Tag Archives: Death

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CAPSULE: ALCHEMY OF THE SPIRIT (2022)

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Alchemy of the Spirit is currently available for VOD rental or purchase.

DIRECTED BY: Steve Balderson

FEATURING: Xander Berkeley, Sarah Clarke, Mink Stole

PLOT: Despite his wife having just passed away, Oliver agrees to create an art installation piece.

COMMENTS: There is a moment of raw delight near the end of Alchemy of the Spirit, when Oliver is explaining his artistic ambitions and process to his latest buyer, Mrs. Sonnenberg. Alex, his agent, stands behind the wealthy patron, fearing the worst. Oliver has been rambling for some time as he attempts to delay showing the new piece—and Alex seems to have been unable to breathe. Finally shown the work, Sonnenberg quietly remarks, “Oliver, it’s perfect.” And Alex’s gasp of relief punctures the scene.

As a general rule, it is poor form to reveal the ending. But the ending in Alchemy of the Spirit is incidental. And, as is so often the way in real life, the events leading up to Alex’s stertorous outburst, are what make Steve Balderson’s film the quiet, but satisfying, narrative artwork that it is. In fact, the film’s beginning is as much a punch as anything else in the film.

Oliver (Xander Berkely) wakes one morning to find that his wife, Heather (Sarah Clarke), has passed away. He cannot believe it; he cries at the tragedy; he refuses to accept it. And then he does something unlikely before laying his deceased wife in an ice-filled tub: he crafts a death mask for her. Over the coming days while she unhurriedly decomposes, Oliver works on a new project his agent agreed to for him. While working, he has long conversations with his wife.

The gauzy lens work, the orchestral score—brought right up in the sound mix—and the occasionally aphoristic lines all manage to gel beautifully, as if their clunky nature becomes softened, and functional. This is a sweet movie; a bittersweet chronicling of one man’s grieving process through art. It is always compelling, and spiked with enough odd mundanity (the plumbers’ visit becomes hilarious in its thriller-like execution, and Mink Stole’s performance as Oliver’s agent is a delight) to make what could have been a saccharine, melodramatic bit of blech into something endearing. Alchemy of the Spirit, like life, comes and goes in a flash; and like life, it’s worth taking a closer look at.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…there’s nothing traditional about Balderson’s Alchemy of the Spirit. From Xander Berkeley’s beautiful performance to the magical realism that floods every frame and the script itself. It’s a very weird and atypical depiction of grief. But it doesn’t mean it isn’t understandable.”–Federico Furzan, Movie-Blogger.com (contemporaneous)

Capsules, It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue, Shorts

IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: ONE SOLDIER (1999)

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DIRECTED BY: Steven Wright

FEATURING: Steven Wright, Sandi Carroll

PLOT: A Civil War soldier looks back upon his life and contemplates the nature of human existence in the days leading up to his execution for murder.

Still from One Soldier (1999)

COMMENTS: For years, Steven Wright built his comedy empire on peerless one-liners that required 5 seconds to fully sink in and another 30 to stop laughing. Long before successors like Mitch Hedberg and Demetri Martin picked up the torch, Wright was unspooling hour-long sets built out of dozens upon dozens of jokes that lay like unexploded mines waiting to go off. It’s frankly all I can do to resist the temptation to just spend the whole review quoting him. (I’ll allow myself this one famous joke for the unacquainted: “I spilled spot remover on my dog… and now he’s gone.”) This earned him many opportunities to apply his hangdog stare and drier-than-the-Sahara monotone to a variety of projects as a supporting actor and voice artist, but there have been fewer opportunities to try to translate his voice as a writer to the screen. In 1988, he wrote, produced, and starred in “The Appointments of Dennis Jennings,” the tale of a hapless psychiatric patient that earned Wright that year’s Academy Award for live-action short. That success under his belt, he then waited 11 years to make another short, this time assuming the director’s mantle as well.

The initial joke is that, even though his milieu is now the American Civil War, Steven Wright in a Union uniform is still Steven Wright. The elements are in place for a “Drunk History”-style collision of history and comedy, as mournful violins accompany Wright’s walks through an empty New England landscape. But when he launches into his narration in his classic disaffected drone, the subject matter is immediately more philosophical, touching on the inscrutability of life and the inevitability of death. Soon enough, his wife Becky joins in with her own reflection, and each hints that his fate may already be sealed. Essentially, “One Soldier” is like if “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” were a comedy sketch.

Of course, Steven Wright can’t not be funny, or at least not indulge his quirkier side. Particularly as regards his fate, which he anticipates by plucking petals off a flower. Even his deepest musings are tinged with silliness, like his recollections of his job in the war, playing the concertina to soothe the nerves of the top brass. A heartwarming reunion with his wife is tempered somewhat by his insistence on wearing a harmonica, even during intimate moments. And there’s a comedian’s love of the absurd, best typified by this line of dialogue which is no less bizarre when heard in context: “When she said the number 25 in German, it drove me wild.”

Wright’s soldier is a philosopher who hasn’t done the work and doesn’t have the language to describe the uncertainties he feels. That makes “One Soldier” a most unusual vanity project: it can’t carry the burden of the weighty issues it confronts, so it leans into that weakness. But there’s still something haunting that comes through, perhaps best exemplified by the film’s final thoughts: “First you don’t exist, then you exist, then you don’t exist. So this whole thing is just an interruption from not existing.” Steven Wright finds the comedy in the tragic notion that a person’s last thought on this earth is that he’s been thinking too much about the meaning of life.

“One Soldier” is available as a bonus feature on “When the Leaves Blow Away,” a recording of a one-hour Wright stand-up set from 2007.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“It is a fine blend of deep theological ponderings, modern Zen koans, and comic schtick. Like Wright’s live stand-up, the film’s slow pace and ponderous subject matter have a rather hypnotic effect, drawing one into the skewed reality of Wright’s brilliant mind.” – J. C. Shakespeare, Austin Chronicle (contemporaneous)

(This movie was nominated for review by RobinHoodsun, who mused “it was very very weird and it left me with a starnge feeling lol.” Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)

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CAPSULE: MOON MANOR (2022)

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Moon Manor is currently available for VOD rental.

DIRECTED BY: Machete Bang Bang, Erin Grana

FEATURING: James ‘Jimmy’ Carrozo, , Richard Riehle, Debra Wilson

PLOT: Diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, an elderly bohemian decides to end his life, and stages a celebratory “fun-eral” party ending with his suicide.

Still from Moon Manor (2022)

COMMENTS: Moon Manor has a strong point of view, and for better or worse, it sticks to it. It’s structured not as a movie, but as a memorial service. It’s both didactic and celebratory. Jimmy, a former singer and moon real estate salesman, suffers from dementia that’s only getting worse. Deciding to take control of the end of his life, he avails himself of liberal West Coast laws allowing physicians to prescribe lethal doses of barbiturates and invites his friends over to celebrate his last day on earth. Along for the final ride are a death doula who reads from the Tibetan Book of the Dead and a neophyte local journalist covering the eulogy beat who hopes to leverage Jimmy’s death into a feature article. Most of Jimmy’s old friends are dead, but younger folk touched by his mentorship come along to the party to give testimonials, a drag queen supplies entertainment, and Rikki Lake shows up to give some words of encouragement. Jimmy is a swell guy and no one has a bad word to say about him, as is appropriate. We get to know him through flashbacks (Jimmy met the love of his life at an audition for “Hair,” a musical whose revolutionary potential he still staunchly defends). The only pushback to the general sense of how wonderful the whole suicide plan is comes from a pair of evangelical protestors who park outside his house and shout Bible verses through a bullhorn—although these antagonists are quickly overcome and sidelined. (They are basically intolerant, unempathetic strawmen, although one of them does receive some unexpected character development).

The movie has a heavy neo-hippie, New Age vibe, which can come across as a bit naïve but is in keeping with its subject’s spirit. Moon Manor is a feature-length advertisement for a radical species of death with dignity, and, though one-sided, it successfully makes the decision seem rational. But is it weird? Not if you’re the kind of guy who recognizes the pot of San Pedro cactus growing in the corner of the kitchen. There are a few fast-cut montages with colored lights, and there’s a shambling apparition hanging around (Jimmy assumes it’s Death, but it names itself “Intuition”). The editing in the hallucination sequences is indie-psychedelic standard, competent but not transcendent. It’s not as weird as you’d expect from a movie co-directed by someone named Machete Bang Bang.

Moon Manor aims at persuasion, and how well you like it will depend on your position on the right to die (and on whether you think opposing viewpoints should at least get a fair hearing). But it’s also a living eulogy for an extraordinary man, which makes the movie harder to criticize or dislike. Jimmy is endearing and authentic, because he is playing a version of himself: many of the details, including his love story and his career as a working musician, are taken from the actor’s real life. Knowing the factual basis of the fictional story makes it easier to accept the film’s argument: this may not really be happening, but you know the actor you’re seeing onscreen wholeheartedly endorses the scenario. Fortunately, there is no indication that the real-life Jimmy has advanced Alzheimer’s, or intends to die soon.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“The film brilliantly blends humor with melancholy, feeling like a surrealistic biography.”–Jon Mendelson, CBR (contemporaneous)

Capsules, Miscellanea

FANTASIA FILM FESTIVAL 2020: MUSING ON MEMORY – THE OAK ROOM (2020) AND KRIYA (2020)

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Or, “Dead Dad Double Feature”

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Screening online for Canadians at 2020’s online Fantasia Film Festival

Happenstance, more than anything else, brought me a double feature that centered on the deaths of fathers. Cody Calahan’s The Oak Room is best described as a “Canadian thriller”: subdued, sparsely-populated, and blanketed in driving snow. Showing up after closing time at his father’s favourite bar, Steve requests his old man’s ashes. Paul, friend of the father, bartender, and all-around bastard, has them—in a tackle box. But he demands that Steve pay up “what he owes” before handing them over.

The Oak Room‘s action takes place in two different, but eerily similar-looking drinking dens. What seems a simple story of a ne’er-do-well son returning after his father’s death becomes a collection of stories: Steve’s story about “the Oak Room”, Paul’s story about Steve’s father’s story about hitch-hiking in his 20s, Tommy Coward’s story about the goings-on in the Oak Room, and, twice, Michael’s story about his father’s pig farm. For those counting at home, that’s five interlocking pieces of one narrative—each unlocking a piece of a puzzle. By the time the unclear ending rolls around, each narrators’ unreliability sloshes into the stew of truth and fiction, and the film’s seemingly scant body count may rise. Or, is Steve—seemingly some kind of idiot drifter—merely harnessing the power of storytelling to trick the bitter bartender?

In Sidharth Srinivasan’s Kriya, a DJ named Neel gets more than he bargained for when he returns to the home of Sitara, a fiercely attractive young woman who catches his eye. Expecting sex, instead he finds he’s been drafted into being a male mourner for her father’s death rites. Sitara’s family is incredibly traditional, and Hindu tradition demands that the father’s son lead the ceremonies. But Neel is not this man’s son—and he realises too late that he’s gotten roped (at times, literally) into an attempt by the family to break a generations’-long curse. Pity poor Neel.

The Oak Room is obviously a thriller, and Kriya is obviously a horror movie, but they stand out in the same manner that they stand together: both meditate on the death of a patriarch, and both explore the vagaries of human memory and tradition. Steve’s father, Gord, told stories; his son does the same. It is an attempt to make sense of things, perhaps improving on the past through retelling (“goosing the truth”, as explained by bartender Paul). Kriya echoes this technique of ritualizing a narrative through repetition, focusing much more blatantly on rites—centuries old, in this case. Kriya‘s first third is almost entirely devoted to the death rites of Sitara’s dying father; it’s final third is almost entirely devoted to the magical rites that relate to the family curse.

The thread tying these films together–films made 7,000 miles apart, about two very different cultures–was a reminder of why I love cinema and how it underscores the universality of humankind’s need to tell stories. It has been no small relief that even though Fantasia’s festival trappings have been canceled this year, the stories continue.