Wadjda

The Saudi Arabian film industry is still in it’s infancy, having only really started to take off in 2006.  However, even in it’s infancy, there are compelling styles and narratives being told through the medium and if Haifaa al-Monsour’s Wadjda is any indication of the future, we can surely expect more cinematic richness to come.

Wadjda is the simple tale of a young girl wishing to own a green bicycle.  However, the titular Wadjda is full of spunk and wit; qualities that hardly align with the ideals of the crushing patriarchy of Saudi Arabia.  Despite this, Wadjda remains undeterred in her quest, fueled by unshakable determination and optimism.

Not only is this the first film to be film entirely in Saudi Arabia, it is also the made by Saudi Arabia’s first female director.  Though al-Monsour has worked on short films in the past, Wadjda marks her first full length picture.  However al-Monsour shows no greenness behind the camera and infact her control and precision rivals that of any seasoned veteran.  Her style is incredibly economical, carefully constructing frames that contribute to a tightly wound narrative and emotionally intimate tale.  

Also acting as the screenwriter, al-Monsour’s writing is an extraordinary example of observational realism.  The film is told through Wadjda’s perspective, and even as an 11-year-old, she sees the injustices in the gender roles of her home.  As she observes how her mother, classmates, and teachers all respond societal expectation, she mimics none of these women, rather forges her own path and self identity in a male dominated world.  Such scenes can often be plagued by tropes and appear quite staged but al-Monsour’s handles the script with such subtlety and tact that our only impression is honest and true.  

Just because the film is told through the realist patina, doesn’t mean the film in bogged down with an austere ambiance.  The overall tone of the film is quite whimsical, reflecting it’s adventurous and innocent lead.  It’s this playfulness that provides the film with full bodied characters and allows the film to deal with these pressing issues through both a palatable yet firm pathway.

The film documents the gross oppression of women, and at times feels both suffocating and inescapable.  But the true brilliance of Wadjda is that despite the bleakness of the circumstance, there is still hope.  Throughout the film, Wadjda always stays true to herself and her identity, refusing the any person or system to write her off.  In many ways, Wadjda is a reflection of al-Monsour herself.  Despite living in a male dominated country and working in a male dominated field, al-Monsour creates art that reflects her own values and beliefs.  Wadjda and al-Monsour demonstrate no amount of systematic oppression can contain their steadfast resolve, devotion to self identity, and courage to achieve their goals.  It’s this very attitude that proves change is possible; as long as we keep on pedaling.  

The Grandmaster

Wong Kar-Wai has been considered as one of the most innovative and cinematically challenging directors our time has seen.  The British Film Institute (BFI) names him the third best director of modern times and his In The Mood for Love (2000) was named the best film made since the turn of the century.  His films are both thematically rich and emotionally scintillating, poetically revealing truths of the human soul.  Wong’s trademark visual style and sentimental potency is just as apparent in his latest film, The Grandmaster.

A bit of a departure from other Wong projects, The Grandmaster is a biopic of the legendary martial arts master Ip Man (Tony Leung, Infernal Affairs, Hero), best known as the teacher to Bruce Lee.  The film follows the the trials of Ip Man through the Second Sino-Japanese War, his family, and love.  

Though the idea of a biopic seems rather mundane for a director of Wong’s caliber, the maestro is still able to infuse the film with great depth and artistry.  A central plot of the film is the subtle and forbidden love between Yip-Man and martial art rival Gong Er (Zhang Ziyi, House of Flying Daggers, Memoirs of a Geisha).  Through the metaphor of martial arts, their bout of love is both sensual and tragic.  Longingness fills the atmosphere of the film, but romance is always eluded.  The passivity between the two festers into a lack of consummation and ultimately into regret; a feeling too painfully close to all.

Wong matches his themes with a visually taught cinematography.  His dazzling camera work portrays martial arts as an artistic medium.  More than just a fighting style, it is an arena to engage in discourses on philosophies, values, and ways of life.  It is a language that Wong is more than fluent in and is able to embellish and explore to the fullest, giving his audience both subtextually and photographically full-bodied fare.   

Though Wong works well in the biopic canvas, the format still seems to restrict him from engaging his fullest potential.  Wong’s previous works were noted for their hypnotic lucid and ethereal ambiances which created innovative and potent narratives.  Although Wong engages the story from a number of different points of attack, being tethered to the boundaries of a biopic prevented the film from being truly groundbreaking.  

This however is just a small knock at a beautifully crafted film.  Wong shows that his directorial pitch fork is still in tune and he is still able to engross an audience with sensational visuals and intoxicatingly romantic situations.  His latest film entry truly shows that when it comes to filmmaking, Wong is a grandmaster.     

Graceland

A man has his daughter kidnapped and he does everything in his power to get her back.  Before you think that this is a review for Taken 3: Keeping Track of People isn’t in his set of Acquired Skills, rest assured, Liam Neeson isn’t at all attached to this movie. Graceland trades Neeson for Marlon Villar (Arnold Reyes), an ordinary driver for the corrupt government official Manuel Chango (Menggie Cobarrubias).  The kidnapper, Visel (Leon Miguel), takes both Chango’s and Villar’s daughters; forcing them deeper and deeper into the seedy streets of the Philippines.  

Don’t expect any crazy heroic combat.  Villar is not a superhero. He does not have any set of skills.  He is an incredibly ordinary man placed in the most impossible of situations, desperately grasping at the chance for a return to stability.

Director and writer Ron Morales methodically constructs his thriller with no room for breathing or steady hands.  Gasps for calm are neglected for exposed nerves and a hemorrhaging sense of humanity.  We are completely immersed and helplessly suspended as we fall deeper and deeper into a worsening situation.  

Morales achieves this with a unique blend of a raw, visceral grain and a hypnotic stylism.  He shades his cinema verite patina with a deep and sonorous score.  The echoes of the sobering music paralleled the reverberating trauma and depth resonating within each character.   

With so many bland thrillers these days relying on one or two major punches, Morales provides a refreshingly creatively change of pace with both a complex and decadent script.  As the film progresses, more and more layers are peeled back and festering motives and secrets are revealed.  We slowly and unwillingly realize the horrific limits people are willing to break in the goal of achieving the simplest and most basal of aims.

Graceland is the complete antithesis of an American thriller.  There is no flash, no amazing set pieces, and no headlining star.  Graceland  is cinema at it’s purest form; brutally committed performances, a script full of tremendous depth and realized potential, and the grappling of terribly relevant themes such as sexual exploitation and human trafficking.  So Neeson may add style and grace to Taken films, but much like real life, Graceland has none.  

Reality

Although it may be what some consider the scourge of modern society, reality television is not going anywhere. Every week millions of viewers tune in to follow their favorites, ridicule their enemies, and see the results of whatever latest competition promises the winner fame, fortune, and all their heart’s desires. But Luciano is done being in front of the screen. He’s in it to win it — sort of. 

Working as a fishmonger in Italy, Luciano (Aniello Arena) lives and works with his wife (Loredana Simioli) and their family and has always been widely regarded as jolly and good-natured. Hoping to capitalize on his agreeable traits, his family encourages him to try out at a local casting call for “Big Brother.” 

At first, Luciano (allegedly) only auditions to please his kids. But all too quickly the show becomes a real possibility to make piles of money, and he begins to grow obsessed with the show’s potential materialistic benefits. Bit by bit, Luciano grows paranoid that the show is having him followed to confirm his suitability, and his life — and psyche — begin to unravel. 

The camera work of “Reality,” winner of the Grand Prix at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival, is key. Director Matteo Garrone uses a handheld camera that follows the characters around, similar to a proper reality show, which leaves the audience feeling awkwardly and invasively inserted into Luciano’s life. The film’s aesthetic gives a saturated look at the life of an everyday man, and it’s not hard to imagine him as potentially something more. 

“Reality” is a dark and bittersweet comedy that gradually showcases its social commentary through a long descent into madness. Though it’s perfectly plausible throughout, its realism can’t save the fact that the movie feels plodding. 

As legitimate as the critique of celebrity culture and the reality behind reality shows is, the film still starts to feel overdrawn. The introduction of Luciano’s involvement with the show isn’t the most concise scene-setting, and by the time he finally gets a callback, it’s lost some of its initial steam. 

The movie primarily runs on the charisma of Arena, who portrays the perfect, naive — and later, unhinged — leading man. Arena completely encapsulates Luciano’s optimism with simultaneous self-destructiveness. 

But his antics can only carry so much of the movie, and although all the performances are entertaining, there isn’t enough plot substance to carry “Reality.” Ultimately the movie just sags on the weight of itself: It’s too long at 115 minutes without any new discourse to add to the conversation about fame-obsessed culture. Though the final image of the film makes its case devastatingly, it’s hard to say whether the journey there was ultimately worth it. 

Verdict: Although strong in some ways, the sad truth is that “Reality” is too burdened by its length and lack of novel discourse. 

Amour

I found it rather ironic that a trailer for Safe Haven, (Nicholas Sparks’ latest atrocity) played as a trailer before Amour. Nick Sparks has for changed the romantic genre for the worse. His highly formulaic and pandering films obfuscate the definition of love by equating it to fresh young bodies, sensationalization of romantic gestures, and exploitation of traumatic events.

Which brings us to Amour, the complete antithesis of the trailer that preceded it. Amour chronicles the aging couple George (Jean-Louis Trintignant, Three Colors: Red) and Anne (Emmanuelle Riva, Three Colors: White). When Anne is left partially paralyzed and restrained to a wheelchair, George takes it upon himself take care of Anne, despite the strains it puts upon himself.

While the premise sounds rather cheesy and over sentimental, it is anything but. Michael Haenke (White Ribbon, Cache) grounds his film in honest realism yet remains poetic through it’s dashes of magical realism. The few deviations from reality act to amplify the raw, human emotions of the film and potently punctuate the thoughts scribed by the narrative.

Amour explores the delicate relationship between love and responsibility and demonstrates that even the most harmonious couple can be pushed to friction and frustration. This theme is perfectly translated through Haenke’s bold and incendiary cinematography. Most of the film is shot through a static camera; simply framing a close-up or medium shot and leaving the camera to linger. Although at times we feel invited into their cozy home, we then feel uncomfortably intrusive to their degraded lives.

Haenke is absolutely unflinching in his treatment, creating a suffocating ambiance as we are forced to face our mortality. We are completely tied to the film because of the two leads. Trintignant and Riva have outstanding chemistry, able to write the couple’s life history through subtle body language and suggestion alone. We can easily believe the deep bond their relationship has formed, making it so much more tragic to see their lives hang on by the thread that is love.

Unlike Nick Sparks’ convention, Haenke does not insult his audience with such mundane definitions of love. He knows that we clash with everyday life and the results are less than ideal and difficult to negotiate with. He knows that commitment and unconditional love aren’t enough to pardon us from death, but serve merely as a guiding light as we face the spectre of our judgement. And he knows how to render these complexities, forcing us to question our own preconceived notions. So no Nick Sparks, taking your shirt off in the rain isn’t a proper definition of love. Amour is.       

A Seperation

               Fresh off its Oscar win, A Separation has brought Iranian Cinema to a forefront.  However, to say A Separation is good for an Iranian film would be to say 2001 is good for a science fiction film; it transcends it genre and demands our respect and recognition.
            A Separation depicts the story of an Iranian couple in the process of getting a divorce because the wife wishes to take their daughter and leave for America.  However, the husband wishes to stay in Iran to take care of his father with Alzheimer’s.  However, this is no Kramer vs Kramer. The separation sets off a chain of events that lead to the father becoming convicted for the homicide of an unborn baby. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
            Really what stood out for me was the sensational screenplay.  Thinking of screenplays or recent success, Pulp Fiction and The Social Network immediately come to mind.  However, if we are honest with ourselves, both of these masterpieces lack a sense of realism.  As much as Aaron Sorkin would like to think conversations are composed of a series of wittily constructed parables, they aren’t.  As much as Tarentino would like to think we’ve seen every B-movie ever made, we haven’t.  Both of those screenplays speak in ways we wish we could; full of electricity and wit.  A Separation does not have this wit, but the dialogue still crackles and ignites on the screen.  The words are brutal and packed with sheer honest realism, helping to paint a visceral portrait of a collapsing landscape.  The entire cast helps deliver this dynamic script with a ferocious tempo that keeps our breaths kept in and our heart rates up.
                The film really packs a punch through its chilling realism.  Director Asghar Farhadi places his camera right in the middle of turbulent altercations, creating a claustrophobic and suffocating frame.  The tension of each scene burns through the screen and you feel as if you’re right there with them, staring into the eyes of a deteriorating family. This movie stunning and haunting until the very end, and leaves you sitting in the theater begging for more.