape. Starring Willem Dafoe, "Tommaso" portrays a burned-out filmmaker living in Europe with his wife and young daughter (Ferrara's own wife Cristina Chiriac and Anna Ferrara), filmed in Ferrara's own home, and refusing to follow any major narrative thoroughfare simply observing the man as he confronts the stasis and paranoia bubbling beneath the surface. There are moments of weakness and infidelities. There are unsubtle bouts of madness. And there's one especially magnificent scene as Dafoe confronts a screaming homeless man beneath his loft window- and it hardly goes where one expects, creating one of the most absorbing scenes of the year so far. "Tommaso" is ragged.... unruly.... unconventional.... and a brilliant progression of Ferrara's frenzied creative output that, hopefully, will continue to avoid the hypnotic stagnancy put forth in this autobiographical stunner.

Recent reviews at Dallas Film Now:

My Spy:  Uneven family comedy with a plot rehashed from a 90's Arnold Schwarzenegger pilot.

7500:  It's not long before the cockpit in this action thriller becomes exhausting. And not in a good way either.

Cinema Obscura: Seventeen Years

Released in 1999- during the explosive and now legendary year of new Hollywood classics produced by expressive individualistic talents- Zhang Yuan's "Seventeen Years" deserves its overdue status as a masterpiece in the midst of this towering cinematic year. Essentially an observational travelogue film about a recently furloughed prisoner and the prison guard who unselfishly escorts her to her holiday destination, it eventually becomes an overpowering examination of regret and forgiveness. I dare anyone to watch the final few minutes and not get emotionally floored in the way Yuan stages a reunion scene where eyes, guarded body language and the gentle unspoken curl of lips says more about the inner workings of this family's trenchant relationship than any screenplay could ever deliver.

But before that, Yuan establishes a cadre of characters in a family during 1980's China, stepping back in time seventeen years. Now on his second marriage, Yun (Liang Song) is barely able to keep his household together. His wife and her daughter Yu (Liu Lin) seem to provoke and taunt his daughter Tao (Li Jun) at every turn. When the issue of missing money comes up one morning, the two stepsisters (urged and inflamed by both parents) argue before leaving for school. On the way there, something happens that sends young Tao to prison for the aforementioned time span.

The tragedy of how Tao got there takes up only a fraction of the film's swift but effective run-time. "Seventeen Years" resumes those years later when Tao is released from prison for the duration of a Chinese New Year holiday. Also traveling from the prison is guard Chen (the wonderful Li Bingbing in an early role). Initially helping Tao find the right bus route and then realizing her indifference to actually getting anywhere at all, Chen decides to help her find her way home.

It's in this quiet relationship between Chen and Tao that "Seventeen Years" shines. Not much is said between them, but the moments they encounter together, such as Yuan's sly comment on China's destructive march of progress when Tao discovers her family's home has been demolished for years for urban renewal, echo the nostalgic sentiments proposed in so many of fellow countryman Jia Zhangke's films.

By also presenting two women as the protagonists in an era where Chinese films mainly treated them as simple matriarchs of a family through the passage of time or second wheels to the more dominant men in their lives, "Seventeen Years" stands out as something special for treating their problems....their worldview.... their sympathies for one another as equally haunting and monumental as that of male figures during the time. It's in the quiet, reserved performances of Jun and Bingbing that "Seventeen Years" really surges, however. The way they silently eat together or walk with hunched shoulders.... and especially the dignified reaction and slow turn Bingbing gives during the final scene when she realizes the magnitude of her unselfish mission with Tao... the two actresses seem to "existing" more than acting. It's a wonder to behold.

Though not an art house/household name, filmmaker Zuan (who did gain some acclaim a few years prior with his "East Palace West Palace") has carried on making films for the past two decades, but none with the exposure or impact of his 90's work. It's a shame. I desperately want to to see more of it. If the sensitivity and acute purpose of realizing the harsh truth of real forgiveness as exhibited in this film is present even remotely in his other work, than we have a talent who's sorely underappreciated. "Seventeen Years" reveals that time doesn't always heal all wounds, but the simple act of facing up to them can help dull the pain.

Waterways: Jean Renoir's "The River"

Late in Jean Renoir's first technicolor film "The River", a tragedy strikes the British family living in India's wonderland of colors, scents and smells. The incident happens off-screen, but in one of the few times Renoir allows his camera to move, he gently dollies over and across several members of the family in various states of relaxation and slumber, oblivious to the disaster that's about to sweep over them. It took me about ten minutes after this series of scenes to realize the pregnant importance of those seemingly arbitrary camera moves. Once I realized the subtle intelligent design behind the aesthetic choices, it only confirmed my belief that Renoir's film is striving for something more than a standard year-in-the-life observation of a family, but that he's searching for the inherent beauty (and sadness) in life itself, ebbing and flowing like the majestic body of water nearby.

Renoir does something similar with movement in his 1945 film, "The Southerner", panning across a series of pictures and a calendar on the mantle of the Tucker family towards the end of that film. Serving as more of an exhale of exuberant relief as the migrant-farm working family have accepted and passed through many turmoils and disasters over their humble homestead, Renoir's humanist beauty calls attention to itself only in afterthought. Nothing is forced, but its proof that he's a master collaborator of mood, style and subject.

But back to "The River". Often praised for its Technicolor sharpness (and no doubt it looks incredible), but the real hook of the film is it's gentle spirit of the intimate. Focusing mainly on three young women- teenage daughter Harriet (Patricia Walters), friend Valerie (Adrienne Corri) and adopted Indian daughter Melanie (Radha)- the family lives in a sprightly existence. Prone to poetry and introspection, Harriet serves as the film's narrator, trying her best to objectify the subjectivity that happens along the way. And what happens along the way is the appearance of Captain John (Thomas Breen), a wounded war veteran who comes to live with the family, setting off fireworks between all three females on the property.

But far from a glib tale of unrequited love or possession, "The River" (based on a novel by Rumer Godden) is much too smart for such a thing. Each woman steadies a distinct relationship with Capt. John and the film carefully measures out the mood of each. With Valerie, the relationship is seductive and adult. With Melanie, it's tenuous since they both come from staggeringly different backgrounds. Their relationship feels like the one that would overtake the rest of a much more slight effort. And with Harriet, "The River" finds its true footing, which is an examination of a young woman trying to make sense of both her flowering adulthood and the cruel world around her. None of the three relationships drown the other out, and each compliments the film as something attuned to the gentle rhythms of growing up.

Made smack in the middle of Renoir's second life in cinema, rooted in Hollywood after fleeing Europe during World War II, I'm repentant it's taken me this long to see this film (as if the case with so many late career Remoirs). Washing over one like a golden memory, "The River" introduces itself like an easy memorization  of languid colonialism, and soon transforms itself into an interior examination of what it means to actually remember those metamorphic moments that make us the people we are today.

On "The Traitor"

One might mistake the first third of Marco Bellocchio's latest film "The Traitor" as something produced from the Bruckheimer factory of splatter ammunition and human carnage. Taking place in Italy during the late 70's and early 80's, the film initially charts the reckoning of a mafioso war as the ravages from both sides ratchets up... complete with scrolling counter that appears on the edge of the screen, ending on a certain number as the bodies on-screen lay in their final violent resting place in each episode. It's not only a sobering gambit that factually recalls the terror of its time, but a visual keynote that instills certifiable dread in the viewer as it tumbles towards gargantuan numbers. However, Bellocchio isn't interested solely in shock value. What this opening third of the film does for the rest of its 150 minute epic length is caste a pallor over its real intention, which is to subtly define the growth of one Tommaso Buscetti (embodied perfectly by Pierfrancesco Favino) from mafioso snitch to plagued nobody left in the gleaming wilderness of neon Miami with a small arsenal and bleary-eyed regrets for the sins of his criminal past. It's not quite "The Irishman" level of haunted blackness, but it's awfully close.

After this explosive first half, "The Traitor" settles into an almost philosophical treatise on the twisted morals of a man turning his back on the 'family' who raised him. Taking up a remainder of the film, Bellocchio stays within the congested confines of the Maxi Trials and their unbelievably absurd surroundings. Hundreds of men in glass cages, shouting, hurling insults and genuinely disrupting a panel of judges trying to interrogate Tommaso, a man among them whose turned informant after the deaths of most of his family by the hands of the opposing Corleone family. Filmed in long stretches as the battle of wills becomes a battle of he-said-he-said (and really, in a snake pit how can anyone trust another?), "The Traitor"'s real sense of purpose comes into blinding focus. For a filmmaker whose been idiosyncratically searching for the complex relationships between family, political icons and warring ideals since the early 60's, this film may be the closest he's ever come to mining out the truth in the matter. Done because he feels everyone else is the real traitor for turning their backs on the age-old traditions of the mafia, Tommaso embodies a conflicted on-screen presence that begs us not to identify with him, but simply understand the collision of ideals he's fighting against.

As the 80 year old director's 27th feature length film, "The Traitor" is his most accessible in years, brimming still with aesthetic vibrancy and audible intelligence. But perhaps the most striking thing of all- despite all the unsettling bursts of violence- is Favino's portrayal of a man who my have turned his back on the organization known as the mafia, but who can't quite outrun the nightmares of his sordid life. To the film's credit, it ends with a heartbreaking whimper rather than a loud bang.... and it resonates all the more strongly for it.

The Current Cinema 20.1

Gretel and Hansel

Compact and atmospheric, Osgood Perkins' "Gretel and Hansel" is remarkable for the way it chokes subdued themes out of the classic fairy tale. Instead of a cautionary beware-of-strangers theme that the original story so fluently embedded in wide-eyed children, Perkins throws in unsettling motifs about budding femininity and personal sacrifice. A Gretel, Sophia Lillis is exceptional.... and make no mistake, as the inverted title belies, this is her tale as she struggles to make sense of the moody world collapsing around her as she and her brother find solace in the cabin of a spooky old woman and her never ending feasts. It's not so much how the story evolves as how Perkins plays with our expectations, inching along in streaks of eerie pathos rather than outright scares. It may not be for every horror affectionado, but it's just the right amount of calculated dread for my tastes.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire

Magnificent acting and a natural approach to every relationship developed in this tender French drama, "Portrait of a Lady on Fire" deserves the accolades its been garnering since premiering at Cannes last May. Working through a spare narrative- an artist (Noemie Merlant) is hired to surreptitiously paint the portrait of a to-be engaged young woman (Adele Haenel) on a windswept coastline- Celine Sciamma's film becomes a masterpiece of self discovery as the women form a delicate relationship. Although furtive glances and pregnant silences are the de rigueur images for this type of dramatic unrequited love tale, "Portrait of a Lady on Fire" deploys them to breathtaking efficiency where the act of seeing and being seen cuts straight into your heart. 

Immigrant Reform: Anthony Mann's "Border Incident"

Like many of his contemporaries, director Anthony Mann's filmography swept across the decades of Hollywood's evolution from the dramas of the 30's, the bleak film noir of the 40's and finally ascending to the heights of big budget spectacles of the late 50's and early 60's. Just looking at the titles that dot his resume (from hard-nosed classics like "T-Men" and "Winchester '73" to the pomp and circumstance of "El Cid"), Mann undulated with the times like the best of them.

Unfortunately, I feel woefully inept at accurately responding to the breadth of his films as I've seen so few. I'm pretty damn sure I've seen "Raw Deal", "T-Men" and his western forays with Jimmy Stewart, "Winchester '73" and "The Naked Spur" on TCM or Bravo TV showings back in the day, although I don't have firm documentation in the likes of Netflix markings or Letterboxd notes... which seems to suggest that, nowadays, if this technology isn't checked, the past might not even exist.

All of this is to say I've set out to right this wrong, and if my first jab at Mann's content is any indication, I'm in for a vibrant viewing experience. Released in 1949 and starring Ricardo Montalban and George Murphy, "Border Incident" posits a spy thriller framework over the liberal minded expose of exploitative immigrant culture and the deep-seated (and deep pocketed) conspiracy that aims to use and dispose of them when the work is finished. As two police officers on opposite sides of the border seeking to end the cycle of violence, Montalban and Murphy go undercover- Montalban as a migrant worker desperate to cross the US border and find work and Murphy as one of the middlemen stealing documents to cover the tracks of those in charge.

Full of deep focus rack shots and sinewy midnight lighting- urgent because most of the film takes place in the wee hours of the night where malice and discretion are apt bedfellows- "Border Incident" parlays both the best of film noir and subterfuge thrillers in the way it establishes strong tension around believable characters stuck in-between the (at one point literal) grinding wheels of evil. In fact, although Montalban is the real star, lengthy portions of the film dart away from both he and Murphy, giving weight to the parasitic nature of the shadowy organizations in gritty detail. The forces of evil are embedded in the canyon border landscape so deeply that when one character thinks he's gotten away to safety, he runs straight into the warm den of a woman who promptly calls her husband.... and he arrives with shotgun in hand to clean up the mess for his superiors. No one said cleaning up the border would be easy.

Made right before his run of noirs would be over and he'd embark on a series of westerns throughout the 50's, Mann's "Border Incident" feels especially dark, full of heroic compromise and real-world nihilism that cancel each other out. It's also quite the prescient film. If not for a somewhat tacked-on voice over that closes the film with a hint of optimism, "Border Incident" could be released today and we'd all nod and agree that the problem is as divisive and violent as ever.

Moments of 2019

Inspired by the now defunct Film Comment "Moments Out of Time" series and the great Roger Ebert's year end recap, this Moments of the Year list (now in its 21st edition!)) represents indelible moments of my film-going year. It can be a line of dialogue, a glance, a camera movement or a mood, but they're all wondrous examples of a filmmaker and audience connecting emotionally.




The completely disgusted glare a bank robber gives Nicole Kidman as a splash of purple dye explodes in slow motion around him and the drop of a bag before he re-enters the bank. “Destroyer”

Customers in a dilapidated movie theater slipping on 3D glasses, which serves as our key to do the same for an extended 50 minute long take through the somnambulist mind of our male protagonist in “Long Day’s Journey Into Night”

From the window of a small prop plane, Joe Pesci’s car held in a slow pan to the left as it disappears from view.   “The Irishman”

In “Apollo 11”, the readings of heart rate and blood pressure from each astronaut. And Buzz Aldrin coming in at a cool 88 compared to Neil Armstrong’s 110.

Greta (Isabella Huppert) standing completely motionless in the street, a gargoyle keeping watch over her prey (Chloe Grace Moretz) in Neil Jordan’s potboiler deluxe “Greta”

“The Beach Bum”- Sprinkled in red light, Moondog (Matthew McCoughnahy) and Lingerie (Snoop Dogg) wax poetic against a dark blue sky with Miami’s lights twinkling in the background. It may be a frayed interpretation of life at the margins, but Harmony Korine envisioned some of the year’s most precisely imagined images

A stuffed animal tiger becomes a full sized one- and the gasp that Estrella (Paola Lara) emits when she first sees him lying in front of her.   “Tigers Are Not Afraid”

“Little Women”  Two timelines of running down the stairs with drastically (and heartbreaking) different results. Just one of the many thrilling ways Greta Gerwig plays with her literal translation.

“But what about the Ken Burns documentary we were gonna watch tonight?”   “Fuck The Dust Bowl”    “Booksmart”

In “Caballerango”, the camera observing a horse on a ridge line, and then the sudden shift to catch it as it momentarily runs out of view.

The guttural, howling cry of a woman (Florence Pugh) doubled over on the lap of her boyfriend as the camera slowly pans out the snowy window behind them.   “Midsommar”

Otis (Noah Jupe) translating the voices of his sparring parents during a contentious phone call. Humor and incisive trauma inflicted all at once.  “Honey Boy”

A woman (Jillian Bell) seeing herself in the reflection of a pretzel cart.  “Brittany Runs a Marathon”

The needle drop of a Scott Walker song that harmonizes perfectly with the drugging of a john in “Hustlers”

Waiting in the hallway for an old lover to ascend, the way Salvador (Antonio Banderas) wipes at his face and goes through a range of emotions.  “Pain and Glory”

Emily (Taylor Russell) telling her father (Sterling K. Brown) that she could have stopped the horror that shattered their lives and the way she breaks down.   “Waves”

The canvas of boats that sail out to meet and bring home the “Maiden”

In “Marriage Story”, Adam Driver singing “Being Alive”, and then impulsively running back to the microphone after starting to sit down, as if when he stops singing, his marriage will be over.

“Geminin Man” and a motorcycle chase through the streets

A slow pan backwards through a group of white-dress clad people standing in front of their respective slots at an outdoor dinner table, and then the slight bow along with them as they all take their seats in unison. In Ari Aster’s “Midsommar”, his camera is just another specter. 

“The Last Black Man In San Francisco”- A man preaching fire and brimstone next to a garbage-filled Oceanside while standing on a milk crate, and the slight smile and wave he gives as a car passes by, breaking his momentary anger into neighborly gesture  

“Tigers Are Not Afraid” - Fish swimming in the muddy water of a puddle.

Tao Zhao and the way the camera fiercely lingers on her as she steps from the backseat of a car and fires a gun in the air, then proceeds to walk around the car and prevent any more harm coming from a gang of thugs in front of her.  “Ash Is Purest White”

A room full of lawyers easily ordering from a lunch menu, and then the slow confusion of Henry (Adam Driver) not knowing what he wants.  “Marriage Story”

“You don’t know how good of a friend you got here.” “Oh, I know.”  No, you DON’T’ know.” Harvey Keitel basically telling Frank Sheeran (Robert DeNiro) ho close he came to being killed.   “The Irishman”

An underwater swim that transitions from nervous flirtation to crushing realism… and the look that Katherine Devers gives upon surfacing.  “Booksmart”

Pretty much anything Martin Lawrence did in “The Beach Bum”, but especially saying “be careful, you may shoot a dolphin” when MoonDog fires a gun into the air on his boat.

Amy (Florence Pugh) sternly describing how marriage is an economic proposition.  “Little Women”

My Faves of 2019

20. Uncut Gems (Josh and Benny Safdie)

Assuredly building a body of work that rings every ounce of desperation, energy and intense movement out of an already nervy New York City, the Safdie Brothers' "Uncut Gems" may be the definitive word on the subject. Starring Adam Sandler as a gambler/jewelry dealer whose every moment on-screen is spent wheeling, dealing and driving the audience for a heart attack, the film is assaultive  but essential.

19. Caballerango (Juan Pablo Gonzales)

Juan Pablo Gonzales' pensive documentary "Caballerango" is many things- an anthropological study of time and place, an excavation of memory for one family's pangs of grief around the suicide of their son, and a masterful example of our landscape's powerful ability to dwarf all of us. There are two shots in this film that stand as some of the most moving in years- a long monologue from a migrant worker about the state of hopelessness that seems to swath this small village followed by the truck he's sitting in taking off and slowly climbing up a gill, revealing just how close the camera has been to him the whole time. The second is the final shot as the camera watches two horses from a distance before they gently jerk out of range, causing the stationary camera to reflexively pan after them, as if the animals suddenly realized they were being watched and wanted to get away. It's a nice summation of the film itself, revealing that no soul (animal or man) wants to be bottled up for long.

18. Pain and Glory (Pedro Almodovar)

Pedro Almodovar's quasi autobiographical effort about a filmmaker addicted to pain medication, drugs and a sense of reconciliation with his past is a gentle and humane thing. As the Almodovar stand-in, Antonio Banderas has never been better. Oscillating between present tense and (supposed) past, "Pain and Glory" feels just as cathartic as something Fellini would have made, exorcising the demons of art, romance and sexual identity. It's Almodovar's best film in years.

17. Tigers Are Not Afraid (Issa Lopez)

Adding itself to a long line of cherished films about the nightmarish definitions young children apply to real world horrors, Issa Lopez's "Tigers Are Not Afraid" is startling and brilliant for how it deals with both of those layers. Following a rag-tag group of homeless children fending for themselves in a Mexican City hell where everything is run by drug cartels and maintains a post-apocalyptic vibe, the film soon gives enormous heart to its young protagonists and their daily struggles. Mixing tense crime thriller aspects with the veil of a horror film (equally frightening for the way Lopez visualizes her ghosts as dripping, moldy, black souls reaching out for anything), "Tigers Are Not Afraid" makes plain that the line between both genres is negligible. This film slipped through the cracks this year and I urge everyone to give it a chance on home viewing.

16. Shadow (Zhang Yimou)  

Crafting ground breaking and genre busting films for over 30 years now, Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou shows no signs of decline with his latest masterpiece, "Shadow". Playing like a twisted Shakespearean drama with royal intrigue, ghostly doppelgangers and  maddening betrayals, what's most bracing about the entire thing is its visual palette. Using muted colors and taking place in a landscape drenched in endless rain showers, Zhang allows the neutral scope to seep under our skin before shocking us with buckets of blood later on, making the gnarly bloodshed that much more poetic when it happens. Oh yes, there's a pretty damn good story here as well about warring factions, hidden kings and confused relationships. It all blends into a perfectly choreographed mythic tale that only Yimou could sustain.

15. Peterloo (Mike Leigh)

Imagining Mike Leigh tackle a historical act of massacre seems like an oblique fit for his intensely talky and introspective human nature dramas. I'm so glad he made this film, and yes, it does fit nicely as a very talky effort that exhaustively examines and discusses the swirling politics and history leading up to the event. The first 2 hours can be head-spinning for how many characters are introduced and have their say about the divisive lines between laymen and the governing body. And the final half hour....spent in an explosive   deconstruction of soldiers marching and killing scores of innocent protesters is enough to make one's blood boil. "Peterloo" is an immaculately rendered film of time and place (oh the locations and settings just reek of nineteenth century miserablism) whose distorted, complicated history is made quite clear by Leigh's unending craftmanship.

14. Non Fiction (Olivier Assayas)

For a film largely concerned with the marching evolution of technology, Olivier Assayas "Non Fiction" remains grounded in a very traditional framework of simple mood and antiquated tempo. Another talky like he's been making for over 20 years now, his latest film crackles with intelligence and sinewy humor as several couples are having affairs with each other, smoking cigarettes and talking around the sadness in their married lives. It also helps the film stars Juliette Binoche, Guillame Canet and Vincent Macaigne as said couples. In the background of it all, Assayas also touches on prescient topics such as the disappearance of the written word and our world's dedication (or lack thereof) to its production. In my original review of the film, I called this film the next continuation in the life of the harried teenagers from "Cold Water" (1994). I look forward to however else Assayas wants to shape this universe of people.

13. Little Women (Greta Gerwig)

Greta Gerwig's latest adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's beloved novel has stuck with me for days. Incredible acting, a sly sense of opening up the tale with a thrilling sense of editing, and an atmosphere that perfectly captures the alternatively freewheeling and morose swaths of fate that affect the four sisters, the film is a triumph of small emotions and gentle passage of time. No matter how small the part, each and every character is rendered as a vivid person. And, it only further cements the talents of all involved as defining artists for what will be decades to come.

12. Motherless Brooklyn (Edward Norton)

I have to begin by asking why it's taken someone 20 years to allow actor Edward Norton to write and direct again after his sweetly affectionate and witty debut film "Keeping the Faith". I fell in love upon seeing it in the theater all those years ago and it remains one of the best films of the 90's. A far cry in mood and tone than that previous ode to Lubitsch-like romance-comedy, his latest film, "Motherless Brooklyn" still retains his affection for people and relationships even when said relationships involve extortion, bribery, corruption and murder in 50's set New York where the sky's the limit for powerful men slicing up chunks of the city. Trying to unravel the mystery is Lionel (Norton), the adopted associate of a slain snooper (Bruce Willis) whose nose gets them all involved in some hefty affairs. Complicating maters is Lionel's tourette's disorder, which serves more as a compass for the nervousness he feels when things get heady, calmed only in moments after Laura (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) who may or may not be fully involved in the affair he's investigating. While the narrative of "Motherless Brooklyn" ultimately leans into noir-tinged familiarity, what's not pedestrian is Norton's supreme handling of the film's pace and composure. Lots of secondary characters (played by famous faces from Willem DaFoe to Michael K. Williams) provide a sprawling canvas of depth, but they're never allowed to overwhelm the carefully constructed atmosphere. Attuned to the beauty of the world around his concrete-bound characters, Norton continually cuts to things around them as they talk, such as golden blades of grass or the sun-lit dusted items on a bedroom dresser. For a film often caught inside the scrambled head of a man desperately trying to fit together the disjointed pieces, "Motherless Brooklyn" is a magnificently contemplative work and a seriously overlooked gem from 2019.

11. The Last Black Man in San Francisco (Joe Talbot)

It's not very hard to make San Francisco look dreamy and romantic on screen, but what director Joe Talbot does with "The Last Black Man In San Francisco"- besides a fully realized and heartfelt relationship between two best friends- is create a film of otherworldly beauty and quirky sentiments that feels wholly original. Actors Jimmie Fails and Jonathan Majors are revelations as marginal personalities in a gentrified San Francisco who make it their mission to save and restore a large house that once belonged to one of their grandfathers. A beautiful soundtrack, a host of memorable secondary characters and a complete control of mood situates "The Last Black Man in San Francisco" as a breakout effort from all involved.

10. Dolemite is My Name (Craig Brewer)

There was no better movie-going experience in 2019 than the Texas premiere of Eddie Murphy's affectionate ode to 70's filmmaking and maverick-outsider status than "Dolemite Is My Name". An audience rolling with every joke and riding the wave of every emotion elicited the exact same reaction I'm sure the original "Dolemite" film did for African-American audiences in the early 70's desperate for a film idol that wasn't James Bond or Dirty Harry. Profane and uproariously funny, "Dolemite Is My Name" is everything a crowd pleasing film is designed to do. Toss in a whiz-bang cast of associates such as Wesley Snipes and DaVine Joy Randolph, and the film far outstretches its modest Netflix designed small-screen ambitions into an expansive comedy whose main intention is bawdy reverence for a true cinematic pioneer.

9. Booksmart (Olivia Wilde)

About two-thirds of the way through- and once the film's teenage friends played wonderfully by Beanie Feldstein and Kaitlyn Dever finally make it to the graduation party they so desperately want to attend- "Booksmart" finds its footing and attains something quite terrific. The film's patchwork assortment of outrageous characters and high school crudeness coalesces into an achingly honest and masterful examination about the crushing facade of teenage life and its very thin margins of identity/acceptance. First time actor-turned-director Olivia Wilde balances the pieces together brilliantly, manifesting all the strengths of her film in one long shot that turns a shattering underwater discovery into an equally shattering composition of two young women trying to compose themselves in the uncertainties of adulthood. Just a great film all around.

8. Ad Astra (James Gray) 

Even though it resides in a loopy science fiction template that features ghost ships, nerve-jangling space walks and knife fights inside a cockpit, James Gray's "Ad Astra" is a lot closer to his morose studies of male psychosis and obsessive choices than it first appears. In fact, it makes for a nice double feature with his previous masterpiece "The Lost City of Z" in which pioneers of terrain and courage venture farther out into the unknown than anyone before them. In "Ad Astra", that explorer is astronaut Brad Pitt, chosen to travel to Mars (a planet that houses the last stable outpost of humanity in near future of colonization) in order to hopefully coax his lost father (also an astronaut) to stop sending chaotic micro bursts of energy from a failed mission decades ago. I know, it does preposterous when explained, but Gray manages to create a moody and introspective work of art that challenges science fiction conventions in its quiet remorselessness.

7. Destroyer (Karyn Kusama)

There's a trend in modern crime films I like to call "New American Miserablism". I suppose the grandfathers were David Fincher and Michael Mann, now carried forward by any young filmmaker treading into the noir tinged waters. Even the small screen isn't immune, specifically behind the grandiose darkness inherent in Nic Pizzaloto's "True Detective" series. Granted, even I'm worn down by the heaviness permeating these efforts. So why is Karyn Kusama's "Destroyer"- a crime film especially miserable, right down to the grizzled makeup coated across Nicole Kidman's face to exemplify the haggard weight of her world bending upon her- different? Well, it is and isn't. The film trades in so many themes and situations that have dotted the noir landscape in the past, however Kusama and screenwriters Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi resuscitate their effort into something special because of the layered storytelling whose timelines slowly reveal a painful tendency to protect only the best things from a very bad time. In addition, Kusama's crisp style renders a ubiquitous Los Angeles with new eyes, portraying viaducts and side street banks with just as much underlying ferocity as many other films have treated the beaches and Pacific Palisades mansions. "Destroyer" is a tough, meandering and ultimately a fragile personification of 'miserablism' done with grace and, well, heart.

6. Parasite (Bong Joon-Ho)

Although it's not quite a horror film, one of the most horrific moments of the year on-screen happens in Bong Joon Ho's "Parasite" as a set of crazed-white eyes slowly peers up from the darkness from a set of basement level steps, igniting a child's nightmarish imagination and sending the second half of the film into a frenzy of drastic action and numbing consequence. It's what Joon Ho does best- wringing recognizable genres until they twist into a morass of social commentary and obfuscated styles. What begins as ant act of greedy infiltration by a lower class family into the personal spaces of the upper class starts out simply enough before the screws are tightened and every shot, feeling and mood is controlled masterfully by Joon Ho. There are stretches in this film where I held my breath for what seemed like an eternity, hoping I'd soon be given permission to breathe. Caustically funny and whip-smart tense, "Parasite" is a master firing on all cylinders.

5. Waves (Trey Edward Shults)

A film of two distinct halves. First, an untethered camera floating with a boisterous soundtrack and histrionic emotions with a story that feels right at home in any young adult/teen fiction novel as athletic Kelvin Harrison Jr. deals with a diminishing body, an inebriated state of mind and a relationship that wrecks havoc on everyone involved. It almost all seems like too much. But that's the point of Shults' magnificent work as it pivots in the second half to younger sister Taylor Russell and how the somber reckoning of her family settles around her delicate shoulders. With "Waves", Shults has confirmed himself as a towering voice in modern independent cinema, enraging some and bewitching others. I look forward to whatever he does next.

4. Climax (Gaspar Noe)

Gaspar Noe's latest is a delirious concoction of New Wave musical and Euro-freak out horror film, fire-branded by his swerving aesthetic and provocative sound design that feels more like an assault than a viewing experience. Broken into three parts- including an opening of each character talking from a television set that serves more as a nerdy namedrop for the influences of Noe via the spines of books and VHS tapes cluttered around the image rather than a proper introduction- "Climax" then morphs into a punishing segment of carefully choreographed dance numbers interrupted by the young dancers' vulgar and misogynistic conversations about their carnal desires.... which serves as an apt reminder that Noe once made a film titled "Carne". From there, the film really goes off the rails as someone spikes the communal punch with LSD and the cloistered dance performers each burrow down their individual holes of tormented hell. Some screw the night away. Others fight. Others wander the neon-lit lodge their locked in like specters haunting the corridors of uninhibited youth, all captured by Noe's now trademark long takes that plunge us in, out, and around the confusion and bad trips. It's an unsettling portrait of modern youth, and one of Noe's best films that continues to pursue his aggressive vision of wasted society.

3. A Hidden Life (Terence Malick)

I can't even count how many times I gasped at the visual beauty present in Terence Malick's latest work of cinematic poetry. And then those visuals were overtaken by the emotional gut punch in its story of faithful farmer Franz (August Diehl) and his refusal to serve for Germany in World War II, choosing to stand his ground and be a conscientious objector. I've been out on the last few Malick films (his last great one being "The New World" in 2005), but "A Hidden Life" struck me as something staggering, heartbreaking and completely worthy of Malick's re-anointment as cinema's most purely spiritual guide. It's one of the few films whose passionate inner resolve of its protagonist seems to melt through the screen into our own hearts. 

2. Transit (Christian Petzold)

On another given day, this could easily slide into the top spot on this list. Adapted from a novel by Anna Seghers, "Transit" is a masterwork adapted (and updated) by Petzold from its original intentions of the novel's World War II experiences into the sleek and metropolitan anti-thriller in which the vehicles, dress and locale of today juxtaposed with the occupational fears of yesteryear- although some would argue the occupying forces are stronger and more insidious than ever. Like Petzold's previous film "Phoenix", he gets to play with the notions of a society simultaneously crumbling and rebuilding at the same time, leaving the inhabitants to pick up the personal pieces in its wake. And like "Phoenix", Petzold fashions a final scene so ripe with meaning and so crushing in emotional complexity, it only further solidifies the fact that he's one of the two or three best filmmakers in the world today.

1. The Irishman (Martin Scorsese)

With his previous film "Silence" (2016) and now "The Irishman", Scorsese has certainly entered his pensive period and, as a filmmaker whose lifelong investments have been people struggling with the cause and effect of inner turmoil (both spiritually and non), "The Irishman" may be his crowning reflection on the matter. As a sweeping tapestry of mid-century gangsterism and unionist history, it's a completely enveloping recreation of the stalwart loud mouths (Al Pacino as Jimmy Hoffa) and powerfully quiet sea changers (Joe Pesci as mob boss Russell Bufalino) who had their fingers on the pulse. And as a character study of one man (Robert DeNiro as Frank Sheeran) along for the turbulent and violent ride, it's a meditative masterpiece that ends on such a somber, devastating image that even after 3 and a half hours, I was still stunned it was over.