3.0
-- ROMA, Alfonso
Cuaron
[reviewed
by Robert J. Lewis] In
the hands of the gifted director, who is able to combine exceptional
vision and loving attention to detail, the mundane, the banal,
the quotidian can command the awe accorded to the highest
art. Alfonso Cuaron's Roma
is a homage to memory, in particular childhood memories of
Mexico City in the early 1970s, and to the style and tempo
of Italian director Federico Fellini and French writer Marcel
Pagnol (My Mother's Castle). Through the accumulation
of small but striking details, we gradually enter the lives
of two women from opposite ends of the class spectrum who
live together. Sofia, the wife of Dr. Antonio, is the mother
of four children. The live-in maid Cleo cooks for the family
and tucks in the children at night. Both in turn are abandoned:
Sofia by her husband who skips town to join his mistress in
Acapulco, and Cleo by her martial arts boyfriend Firmin when
she advises him that she's pregnant. Over the course of the
film, the two women discover that they not only depend on
each other but in their daily struggles to get their lives
back they are stronger working together instead of predictably
defaulting to the dictates of class. The film is masterfully
shot in black and white. Every scene is meticulously framed
and poetized: the wide angle shots of the sere vistas of the
Sierra Madres recall the austere photography of Ansell Adams.
The crumbling lives of Sofia and Cleo are mirrored by the
surrounding chaos and violence of street protests and an earthquake.
In one of the film's most wrenching scenes, Cleo, about to
give birth, is rushed into the emergency ward. The accompanying
12-tone fugue-like acoustics are harrowing. With the volume
turned up, the urgency of the medical team is contrasted with
the calm of the support staff quietly reading out the vital
chart numbers against the ebb and flow of the violence and
gunshots from the street below. Most of the films effects
are generated by stark contrasts and juxtapositions with the
camera held on leash while recording family life and then
let go during periods of upheaval and celebration. From the
film's opening sequences, the succession of situations overwhelm
any notion of there being a plot or storyline, which requires
tremendous skill and unfaltering confidence, both of which
Alfonso Cuaron has in abundance. Roma could have
been, but falls short of being a great film, in part because
the character of Sofia, unlike that of Cleo, remains too sketchy
until the end of the film, and there are too many aimless
scenes of the adults interacting with the children. Perhaps
Cuaron, who directed the very cool Gravity, has sacrificed
on the altar of style and virtuosity memories and emotions
that are either too personal to deal with or ones that he
is purposely setting aside for a sequel.
2.8
-- HOLIDAY,
Isabella Eklof
[reviewed
by Robert J. Lewis] Everyone
is on holiday except for Sascha, the moll, or mistress of
mobster-gangster Michael and his henchman. Michael has rented
a luxurious villa on the Aegean, in Turkey's exotic Bodrum
peninsula. In Isabella Eklof's striking debut film Holiday,
the conventional vacation tropes are subsumed by an in-your-face
exposé on the relationship between of power, money
and sex. The sun-drenched setting and amoral characters recall
Jonathon Glazer's unsettling Sexy Beast.
Kinky Sascha has just arrived in Turkey and is met by a driver
who immediately slaps her around for overspending. This scene
sets the tone for the entire film in respect to those who
give orders and those who are paid to obey. From the opening
frames, the camera adores Sascha's long legs, usually set
off in tight, white shorts or butt-high beachwear. She loves
glamour, expensive jewelry and likes to look at herself in
the mirror. For the sake of a care-free life-style, she'll
do whatever tickles Michael's perverse fancy. She allows him
to drug her cocktail, after which he plays with her inert
body like a doll before subjecting it to violent sex. He routinely
beats her up, humiliates and degrades her, after which she
always apologizes. Michael orders one of his henchman to beat
to a pulp one of his disobediant employees. The beating is
so severe all of brute's knuckles have been scraped to the
bone. Wrapped up in bandages, the employee profusely apologizes.
Wild and impuslive in the meting out of reward and punishment,
Michael lavishes gifts on those he has abused. When everyone
gathers for a meal, they don't speak to each other; they are
vapid and without any interests in life other than their material
obsessions. Michael allows Sascha to wander around town alone.
She meets and takes an interest in the younger Thomas, who
lives on a boat. But after Michael humiliates her in front
of Thomas, the latter tells her to get lost and get professional
help. True to the abused becoming the abuser, Sascha doesn't
take kindly to Thomas's rejection. As the film concludes,
we realize that she is cut from the same brute and bloodied
cloth as Michael. Holiday is both an indictment and
no-holds-barred meditation on the nature of power and servitude.
It is a character study that has in its crosshairs the lives
of the damned and depraved at their ugliest. That the narrative
is static is more than compensated for by the intensity and
self-sufficiency of the individual scenes, their composition
and vibrant block colours. By film's end, and taking liberty
with a Beatles lyric, we ask "all the ugly people, where do
they all come from?"
2.6
-- LEMONADE,
Ioana Uricaru
[reviewed
by Robert J. Lewis] There
is no shortage of films that deal with immigrants desperate
to get into the country they hate: the USA. If it weren't
for its inconsistencies, Lemonade
(Ioana Uricaru's first film), could have been one of the better
ones. It features a trenchant script and two memorable performances
from the two leads: Malina Manovici in the role of Mara, and
Steve Bacic as Moji. The latter is the examining immigration
officer, the former is applying for a green card -- a once
in a lifetime shot at the American Dream. Mara, whose young
son has just arrived from Romania, had been working at a rehabilitation
clinic where she met and tended to David, with whom she quickly
fell in love and married just a few days before her visa expired.
Moji suspects marriage fraud and subjects Mara to a harrowing
and humiliating interrogation, digging deep into her sexual
relationship with her new husband David whose accident has
apparently left him temporarily impotent. After Mara confesses
that she had lied about her relationship, Moji, with the threat
of denying her a green card, forces her into sex. When she
foolishly confides this blackmail to her normally soft-spoken,
solicitous husband, he goes ballistic, accuses her of being
a whore and tosses her out. This and other unconvincing scenes,
on top of which the film relies too heavily on the standard
immigration tropes, detract from what is otherwise a compelling
storyline that smartly remains neutral on whether or not Mara
is exploiting or is in love with David. By the fact that Mara
is horrified by the degradation she is subjected to, cares
very much for her young son, and is capable of extraordinary
sacrifice, makes the case that any country would be better
off with than without her, and that the arbitrariness in the
system does not serve the national interest.
2.9
-- WOMAN AT
WAR, Benedikt Erlingsson
[reviewed
by Robert J. Lewis]There's
something to be said for filmmakers that don't play by the
rules, that follow their muse, their vision and imagination
-- come what may. Risking everything (budgets, reputation)
they dare to go where most fear to tread, knowing in advance
that more often than not it comes to naught. But when it works,
as it does so unforgettably in Benedict Erlingsson's over-the-top
Woman
at War, we marvel at the invention, the unstoppable stream
of creative energy that seems to come out of nowhere.
Halla, a woman in her forties, is a one-woman radical, terrorist
environmentalist. When she's not conducting a choir or working
as a yoga instructor, she's out in the breathtaking Icelandic
hinterland blowing up power grids, sabotaging industrial plants
and severing power lines. Thanks to sweeping panoramas of
Iceland's remote but haunting landscapes, fascinating rock
formations and glacial surfaces often bathed in steam and
mist, the viewer doesn't have to be told what she is fighting
for.
Availing themselves of all the resources at their disposal,
including sophisticated drones, the authorities are conducting
a nation wide search as Halla's life becomes more complicated
when she is told that after a 4-year wait she can adopt a
child from Ukraine. But that means she has to give up her
noble cause.
If the story line sounds straightforward, there is nothing
conventional in the way Erlingsson delivers the goods. The
sound track consists mostly of percussive organ, bassoon and
drum and sometimes a choir of three. The musicians are on
screen dressed in traditional garb. If at first the ploy seems
gratuitous, by the time the film ends, one comes to expect
it. The musicians are real people inspired by the events they
are witnessing. Halla, known as the Mountain Woman, roams
the countryside like a Robin Hood. Her daring escapes from
the authorities are at once humorous and surrealistic. Her
relationships with her sister, friends and accomplices are
somehow off-center, but easy going. They recall the infectious
quirkiness in the films
of Aki Kaurismaki, one of the country's all time great
directors.
However entertaining and jumpy are the many odd bits and pieces
of this film, the message is deadly serious -- to save the
planet from the ravages of industry -- which is why the ending
doesn't totally satisfy. Halla is eventually caught but in
a light-weight, unconvincing prison escape she ends up in
Ukraine only to find herself and her adopted daughter caught
in yet another world weather event. The flawless performance
of Halldóra Geirharðsdóttir in the role of Halla is matched
by the entire supporting cast.
2.7
-- LOS SILENCIOS,
Beatriz Seigner
[reviewed
by Robert J. Lewis] In
the long war between government forces and Columbia's FARC
rebels, the majority of the victims were rural peasants, forced
to swear allegiance to either one side or the other at the
threat of death. Many had to flee their villages. Beatriz
Seigner's modest but rewarding film Los
Silencios opens in the dark of night, following the prow
of a dugout gliding over the blackness. A mother (Amparo)
with a son and daughter are greeted and led to a rickety structure
where the grandmother lives. They have fled to an island on
a river that borders Brazil and Columbia and are applying
for refugee status. There are many bureaucratic obstacles
in their path, including a lawyer that pretends to want to
help them but is only interested in helping himself to financial
compensation due to them after the bodies of her husband and
daughter have been identified. The camera faithfully follows
Amparo's daily struggles to make a new life for her family.
She can only find a man's work hauling heavy sacks of fish
and is worried her small son is being groomed by a local contraband
gang. Since she can't afford to pay for her son's compulsory
school uniform she has to scrape together material and sew
it at home. An important village meeting is called because
a developer wants to purchase all the homes but is offering
only paltry financial compensation. The villagers aren't sure
if they even have a choice not to sell. The setting is impoverished
but sumptuous. Many of the wooden structures are on stilts,
as are the network of walkways raised above the wild grass,
climbing vines and spectacular root systems. Deep into the
film we discover that the daughter, who is mute, and the appearances
of the husband are mental projections, a coping mechanism
against loss and grief. In the local belief system, ghosts
are real and the dead don't really die. True to the struggle
and hurt the people carry quietly inside them, the lighting
is dim and the colour scheme is mute. The film concludes in
a haunting ritual on the water where the villagers, in their
lamp led dugouts, congregate to honour the deceased. Los
Silencios is a small film made large by unassuming villagers
whose dignity is assured in their refusal to be held captive
to the past.
3.1
-- STYX, Wolfgang
Fischer
[reviewed
by Robert J. Lewis] In
Greek mythology the river Styx separates Earth from Hades
(Hell). In No
Exit, existentialist philosopher Jean Paul-Sartre famously
said: "Hell is other people." Wolfgang Fischer's film Styx
honours both points of view.
In the opening scenes of one of the year's most conscience-wrenching
films, the camera follows the easy ambulation of a macaque
monkey effortlessly descending the exterior stair ladder of
a high rise, ambling along a deserted street in Gibraltar,
then effortlessly scaling a tall wall. The creature is preternaturally
at ease in its unnatural habitat. A few minutes later, the
camera is observing the deft movements of Rike, a woman in
her late 30s, who has decided to treat herself to a 5,000
km sailing adventure from Spain to the Island of Ascension
in order to escape the pressures of her medical profession.
Like the macaque, she too is totally as ease in an unnatural
environment (the sea). The camera moves in close as she expertly
adjusts the rigging, spins the winch, hoists the sails. We
marvel at her agility, dexterity and concentration: a majestic
glide in blue. From high on up, we observe her tiny 12 meter
boat -- a mere speck in the dark, foreboding waters. For much
of the film, there is no dialogue. Instead, we follow, are
mesmerized by her movements like listeners under the spell
of inspired speech. The diagetic soundtrack that accompanies
a brutal storm which tests her mettle creates an unnerving
immediacy: we hear the rain slashing down against the boat,
the battering of the wind, the violence of the waves crashing
into the fragile vessel, swamping the deck. When the storm
abates, Rike finds herself a couple of hundred meters away
from a leaking trawler that is packed with desperate African
refugees. She informs the coastguard who orders her to stay
away since she is not equipped to deal with the disaster.
In the meanwhile, she anguishes observing desperate refugees
jumping into the water and drowning. Averting her eyes from
the tragedy, she spots a small semi-conscious boy on a floater
and manages to haul him up and attend to him. When the boy
in broken English asks her why she doesn't return to the trawler
to save his sister, she is mute, at which point he begins
to resent his rescuer. She manages to contact another nearby
boat only to discover that it is under strict orders not to
help refugees. And when she realizes that the help promised
by the coastguard is slow in coming, she has to pretend her
own boat is sinking; only then help arrives. The film ends
with body bags being unloaded from the trawler to the rescue
boats.
What sustains this wonderfully crafted film is that we are
so taken up with the performance and agility of Susanne Wolffe
as Rike, and the efficiency of her sailing craft (she has
anticipated every disaster except the human one) her story,
her bravery and troubled conscience do not get swamped by
the political message. And where you would expect it most,
Fischer wisely does not give in to sappy sentimentality: the
boy refuses to bond with his rescuer. It's one thing to ignore
the cry of the stranger just outside your door, but it's altogether
something else when you are forbidden to do the heart's bidding
in the midst of a disaster. Styx plunges the viewer
into one of the insolvable dilemmas of our times where there
are no easy answers and far too many victims of the arbitrary
protocols that determine the way things are done and not done.
3.1
-- SHOPLIFTERS,
Hirokasu Kore-Eda
[reviewed
by Robert J. Lewis] In
the tradition of Not
One Less (Zhang Yimou), one of the great Chinese films
of the past quarter century, the Japanese film, The Shoplifters,
directed by Hirokasu Kore-Eda, through an accumulation of
small deeds and acts of kindness that speak large, makes a
unassuming philosophical statement of what constitutes meaning
and happiness in life. In the smallest of apartments Osamu
lives with his wife and daughter (Aki), the grandmother, and
Shota, a 7-year old homeless kid they have taken in after
finding him sleeping in a car. Returning from a shoplifting
expedition, Osamu and Shota hear the cries of a small girl,
who has been abused and neglected by her well-to-do parents.
Despite the claustrophobic quarters, persistent money problems
and fear of being accused of kidnapping, Osamu and the family
decide to take in the 4-year-old Yuri. Much of the film takes
place in the small confines of the apartment where they all
sleep on mattresses on the floor. Osama's wife works in a
laundry from where she steals. The daughter Aki works in a
peep show arcade. That they are all up to no good belies the
goodness in them. They share all their ill-begotten gains,
they care for each other, the adults care for children which
are not theirs, showering them with the love they never had
before, all the while living on the edge of the law. In the
midst of poverty and the most trying of circumstance, their
commitment to family is inviolable, which makes Shoplifting
an indictment of modern Japan, its rampant consumerism and
declining values. With its emphasis on family and unconditional
sacrifice, the film recalls The Man Without a Past
(Kaurismaki) and the Canadian television series, the infamous
Trailer Park Boys. Shoplifters is a film
with a strong message that manages to avoid preachiness and
bathos. When Shota is caught stealing, the family unit collapses.
The little girl Yuri is sent back to her family where she
once again finds herself neglected. Osama's wife is sent to
prison and Shota to a foster home. After discovering that
she isn't the real daughter of Osamu but was taken in like
the others, Aki returns to the only real home she has ever
known only to find it deserted. So much for the spirit of
the law in a land bent on growing a spiritual deficit equal
to the number of modern gadgets at its disposal. This gem
of a film is owed to Hirokasu's resolute focus and for allowing
his small but expertly composed interior sets to set the tenor
and tone for day to day life in the Osamu household.
3.0
-- THE REPORT
ON SARAH AND SALEEM, Muayad Alayan
[reviewed
by Robert J. Lewis] It's
not quite as rough going as Love
in the Time of Cholera but infidelity between an Israeli
woman and a Palestinian man in the divided city of Jerusalem
is a sure formula for disaster as well as a cautionary tale.
In Muayad Alayan's gripping The Report on Sarah and Saleem,
the latter, a delivery man, and Sarah, a café owner, are having
an passionate affair that consists of furtive once a week
meetings in the back of Saleem's van. Despite the greater
conflict swirling around them, none is particularly interested
in politics, even though Sarah's husband is an ambitious colonel
in the Israeli army. None seems aware of the surrounding political
realities threatening to burst their little bubble of lust:
decades of suspicion and mistrust, accusation, betrayal and
counter-accusation, and mutual hatred. One night Seleem invites
Sarah to join him in an evening delivery of contraband to
Bethlehem, and then to have a late evening drink. After Saleem
excuses himself to use the washroom, Sarah is approached by
an aggressive Palestinian, and when she bends down to pick
up something she dropped, her Star of David slips out of her
blouse. From here on in, their affair begins to unravel and
then spiral totally out of control. Israeli intelligence accuses
Saleem of trying to recruit Sarah as a spy because he signed
a paper to that effect in order to get himself out of a financial
jam while Sarah's husband looses his security clearance. Both
marriages break down and Saleem ends up in prison, albeit
as a hero to the Palestinians for his efforts. The film succeeds
in part because the director, Muayad Alayan, does not allow
the heavy handed regional politics to overwhelm the storyline,
which centers on two very average looking people who in and
of themselves are not nearly as interesting as their situation
and its ramifications. As the movie concludes, a very interesting
sub-plot develops between the two wives, who handle their
deteriorating situation very differently than the men. Since
the grid is Jerusalem, viewers will get a good look at the
historic city, including a view from Saleem's apartment that
overlooks the wall and a sprawling, modern Israeli settlement.
Top marks go to casting and for keeping the "beautiful
and the damned" of Hollywood out of the picture.
2.9
-- BURNING,
Lee Chang-dong
[reviewed
by Robert J. Lewis] In
the mad frenzy of a typical shopping day, Hae-mi has spotted
Jong-su while at work; she's paid to attract customers by
dancing in a skimpy outfit. Once an ugly duckling but now
as cute as a button with a coltish body, it doesn't take long
for city wise Hae-mi to seduce the shy and awkward Jong-su,
whom she then convinces to look after her cat while she visits
the bushmen in Africa.
Welcome to the new and digitally hip 21st century Korea, another
consumer's paradise where tightly packed stores and advertisements
hurtle the masses along surfeited narrow pedestrian ways in
veteran Korean director Lee Chang-dong's beguiling film,
Burning. As the jostled camera negotiates the streets
of Seoul and lingers in the interiors of the rich and not
so rich, we are reminded of how homogenized the world has
become, and no less so in matters of avarice, envy and ennui.
The first half of the film concentrates on family dysfunctionality,
the class divide and the changing nature of relationships
in the digital age. Both Hae-mi and Jong-su come from the
same small village from single family households and are struggling
to make ends meet in Seoul, the city that promises everything
but delivers only to the privileged few, one of whom is the
mysterious Ben, who is with Hae-mi when Jong-su comes to pick
her up at the airport. Ben is everything that Jong-su isn't:
rich, debonair and immaculately self-composed. He apparently
doesn't work, but drives a Porsche, and he gets his kicks
by burning down greenhouses in the countryside. Emotionally
flighty Hae-mi enjoys attention from both her suitors, but
ends up spending most of her time with Ben, who nonetheless,
like the Korea's version of the Great Gatsby, invites Jong-su
-- the competition -- to expensive restaurants and sumptuous
dinner parties.
Throughout the film our interest is sustained because we're
never quite sure of the facts and the true nature of the relationships,
only that Jong-su loves Hae-mi.
Jong-su is hound dog handsome and naïve. He wants to be a
writer but can't write because life is too much of a mystery.
Hae-mi, who is studying pantomime, is sensuously ebullient
and happy-go-lucky while Ben is aristocratic and calculating.
As it turns out, Hae-mi isn't all that she seems, and when
she disappears, there's a letdown as the plot morphs into
the more conventional mystery film. We incrementally learn
that Ben's penchant to burn down greenhouses might be the
least of his idiosyncrasies, but even that is in doubt despite
Jong-su's accusation.
Much of Burning's atmospherics and suspense are owed
to a highly original soundtrack comprised of haunting bass
and bell. In its off-beat contrasts and unusual juxtapositions
(Jong-su's farm is next to the North Korean border), Lee's
film offers a mother lode of analogies and metaphors, and
despite the length -- running time is 148 minutes -- Burning
breezes by on the strength of its aesthetics and agile camera
work, the strong performances of the three leads (especially
Jeon Jong-seo in the role of Hae-mi) and the bewitching promptings
from both the past and present that make the characters go
tick tic tick.
3.0
-- ALL GOOD
(Alles Gut), Eva Trobisch
[reviewed
by Robert J. Lewis] Men's
defense of rape has been typically spun out of the tightly
wound yarn of provocation and permissions. The
Accused, with Jodie Foster, examined in graphic detail
the provocation defense, and was one of the first films to
argue that NO MEANS NO. In All Good, first time director
Eva Trobisch examines rape through the permissions lens, but
with a twist: the rapist isn't defending himself (he in fact
apologizes). Instead, the victim implicitly faults herself
only to discover that the blame game is alibi that cannot
sustain the weight of fact. In rural Bavaria, we meet Janne
and Piet, a couple in their early 30s, struggling with their
finances and their relationship. She accepts a position in
the nearby city, and shortly thereafter is invited to a school
reunion. At the party, she meets Martin where they begin to
consume large quantities of alcohol while enjoying each other's
company. She invites him to sleep it off on the couch at her
place. After she has prepared the bed, she lets him kiss her,
he fondles her, and then she lets him place his hand between
her legs for five seconds before telling him to stop. Permission
interruptus. But it's too late. He begins to rape her. She
doesn't resist. When he's finished, he quietly dresses and
leaves. She is silent throughout. The next day, her first
day in her new position, she is introduced to the man who
raped her who is now a colleague at work. Feeling awkward
in her presence, he takes her aside and apologizes and invites
her to talk it over. She refuses, insisting that it's nothing,
that she's OK. For the remainder of the film she tries to
convince herself that she really is OK, blaming herself for
leading him on, we assume? But there are cracks in her mostly
whimsical and happy façade, such as when she suddenly erupts
in anger, or breaks down in tears, or is irrationally stubborn
over a small matter. When she discovers she's pregnant, she
decides to abort even though the child might be from her husband.
Janne, wonderfully played by Aenne Schwarz, is the centerpiece
of the film. The camera follows her face like a loving cat
wrapping itself around the leg of its mistress. Trobisch trusts
the actress to reveal her conflicted soul in her quietest
moments, when she's alone. Her face, sometimes filling the
entire screen, positively glows when she smiles -- and she
smiles a lot -- and just as suddenly turns dark when troubled
thoughts crack the surface. All Good is a debut tour
de force that belies the director's age (she's in her
early 30s). If all goes well in her life, we'll find out sooner
than later what she can do with real budget.
2.5
-- THE HEIRESSES,
Marcelo Martinessi
[reviewed
by Robert J. Lewis] If
you have just finished reading Hemingway's Men
Without Women, Marcelo Martinessi's The Heiresses
will hit with the full force of a paradigm shift: Males are
mostly absent or ghosts throughout the entire film. This detailed
character study sheds light, or rather claustrophobic shadows,
on the life of two elderly lesbians, who appear to be living
sexless lives under the cover of aristocratic privilege. We
meet Chela and Chiquita in hard times. The latter is in debt
and will soon go to prison for fraud, which obliges Chela
to sell off her expensive silverware and furniture. The living
room in which much of the film unfolds, despite its trappings
of wealth, has been drained of light such that it appears
drabby and lifeless, much like the occupants who are physically
slow and long past their prime. When Chiquita is finally incarcerated,
Chela is obliged to get out more and ends up driving her friends
to various functions. She is eventually persuaded to convert
her Mercedes into a taxi to help with the finances. While
chauffeuring she meets Angy, a younger sensuous woman who
appeals to both sexes. Angy, the only woman in the film who
is not grossly overweight, awakens in Chela lustful feelings
that have long been dormant, but the latter cannot act on
them, a prisoner of her long-term passivity and protected
life. Chela and Chiquita and their lesbian friends, in their
insularity, represent a quiet rebuke to Paraguay's patriarchy
and the implicit homophobia theirein. Martinessi's disciplined
lens stays the course in respect to lighting and the prevailing
dreariness of the interiors where the inhabitants seem to
be going through the motions of life. I suspect The Heiresses'
limited focus might prove to be too limiting for most viewers.
But for those who enjoy confining period pieces, this film
will definitely satisfy more than my take-it or leave-it grade
3.3
-- IF BEALE
STREET COULD TALK, Barry Jenkins
[reviewed
by Robert J. Lewis] To
the point of singularity, Florida born director Barry Jenkins
is obsessed with race, what it's like to be black in America,
refracted through childhood and sexual orientation in his
award winning Moonlight
(2016), and once again in his latest film, a tragic and uplifting
love story based on the 1974 James Baldwin novel, If
Beale Street Could Talk.
In both films, his mostly laconic characters and the timely
inclusion of gray (grace notes) in the stark black and white
that is America allow for a strategic retreat that softens
some of the film's mannerist shortcomings and diffuse the
black anger that had it been allowed free reign would have
taken the film in an entirely different direction. Both films
recall Tod Haynes's heart-sundering Far From Heaven.
Tish and Fonny have known each other since they were kids
and now they are a couple planning to make a life for themselves,
accepting whatever work they can get, with Fonny dreaming
of becoming a sculptor. Their plans are abruptly shattered
when Fonny is set up and falsely accused of raping a Puerto
Rican woman. In prison, Tish announces that she is carrying
their child. In their regular meetings through the glass,
we learn of the family's doomed efforts to find justice in
a rigged system. Through the glass darkly, their faces glow
and we can't take our eyes off them.
The film is deceptively non-linear because the narrative trajectory
is so expertly contoured and directional; the syntax is provided
by the emotional bonds that nourish the young couple's hopes
and attenuates their despair. When the two families meet over
the news of Tish's unplanned pregnancy, religious and class
differences break out in an explosive scene rife with accusation
and recrimination. The black on black experience is no less
unforgiving than the white on black. Despite the indictment
in both Moonlight and Beale Street, Jenkins
refuses to play the role of messenger or agenda breaker. His
influences are as far and large and complex as America is
good, bad and ugly. Jenkins is not an advocate but an artist
of the highest order, a willing servant of his aesthetic imperatives.
Every scene is exquisitely calibrated to tantalize the eye,
awaken the pulse and challenge our values and limitations.
If we are puzzled by his already significant achievement,
the vague promptings upon which his art turns, it is because
he grants America the possibility of transcendence in the
most unlikely circumstance, and persuades us that in the heart
of darkness the engine of love (between couples, families,
communities) is a power that, if it cannot right systemic
wrong, is so right unto itself it can create its own laws
and streams of small happiness. The sets, the almost palpable
colour schematics and the deft music score all contribute
to the notion that where there is love there is hope. The
jazzy soundtrack, that includes lots of priod jazz, perfectly
mirrors the film's emotional track except when Jenkins allows
the film's most poignant moments to be fleshed out with classical
chamber music that is so uplifting and disarming, the heart
dissolves, the sadness becomes less sad and the dignity of
all human beings is confirmed. I'm not sure what else you
can ask of a film.
