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APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: DAAAAAALI! (2023)

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Daaaaalí! is currently available for VOD rental or purchase.

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FEATURING: , , Jonathan Cohen, , Pio Marmaï, Didier Flamand, Éric Naggar

PLOT: A journalist attempts to interview Salvador Dalí, but the painter’s erratic behavior and demands constantly cut her attempts short.

Still from Daaaaaali! (2023)
Anaïs Demoustier in DAAAAAALÍ! Courtesy of Music Box Films.

WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: If you asked who would be the most intriguing modern director to concoct a Salvador Dalí biopic, Quentin Dupieux’s name would be at the very top of the list. While other directors resort to bemused realism to tackle the Surrealist icon’s notoriously slippery persona, Dupieux is a kindred spirit who fearlessly jumps right in to what makes Dalí tick: the irrational, the nonsensical, the dreamlike. Confident in its refusal to explain its enigmatic subject, Daaaalí! is the only cinematic portrait one could imagine the real Dalí endorsing.

COMMENTS: More weirdly witty than funny and anything but insightful, Daaaalí! tackles its unknowable subject in the only way possible: as a dream. Aspiring journalist Judith somehow gets the famous artist to agree to sit down for a magazine interview, but when he finally arrives—after imperiously striding down a seemingly endless hotel corridor for long enough for Judith to hit the bathroom and order room service—he immediately shuts down the interview because there’s no camera. Then, when Judith reschedules and secures a camera for a second attempt, Dalí accidentally destroys it. And so on. Dalí serves as a negative force in the film, denying and sabotaging every plan that does not accord with his transient, selfish whims. It soon becomes apparent that, like Judith, we are never going to learn anything about the artist beyond his surface facade of arrogance.

But insight into the man is not what this movie is, or should be, about. Instead, Daaaaali! is thoroughly Surrealist in spirit, evoking Dalí’s aesthetics (and, equally, those of Dalí’s great frenemy, ). These men’s sensibilities are a perfect fit for Dupieux, who barely has to fine-tune his own eccentric predilections at all to tell this story. After the premise is established, we quickly spin off into a labyrinth of dreams and anachronisms (we see completed paintings, then later in the film we see Dalí in the process of painting them). Nothing encapsulates the playful narrative spirit better than the long digression (over a bowl of muddy stew with live worms) in which a priest tells the painter about a dream he had where he was shot by a cowboy while riding a donkey. That incident doesn’t end the dream, however; it keeps recurring throughout the film. We are quickly lost inside an arbitrary narrative structure that almost gets as confusing as Dupieux’s bewildering Reality. But we’re anchored in Dalí’s frustratingly quirky, self-involved personality, and in Judith’s repeated failure to capture anything of substance about her quarry.

There are basically four actors who play Dalí, plus one actor who plays old Dalí (a sub-Dalí standing to one side of the main story), plus at least one bonus Dalí who only appears for a few seconds. There could be more Dalís running about, but 4-5 Dalís seems like the most accurate number, without counting fractional Dalís. This use of multiple actors in a central role is, naturally, a reference to Buñuel’s That Obscure Object of Desire, just as the continuous failure to consummate the interview recalls the failed dinner party of The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie. The gentle anticlericalism shown by the repeatedly-shot priest character is also a decidedly Buñuelian touch. Dupieux adapts these Surrealist motifs so naturally that, as much as anything, Daaaaali! serves as a reminder that the Rubber auteur, while often trafficking in modern pop culture references like slashers and superheroes, is himself firmly anchored in the Buñuel/Dalí tradition. Dupieux even creates a living Dalíesque tableau to bookend the film: a piano with a tree sprouting from its cabin and a fountain spouting from its keyboard, draining into a piano-shaped pool. Although critics sometimes view Dupieux as a lightweight due to his prolific output and disinterest in tackling political or otherwise “weighty” themes, in actuality he stands nearly alone in carrying on this strain of classical European Surrealism. We may not learn much about Dalí in Daaaaali!, but hopefully people will learn more about Quentin Dupieux’s underappreciated talents.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“… great fun and appropriately strange, with Dupieux delivering a dream-layered understanding of artistry and impatience with palpable glee… ‘Daaaaaali!’ doesn’t build to a stunning conclusion. It moves slowly to weirder and weirder encounters, doing so with an assortment of performers portraying Dali, with everyone offering their fingerprint on the subject, making for flavorful acting choices.”–Brian Orndorf, Blu-ray.com (contemporaneous)

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IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: HOW STRANGE TO BE NAMED FEDERICO (2013)

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Che strano chiamarsi Federico; AKA How Strange to Be Named Federico: Scola Narrates Fellini

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DIRECTED BY: Ettore Scola

FEATURING: Vittorio Viviani, Antonella Attili, Tomasso Lazotti, Giacomo Lazotti, Maurizio De Santis, Giulio Forges Davanzati 

PLOT: Film director Ettore Scola remembers his friend and contemporary, the legendary Federico Fellini, recreating moments from the great filmmaker’s life on the soundstages of the fabled Cinecittà Studios.

Still from How Strange to Be Named Federico (2013)

COMMENTS: If we’re being honest, How Strange to Be Named Federico is not a movie at all. It’s a eulogy, an Italian take on an Irish wake, replete with fond remembrances and amusing tales of a sadly absent friend. For most of us, it’s the kind of thing that might be shared at a bar or a VFW hall. But then, most of us aren’t successful filmmakers, and our friend isn’t a titan of the art form. So it’s only to be expected that Ettore Scola’s eulogy for Federico Fellini would have to take the form of a film.

Scola makes no effort to try and sum up Fellini’s career or the tremendous mark he left upon cinema. How Strange is a deeply personal account, and we see Fellini’s life exclusively through Scola’s eyes. Early scenes depicting Young Fellini’s big break drawing cartoons for the satirical magazine Marc’Aurelio are presented as a prelude to Scola’s own arrival at the periodical and his subsequent tutelage under Fellini and the staff of hard-bitten comedy writers. Later scenes depict the men holding court at an outdoor café, recounting Fellini’s successes. This isn’t an opportunity to analyze or deconstruct Fellini. Scola just wants you to know what it was like to hang out with the man.

If we learn anything about Fellini, it’s how much of his films seem to come from his observation of others. Scola suggests that Fellini’s intense insomnia, which he addresses by taking lengthy drives through his beloved Rome, provided inspiration in the form of passengers he picked up and encouraged to expound upon their views and experiences. We see two such raconteurs: a prostitute who deliberately overlooks the lies told to her by a thieving suitor because she derives happiness from the falsehoods, and a sidewalk chalk artist whose need to express himself is paramount. They don’t map directly to characters from Fellini’s films, but you kind find their spirit throughout his career.

This isn’t going to make much sense to the uninitiated, and the narrow focus of Scola’s memory play may be more likely to close off audiences, rather than invite them in. The wordless opening scene is like a parade of Easter eggs for Fellini aficionados, as a series of performers appear to audition for the director on a beach at dusk (one of many such scenes set on Cinecittà’s iconic Stage 5), evoking the memory of such classics as La Strada or 8½. And there are occasional side trips into archival footage of Fellini at work: making a rare turn as an actor, traveling to Hollywood to pick up an Oscar, or finding ways to showcase his avatar, Marcello Mastroianni. (We see the actor’s mother confront Scola with the charge that Fellini makes her son look handsome while Scola’s films turn him into a monster.) But these are all part of the kaleidoscope of Scola’s reminiscence. He’s remembering his friend through the method of storytelling they both knew best.

The final scene is probably the most unusual – or Felliniesque – as the not-dead-after-all filmmaker bolts from his own funeral, eluding the honor guard and escaping to an abandoned fairground where he finds pleasure in the rides, and we are treated to a whirlwind montage of striking visions from throughout his catalog. It’s akin to a celebrity-themed version of Cinema Paradiso. But the moment is affecting, because this is truly Scola’s farewell to the man he loved and admired, using Fellini’s own cinematic language to render him forever free. It’s the wish we all hold for the ones we hold dear, but only a filmmaker can make it come true. 

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“How Strange to be Named Federico, Scola Narrates Fellini hits just the right notes of whimsy, nostalgia and mocking tomfoolery to bring this memory of Fellini and his times vividly to life… Scola leaps around casting bits and pieces of expressionist portraiture before us. This makes the film much more interesting to watch, even for audiences who know little about the director.” – Deborah Young, Hollywood Reporter (contemporaneous)

(This movie was nominated for review by Brad. Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)

How Strange to Be Named Federico ( Che strano chiamarsi Federico ) [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.2 Import - Italy ]

How Strange to Be Named Federico ( Che strano chiamarsi Federico ) [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.2 Import - Italy ]
  • How Strange to Be Named Federico ( Che strano chiamarsi Federico )
  • How Strange to Be Named Federico
  • Che strano chiamarsi Federico
  • Non US Format, PAL, Region 2
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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)

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APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: I’M NOT THERE (2007)

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“Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
“(I am large, I contain multitudes.)”–Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself”

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DIRECTED BY: Todd Haynes

FEATURING: Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Marcus Carl Franklin, Richard Gere, , , , Kris Kristofferson, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Julianne Moore,

PLOT: The intermingled stories of an itinerant child blues guitarist, a folk singer-turned-preacher, a philandering movie actor, an indulgent rock star, an aging outlaw, and a poet under interrogation, all of whom represent facets of the life of Bob Dylan.

Still from I'm Not There (2007)

WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: The biographical film is a genre ridden with cliché, perhaps an inevitable result of trying to condense decades of life into a limited running time, as well as the absurdity inherent in calling upon famous people to embody other famous people. I’m Not There sidesteps this issue by shattering its subject’s life into fragments, echoes of Dylan who are never quite Dylan, but united in the spirit of an artist with the soul of a poet and an aversion to being analyzed. You won’t leave the film having learned a single fact about the man, but you will feel like you know him far better than any encyclopedic review of his life could impart.

COMMENTS: Facing down his interrogators, a poet lays before them the seven simple rules for life in hiding. Our protagonists, despite some of their very public lives, seem pretty adept at the first six, having created chameleon-like personalities that defy categorization or understanding. But it is the seventh–“Never create anything”–that trips them up. As much as they want to avoid capture, no matter their revulsion toward fame or notoriety, as much as they want to leave past choices behind them, the urge to create is inescapable.

Todd Haynes is in love with metaphor. His films luxuriate in the power of a thing standing in for another thing. Some examples are more blatant than others (this reviewer has previously chronicled one particularly unsubtle instance), but he always comes back to the idea that coming at an idea directly is rarely as interesting as something more tangential. That makes him a good match for Bob Dylan, an artist who is noteworthy for his refusal to ever say anything right out. In Dylan, Haynes has found a muse who indulges his vision of the world through fun house mirrors. If Dylan is never just one thing, Haynes surmises, then he must be many things. And that’s what he sets out to dramatize.

The result is something of an anthology, with stories that sometimes intersect or echo each other, but are always their own narrative. This procedure permits Haynes to indulge in ambitious flights of fancy. To depict Dylan’s early interest in folk music, for example, the singer is embodied by a young black boy with Woody Guthrie’s guitar, the spirit of an early-20th century bluesman, and a hobo’s life on the rails. None of these things are literally Dylan (and the racial dimension just barely avoids issues of cultural appropriation), but they get at the heart of his curiosity and determination to slip the chains of his past identity to explore a new one.

Sometimes these depictions are very literal, such as Bale’s Greenwich Village troubadour. Other times, the symbolism is extremely heavy-handed, like naming Whishaw after Arthur Rimbaud, a poet who inspired Dylan’s lyrical obfuscations, or Gere assuming the character of Billy the Kid, whose own biography Dylan famously scored. Interestingly, the most Dylan-like character is Blanchett’s Jude Quinn, who takes on the precise look of the star’s “Judas” heyday, and yet occupies a esque fantasy landscape of parties in white rooms and giddy romps with coy models and fawning pop stars. Most of them revolve around music (but not all), many of them incorporate a faint whiff of impersonation of Dylan’s notorious nasal drawl (but not all). The one thing that unites all six version of Dylan is a stubborn refusal to be seen, to be captured and measured and sized up. Haynes wisely turns that inability to present the man into his boldest technique.

The biopic has matured over the decades, as filmmakers have largely abandoned regurgitated womb-to-tomb accounts in favor of more telescopic views of key moments from the life. In so doing, they’ve been willing to play with the form, demolishing linear time (like Chadwick Boseman’s electric embodiment of James Brown in Get on Up) or providing on-screen commentary (as in the to-screen objections of characters in 24 Hour Party People). Haynes does them all better by presenting a biography that doesn’t even feature its subject, Because while my review keeps saying Dylan Dylan Dylan, you’ll never hear that name in I’m Not There. Not once.

I’m Not There is definitely a weird watch because it has completely rethought the language of its genre. The life of the subject here is not character, it’s not plot, it’s not dialogue. It’s theme. And as such, it leaves interpretation to the viewer, even as its subject resists interpretation at every turn. So make of it whatever you will, knowing that you’re on your own. How does it feel?

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“The movie looks and sounds so purely pleasurable in isolated moments that I thought, more than once, that Haynes would’ve better served Dylan by putting together a DVD of music videos. In a way, that’s what he’s done anyway, and perhaps the whole weird, scattershot thing might play better when you can skip-search to your favorite bits.”–Rob Gonsalves, Rob’s Movie Vault (contemporaneous)

(This movie was nominated for review by Brad. Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)

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CAPSULE: BLONDE (2022)

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DIRECTED BY: Andrew Dominik

FEATURING: , , Bobby Cannavale, Xavier Samuel, , Evan Williams

PLOT: Aspiring actress and model Norma Jeane Mortenson grows from an abused child to become the internationally famous star Marilyn Monroe, but her past demons, the heartless churn of the Hollywood system, a world of institutionalized and violent sexism, and the pressures of toxic notoriety collectively push her psyche to the brink.

Still from Blonde (2022)

COMMENTS: Shakespeare was a liar. His historical plays took extensive liberties for the sake of drama: Richard III likely didn’t kill Edward IV, the real Macbeth didn’t consult with a triumvirate of witches, and Julius Caesar never said, “Et tu, Brute?” But we’re okay with that, because they’re not intended to be rigorous historical accounts. Shakespeare used real people as a means to understand the depths of human nature, as a launching pad towards a larger truth. (To say nothing of putting a persuasive slant on history to indulge the egos of the playwright’s royal patrons.) So can we begrudge a biography of Marilyn Monroe that invents stories? That creates relationships that didn’t exist and manufactures situations based on speculation and correlation? I mean… larger truth.

The fact that Blonde plays fast and loose with history isn’t where it goes wrong. The problem is that the film has a very narrow and unilluminating notion of Marilyn’s “larger truth”: Marilyn missed never having a father. Marilyn missed never becoming a mother. Marilyn was horribly abused by everyone around her. Marilyn was sad pretty much all the time. It’s a grim account, and at nearly three hours, a pretty relentless one.

Mind you, it’s fair to question to received wisdom of Hollywood history. The film industry is legendary for the brutality it serves up to its biggest stars, and it’s a mark of Marilyn Monroe’s unique personality that her legend endures six decades after her death, despite the travails she endured. But Blonde is having none of it. As far as the film is concerned, nearly every moment of her all-too-brief life was a dreadful slog, and the film hates you for having enjoyed any of it. Are you a fan of Some Like It Hot, one of the most beloved comedies of all time? You’re a jerk, it was a miserable grind. Think the fabled subway-grate scene from The Seven-Year Itch is an iconic moment in the history of the medium? It robbed her of her very soul, you heartless bastard.

Writer/director Andrew Dominik is certain that you can’t appreciate just how much pressure Marilyn felt, how oppressive the forces against her were, and that’s how this film ends up in our bailiwick. He dramatizes crucial moments in daring and shocking ways, gleefully tossing aside Hollywood conventions or even boring standards of good taste to illustrate Marilyn’s predicament. This leads to moments that are unquestionably outrageous, but simultaneously puerile and simplistic. A sex scene takes place atop a surging waterfall that happens to be in a movie trailer that those same participants are watching (and getting off to). A fateful abortion sets up not only a dialogue between Norma Jeane and her gestating fetus but culminates in a POV shot from inside Marilyn’s vagina. Most notoriously, when Norma Jeane is forced to fellate the President of the United States, she disassociates from the event by imagining herself on a movie screen, which we get to see in the company of hundreds of fellow moviegoers, who happily stare up at the flickering image of an icon trying desperately not to gag on JFK’s ejaculate while clips from Earth vs. the Flying Saucers depict the destruction of enormous phallic structures. It’s not a staid Hollywood biopic, that’s for sure.

When he’s not trying to be audacious, Dominik’s screenplay falls back on some of the worst cliches of the form. Joe DiMaggio is never named outright, but Bobby Cannavale introduces himself as if he was quoting from the ballplayer’s Wikipedia page. The Playwright (Adrien Brody channeling Arthur Miller in one of the film’s few understated performances) is rocked to his core by a casual observation by Norma Jeane about one of his characters. And the film ends with a twist that completely recontextualizes Norma Jeane’s relationship with her absent father in an uncommonly cruel manner.

All this frustration makes what Ana de Armas is doing considerably more impressive. She’s thoroughly invested in the take on Monroe as a wide-eyed innocent who pays dearly for her guilelessness, and she manages to imbue a slavish impersonation of the actress (every line is delivered in that trademark melodically breathy tone) with genuine pathos. But at times it feels like de Armas is as much a victim of Dominik’ storytelling as Monroe was of all her tormentors. A scene where she starts to complain about her co-star being paid more threatens to unleash the strength and willpower of both actress and subject, but the fire is quickly snuffed out. Most of the time, she is asked to be a spectacular victim. To her credit, she is that.

Back to the original point: if we’re not here to delve into who Marilyn was, then what are we going for here? Primarily, it’s to make you feel bad, as bad as this version of Marilyn Monroe must have felt on an hourly basis. It’s the equivalent of those infomercials for charities that guilt you into philanthropy by showing children wallowing in the most miserable conditions imaginable. It’s undoubtedly effective, but so cynical in its execution as to undercut your sympathy. Blonde wants you to know that Marilyn Monroe was horribly exploited in her lifetime. Blonde is equally exploitative in ours.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“Reductive, ghoulish and surpassingly boring, Blonde might have invented a new cinematic genre: necro-fiction… even at its most gruesome and bizarre, Blonde might be most unforgivable in what it leaves out — not regarding Monroe’s short, unhappy life but her sublime gifts.” – Ann Hornaday, Washington Post (contemporaneous)