Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 117 - Oscar Nominee Anatomy of a Fall

On this episode, Barry and I head to court in France to debate the merits of one of the best films of the year, writer/director Justine Triet's French legal/family drama and Academy Award Best Picture nominee, Anatomy of a Fall. Topics discussed include the astonishing performance of Sandra Huller, Triet's masterful direction and script, and the glory of exquisitely well-crafted cinema.

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 117 - Anatomy of a Fall

Thanks for listening!

©2024

Anatomy of a Fall: A Review - Unnerving Legal Drama Hits Dizzying Heights

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT. A well-made and well-acted legal/family drama that succeeds by leaving you with more questions than answers.

Anatomy of a Fall, which is currently available on Video on Demand (I paid $6.99), is one of those movies that lingers with you, tormenting and teasing you for days after you watch it.

The film, directed and co-written by Justine Triet, chronicles the investigation and trial of a woman whose husband falls to his death while renovating their isolated mountain chalet.

On its surface, Anatomy of a Fall is a standard court room procedural and family/relationship drama, but it percolates with a dramatic intensity and genuine humanity that is exquisite and rare in the genre and which elevates it into a superb cinematic experience.  

The film, which is in English and French (with English Subtitles), stars a mesmerizing Sandra Huller as Sandra Voyter, a successful writer living in a remote location in the French Alps with her husband and young son Daniel, who is blind.

Sandra’s life is turned upside down when her husband Samuel dies and the legal authorities aggressively examine his death and pick apart every minute detail of Sandra’s life - including the state of her relationship with Samuel.

What is so unnerving about Anatomy of a Fall is that it lays bare the notion that anyone’s life, examined closely enough, could reveal them as being capable of, not so much of a crime, but of being found guilty of a crime…whether they committed one or not.

In a way Anatomy of a Fall feels like some sort of horror film, with the legal system playing the role of the insatiable monster relentlessly chasing their wide-eyed prey.

What makes the film so intriguing is that at no point, even days after viewing, are you certain, one way or the other, as to whether Sandra is innocent or guilty of murdering Samuel.

And yet, while we can be swayed by the case against Sandra, we also are drawn in, through Huller’s exquisite performance, into sympathizing and empathizing with her. She may be a criminal, but unlike the vicious prosecutor unleashed upon her, she is also all too human. She is fragile, vulnerable and flawed, which makes her an easy target for the machinery of the legal system, and also someone easy to relate to for viewers.

Huller’s Sandra is a character thoroughly lived-in. She is a normal middle-aged woman, tired and worn down from the grind of her life raising her son, working (she’s a writer), and maintaining her marriage…the usual stuff.  Huller’s Sandra is barely able to keep herself, and her family, together amidst the carnage of the accusations against her. Huller has Sandra in a constant state of unraveling through the ordeal of her dizzying descent into the labyrinthian legal system, but never chooses to have her unravel all at once, and it is captivating to behold.

Also captivating is Mile Machado Graner as Sandra’s blind son Daniel. Without giving anything away I will say that Daniel is caught in the middle of the legal battle and Graner plays this torment expertly. Like Huller, Graner never falls into the trap of over-acting, or over-reacting, and simply embodies his character and imbues it with a humanity that is both touching and terrifying in context.

Director Justine Triet, who co-wrote the script with her husband Arthur Harari, is a calm, cool and steady hand behind the camera. She never falls prey to the usual traps associated with legal dramas, namely choosing a side and revealing sympathies.

Triet also never lets her film turn cold and into a stale procedural. Instead, Triet populates her film with genuine, real people, and shows them, flaws and all, being stripped emotionally bare and subjected to the grueling meat grinder that is the legal system.

One can’t help but wonder if an American filmmaker would have the confidence, and maybe more importantly, the studio acceptance, to make such a subtle yet dramatically complex legal drama.  

Which also brings up the question as to whether American audiences can get on board with Anatomy of a Fall. At first glance I would think that most American viewers, raised on the exceedingly vapid, insipid and seemingly inexhaustible tv franchises Law and Order and CSI, would struggle to get on board with a story as subtle, nuanced and dramatically complex as Anatomy of a Fall.

But then as the film lingered with me in the days after my watching it, I began to think that it was exactly those Law and Order and CSI audiences that could potentially get the most out of Anatomy of a Fall, as it would, with its deft and cinematically skilled touch, shake them out of their comfort zone by subverting their expectations.

Add in the high-quality acting and I think that Anatomy of a Fall could resonate with wider audiences here in America. That’s not to say wide audiences, it is a French film with subtitles after all, just slightly wider audiences than usual for such arthouse fare.

Anatomy of a Fall is currently available on VOD, and I’m not sure when it’ll come to a streaming service here in the U.S., but I think it will get a Best Picture nomination at the Academy Awards this year, so that will generate interest to see it and a streaming service will no doubt soon follow.

My recommendation is to fork over the money and see it on VOD for $6.99. If not, then wait for it to hit a streaming service in the coming months. Regardless of how you see it, you should see it. You won’t regret it, and you’ll be mulling it over in your head for days after your viewing…just like me.

Follow me on Twitter: @MPMActingCo

©2024

Portrait of a Lady on Fire: A Review

***THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 3.75 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT. Cinephiles sholuld see this in the theatre and marvel at director Sciamma’s confidence and cinematographer Mathon’s deft touch. Regular folks should at least see it on Netflix or cable if not in the theatre…and should stick with the movie even when the pace is slow…as the ending is worth it.

Language: French with English Sub-titles.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire, written and directed by Celine Sciamma, is the story of Marianne, a portrait painter in late 18th century France, who is hired to paint the enigmatic aristocrat, Heloise. The film stars Noemie Merlant as Marianne and Adele Haenel as Heloise.

February is typically a pretty barren time of year to go to the movies as the big blockbusters haven’t started their early Spring blossoming and the prestige pictures of Autumn are a long way away. That said, this time of year is usually pretty good to catch foreign films from last year that are just now getting released in the U.S. And so it was with me and Portrait of a Lady on Fire.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire is a French film and while it was adored by critics it failed to be France’s choice to represent the nation at the recent Academy Awards, with the choice being the rather middling cop drama Les Miserable instead. After seeing Portrait of a Lady on Fire I have to say I am genuinely shocked at what a poor choice it was by France to over look it for the Oscars.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire is a strange film, at times beguiling, at other times boring, and sometimes both of those things at once. It is above all else a very French film, as its pacing is very deliberate, and may be too slow for American audiences weened on more frenetically driven films and narratives.

What is truly amazing about Portrait of a Lady on Fire is that while the first hour and a half can be slow going, maybe too slow, the last twenty to thirty minutes of the movie are absolutely exquisite. I cannot remember a film in recent memory that so effectively elevated itself by crafting a perfectly sublime final few scenes.

Without giving anything away I simply say that everything is beautifully tied together in the last few scenes, and the ending scene is as subtle, well-acted, poignant, insightful and dramatically palpable as any you’ll come across.

What makes the final scene so good, and the rest of the film bearable, is the acting of Adele Haenel as Heloise. Haenel is a mesmerizing and intriguing screen presence. Her eyes radiate a vivid and vibrant inner life that her stoic face beautifully restrains. She is an actress who conveys an ocean of turmoil beneath a porcelain veneer of detached cool.

Sadly, what makes the film at times a difficult slog, is that Haenel and her co-lead, Noemie Merlant, do not have the least bit of romantic chemistry. As magnetic as Haenel is on screen, Merlant is just as anti-charismatic. The two of them never seem to fully coalesce as romantic equals, and the film does suffer for it.

Unlike Haenel, Merlant is a bit dead-eyed, and does not convey any sense of an inner life or much life at all and is a bit of a dramatic dullard. All of the dramatic imperative of the film is conjured by Haenel and her desperation and desolation, and thus Merlant is left being more an observer than an active participant.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire is the story of forbidden love between two women, and the narrative places a plethora of powerful obstacles between the two protagonists. In this way, it is somewhat reminiscent of Brokeback Mountain…it isn’t as good as Brokeback, but it is in the same ball park thematically. It is miles and miles ahead of say, Call me By Your Name, which was an abysmally awful piece of pandering garbage that posed at being drama, but never actually was.

The cinematography on Portrait of a Lady on Fire by Claire Mathon is spartan and austere but extremely well done to the point of being elegant. Mathon uses minimal camera movement, fantastic framing, and natural and low light to not only paint a pretty picture that could easily hang in the Tate Gallery, but also buttress and enhance the emotional narrative of the movie.

Director Sciamma makes some very bold choices throughout the movie, most of which work extremely well. Fore instance, Sciamma’s decision to use no music and only natural sound (for the most part), is extraordinarily effective.

Sciamma’s writing is top-notch as well, as she is never in a rush and with her ending, forces viewers to re-evaluate in hindsight everything they just saw…and leave the theatre pondering the depth and breadth of it all.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire is undeniably a feminist film, in terms of its politics, but it never panders or takes the easy road. In one scene, which I won’t spoil, Sciamma directly addresses a very controversial topic and does so with remarkable artistic, dramatic and philosophical courage. I thought this scene (you’ll know it when you see it), and the ending, were absolute proof that Sciamma is an artistic powerhouse.

I think that cinephiles will enjoy Portrait of a Lady on Fire, especially if they adore French cinema. I think regular folks might find the pacing to be a bit too slow and thus may find the film impenetrable. I would say this though, I wholly encourage people to give this film a try, either in the theatre or on Netflix/cable, and stick with it to the end…as you may find yourself liking it more in retrospect than you did in the moment…I know I did.

For an in-depth discussion of Portrait of a Lady on Fire…with spoilers…check out episode 9 of Looking California and Feeling Minnesota.

©2020

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 9 - Portrait of a Lady on Fire

This week Barry and break down the intriguing French film Portrait of a Lady on Fire, which is in limited release here in the U.S. Our discussion may be useful for the less cinematically adventurous to listen to before seeing the subtitled movie, or as a supplement to those who have already seen it.

LOOKING CALIFORNIA AND FEELING MINNESOTA : EPISODE 9 - PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE

Or check us out on iTunes.

LOOKING CALIFORNIA AND FEELING MINNESOTA: EPISODE 9 - PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE

Thanks for listening and please share you comments, thoughts or feelings in the comments section below or email me at info@mpmacting.com

©2020

Les Miserables (2019): A Review

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!1 THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT/SEE IT. Not worth seeing on the big screen but if you stumble across on Netflix you can give it a shot.

Language: French with English subtitles

Les Miserables, written and directed by Ladj Ly, tells the story of a police officer’s tumultuous first day on the job with an elite street crimes unit in a Paris slum. The film stars Damien Bonnard along with Alexis Mantenti, Issa Percia, Djibril Zonga, Al-Hassan Ly and Steve Tientcheu.

After seeing the trailer for Les Miserables (2019), which is not to be confused with the 2012 Hugh Jackman movie musical of the same name based on the famous Victor Hugo novel, I was indifferent about seeing it. The trailer was a bit visually flat and did not capture my interest or imagination, but since the film is nominated for Best International Feature at the upcoming Academy Awards, I decided to roll the dice and check it out.

Les Miserables is not a bad movie, but it also isn’t a great one either. The film is named Les Miserables because it is set in the section of Paris where Victor Hugo wrote his famous book, and also because the movie highlights the same powder keg of revolutionary ingredients that are primed to combust now just as they were in Hugo’s time.

The film opens with the streets of Paris filled with celebration over a World Cup victory for France, but that unity quickly dissolves and battle lines are drawn between cop and criminal, blacks and whites, Muslims and non-Muslims, immigrants and natives.

Les Miserables is a rather conventional narrative that chronicles a day in the life of a bad neighborhood riddled with crime and injustice of all types. Police are thuggish bullies, warring factions of ethnic and religious gangs carve out small fiefdoms through brute force and intimidation, and children and young adults just try to survive in the suffocatingly tumultuous urban jungle they call home.

Director Ladj Ly’s script does a decent job of highlighting the factionalism that runs rampant in the slum. The Muslim Brotherhood looms large as an imposing and moderating force in the slums, and as a counterbalance to dueling ethnic drug gangs and the authoritarian police.

The slum is even divided by age as the children and teens of the housing projects resent the grown men who make deals with the police and each other in order to rule their kingdoms and line their pockets. This corruption of both cop and criminal turns the children of the slum into potential radicals eager to burn the whole rotten place to the ground.

Where Ly’s script stumbles though is in piecing together a coherent narrative that can drive the story from beginning to end. While the movie is filled with multiple interesting characters, such as “the Mayor”, a terrific Steve Tientcheu, or Salah, the formidably captivating Almamy Kanoute, they aren’t utilized well enough or often enough for the tale to be thoroughly compelling.

Ly’s direction and storytelling are both ambitious and admirable, but ultimately the film’s political and social sub-text feels a wee bit heavy handed and too on the nose to be artistically satisfying. The lack of subtlety regarding the film’s social commentary reduces the power and impact of it, and makes it all seem very trite. The film may very well be politically prescient, but that doesn’t make it dramatically potent.

This sort of obviousness regarding social and political commentary all feels very “French”, and the French-ness of the story and setting, such as the way Paris cops operate, their rules of engagement and all of that, reduces a great deal of tension, especially for American audiences. As I watched some pivotal scenes I couldn’t help but see it through my jaundiced American eyes and wonder why the hell these cops were behaving the way they were. To put it mildly, American cops would behave very differently when threatened. This disconnect, right or wrong, definitely had a negative effect on the dramatic impact of the film and the believability of the story.

As for the cast, Bonnard does really solid work as Pento, the main protagonist. As previously mentioned Steve Tientcheu and Almamy Kanoute are terrific, as is Issa Percia in a very difficult role.

In conclusion, as a calling card for director Ly, Les Miserables is a solid first feature film and it makes me intrigued to see what he does next, but in terms of being worthy of an Oscar nomination for Best International Film….not at all.

As for my recommendation regarding this movie…I think that cinephiles might find it to be a bit too conventional and politically obvious and regular cineplexers will find it frustratingly obtuse and a bit dull. The best bet is to wait for it to come out on Netflix or Amazon and then check it out there for free…because it simply does not rise to the level of being worth seeing in the theatre.

©2020

High Life: A Review

***THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!***

My Rating: 3.8 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT. But be forewarned, even though it is in English, it is a very “French” film and is definitely at home in the arthouse. If you have conventional tastes in movies, this one is not for you, but if you are a cinephile defintely check it out in the theatre.

High Life, written and directed by French auteur Claire Denis, tells the story of Monte, a young man who is caring for a baby on a mysterious voyage into deep space. The film stars Robert Pattinson as Monte with supporting turns from Julliette Binoche, Andre Benjamin and Mia Goth.

Claire Denis, the writer/director of High Life, is the critical darling of French cinema and the American arthouse. Denis has a distinctive film making style that appeals greatly to film critics but that the general public often finds impenetrable. A good example of this is that her last film, Let the Sunshine In (2018), which starred Juliette Binoche and could sort of be described as a French/arthouse romantic comedy, has an 86 % critical score and a 29% audience score at the review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes.

Part of the problem with Denis work, at least for American audiences, is that if you market a film as a romantic comedy, Americans will expect a rather simple Tom Hanks-Meg Ryan cute fest and not the verbose philosophizing, existential thesis that is Let the Sunshine In. Expectations play a big part in audience perceptions and thus in the ultimate success or failure of a film.

High Life may face the same marketing struggle as Denis’ other films, at least in terms of the general public. High Life is being sold as a sort of action-thriller, science fiction, space movie…in the vein of Ridley Scott’s Alien. High Life is a lot of things, but action-thriller is not one of them, and if audiences are aware of that and understand how to digest the film, they may come away with a greater appreciation for it…because there is a great deal to appreciate.

High Life is not Alien meets 2001, but rather is a beguiling, at times bewildering, dark, moody, existential and philosophical meditation on the meaning of life and what it means to be a human. The film is Claire Denis at her very best, using her signature style to create a deliberately paced, deliriously claustrophobic, non-linear dream/nightmare that is intentionally disorienting.

The film opens with Pattinson’s character Monte caring for baby all by himself on a space craft. The film then unwinds and reveals the who, what, when, where, why and how this strange combination of Monte, a baby, and deep space, came to be.

Being a parent is hard. Being a single parent is a Herculean task. Being a single parent in deep space is a circle of hell that Dante could never have dreamed up. Monte’s struggle to care for this baby is palpable, and as the child’s cries pierce through Monte’s space suit to his core, they also cut viewers to the bone. This scenario of the deep space single parent and the vulnerability of an infant, intensifies the suffocating sense of claustrophobia and heightens the ominous sense of foreboding that permeates the entire film.

Pattinson’s work as Monte is extraordinary. Monte is a psuedo-monk, struggling to control his human desires in order to, ironically enough, stay connected to his humanity. Pattinson gives Monte a very specific internal intentionality that illuminates his every action and drives him through every scene. Pattinson is an actor I never would have given a second thought to after those dreadful Twilight movies, but his fine work in the not so good The Lost City of Z (2017) made me take notice. Here in High Life he commands the screen without ever demanding attention, in fact, it is Pattinson’s use of introversion bordering on camera shyness that make him so intriguing and compelling in this role.

The rest of the cast do solid work as well. Juilette Binoche as the witchy Dr. Dibs chews the scenery like a starving women hurtling through the universe looking for her final meal. Mia Goth also does notable work as Boyse, a destructive and self-destructive anima figure, the polar opposite of Monte.

Claire Denis knows what she is doing when it comes to making movies, and High Life is a testament to that. The film is technically first-rate, as the cinematography, particularly the framing and lighting, as well as the editing, are superb but never overwhelm the tone and theme of the movie.

High Life is deliberately paced, and may be too slow for more conventional tastes, but I found the film to be captivating to the point of hypnotic. Denis’ ability to disorient the viewer’s perception of space and time was a master stroke that simulates for the audience the psychological, emotional and philosophical vertigo that Monte must struggle with and through as he goes along his hero/anti-hero’s journey.

High Life asks a lot of questions but gives no clear answers, which is maybe why I liked it. There were no easy escapes from the void of space or the existential issues raised. Ideas as varied as human value, spirituality, morality, physical purity, incest, humanity, witchcraft v. science, and even cats v. dogs, all come up in the movie and propel the philosophical narrative forward, backward, up, down and all around.

At the end of the day, High Life, like most space movies, is really an homage to, and imitation of, Kubrick’s masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey. High Life is no 2001, but to Claire Denis’ credit it is a very distant, but worthy enough, cinematic step-cousin, as it wrestles with the same question of human evolution and being born into, and cast out of, the Garden of Eden with nothing but our humanity to guide and protect us.

Space is cold and forbidding, and the struggle to maintain life amidst that black void is colossal, but not nearly as gargantuan (or heroic) as the struggle to maintain humanity. Monte’s evolution…which may result in being reborn the Starchild from 2001 or left to an eternity in the empty void of nothingness, lies on the other side of a black hole. He isn’t sure he is ready to make the trip…are you?

If you have the courage, and the open mind, I recommend you set aside your expectations and conventions and make that journey with Monte. Yes, there are some bumps along the way, the most noteworthy being a rather odd scene with Juliette Binoche (you’ll know it when you see it - it was the catalyst for two sixty-something women in my screening to make a hasty exit) that serves a certain and minor purpose but which goes on for a distractingly and interminably long time. But if you can simply get into the rhythm of the film, and not try and figure it out as it washes over you but rather experience it and all of the good and bad that comes along with it, I think you may find it as satisfying a cinematic experience as I did.

Again, this movie is not for everyone…even though it is in English, it is a very, very French film, and it reeks of the art house, so if you simply cannot or will not overcome your cinematic conditioning for clear narratives and resolutions, then you should skip this one. But if you are feeling adventurous and in the mood to contemplate the meaning of life and humanity amidst the unrelenting sea of darkness that is space, then gear up, strap in and take the plunge. You may find you enjoy the high life.

©2019