This time around, I want to focus on some smaller films of equal or superior
All are extraordinary and worth seeking out.
At the end, I am also going to touch briefly on a couple of other pretty extraordinary pictures that will be the subject of more extensive separate reviews near their respective release dates. They are Alfonso Cuaron’s eagerly awaited Roma,and the endlessly awaited, forty years overdue final film by Orson Welles, The Other Side of the Wind. Both were financed by Netflix and will be released on its streaming service and in some theaters simultaneously.
So let’s get started with …
Shoplifters (2018)
Japanese writer-director Hirokazu Kore’eda [or Koreeda] is, quite simply, a master at portraying the drama of life as it is lived. His films are honest, completely credible, little domestic dramas that resonate with a deep humanity. I’ve now seen five or six of his movies, and each time I’ve felt that he has touched something, a sweet spot, in my heart. He doesn’t pander. Rather he knows how to deftly build a story through carefully chosen moments, utilizing the artistry of naturalistic, yet compelling actors. If you haven’t had the pleasure, I’d encourage you to seek out a few of his films, such as After the Storm (2016) – in which a former novelist, now a hack private eye and what we’d call a deadbeat dad, behind on his child support, realizes he’s down to his last chance to try and reconnect with his family; or Like Father, Like Son (2013) – about two very different families who discover that their respective six-year-old sons were actually switched at birth; and now have to decide how to deal with this knowledge. These and several other Kore’eda movies are available on iTunes, Amazon and many other streaming services, as well as on dvd from Netflix and elsewhere.
Anyway, Kore’eda’s newest film, Shoplifters, was one of my two or three favorite films at Telluride. What is a family? This very sweet movie is about a mostly unrelated, multi-generational group of people in current day Japan – thieves, a sex-worker, orphaned or mislaid children – that forge a bond tighter than many biological families. The “parents” supplement their meager incomes from working class jobs by shoplifting and have taught their “son” the tricks of the trade, too. “Grandma” subsists, in part, on guilt money squeezed from the family of the husband who abandoned her years ago. But, how can we explain what they do when “Dad” discovers a hungry, bedraggled little girl left alone, outside, on a freezing night by her low-life, biological family?
Shoplifters is another rich, finely wrought, closely observed domestic drama in the great director’s tradition – exploring the crossroads between exploitation and familial love. It is a particularly warmhearted, compassionate film in the canon, and it packs a surprising wallop when the shit hits the fan, as it must. As is true with most Kore’eda films, this picture features lovely performances from everyone in the excellent cast, which includes a number of veterans from earlier Kore’eda films. One of these, Lily Frankey, is a standout as the father.
Shoplifters is set for release at Thanksgiving 2018.
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Cold War (2018)
Pawel Pawlikowski is best known to most American movie buffs as the director and co-writer of Ida (2013), the international hit that won numerous awards, including the Oscar as the Best Foreign Language Film in 2015. But he’s been writing and directing films for over twenty-five years, mostly in the UK – starting with a string of documentaries, and then several narrative films. Although Polish by birth, Idawas Pawlikowski’s first Poland-based movie. His follow-up, Cold War, which will be released this Fall, is his second.
Cold War has already received quite a lot of critical acclaim travelling the festival circuit (at Cannes, Telluride, and Toronto among others). The picture has a high “metascore” of 91 from Metacritic.com based on twenty professional reviews. For example, Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian writes that “the crystalline black-and-white cinematography exalts its moments of intimate grimness and its dreamlike showpieces of theatrical display. It is an elliptical, episodic story of imprisonment and escape, epic in scope.”
Cold War tells the story of a bittersweet romance – passionate, hopeless, and yet enduring – between Wictor (Tomasz Kot), a downbeat composer-pianist, and striving singer Zula (Joanna Kulig) in postwar Poland. She’s got vim, beauty and tough-as nails determination. He’s got his cigarettes, alcohol and music. They meet in 1949 as Wictor is auditioning a group of singers and dancers for a new folk ensemble called “Mazurek”, and Zula is a standout. Soon she’s not only the star of the show, but the love of Wictor’s life.
Mazurek is something like an Up With People review, featuring exuberant singing, dancing, folk costumes, the works – designed to celebrate the glories of the Polish folk music tradition in post-WWII Poland, a shattered land. As the country was trying to rebuild from the physical and psychological devastations of war and brutal Nazi and Soviet occupations, not to mention the holocaust, the group (based on the real Mazowszefolk group) becomes very popular. The government sees this popularity as an opportunity. Accordingly, Wiktor is told that lyrics to many of the folk tunes must be modified so as to promote Stalinist thought and soviet-style state patriotism. None of which sits well with Wiktor. Given his attitude, the feeling is mutual. For artistic and political reasons, Wiktor wants out, and implores Zula to leave with him. But although she loves him, Zula does not share his discontent. Besides, where can they go?
The film follows the two lovers and the ebbs and flows in their relationship over the next fifteen years through 1964. At a run time of just eighty-eight minutes, needless to say it’s quite episodic and much is unstated or omitted; yet Pawlokowski’s virtuosity makes these gaps seem interesting rather than annoying. And there’s a lot here besides the problems of two little people (which may not amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world). There’s a sense of the sweep of history, changing cultures, changing norms, the depth of yearning for a place to call home and for a homeland. It’s not for nothing that this picture is entitled Cold War.
Like Ida, and as suggested by the quote from Peter Bradshaw that I mentioned at the outset, Cold War is shot in gorgeous black-and-white, in the old-fashioned box screen ratio (1.3:1) by cinematographer Lukasz Zal (who also worked on last year’s Loving Vincent). These choices work well with the moody, passionate material, creating a noirish feel, albeit without the gangster-underworld element. It feels like a very personal film; and indeed Pawlokowski acknowledges that it was inspired by his parents’ stormy relationship and the world they inhabited. The emphasis on music throughout adds a strong sense of cultural and historical authenticity, not to mention lightening an often somber story. One song in particular echoes throughout the movie, a folk lament called Dwa Serduszka (Two Hearts) heard first in a simple acapella rendition (as an indigenous folk tune), then with the large Mazurek stage group, then as a breathy jazz number sung by Zula in a smoky Parisian nightclub. Best of all, the performances of the two leads are truly outstanding. Joanna Kulig, in particular, makes quite an impression, and I expect we’ll soon see more of her on international screens.
Cold War’s official US release date is December 21, but if you are available, there will be screenings at the upcoming Mill Valley and New York film festivals in early October.
* * *
The White Crow (2018)
The White Crow is a biopic about the early years of Rudolf Nureyev, generally recognized as one of the three or four greatest male ballet dancers in modern history, along with Najinski, Baryshnikov, and Vasiliev. In fact, many consider Nureyev, known as Lord of the Dance, the greatest of all time. He was also the first major Soviet artist to defect to the West during the cold war. His defection caused an international sensation, making him for a while the best-known dancer in the world.
The third feature film directed by Ralph Fiennes, who is better known as an extraordinary actor, and written by the playwright David Hare, the movie focusses on the period leading up to Nureyev’s dramatic defection, which took place in Paris in 1961, when he was just 23. He was in Paris during a five-week stint performing with the Kirov Ballet (now the Mariinski Ballet) as its principal dancer; and this was his first exposure to the West, to an open society and to a world that celebrated freedom of expression, including artistic expression. Flashbacks fill us in on his early life, from a quite un-privileged childhood in a Tatar Muslim family in the Soviet hinterlands, to his years of training as a teenager in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) under the master instructor Alexander Pushkin (played with a dignified reserve by Fiennes), to his ascension to the Kirov.
In Russia, the expression “white crow” refers to someone who stands apart from the crowd, who is exceptional or extraordinary, perhaps even a ray of light within a group. Mikhail Baryshnikov has noted that “This film is a poetic exploration of why that is true” of Nureyev. Among the many fascinating aspect of this picture for meis how it demonstrates the rise of Nureyev’s extremely focused artistic temperament; his unusual hunger to devour art of all kinds - literary and visual, as well as musical; and to take in all kinds of life experiences (including many that were forbidden to him in the USSR); and to watch how young Nureyev develops his overpowering self-confidence and an almost narcissistic sense of self-importance – something that could be seen as a personality disorder if not for the fact that he was absolutely right. He really was extraordinary.
Also extraordinary is the performance of young Oleg Ivenko in the role of the great Nureyev. Ivenko is a young Russian - Ukrainian dancer, currently principal dancer in a regional company, the M. Jalil Tatar State Academic Opera in Kazan, which is the capital of Tatarstan, an “autonomous republic” in Eastern Russia. He has never acted on screen (or stage) before, other than the acting required for dance performances. He is about the same age as the young Nureyev he portrays onscreen. As far as I can tell, Ivenko’s dancing is fantastic, but I am the farthest thing from an expert. Baryshnikov has commented that Ivenko has “found the heartbeat of Nureyev himself.” “Of course, no one can fill Nureyev’s actual shoes”, he says, “but Ivenko made me believe and care about the passions and frustrations of this singular man.” He made me believe, too. With help from cinematographer Mike Eley [My Cousin Rachel (2017)], he even is made to look remarkably like Nureyev at times. It may be a while before the Tatar State Opera gets to see its young star again.
Among the strengths of the picture is the fact that, even though we know what is going to happen, the climactic scenes are tremendously gripping and exciting. A lot of the credit must go to the deft direction of Fiennes and the taut script by Hare, but the subtle, nuanced acting by Ivenko plays a big part too. By this time, Nureyev, regularly shadowed by the KGB, has become increasingly concerned that he will be punished for his, let’s say, ‘non-conforming’ activities while in Paris and other violations of the strict rules imposed on him by his minders – possibly even stripped of his leading role in the company and sent back to the USSR to an unknown fate. The decision to leave his family, his colleagues, the only homeland he has ever known, had to be terrifying, and that certainly comes across in this movie.
The music is lovely, the dance scenes are invigorating, and the acting by the international ensemble is credible and absorbing. Fiennes is excellent, as I’ve mentioned, as Pushkin, young Rudolf’s teacher; also excellent are Chulpan Khamatova, playing Pushkin’s wife, Xania, who becomes Nureyev’s, um , let’s call her his life coach; Adele Exarchopoulis [Blue is the Warmest Color (2013)] as Clara Saint, his girlfriend/helper in Paris; and Raphael Personnaz as the French dancer/choreographer Pierre Lacotte, who also befriends and encourages him.
The White Crow is scheduled for release in late Fall, most likely in art house cinemas for the most part. It is a tantalizing, fascinating, finely wrought film, and one that’s worth keeping an eye out for.
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As I mentioned, there are a couple more movies from Telluride that I want to touch on here, although I will save more complete reviews for later.
One is Roma, the eagerly awaited new film from Alfonso Cuaron – the writer-director of such films as Y Tu Mama Tambien (2001), Children of Men (2006), and Gravity (2013). He was also the director of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, the third – and some have argued the best – in that mighty, coming-of-age wizard fantasy series. Well, Roma is different than all of these – it’s a muted, yet powerful, somewhat nostalgic and definitely autobiographical drama, filmed in black and white to emphasize the retrospective nature of the story, which is about a critical year in the director’s childhood. Cuaron not only wrote and directed, he was also the picture’s cinematographer and editor.
Roma is named for the middle-class district in Mexico City where Cuaron grew up and where most of the action takes place. It’s late 1970, and the world is turning upside down. There is political unrest with leftists protesting and right-wing fanatics rioting and fighting them in the streets. Within the family there is turmoil and drama as well. And in a twist which I find fascinating, the protagonist of the film is not Cuaron himself or a screen facsimile, but the family’s housekeeper/nanny – who seems to be the one person holding it all together, except she’s not.
Meticulously composed, beautifully photographed and acted, it’s a serious, distinctive movie that’s already being spoken of as a potential Oscar favorite.
Roma deserves and will be the subject of its own separate review here at a time closer to its availability date. Produced by Netflix, it will be released on their streaming service and in theaters on December 14th.
* * *
The other film I want to mention in connection with Telluride is interesting for a slew of reasons. It’s called The Other Side of the Wind, and it’s the last film by the great Orson Welles, although until now, no one has ever seen it. Welles spent the late 1960s writing the screenplay and trying to raise enough funds to actually make the movie. He shot it over four years between 1970 and 1974, as he scrambled for cash, and as his principal cast members had the time to participate. Then he spent several more years, until his death in 1985, vainly trying to get the financing to complete what he felt was his masterwork.
The actors in the project included people like John Huston (playing a legendary Wellesian director called Rattigan); Peter Bogdanovich, as his protégé, a young director on the rise; Susan Strasberg, as a reporter looking for dirt; Lilli Palmer as a former lover and one-time muse of the great man; plus Edmund O’Brien, Mercedes McCambridge, Oja Kodar, Dennis Hopper, and many more.
The unedited film has been lying around, mostly in France, for over forty years. A few years ago, a few influential Welles afficianados got the rights to this material, which also included details notes from Welles himself. These included legendary producer Frank Marshall (whose projects have included Raiders of the Lost Ark, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, The Sixth Sense, The Jason Bourne films, and Jurrassic World, among many others), and director Peter Bogdanovich, who played a major role in actually piecing the whole thing together. After years of effort, The Other Side of the Wind was finally completed this summer. It was first shown at the Venice Film Festival and a few days later had its North American premier at Telluride, to a packed house.
The Other Side of the Wind is about a maverick director, not unlike Welles himself, who is trying to complete a movie called The Other Side of the Wind, but is having all kinds of production problems and financial difficulties doing so. How is it? I’ll go into detail in a later review, but let me just throw out a few adjectives: fascinating, mysterious, jumbled, deep, historic, audacious, of its time, and still pertinent.
Netflix has scheduled a release date of November 2, 2018 – possibly on some theater screens as well as on the streaming service.
I’m working on a final segment, Part 3, of this Telluride series, hopefully for next week, about a couple of worthy, interesting documentaries. Until then,
Enjoy!
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