Isn’t cinema wonderful? It’s a series of images captured on film or digitally that has the ability to tell a story. Yes, a filmmaker can use audio to make this storytelling easier. But in the times of silent cinema, the image was all they had! Aside from the occasional interstitial, we are able to see Buster Keaton or Charlie Chaplin performing and innately understand what’s happening. What I’m attempting to convey is that cinematography, in all its density, can be boiled down to a singular concept: can a set of images tell a story on their own? The best of them can, without question. And I can distinctly remember the first time that was really made clear to me.
It was the first time I saw Jonathan Demme’s 1991 masterpiece, The Silence of the Lambs. And lo and behold, in the titular scene, it felt like I had peered into a new world of understanding cinema. Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) is behind bars speaking to Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster). The camera set-up is simple. It’s a standard shot-reverse shot, solely focused on the immediate face of each character. But the effect it has on the viewer? Immensely powerful. For Hannibal, the bars are just peeking into the frame. For Clarice, it’s just her, front and center. But over time, as Hopkins delivers his chilling monologue, questioning Foster’s special agent, there’s a shift. Hannibal is shown to have the upper hand, and all that’s done on Demme’s (and the brilliant Tak Fujimoto’s) part is the camera zoom shifts to reveal bars around Clarice, whereas Hannibal appears free and in the open. If played silently, the intensity of both performers is captured in such a way by Demme and Fujimoto that we understand their dynamic on a fundamental level. Hannibal may be the one in the cage physically, but psychologically, Clarice doesn’t have nearly as much free reign as she might expect. It’s one of the many stand-out sequences to be found in that particular film, but a prime example of a scene that has remained memorable for decades.
Cinematography can be treated as a catch-all term by audiences at times. To imply something has good cinematography boils down to some as “the imagery is beautiful.” And that’s understandable! After all, for a visual medium, one would hope that the image we see is, in fact, lovely to look at. But what if the images in a particular film are meant to unsettle us? What if the camera is being used not to pull us into a new world, but keep us at bay? A Gaspar Noé film is one that disorients us, and undoubtedly makes us uncomfortable at best, and despondent at worst. In the hands of a director like Paul Thomas Anderson or Spike Lee, we can feel at times as if we’re a phantom floating through a world separate in time and place from our own. In the hands of these acclaimed directors, and frequent cinematographer collaborators such as Robert Elswit or Ernest R. Dickerson, these directors hone their vision through the lens of a camera operated by absolute legends and pioneers in filmmaking history. And with this column, we will examine the works of some legends, as well as look for new contemporary voices in the exciting world of cinematography.
In 1945, to celebrate the liberation of France and the victory of World War II, the first major film to make its debut was the most expensive French film made at the time with a large ensemble. Marcel Carne, leader of the poetic realist movement, had directed his ultimate masterpiece, The Children Of Paradise, which remains, almost 80 years later, one of France’s greatest films. Despite changing tastes and the constant re-evaluation by the decade, Paradise remains highly regarded in French cinema history, in part because of what it took to make it. It was shot during a two-year span while the country was under Nazi occupation and made with limited funds and supplies which everybody worked together to complete the three-hour epic.
The story follows a courtesan named Garance (Arletty) in 19th century France who has four very different suitors who desire her love. A mime (Jean-Louis Barrault), an actor (Pierre Brasseur), a criminal (Marcel Herrand), and a aristocrat (Louis Salou) all meet the courtesan and she has certain feelings for them, but will only go about on her own terms. The mime adores Garance and has to work hard for her attention; while the criminal, who is also a known poet, is strongly implied to be gay. Garance begins an affair with the actor while seeking help from the aristocrat when accused of conspiring to commit a theft and murder.
Following the success of Les Visiteurs du Soir, Carne and his collaborator, screenwriter Jacques Prevert, were given the power to make a bigger movie as period dramas were the norm in occupied France. Barrault pitched to Carne a film on a famous mime, which was then expanded using other real-life inspirations to create a much bigger story than officials had allowed at the time. The third figure in this collaboration was set designer Alexandre Traener, who worked with Prevert on another film on which Carne was an assistant director, establishing the three gentlemen as close friends. Prevert and Traener, especially, would be friends for the rest of their lives and are buried near each other.
(Re)Building A Boulevard Of Dreams
The most a film could be length-wise was 90 minutes, meaning that Carne’s film was split into two parts. From the start, power cuts and rationed film stock dictated how much of the movie could be shot, even though the costumes and production design was easily made. Original funding from Italy ended when the Allies invaded Sicily and Mussolini was deposed, ending Italy’s relationship with the Nazis. Then, the producer was banned from being on set because of his Jewish ancestry, so Gaumont surrendered production to their rivals, Pathe. A storm damaged their long exterior set, the Boulevard of Crime, and it had to be rebuilt. It would be months before filming resumed, but other key members of the crew, who were Jewish, worked in hiding.
Despite the power cuts, Carne was able to film on schedule exactly as the script was written. He was known to be dictatorial as a director, commanding respect from everyone to attune to his perfectionist ways. Notably, it was an open secret that Carne was gay when Vichy France sought to repress and imprison known homosexuals. Some Jewish crew members hid, while others, who were half-Jewish with Christian surnames, worked openly and risked arrest. Food was scarce and members of the crew would moonlight as members of the Resistance, especially when they were filming in Paris in the months before the Normandy invasion, discreetly using the studio to trade important information.
Filming ended on the eve of the invasion of Normandy, meaning France was weeks away from being liberated. This caused one of the supporting actors, Robert Le Vigan, to flee as he was a known collaborator with the Vichy government. (Arletty had a relationship with a German officer and was tried after the war and given a brief jail sentence. She famously said, “My heart is French, but my ass is international.”) Le Vigan was replaced by Pierre Renoir, brother of film director Jean Renoir, and the scenes were quickly reshot. To avoid the hands of Vichy censors, which were very disapproving of content that went against family values, Carne reportedly kept the negative of the film.
Love And Fraternity
The story of the courtesan and her suitors follows the traditional poetic realism virtue of keeping fatalism with its characters who are stuck along the fringes of society. They have had nothing but failure and disappointment in their lives, but then get one last shot to have a happy resolution, namely for love. However, it ends sadly, the opposite of a fairy tale, and bitterness remains. The courtesan is the key for men who want that missing piece of their lives and the courtesan, while attaining her beauty, does not simply accept what is in front of her.
Children Of Paradise refers to the upper level of seats in the theater, the cheapest of seats, where the audience of working class backgrounds celebrated their favorite performances. Shots of them are seen constantly and to their applause is to win their favor for an actor or actress. In this world of art does reality blur with fantasy between Garance and her suitors of all classes. The mime is the one with the strongest passion and who is not of upper class backgrounds compared to others, so he is himself part of those “children.” The theater would be the ultimate setting for all of these star-crossed lovers who desire for a better life.
The release was a massive triumph for Marcel Carne and French cinema post-war. Children of Paradise was in theaters for 54 consecutive weeks and is considered the most quintessential poetic realist film ever made, but was also the last one before the trend turned to a more modernist view. The French New Wave, despite their criticisms for Carnes’ films as outdated with credit going more to Prevert’s writing than Carne’s directing, widely praised the film in the decades after. Carne would never direct another film of this caliber again and Prevert, who would receive an Oscar nomination for his script, would part company to write other films and books.
Contemporary views still hold the film in high regard as one of the best French films ever made, even remaining in the Top 10 from Sight & Sound until 2012. French critics and historians ranked it number 1 in a poll in 1995. Time Out France ranked it number 3 in the list of Greatest French Films in 2017. Francois Truffaut said, “I would give up all my films to have directed Les Enfants du Paradis.” It is a French epic that romanticizes the period completely and lives within the skin of its past, as well as carry the surge of France’s golden age of cinema to a victorious climax after the war and rebirth the industry into a new era.
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On this episode, JD and Brendan discuss the new Doug Liman film Road House, starring Jake Gyllenhaal! We recently caught up with the 1989 cult classic of the same name and in the conversation compare and contrast the two as we articulate why one is much more effective than the other.
Review: Road House (4:00) Director: Doug Liman Writers: Anthony Bagarozzi, Charles Mondry Stars: Jake Gyllenhaal, Daniela Melchior, Billy Magnussen, Jessica Williams
Synopsis: A coming-of-age love story that follows an aspiring creator with synesthesia, who must come to terms with an uncertain future, while navigating the pressures of love, family, and his Brazilian culture in Newark, New Jersey..
Very rarely does a filmmaker find a fresh angle for the left-for-dead romantic comedy. Yet, every once in a while, an exciting new voice emerges to remind us why we used to love the genre in the first place. That filmmaker’s name is Rudy Mancuso (The Flash), and his new movie Música is sweet, laugh-out-loud funny, and downright adorable from start to finish.
The story follows Rudy (Mancuso), an easily distractible young man who is a few weeks away from his college graduation. He is Brazilian and comes from a proud community and was raised by his single mom, Maria Mancuso, who is desperately trying to set him up with a nice Brazilian girl. The problem is that Rudy is dating Haley (Do Revenge’s Francesca Reale), a young woman from a lily-white world.
Haley wants security and has a plan, something Rudy struggles with. Instead of working a nine-to-five job, Rudy spends his evenings performing puppet shows on a Newark subway platform for tips. Haley cannot see a future with him, not to mention telling her parents she is dating a young man who works underground professionally with socks on his hands. But like any story involving love, it takes being smacked in the face with a large whitemouth croaker. Yes, you read that correctly.
That’s precisely what happened when Rudy lost track of space and time when he laid his eyes upon the lovely Isabella (Riverdale’sCamila Mendes), a delightful and self-aware young woman who works at the fish market. Isabella is kind and has an empathetic heart. She compliments Rudy, for example, by not sneering at his quirks but embracing them wholly.
That Involves Rudy’s Synesthesia – when one sense or part of the body is stimulated, causing a sensation in another sense or part of the body – which manifests itself by him being continuously consumed by sounds of the rhythms of life around him. They immediately hit it off, and the script by Mancuso and Dan Lagana (American Vandal) goes through some typical clichés.
However, they are so well done and charming that you will hardly have objections. Of course, Isabella will hit it off with Rudy; they have delightful chemistry. Additionally, you know Haley will somehow wander back into the picture, a staple within the genre. Yet, the journey makes Mancuso’s Música a breath of creative fresh air.
The rom-com takes some genuine chances with its script. For one, he embraces the filmmaker’s culture and finds an original way to portray the hands-on involvement of a Brazilian mother in her son’s life well into adulthood. If you are wondering why Rudy and his mother have such natural comedic chemistry, it’s because they are cut from the same cloth, as Maria is portrayed by his real-life mother.
(There is a lovely scene where Maria says something critical of Rudy in front of her salon customers, but Rudy laughs, calls her on it, but remains respectful and gives her a goodbye kiss on the cheek.)
Additionally, Mancuso’s film feels authentic to him. For example, Mancuso comes from the world of puppets, cutting his teeth as the voice of Diego in Awkward Puppets (“Don’t be a Hero, be a Diego.”). The scenes where Rudy works out issues in his head with Diego are hilarious and give a different layer of comedy that makes the film multifaceted.
Of course, Mancuso has a charming appeal because he is genuine and wears his emotions on his sleeve. He’s articulate but anxious. The combination of authenticity and imperfections makes his character relatable and incredibly endearing when you fold in Camila Mendes – the new streaming romantic-comedy queen – who is flawless in a role smarter than the genre and continues to stack good roles in good films. Música is a sincere romantic comedy that embraces community and personal growth, never forgetting life is a trip and we should enjoy the ride. The script is mindful that humans evolve and has guts to have characters’ lives that go on, no matter how the movie ends, which is rare. Mancuso’s film is a vibrant, rhythmic, and eclectic rom-com that sets itself apart from the rest.
This year, I have also been tasked with focusing on the race for Best Original Screenplay, a breeding ground for true artistic originality.
We live in a world in which intellectual property is more valuable than an original idea. Yet, more original films are made year after year. More ideas are dreamed up and worlds are conquered by someone, or someones, staring at a blank page than those stories taken from previously published materials. Granted, most of these films are not meant to be anything more than entertainment, but a select few will transcend beyond the actors saying the words or the technical wizardry on screen. They’ll hit us in a place beyond merely being something to watch, but something that makes us feel seen, feel heard, and feel like we’re not alone.
An original screenplay is often more personal, more experimental, and more enticing as it unfolds before us in unexpected ways. As a category it runs the gamut, through genres, through history, and through things not human at all. The category fosters a more egalitarian approach to film; inviting international features, genre features, animated features, small features, epic features, comedic features, and those historical lives whose stories transcend one mere master text.
Best Original Screenplay is one of my favorite categories because of its nature to surprise not only in missing out on a few (Bo Burnham’s Eighth Grade, Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City, Richard Linklater, Ethan Hawke, and Julie Delpy’s Before Sunrise), but in plucking some wonderful films and keeping them on the record (Joel and Ethan Coen’s A Serious Man, Nancy Oliver’s Lars and the Real Girl, Dan Gilroy’s Nightcrawler). With a category like this there are bound to be omissions and there are bound to be controversial choices (Green Book anyone?), but the vast pool of potential is an exciting speculative journey.
The possibilities are broad and so will be our search. It will take us from the indie darlings of the early festivals, to the summer sleepers, to the serious fall festivals, to the glut of the winter holidays, and all that streaming has to offer in between. This column will be a little free wheeling and might speak more toward subjective taste until the field becomes clearer. Hopefully it will be a place to relieve all that superhero fatigue and see something magical that may not have been on your radar.
“The Rewatchables”, one of the many movie-centric podcasts from The Ringer, runs through over a dozen often-hilarious categories in its weekly panel discussions of “rewatchable” movies from years past. While I greatly appreciate classics like “The Dion Waiters Award for Best Heat Check Performance” and “Just One Oscar, Who Gets It?”; there’s a special place in my heart for the question in which host Bill Simmons asks whether that week’s film could have a sequel or prequel, or could be remade as a limited series or with an all-Black cast. I’ve been performing a one-man version of this segment in my mind ever since I was a child, not with movies, per se, but books. (“The Re-readables”, anyone?) I spend a lot of my reading time — probably too much time — illustrating a novel’s events in my mind with actors in literary characters’ shoes, and asking myself one question: Could this be a film?
Oftentimes, this exercise is simple, for many of the books I tend to read have strong narratives that could easily be projected onto the big screen. Works like Christopher Beha’s “The Index of Self-Destructive Acts”, Robert Dugoni’s “The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell”, and Jean Hanff Korelitz’s “The Plot” come to mind with fond memories of my mind wandering to the audition room. In a more meta experience, if you will, I felt like I was watching a movie while devouring Gabrielle Zevin’s “Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow” last year. Fittingly, thelatterthree have all been optioned for screen adaptations.
Something that I find even more enriching, though, is reading a novel/source text that has already been adapted into a film or series, sometimes in the aftermath of watching the adaptation itself. Many readers will likely deem this behavior sociopathic — how dare I read the book after seeing the film? And in some cases, I agree: Franchise offerings like the Harry Potter series and Denis Villeneuve’s Dune films are better received with an appreciation or familiarity for the original texts. But when it comes to one-off works — like Aaron Sorkin’s script for The Social Network, adapted from Ben Mezrich’s book, “The Accidental Billionaires,” or Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, which was based on Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin’s Pulitzer-winning biography, “American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer” — I find that an interest in the source text comes after seeing the film.
There’s an element of fascination for me as to how certain films were conceived from the original material. What Nolan created from “American Prometheus” is no small feat; the same can be said for Greta Gerwig’s Little Women, Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood, and Andrew Haigh’s All of Us Strangers, a few of my favorite scripts that don’t shy away from their source material, but reimagine elements of the original texts so as to make them more cinematic, or more personal to the filmmaker themselves. These are but a fraction of the many screenplays that have drawn me to the craft of screenwriting over the years in the form of a passionate student, eager to learn. They are also great examples as to why the Academy Award I seem to most obsess over every year isn’t Best Picture, Director, Actress, et al: It’s Adapted Screenplay.
The path to a nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay at the Oscars used to be a bit more cut-and-dry: Adapt a novel, a non-fiction text, a short story, or a stage production. This was as much as spelled out in the category’s original name: Academy Award for Best Screenplay Based On Material From Another Medium. And though that’s still the most direct way to go about things, it has notably become “easier”, if you will, for scripts based on already-existent IP to pave their way to consideration.
Now, this has been the case from the start — works based on a story and characters set forth in a previously-released original film have always been eligible since 1929. The Academy technically first nominated (and subsequently awarded) a screenplay based on a character in 1942, when Mrs. Miniver took home the honor. The film’s titular character was originally conceived by Jan Struther, who featured Mrs. Miniver as a character in a series of columns for The Times before George Froeschel, James Hilton, Claudine West, and Arthur Wimperis co-wrote the script for Mrs. Miniver. But those columns were compiled in a book that served as the true source material for the film. Let’s call it a gray area.
If we don’t count Mrs. Miniver, the first time a screenplay of this nature appeared at the Oscars was in 2005, when Before Sunset snagged a nomination. The film, written by Julie Delpy, Ethan Hawke, and Richard Linklater based on a story by Kim Krizan & Linklater, is the sequel to the 1995 film Before Sunrise, making Sunset’s source material the characters from Krizan and Linklater’s previous work. Since then, nominations of this ilk have become more common. Some notable titles include:
2006: Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, based on the character Borat Sagdiyev from the television series Da Ali G Show by Sasha Baron Cohen
2009: In the Loop, based on the character Malcolm Tucker from the television series The Thick of It by Armando Iannucci
2010: Toy Story 3, based on characters from the film Toy Story by Pete Docter, John Lasseter, Joe Ranft, and Andrew Stanton
2022: Top Gun: Maverick, based on characters from the film Top Gun by Jim Cash and Jack Epps Jr.
And then, of course, there’s 2023’s Barbie, written by Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach, and based on characters created by Ruth Handler, the inventor of the Barbie and co-founder of Mattel. Despite the film originally campaigning as an original screenplay, the executive committee of the Academy’s Writers Branch later deemed that Gerwig and Baumbach’s work was an adapted screenplay, given that it was based on existing characters. Barbie entered a category with year-long odds-on favorites for nominations like Oppenheimer and eventual winner, Cord Jefferson’s American Fiction; it even beat Martin Scorsese and Eric Roth’s Killers of the Flower Moon for a spot in the category’s final five, an accomplishment of its own.
No matter your feelings about Barbie’s situation at last month’s Oscars, the evolution we can clearly see unfolding in this category makes for an interesting discussion about adaptation becoming less linear as time goes on. Filmmakers are finding increasingly clever ways to reframe existing stories in service of their narrative goals, and one could argue that the moviegoing experience is better for it. (There’s little doubt that the Greta Gerwig vision that became Barbie would hardly have been as compelling were it a biopic about Ruth Handler.) The majority of nominated screenplays will still likely be page-to-screen, but who’s to say something like Barbie can’t be done in the future by another gifted filmmaker? Maybe just not with Mattel’s intimate involvement…
Much like the goals I set on Wednesday for my monthly International Feature column, I hope to use this space to highlight new adapted works that may (or may not, but should) contend for an Adapted Screenplay nomination at next year’s Oscars. I’ve already seen a few 2024 films that warrant consideration — Denis Villeneueve and Jon Spaihts’ Dune: Part Two, Richard Linklater and Glen Powell’s Hit Man, and Sam H. Freeman and Ng Choon Ping’s Femme are all standouts — and each just makes me that much more excited to see what else stands a chance at awards. I’m equally eager to see what deserves our attention. Happy watching — and reading — until then.
On this episode, Kevin Lee from AwardsWatch joins JD and Brendan to discuss the latest in the MonsterVerse franchise with Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire! All of these films are varying forms of diverting thrill while being narratively very messy, and this one doesn’t do much to sway away from that formula. However, we do have a lot of fun talking about what makes it different, even if much of it is the same.
Review: Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (4:00) Director: Adam Wingard Writers: Terry Rossio, Simon Barrett, Jeremy Slater Stars: Rebecca Hall, Brian Tyree Henry, Dan Stevens, Kaylee Hottle
Director: Thea Sharrock Writer: Frank Cottrell Boyce Stars: Bill Nighy, Micheal Ward, Beckett Handley
Synopsis: Advocates to end homelessness, organize an annual tournament for Homeless men to compete in a series of football matches known as The Homeless World Cup.
What you’ll love about The Beautiful Game is how it challenges long-held perceptions and stereotypes of the “housing insecure.” I remember watching a rerun of The Andy Griffith Show in which Sheriff Taylor was apprehensive about helping a “homeless” man that Opie befriended. The man later ran away, scared, when Andy managed to get him a job. It was as if an honest day’s work was worse than riding in railroad cars and stealing pies off window sills, like a malnourished Jack Reacher.
As we know, homelessness can happen to anyone. Just look at The Pursuit of Happyness. Here, The Beautiful Game is not just a crowd-pleaser, which it indeed is. It’s a film that captures what co-founders Mel Young and Harald Schmied envisioned years ago when the event began in Sacramento in 2003. The tournament draws awareness and advocacy for the problem, creates social integration for oppressed groups, and teaches valuable lessons in inclusion and acceptance.
The movie follows a team of soccer players, or, correctly, English Football players, as they compete in the Homeless World Cup – a football tournament with purpose, whose year-round work culminates in a world-class event which has the power to transform the lives of participants and shape attitudes towards homelessness – that takes place in Rome. The players, yes, are homeless, but most are individuals in recovery or seeking asylum for a better life.
Led by their coach Mal (Bill Nighy), the longtime manager of the club, who brings on potentially their most talented player ever, Vinny (Empire of Light’s Micheal Ward), a gifted and cocky striker who is head and shoulders above the rest. Mal sees something in Vinny that he sees within himself, which is someone in need of redemption and a helping hand for a second chance at life.
The Beautiful Game was directed by Thea Sharrock (Wicked Little Letters), and the true story is an adaptation from Frank Cottrell Boyce (The Two Popes). Their film is a genuine crowd-pleaser. Yes, the film may not be breaking new ground for the genre for most people, but the general plot goes against the grain, as it is as original a premise when it comes to true stories as you can get. That elevates this Netflix streaming film above all else because it shines a light on a sociological problem distinctly and creatively.
One of the more entertaining aspects of The Beautiful Game is the character arc of Ward’s Vinny, who naturally feels he is above the team. That, bluntly in terms of talent, is true, but he fails to realize at first that his situation is like everyone else on the team. This is a classic tale, maybe even cliché, regarding incredible true stories that give the characters their own redemption, which the film essentially is about.
This type of evolving character is standard, but the chemistry between Nighy’s Mal and Vinny leads both to salvation, which gives the film additional weight regarding its incredible true story. Regarding inspirational tales, especially unique ones like this, the themes and the resulting satisfaction are enhanced because of the resilience, growth, and respect built between two likable yet contrasting characters.
Most importantly, in terms of a cinematic experience, The Beautiful Game lives up to the big sports moment it builds towards. I cannot tell you how often films fail to capture the glory of winning or the agony of defeat, meaning they miss the point entirely of what a movie experience can be.
However, when combined with a story of extraordinary social advocacy, which is rare for the genre, The Beautiful Game is a story head and shoulders above the rest, even if the road map is particularly familiar to the usual genre film destination.
Mere months before the World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 outbreak a global health emergency, Parasitedirector Bong Joon-Ho took the stage at the 77th Golden Globe Awards to accept the award for Best Motion Picture, Foreign Language. That would be far from his last acceptance speech during the 2020 awards season — Parasite received a litany of accolades over the ensuing months, including four Academy Awards, for International Feature Film, Original Screenplay, Director, and of course, Best Picture. But it would certainly be his most memorable.
With apologies to his Best Director speech at the Oscars, during which he said he planned to “drink ‘til next morning” in celebration, one particular quote from his Best Motion Picture, Foreign Language speech still stands the test of time: “Once you overcome the one-inch tall barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to so many more amazing films.”
Parasite was far from my first experience with a foreign film, but its award-winning run in the early months of 2020 seemed to mark a changing of the tides for international titles reaching mass audiences. Of course, critics and cinephiles had already made a habit of overstocking their watchlists with foreign features. But when I look back on Parasite’s shocking Best Picture win, I don’t think about the audience that had already been hoping and praying for its coronation.
Instead, I think about the way it piqued the interest of viewers like my parents, particularly my father. I often call him simple, not in an intellectual sense, but in relation to his lifestyle. He’s worked as a courier for FedEx for longer than I have been alive; he roots as hard for the Buffalo Bills as he does his family’s well-being; he loves The Beatles and Pink Floyd more than anyone I’ve ever encountered. In other words, I think he’d be a big fan of Wim Wenders’ Perfect Days.
He’s a man who used to meet my movie recommendations with a cursory, “Are there subtitles?,” but in the wake of enjoying Parasite, is now a bit more curious — adventurous, even — when it comes to trying out less mainstream cinematic offerings. Perhaps I can use this monthly column as a partial means to that end: sending suggestions his way, and the way of other interested moviegoers.
What I hope this column offers most, however, is a snapshot of this year’s best international films while also looking at those titles through the lens of the Academy Awards. I’ll be highlighting films that could feasibly contend at next year’s Oscars, as well as those that should be considered, even if other prognosticators might not see nominations in their future. Oh, how I wish I could have tilted the scales last year for films like Aki Kaurismäki’s Fallen Leaves (Finland), Christian Petzold’s Afire(Germany), Alice Rohrwacher’s La Chimera (Italy), Rodrigo Moreno’s The Delinquents (Argentina), DK and Hugh Welchman’s The Peasants(Poland), and Lila Aviles’ Tótem(Mexico). And of 2023’s nominated titles, no amount of praise is too much for the aforementioned Perfect Days (Japan), Ilker Çatak’s The Teachers’ Lounge(Germany), and the eventual winner, Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest(United Kingdom).
Perhaps even beyond providing an all-encompassing portrait of this year’s inevitable deluge of international cinema, I hope to advocate for its existence and prominence. I’m never more frustrated than when I hear about a great international film being optioned as an English-language remake; Thomas Vinterberg’s Oscar-winning Another Round(Denmark), which will apparently have its American remake directed by Chris Rock, and the James McAvoy-starring remake of Christian Tafdrup’s Speak No Evil (Denmark/Netherlands), are two infuriating examples that come to mind. And on March 27, it was reported that the Cannes Film Festival is launching a program of its own that will encourage multilingual adaptations of buzzy European titles. The program’s press release placed an emphasis on its hope to “tap into the thriving IP market… [remakes] offer lower risk and proven marketability.”
To which this viewer says: Where’s the fun in that? Some of my finest cinematic memories have come in the form of the international unknown, from attending a screening of Paweł Pawlikowski’s Cold War (Poland) without any knowledge of its plot, or falling in love with Joachim Trier’s The Worst Person in the World (Norway) and Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Drive My Car (Japan) when the I was desperately searching for movies that would make me feel something as the pandemic droned on in 2021. More often than not, I’ve found that international titles have provided that: fresh narratives from storytellers whose visions have yet to be reduced to rubble by the increasingly one-track-minded American studio system. I’m constantly eager to find more, and I hope my musings on the topic will fuel your desire to do the same. After all, who are we to let a one-inch tall “barrier” deter our discovery?
Animation as an art form has existed since the birth of cinema. The first full-length animated feature (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs) was released in 1938, less than ten years after the first Oscar ceremony (1929). From 1929 to 2002, Oscar categories were added, removed, renamed, and replaced many times; still, the Oscars never added a Best Animated Feature category. There was even a category named “Best Short Subject, Cartoon” (a category most of Walt Disney’s 22 wins and 59 nominations came from), but nothing that awarded the feature-length animated films themselves.
It’s not as if people weren’t nominating animated movies as numerous song, score, and sound nominations and wins went to animated films, Toy Story came away with an original screenplay nomination, and Beauty and the Beast was one of FIVE films nominated for best picture in 1992. So, I ask again: WHY was there never a category for animated feature films until 2002? It’s a question with very few answers; however, since 2002, this category has been home to some of the most innovative pieces of cinema in history. As I will be covering this category this year for Insession, here are a few of my favorite recent and memorable wins.
2019: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
From 2008 with Ratatouille to 2022 with Encanto, Disney/Pixar only lost the best animated feature twice, winning thirteen times over fifteen years. Over the 23 years of the category, Disney/Pixar has won fifteen times and been nominated a staggering 31 times. In 2018, with the release of Incredibles 2, it looked like the family superhero film would waltz through the season and earn Disney/Pixar its seventh animated feature Oscar in a row. That was until a different superhero came in at the last second to steal the glory. Into the Spider-Verse was released in late 2018, around Christmas, and took the world by storm. It is a multi-versal story about yet another Spider-Man character in yet another iteration in, yet again, another origin story that happened to beat the Goliath of this category, and it was never really close. Not only did Into the Spider-Verse bring humor, emotion, and a level of self-awareness rarely seen in superhero movies still, but it also elevated the art of animated storytelling to places the medium has never been before. This win is one of my favorite wins in this category and one of my favorites of all time because it won simply by being the best. From my memory, Sony did not campaign this film hard enough to win based on a campaign (and I think with a real campaign, this film could’ve done way more), yet it simply could not be stopped. Into the Spider-Verse swept the Annie Awards and won BAFTA, PGA, and Golden Globes in the two months between its December 2018 release and its Oscar win in late February 2019. It was a meteoric rise that isn’t seen too often anymore in the age of the lengthy awards season.
2023: Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio
The title of auteur has been mentioned maybe a little too much ever since it was first coined in the 1950s; however, it’s hard to argue this fact when the director of a film’s name is as attached to it as Guillermo del Toro’s is to his version of Pinocchio. For years, animation has been tossed back into the shadows as a “genre” for “kids.” This sentiment has been argued and pushed back by filmmakers such as Phil Lord and Chris Miller for years, but it took a name like del Toro to bring light to this situation, which he did throughout his entire awards season run – and still does today. Speech after speech, Guillermo del Toro championed animation as an artistic medium that is not only for kids and is as important to cinema as any live-action film. Del Toro displayed with his version of Pinocchio exactly how a film and idea that has been done countless times can still find a way to be fresh, exciting, heartbreaking, and authentic. The emotional speech began with the late Mark Gustafson speaking after winning his first and only Oscar as he talked about the beauty of stop-motion; however, it was del Toro’s moment, which began with the phrase, “Animation is cinema; animation is not a genre; animation is ready to be taken to the next step,” that will always stick with me as a lover of one of the best art forms there is.
Synopsis: A retired assassin is pulled back into action when his friend uncovers a dangerous conspiracy at the heart of the South African government.
I wouldn’t say most streaming movies are bad. In fact, I would say most films, including big theatrical ones, are not very good. However, what I will say about Netflix is that they offer what most socially conscious film critics tend to whine and cry about not having enough of, yet ignore what the streaming giant offers the most: unique perspectives of genre films from across the world. Case in point: take the South African action picture Heart of the Hunter, a smart and handsomely crafted political spy thriller that entertains and has something to say in the process.
Heart of the Hunter’s story follows Zuko Khumalo (The Woman King’s Bonko Khoza), a family man with a dark past searching for redemption. The script by Deon Meyer (Hunting Emma) and Willem Grobler (Hum) layers in compelling moments from Zuko’s backstory that give the viewer added weight to care about the outcomes. For example, we learn why Zuko attempted to walk from his calling as a once-feared assassin—he killed a political target in front of their son and the guilt that comes with it.
Has Zuko found happiness? Yes, by holding a steady mechanic’s job and raising his son Pakamile (Boleng Mogotsi) with his beautiful wife, Malime (Masasa Mbangeni). However, that is all about to change as his old mentor, Johnny Klein (Peter Butler), arrives at his home and ambushes his place of work. This leads the Presidential Intelligence Agency (PIA) unwittingly to his front door, ordered by Mitma (Sisandra Henna), the South African presidential candidate who makes the great orange face look like a nuisance or mild irritant by comparison. The head of the PIA, Molebogeng (Connie Ferguson), is under pressure to bring Johnny to justice, but that’s because he has information on Mtima that could ruin his presidential campaign.
Directed by Mandla Dube, Heart of the Hunter could be considered the third chapter in his “Beyond Apartheid trilogy.” Alongside the riveting Silverton Siege and the enthralling Kalushi: The Story of Solomon Mahlangu, Dube specializes in films highlighting thrillers with added weight due to modern South African themes. Particularly, post-apartheid issues such as social oppression and articulating inclusive problems are incorporated into mainstream cinema.
In Heart of the Hunter, a mix of conspiracy and politics unfolds, with a subtext usually against some mystery that borders on fantasy. However, here, the film carries added weight as it encompasses decades of traumatic oppression handed down over generations. Much credit should go to the source material from Meyer, who co-wrote the script, as mentioned earlier. The collaboration between Dube and Meyer proves quite effective, with slick and effortlessly cool hand-to-hand combat scenes juxtaposed with gritty spy craft against the backdrop of what amounts to the “suppression of oppression.”
You’ll see many dismiss Heart of the Hunter as some type of VOD trashy indulgence, but don’t let the reputation of Netflix’s worldwide streaming dreams fool you. This is a super-cool action thriller with a lot of, well, heart. That’s because Khoza finds what makes the character of Zuko tick. He portrays a classic genre character torn between both sides; in this case, family and responsibility to a better tomorrow, in a wholly convincing manner. Not to mention, he has a commanding screen (or phone, tablet, or computer) presence that’s hard to ignore. (The character from the source material is practically Jack Reacher in physical prowess, which makes casting key here.)
While cinema snobs and purists, like myself, may stick their noses up at such action fare, it’s worth remembering that The Beekeeper garnered a majority of positive reviews in the trash dump of films released in January and February. Here, Dube’s film surpasses any action seen in that movie and is set against real-world issues. Heart of the Hunter is an impressive streaming thriller adaptation that I hope will lead to a franchise for Bonko Khoza and the rest of the filmmaking team.
Hi all, it’s your favorite friend Jay, or Jaylan Salah as you formally know her. I will be here covering, among other things, Best Makeup and Hairstyling.
Wow, so Hair and Makeup. This category can either elevate a film entirely or bring it down in the dumps. Yes, the award started with best makeup until 2013 when hairstyling was involved, but hair has always been present and part of the award game. I always think of my fascination with masks, facial feature alteration, and actors fully transforming or concealing themselves. In films like Bram Stoker’s Dracula, think of the Count’s slicked hairstyle and his prosthetics as he emerges each time from bat to wolf. Remember how foxy the women of Bombshell looked with all the lashes, base powder, high wigs, and lip gloss? Or go back and think of something like Mask (1985) where Eric Stoltz gives an electrifying performance while carrying feature-altering prosthetics on his face. Then it’s 2023 and the masterpiece that is Poor Things shows Bella Baxter’s signature long, pitch-black hair, and the look is so iconic that it amplifies Emma Stone’s spectacular performance.
Hair and Makeup artists have been known to create monsters and aliens, freaks and characters with facial deformities, but also accentuate a mole or hide a scar, an actor can go from 20 to 70 in a movie and people won’t believe how hard these people have worked to bring out a look that will last only for a minute on screen. Honoring those people doesn’t stop at cheering on who will win in the upcoming Oscar season but putting a spotlight on each and every one of them, why they have been picked, and the extent of their hard work; all the while enjoying the final result and falling in love with movies all over again.
So come along for the ride and let’s take a deep dive into what makes actors stunning and monsters scary: Hair and Makeup!
The excitement for Academy Awards season continues as we take a look at the coveted Best Costume Design Academy Awards category. John Cena’s stunt this year during his presentation of the award made multiple news outlets and while it was great advertising for his new movie Ricky Stanicky, it also brought further attention to a category that I personally feel deserves more accolades than historically given. Not only does wardrobe help define the setting the movie is set in, but it can sometimes be part of the plot in intricate ways. One of my favorite examples is His House, which utilized colorful wardrobes to give the audience insight into the characters’ mentalities and tell more about their cultural history. With that being said, I’m using a bit of a deep dive of past and possible future nominees. 2022 was a particularly good year recently so let’s highlight a couple of the nominees and the winner!
Ruth E. Carter for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
To be the first of anything is a great career accomplishment and Ruth E. Carter is most deserving of the honor for this category. Carter was the first African American nominee and winner in 2018 when she won for the first Black Panther installment. Her storied career reached new heights once she started working with Spike Lee’s second film School Daze (1988) and worked across many genres including historical biopics and action films. She won the Academy Award for the first movie after diving into cultural and historical contexts in and around several African countries, and her work in the second film built upon what she established and expanded it to include Aztec influence on the Talokan people in the film. Maintaining the Academy Award-winning costume design from the first film and adding new characters that add even more vivid colors and storytelling with their wardrobes was a fun addition. I’m glad the Academy awarded Carter’s greatness twice.
Catherine Martin for Elvis
Baz Luhrmann and Catherine Martin are a power couple that has given audiences a slew of Academy Award-winning and nominated movies from Romeo + Juliet and Moulin Rouge! to The Great Gatsby and, most recently, 2022’s Elvis. When it comes to matching period-appropriate styles and maintaining the set design of a movie, Martin is a seasoned veteran who took us through both Elvis’ direct life and atmospherically important wardrobes like Beale Street, carnival life, and more. Each time the movie progressed, the outfits helped the immersive experience. Elvis Presley had an extravagant wardrobe to match his ego. While Austin Butler did a fantastic job acting as the titular character, Martin recreated his look alongside a super team of Jason Baird, Mark Coulier, Louise Coulston, and Shane Thomas for hair and makeup. Bonus points to Catherine Martin for also picking up another Academy Award nomination for Production Design for Elvis!
Shirley Kurata for Everything Everywhere All at Once
Giving creative reigns to Shirley Kurata for costuming in Everything Everywhere All at Once has to be one of the best decisions co-directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert made when making this film. Not only did Kurata come up with various costumes for the multiverse in this movie, but with each one came a story. Kurata designed the costumes so that with each multiversal shift, the audience sometimes picks up on the wealth, mindset, personality, and more of each version of the characters without even changing the setting. While she didn’t win for this film, I imagine Kurata has changed the costuming game forever for movies with actors playing multiple roles or versions of a role. Thanks to movies like this and Marvel’s Multiverse era, Hollywood has entered an era that sees multiverse movies come out as often as Everything Everywhere All at Once’s villain Jobu Tobaki changed outfits in the film. The audience benefits from this for many reasons, but among my favorites is watching costume design (and production design) get pushed to new heights with each scene.
The Best Costume Design award is a fun one to follow based on the wide range of parameters anyone can judge it on. You can see how historically accurate a war movie’s wardrobe is, meet multiple versions of the same character, or even follow a superhero as they save the world. I’m excited to visit and revisit past nominees, revisit some favorites that I feel could’ve been nominated, and preview potential nominees for the next awards season.
This week on the InSession Film Podcast, inspired by Dev Patel’s Monkey Man, we talk about some movies that are directed by the star and which films stand out to us the most! We also spend some time discussing the trailers for Bad Boys: Ride or Die and Kinds of Kindness!
Check out this week’s show and let us know what you think in the comment section. Thanks for listening and for supporting the InSession Film Podcast!
– Opening Banter / Trailer Talk (1:30) We begin the show this week with some unexpected conversation about JD taking his kid to see Godzilla x Kong, how kids talk about movies and then weirdly detouring into how mid 2024 has been to this point (with some great outliers, of course). We then get back on track by talking about the trailers for Bad Boys: Ride or Die and Kinds of Kindness, both of which we quite loved.
– Movies Starring the Director (1:06:00) We’re very excited about Monkey Man and Dev Patel’s work behind the camera, so we figured it would be a good opportunity to talk about others who have starred in their own movies. From Orson Welles to Charlie Chaplin to Clint Eastwood to Ben Affleck, among many others, there are many great actors who were also terrific directors. And so we wanted to run through our favorite films that qualify with this criteria.
If you want to help support us, there are several ways you can help us and we’d absolutely appreciate it. Every penny goes directly back into supporting the show and we are truly honored and grateful. Thanks for your support and for listening to the InSession Film Podcast!
As we kick off this new season of awards coverage, let’s take a moment to explore the history and direction of what is now known as Best Sound. Making its debut at the 3rd Annual Academy Awards, the trophy was initially awarded to one of the studios instead of to any specific technicians that worked on the film. This rule was changed in 1969, and the first individual winners of the award were Jack Solomon and Murray Spivack for Hello, Dolly!. Additionally, this category started off as one award, then split into two awards in 1963 with Best Sound and Best Sound Effects after the Best Special Effects award split into Visual and Sound. At some point, we ended up with Best Sound Mixing and Best Sound Editing as the two awards until 2020 when they were combined, once again, into one award.
So what are some things to look out for this year that may be in contention for Best Sound at the 97th Academy Awards? Honing in on a few winners from the last decade or so can shed some light on where this award has been headed recently. 2012’s winners are a good example of what the Academy looks for when it comes to sound as well as the difference between editing and mixing. Les Misérables took home Sound Mixing, while Skyfall and Zero Dark Thirty tied for the Sound Editing award. Typically, mixing sound involves taking what was actually recorded during filming and making the most of it in post, whereas editing is more about adding sound to what was recorded. It makes sense that a musical like Les Mis that recorded all of the singing live while filming would win for mixing, and big, over the top action films like Skyfall and Zero Dark Thirty would be awarded for their editing. These are perfect examples of why this award was split for so long.
Another type of film that can play well with the Academy is one where there is a huge emphasis on the lack of sound. Take Gravity and The Sound of Metal, both using silence or muted sound to its advantage. In the case of Gravity, there’s no sound in space. Riz Ahmed plays a drummer who is losing his hearing in The Sound of Metal, which opens up a whole world of ways to play with the sound design. This year’s winner, The Zone of Interest is more similar to these types of films than it is to the loud, boisterous movies like Top Gun: Maverick and Dune. Pitting the serenity of a quiet life at home gardening and entertaining against the nightmare-inducing sounds coming from just over the wall, Jonathan Glazer’s harrowing film uses sound unlike any film from recent memory.
As the 2024 film slate continues on, these are the things to look for: massive, over-the-top sound like action and war movies, musicals or films where music and singing are heavily featured, or films that play with sound and the lack of sound in unique ways. Right now it’s obvious that the frontrunner for this award is Dune: Part 2. The Academy has already awarded the first installment in this category, and without a clear and worthy opponent it would be really easy for voters to run it back here.
Reflecting on 2024’s Awards Season: A Great Year For Editing
As the curtains close on the 2024 awards season, now feels like a good time to look back at the cinematic fare that stayed with us, particularly through the lens of editing. The year gave us a veritable smorgasbord of brilliantly edited films. Despite one film in particular sweeping the awards, it was a good year in general for film editing
The Critical Role of Editing
Editing is arguably the backbone of cinematic storytelling, holding a place of importance right alongside major categories like Best Picture and Best Director. It’s the editor’s craft that transforms a collection of scenes into a cohesive narrative. A skilled editor can elevate a film from mediocrity to excellence, while poor editing can lead to a disjointed and unengaging experience. There are no great, poorly edited movies.
Editing styles evolve with our changing film-viewing habits. The pace of films from half a century ago might feel leisurely to today’s audience, accustomed to rapid cuts and dynamic sequences. Editors not only curate shots but pace the story, often working closely with directors to bring a shared vision to life. Far from being just a technical skill, editing is a deeply creative endeavor.
2024’s Editing Standouts
The consensus among this year’s award ceremonies highlights one dominant submission in particular:
The Oscars: Oppenheimer, Best Editing
The ACE Eddie Awards: Oppenheimer, Best Edited Feature Film, Drama; The Holdovers, Best Edited Feature Film, Comedy or Musical
BAFTA: Oppenheimer, Best Film Editing
British Film Editors Awards: Oppenheimer, Best Edited Single Drama
2024 was a great year for movies and there was some truly outstanding work on display. In a sense, the fact that Oppenheimer so comprehensively swept the board undermines just how much interesting and exciting work there was to dive into. 2025 has a lot to live up to.
Why Oppenheimer Stood Above the Rest
Oppenheimer masterfully wove together a complex narrative, making a historical biopic feel as gripping as an action film. Jenifer Lame’s editing effortlessly guided audiences through various timelines and close-ups, maintaining a strong sense of time and place throughout its three-hour runtime. The film’s pacing, enhanced by strategic cuts and an excellent score, built tension and momentum, offering a lesson in cinematic rhythm.
Other Notable Submissions
While Oppenheimer took home the accolades, 2024 was rich with exceptional editing work worth celebrating:
Past Lives: Its narrative, spanning three time periods, was visually and emotionally stunning, highlighted by remarkable editing.
Anatomy of a Fall: Laurent Senechal’s editing brilliantly balanced ambiguity, compelling viewers to draw their own conclusions about the innocence of our protagonist.
Poor Things: The film’s distinctive aesthetic was further elevated by sharp editing, complementing its outstanding production design. Best looking film of the year?
Killers of the Flower Moon: Martin Scorsese and Thelma Schoonmaker once again proved their iconic partnership with meticulously crafted editing. Their best work since Goodfellas.
Looking Forward
The 2024 awards season might have seen Oppenheimer sweep the editing awards, but the diversity and quality of editing work across the board were truly remarkable. As we anticipate the cinematic wonders of 2025, it’s clear that the art of editing will continue to play a pivotal role in filmmaking, shaping the stories that captivate our imaginations.
This week on Women InSession, we discuss the great Emma Stone, her two Oscars wins and the evolution of her incredible and varied career thus far! She’s been in some great films and it’s been really fun to see the nuance of her filmography. For every La La Land and Poor Things, there’s an Easy A and Zombieland. Regardless of the type of film, she’s always excellent and wonderful to see on screen.
Panel: Kristin Battestella, Jaylan Salah, Amy Thomasson, Will Bjarnar
On that note, check out this week’s show and let us know what you think in the comment section. Thanks for listening and for supporting the InSession Film Podcast!
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Director: Alice Rohrwacher Writers: Alice Rohrwacher, Carmela Covino, Marco Pettenello Stars: Josh O’Connor, Carol Duarte, Vincenzo Nemolato
Synopsis: A group of archaeologists and the black market of historical artifacts.
Love, melancholy, and magical realism intertwine in Alice Rohrwacher’s latest work, La Chimera—a touching multi-layered exploration of remembrance, love, and the intertwining between the human and the spiritual. It shifts the viewer’s emotions from left to right due to the beauty of the Italian filmmaker’s dreamy, poetic storytelling and the incandescent emotions that exude from the landscapes, shot by cinematographer Hélène Louvart, and performances.
Bless Alice Rohrwacher with all of her heart. The Italian filmmaker has delivered one touching picture after another throughout her growing and fruitful career. She’s used tales about love, loss, and youthfulness, intertwining them all with Italy’s past while smearing magical realism to her narratives. Many directors have used their perspectives on the country’s history to uplift and add layers to their narratives. This is primarily seen in Germany’s new wave of directors, with Christian Petzold and Angela Schenelac leading the pack. But Rohrwacher’s cinema has a different feeling. After her international success, Happy As Lazaro, she has remained a household name in the modern era of Italian auteurs. Filled with bliss and elegance, Rohrwacher clicks on all cylinders, especially since her latest work, La Chimera, sets her down a path of great success.
Set in 1980s Italy, the title gives a couple of hints at what’s to come later in the narrative. Many may refer to a “chimera” as the fire-breathing female monster with a lion’s head, a goat’s body, and a serpent’s tail–and the Italian filmmaker hints at the Greek mythology creature’s mystically through her mythic underpinnings. But Rohrwacher turns to the word’s second definition: a thing that is hoped or wished for but is illusory or impossible to achieve. The first images she presents give us an introduction to this. The film begins from the point of view of the current unnamed protagonist, shown in lavish super-8 footage. The protagonist’s gaze is aimed at a beautiful blonde woman, Beniamina (Yile Yara Vianello), as the sun kisses her face. These images feel like a dream or a distant memory that a person is trying to hold onto.
It is soon revealed through us via this imagery that Beniamina has passed away and that these moments scattered across La Chimera are indeed memories of a man burdened by grief. In the scene immediately following, we meet the film’s protagonist, Arthur (Josh O’Connor), who is sleeping on the train home. “Were you dreaming?” asks the ticket collector to the young man, maintaining that relevant trajectory of intertwining dreams and reality subtly, yet resplendently. These visions introduce us to a world that cannot be seen with human eyes, a portal that connects the reverie with the land Arthur and his tombaroli (Etruscan tomb raiders) crew scavenge for objects left for the dead so their souls can rest.
Josh O’Connor brilliantly approaches his character as if he were a living ghost, a man who lost his vigor and passion after losing the love of his life. He is primarily a brooding figure, an unreliable protagonist who doesn’t believe death separates us from the people we hold dear. And, just like Lazarro in Rohrwacher’s previous feature, Arthur has a preternatural ability that might serve him as a guide to reach his beloved Beniamina. He can find the locations of old tombs through divine premonition; his crew of tomb-raiding criminals scavenges the objects found while the Englishman looks for her signal. Many other characters help him throughout his journey of desolation, particularly Italia (Carol Duarte, delivering a lovely performance filled with warmth), who is like a beacon of light that brightens Arthur’s path, as well as his heart. So, he isn’t alone in this journey.
In the Q&A for this film at the 61st New York Film Festival, an audience member asked Alice Rohrwacher about her decision to curate Arthur’s journey of identity and yearning with so many nods to classic myths, fables, and fairy tales. The Italian filmmaker responded by saying, “Fairy tales are like a distillation of reality.” She mentioned that showering her films with magical realism was her way of approaching reality in a non-schmaltzy or syrupy manner–in her words, in a non-pornographic way. Many filmmakers abuse emotions like sympathy or empathy in the experience that their characters endure. And while Rorhrwacher’s films contain those moments in which the reverie comes to life in alluring ways, they end up ringing truer and feeling more emotionally potent than those who want to cram humanism forcefully.
Much like the Argentinian-French novelist Julio Cortázar (writer of “Casa Tomada,” “La Noche Boca Arriba,” and “Hopscotch”), Rorhrwacher embalms her stories with an array of metaphors and poetic elements as the characters she writes go on their respective quests for identity and deal with longing. Both of them treat their stories with elements of fantasy. However, Cortázar was more of a surrealist and existentialist, covering the draining mundanity of the everyday lives of ordinary people; meanwhile, Rohrwacher relies more on folkloric narratives about the complexities of human relationships – dealing with the emotionally shifting nature of the people we care for, the bridge between life and death, as well as the history of the land beneath our feet.
From the moment the film begins, Rohrwacher puts a spell on you, the effect increasing as the story moves on from one magical moment to another. Nowadays, there aren’t many cinematic experiences like the one Alice Rohrwacher brings us, which is full of splendor, yet painting melancholy in a shade that isn’t its usual dark one. The Italian filmmaker doesn’t want to use the pessimistic tone to reflect our existentialist thoughts. Instead, she embraces the darkness of loss to conjure something full of light. As a piece of cinema, La Chimera feels like a product of many recollections, emotions, questions, and experiences, all put together in a manner that reflects some of our doubts about the culmination of life.
La Chimera is more than relatable and approachable; instead, it reorients how we think about the line between this world and the next. There’s a moment late in La Chimera when Arthur caresses and admires a stone head missing from a 5th-century statue. Arthur looks at it with a sense of remembrance; the piece reminds him of his lost loved one, Beniamina. Just like the first scene in the film, but with the roles reversed, the sun is kissing his face this time around. It takes him back; all of the memories they shared start to play in his mind like a collage; he quickly glimpses through it all as the equally magnetic and towering power of love and loss crosses his entire body.
He then remarks with a quote that was previously said by Carol Duarte’s character: “You were not meant for human eyes.” And the line puts the final nail in the coffin in terms of the film’s impact. With a single sentence, Alice Rohrwacher captures the essence of her movie, uplifting the thematic and emotional importance of every scene that precedes this one. We replay every single scene in our minds with those words in consideration. They gain a different meaning, even the ones where you think the film was meandering a bit. It is the healing process personified, made by a filmmaker who converts our worries into fables that are as grounded as they are poised and soul-stirring.
Director: Adam WIngard Writers: Terry Rossio, Simon Barrett, Jeremy Slater Stars: Rebecca Hall, Brian Tyree Henry, Dan Stevens
Synopsis: Two ancient titans, Godzilla and Kong, clash in an epic battle as humans unravel their intertwined origins and connection to Skull Island’s mysteries.
This franchise has gone off the rails. Granted, it’s not a franchise that had much in terms of a deep mythos. The filmmakers have had to make a lot of it up with a sprinkling of the stories developed in the original Japanese Godzilla films. It’s just that what they’re making up is nonsense. Not the fun kind of nonsense like most time travel comedies, but a headache inducing kind of nonsense like any film that attempts to recapture the magic of a more popular film that got there first.
It doesn’t help that every time a human is on screen they vomit exposition. While the previous films had far too many humans, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, has a slim coterie of adventurers, each one an “expert” who takes over talking duties when another one has finished. The film is written as if we really need context to multiple kaiju pummeling each other into the dirt. The spectacle is the monsters.
Though, that’s another weak point of the film. So much of it is spent with Kong, telling his story through dialogue free sequences that are then explained. The moviegoing public isn’t so dense that they can’t differentiate the protagonist ape, Kong, from the antagonist ape, Skar King. Why these apes aren’t with the other creatures in the upper levels of the hollow earth is just stuffing and so irrelevant. The exposition only serves to build a universe that is unbearably uninteresting.
The details are irrelevant, just like almost every human in this film. To tell you of the relevant human would be to give spoilers, so just trust that there is one, though only one. All other humans are collateral damage that don’t even merit close up reaction shots. There is supposed to be a fun aspect to the collateral damage of cities. When two monsters fight, it’s exciting and terrifying. We feel for the people below them, but the filmmakers never give us anyone to hold onto. There’s no Elizabeth Olsen running away or Millie Bobby Brown screaming her head off. There’s no emotional connection, not even in the fights themselves.
The filmmakers stuffed Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire with so much kaiju on kaiju action that most of it is blink and you miss it entirely. Did you just see a giant crustacean get boiled by Godzilla? Maybe, but all you see now is Rome partially destroyed and covered in guts. Then it’s off to the next scene. These are giant monsters, they should live in the wide shot, we should see the true impact of their destruction, yet we get nothing in the way of a breather. Not even a cheer or a real sigh of relief from our human protagonists. They aren’t even on the sidelines for most of the fights, but completely elsewhere uncaring about the destruction of the world.
This franchise has no real direction or metaphor like the original Showa Era of Japanese Godzilla films or the current Reiwa Era of Japanese Godzilla films. It may be because while Godzilla is in the title and is arguably the bigger draw for casual fans, this film, and the one before it, are Kong films. The franchise has embarked upon a story that heavily favors Kong, which makes it far weaker. Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is an especially weak entry. It lacks the grand battles that require no deep mythology and like most franchises when it hits this point, it has far too many antagonists.
Though, there are a couple of bright spots amongst the monster mayhem. The chemistry between Dan Stevens and Brian Tyree Henry is delightful and not nearly present enough. Get these two a buddy film. The other bright spot is if you enjoy the small stories. There’s a nice coming of age/parenting narrative between Dr. Ilene Andrews (Rebecca Hall) and her adopted daughter Jia (Kaylee Hottle). The two are at odds, but come together, it’s sweet if predictable. Are these enough to recommend this film? Not at all. It’s high time for the Monsterverse to give up and let these two creatures live to roar again separately another day.
On this episode, JD and Brendan discuss the latest in the Ghostbusters franchise with Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire! While we really like the first two entries from the 80s, it’s becoming more and more clear that this franchise is in need of cleansing.
Review: Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (4:00) Director: Gil Kenan Writers: Gil Kenan, Jason Reitman Stars: Paul Rudd, Carrie Coon, Finn Wolfhard, Mckenna Grace
