Tag Archives: 2022

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CAPSULE: WERNER HERZOG: RADICAL DREAMER (2022)

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Werner Herzog: Radical Dreamer can be rented or purchased on-demand.

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DIRECTED BY: Thomas von Steinaecker

FEATURING: Werner Herzog

PLOT: Talking heads and archival footage come together to explore the career of Werner Herzog.

COMMENTS: I recall reading a review of a Herzog film from some years ago in which the critic dismissed the director as riding his own coattails for a good long while. But here’s the thing: this is Herzog, and he’s allowed to do what he wants. Even if he weren’t allowed, he’d do it anyway—a point made firmly, but gently, in Thomas Von Steinaecker’s Radical Dreamer. Combining the traditional mix of archival footage, eager talking heads, and conversations with the director-subject, this ninety minutes breezes by compellingly and informatively, painting a picture of this pleasantly non-traditional artist detailed enough for nearly any Herzog-habitué.

Steinaecker benefits not only from having a chattily obliging subject—Herzog’s wit, openness, and slightly non-sequitur way of thinking makes him always interesting to observe—but also from those “eager talking heads”, which proved an impressive line-up. , , Carl Weathers, , and , as well as his two brothers (finding that there are in fact three Herzog boys, all alive and well, was a delight): all had intelligent, and impressed-but-not-sycophantic remarks to deliver.  Bale, in particular, provides a font of amusing, unlikely observations; for example, “Look at Werner’s face, right? He’s got a good face. A really fascinating face.” These contemporary conversations, paired with archival footage of most of Herzog’s major projects, provide a thorough summary of the man and his career without overwhelming the viewer with minutiae.

Just before the documentary went to credits, the screen froze at a perfect moment during the wrap-up. Herzog appeared in the first season of “The Mandalorian” as, you might say, an evil version of himself. Seated across from the titular bounty hunter, Herzog’s character is chiding the other, arguing the pointlessness of the revolution. “I see nothing but death and chaos.” And in a way, that sums up Herzog’s view—as perceived by a dark soul. Werner Herzog, as illustrated amply during interviews throughout his life, as testified by countless creatives who have worked with and under him, and as shown, grandly and obliquely, through so much of his work, is not “dark,” however. There is death to life; there is chaos to life. But being intrinsic to these elements, there is also gentleness and wonderment.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“The true value of Thomas von Steinaecker’s thorough feature documentary is the ease with which he has Werner on-side. The true test of a biographical documentary of this nature is the depth of investment by its subject. Herzog is at total ease with Steinaecker’s camera.” — Chris Greenwood, A Sliver of Film (contemporaneous)

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CAPSULE: DO NOT DISTURB (2022)

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DIRECTED BY: John Ainslie

FEATURING: Kimberly LaFerrière, Rogan Christopher

PLOT: Their relationship on the verge of collapse, Chloë and Jack honeymoon in Miami—and ingest a lot of peyote in their hotel room.

COMMENTS: John Ainslie’s evidences certainty as a director in how he orchestrates his main characters’ indecision so convincingly. At one moment—well, at plenty of moments—the audience really, really dislikes Jack, the childish fiancé-no-wait-husband of Chloë, an aspiring nurse; at the next moment, Ainslie forces you to consider that his fuck-all attitude is maybe the way to go. The distressing codependency between this pair saturates their scenes as gloppily as pools of blood will eventually saturate their hotel room carpeting. This film is about the ugly collapse of two people and their relationship.

Saving this relationship is the purpose of the spastic journey traveled by Chloë and Jack—a honeymoon of sorts at an “adults only” Miami hotel during the off-season. This is only one example of the many ways Chloë is disappointed in her now-husband—he was too cheap to book something during a more fashionable time of year. It’s a petty concern, certainly, but as is the case with many crumbling relationships, it’s the petty things that stack and stack, until something breaks. And in Do Not Disturb, break they do. Grandly.

While most of the film is believable (Ainslie made me hate Jack from at the start), the catalyst for the couple’s descent into mayhem is one of the most random and unbelievable bits of screen nonsense I’ve laid eyes on. While at the beach, the pair witness a fellow wake up from catatonia in a passionate haze. He’s high, he’s been duped somehow, and to emphasize how he won’t be duped again, he tosses down a bag of peyote and some red powder at their feet before walking into the ocean.

Ainslie’s story is dialogue-heavy, violence-heavy, and most emphatically drug-heavy. Breaking it down, it’s around one third chamber drama, one third gorefest, and one third feminist hurrah. The feminism and gore were nicely done; I loved witnessing this intelligent, if somewhat confused, woman break free from her shackles—doing so, primarily, through drugs and the aforementioned gore. But golly if the bad relationship dramatics didn’t tire me. That’s probably the point, though, as the bickering and flip-flopping are an icky and tedious phenomenon. Kimberly LaFerrière shines as the mousey-then-new woman, and I hope that Rogan Christopher finds the time for physical comedy; a sequence wherein Jack’s trying to brain a chatty visitor with a lamp whose cord seems it must be glued into the socket is a delight. All-in-all, this movie is like a peyote-fueled cannibal buffet: not to everyone’s liking, but a refreshing change from the ordinary.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“In John Ainslie’s trippy hotel psychothriller, a drug-taking couple checks in, drops out, eats in and works through what they really want.”–Anton Bitel, Projected Figures (festival screening)

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CAPSULE: PIAFFE (2022)

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Piaffe can be rented or purchased on-demand.

DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: Simone Bucio, Sebastian Rudolph, Simon(e) Jaikiriuma Paetau

PLOT: A woman grows a horse tail when she accepts a job creating equine foley effects for an antidepressant commercial.

Still from Piaffe (2022)

COMMENTS: Rather than hiding the horse tail growing out of her backside, as one would expect, Eva cuts a hole in the rear of her pants so it can stick out. (This is likely a fetish for a very particular audience.) She’s grown the unnatural appendage during her obsessive observation of horse behavior, after being advised to “go out and look at some animals” so that she can imitate equine noises for an antidepressant commercial. The tail looks completely ridiculous: at least, until the film’s final twitching image.

But even aside from that  mutation, the world of Piaffe is strange. It’s not quite full-fledged surrealist piece, but it transgresses the boundaries of simple magical realism. Eva shares some sort of undefined workspace with a botanist who uses an antique rotating platform of dubious scientific value to study unfurling ferns. The company commissioning her foley work is helmed by an aggressively blond man with the worst bowl haircut seen onscreen in some time; his assistants are equally blond and sport equally bad haircuts, as if they’re all members of some weird horse-sound commissioning cult. The nurse at the mental hospital where her non-binary sibling Zara is checked in goes beyond Nurse Ratchet rude, into the realm of the aspiring dominatrix. The entire world seems set up to frustrate the shy girl, who is terrified of others. She might, it seems, benefit from a dose of Equili, the antidepressant whose advertisement she’s been scoring.

Eva finds the strength to emerge from her shell by carefully observing a horse, and even more so by finding the courage to approach the botanist. He opens her up with some b&d rose play—an erotic image with a unique sense of danger. Repeated, if less memorable, bondage sequences follow, before Eva rejects him mid-seduction, without expressing a reason. Perhaps the return of Zara from the hospital has something to do with it…

Piaffe describes a woman’s growing confidence, as she becomes a competent foley artist and a sexually mature being. This trans-adjacent film traffics in an uncomfortable blurring of sexual boundaries: between male and female, consensual and non-consensual, human and animal. There are meaningful connections and memorable scenes, and yet it often feels like an overstretched premise rather than a story. That may be due to the fact that it began its life as a 13-minute short called “Passage,” which starred the androgynous Simon(e) Jaikiriuma Paetau as the foley artist. Pateau plays Zara in Piaffe, with a long horse-like mane but no visible tail. In Piaffe‘s liminal context, it seems only appropriate that they would shift from one character to another.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…ideologically abstract and beguilingly weird.”–Jeanette Catsoulis, The New York Times (contemporaneous)

Piaffe [DVD]

Piaffe [DVD]
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CAPSULE: LYNCH/OZ (2022)

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Lynch/Oz can be rented or purchased on-demand.

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DIRECTED BY: Alexandre O. Philippe

FEATURING: Amy Nichols, , , , , ,

PLOT: Six directors and one critic give their thoughts on the connections between The Wizard of Oz and the complete works of .

Still from Lynch/Oz (2022)

COMMENTS: Director Alexandre O. Philippe has made a career out of making films about other filmmakers’ films: George Lucas, , and are among his previous subjects. This modestly structured doc—nothing but experts reading their own personal essays over film clips—tackles his weightiest subject yet. The Wizard of Oz is a massive icon in pop culture, and, within his sphere of influence, David Lynch is equally influential. The result is not as narrow and academic as you might fear; although the movie expects the viewer to have a working knowledge of Lynch and Oz, the topic is broad enough to serve as a jumping-off point for reflections about movies, American culture, and the artistic process itself.

The essays are roughly arranged in order from most to least enlightening. Nicholson’s opening chapter (“The Wind”) is, in my view, the best; I think her position as the only critic on the panel gives her the widest lens through which to view the subject. Rodney Ascher focuses on Oz as a perfect story template (it’s basically the Hero’s Journey with doppelgangers). John Waters is a mid-show change-of-pace: he doesn’t analyze Lynch’s films intensively, but plays to his talents as a raconteur, telling stories about meeting Lynch (and nuggets like the time he dressed as the Wicked Witch for a children’s Halloween party). Karyn Kusama gives us the most direct evidence of the connection: Lynch’s unelaborated response at a Mulholland Drive Q&A, “there is not a day that goes by that I don’t think about The Wizard of Oz.” Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead dig into Lynch’s obsession with Judy Garland. David Lowery’s segment is probably the least on-topic—and the most concerned with his own personal output—but nevertheless contains fascinating theories about the purpose of childrens’ films (setting kids up to deal with the disillusionment of adulthood and the real world). Phillipe’s contribution is mainly in selecting the clips and images that illustrate and expand on the authors’ words, an exhaustive task that’s not as simple as just fast-forwarding to the appropriate spot in Oz or Wild at Heart; there are also archival Lynch appearances to sort through, and excursions into everything from Gone with the Wind to Star Wars to Videodrome.

“The fact that The Wizard of Oz and David Lynch can go hand-in-hand and communicate with one another,” Lowery explains, “the fact that we can have this conversation about ruby slippers and ‘,’ is one of the most beautiful things about this medium.” Indeed, Lynch/Oz is about the influence of one on the other, but it’s also about all sorts of creative cross-pollinations and new perspectives. Cinema, and the arts in general, are all about conversations between human beings over time. Lynch/Oz is obviously aimed at a select few cinephiles, but if your breadth of knowledge is wide enough, you’ll find plenty to get you thinking—and if not, you’ll discover plenty of new corridors to explore in the labyrinths of cinema.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“An enjoyable, if not entirely satisfying, look at a strange cinematic affinity…. Though frustratingly unfocused and sometimes overreaching (even compared to Philippe’s other docs, which are never what you’d call precision-crafted), the film is consistently enjoyable, with just enough flashes of insight to justify its existence.”–John Defore, The Hollywood Reporter (festival screening)

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CAPSULE: DALÌLAND (2022)

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DIRECTED BY: Mary Harron

FEATURING: , , Christopher Briney, Rupert Graves,

PLOT: A young art gallery intern has a brush with the strange world of during the master’s twilight years.

Still from Daliland (2022)

COMMENTS: Tucked into this quiet biopic is as apt a description of what attracts us, here at 366 Weird Movies, to the films we hunt for, enjoy, and cling to. On a cash errand for the maestro, James interrupts a gallery owner pitching a signed art print. The woman is intrigued, but hesitant, not sure what to make of the image which stands before her. “You… like it?” she asks. “I find it upsetting… I don’t think I want to live with someone else’s weird dream on my wall.” James replies, “But that weirdness, that’s what makes it original. It got to you, that’s why you’ll never get tired of it; you’ll never forget it.” He nails it, inadvertently securing the sale. Simultaneously, his description of that piece explains, as best one can, what Salvador Dalì, and all weird visionaries, are about.

Mary Harron’s film is more of an ensemble piece than the name (and grandiose subject matter) might suggest. In fact, much of the film involves Salvador Dalì (Ben Kingsley), now old, at times bordering on caricature, observing those around him: the trendy hangers-on, his friend Alice Cooper, his inspiring—but harsh—wife Gala (Barbara Sukowa), his new assistant James, and, most of all, Dalì. He speaks in third person. He performs without surcease in the presence of others. And he ages, as it is “very tiring being Dalì.” Put aside his trove of drawings, paintings, and sculptures; his life was a work of art, a performance piece for the ages.

Dalìland is polished and straightforward, but that does not make it resonate any less. While there are many searing, satirical jabs at posers and poseurs, show-offs and charlatans, Harron neither glorifies nor denigrates these oddballs and outcasts dancing along society’s periphery; those who, through their mien and flair mitigate the day-to-day blandness of those around them; the eye-catchers who make others wonder, “Just what the heck are they doing?” and who devote their life force to lending us a touch of the unreal—the sur-real, if you will. Dalì was many different people over the course of his long life, and the performer behind these acts is impossible to know. Indeed, it is clear even to a layman such as myself, that the “real” Dalì probably never existed, and Dalì could not have been happier for having achieved that.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“The latest of the director’s splendidly offbeat biopics captures the madness, the comedy and the tragedy of the surrealist legend who turned his very identity into a work of art.”–Owen Gleiberman, Variety (contemporaneous)