Tag Archives: Meta-narrative

CHANNEL 366: THE KINGDOM TRILOGY (THE KINGDOM, THE KINGDOM II, THE KINGDOM: EXODUS)

Riget

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Still from "The Kingdom"

DIRECTED BY: /Morten Arnford (Kingdom, Kingdom II); Lars von Trier (Kingdom: Exodus)

FEATURING: Ernst-Hugo Järegård, Kirsten Rolffes, Søren Pilmark, Birgitte Raaberg, , Mikael Persbrandt, Lars Mikkelsen, Tuva Novotny, , , Lars von Trier

PLOT: This limited TV series follows goings-on, bureaucratic and supernatural, at Denmark’s largest hospital. As the prologue of each episode states:

“The Kingdom Hospital rests on ancient marshland—where the bleaching ponds once lay. Here, the bleachers moistened their great spans of cloth. The steam from the cloth shrouded the place in permanent fog. Then the hospital was built here. The bleachers gave way to doctors, researchers—the best brains in the nation and the most perfect technology.

To crown their work, they called their hospital ‘The Kingdom’. Now life was to be charted and ignorance and superstition never to shake science again. Perhaps their arrogance became too pronounced—like their persistent denial of the spiritual. For it is that the cold and damp have returned. Tiny signs of fatigue are appearing in the solid, modern edifice.

No living person knows it yet, but the portal to The Kingdom—is opening again.”

COMMENTS: It’s not out of line to call “The Kingdom” Lars von Trier’s ““; he’s stated that the David Lynch series is a direct influence.  But there’s much more to it. Both shows are anchored in the 90s, and both were resurrected some twenty-five years later to continue and conclude their stories. Both are, ultimately, about the ongoing battle between Good and Evil. “Twin Peaks” did so within the framework of the late 80s/early 90s nighttime network soap operas, grafted with Lynch’s retro-50s style, and adding surrealism, cosmic horror, and a pinch of meta commentary. “The Kingdom” frames that battle within the hospital/medical show, a staple of television drama. Many Americans will think of “E.R.”, although a more apt comparison would be “St. Elsewhere” with a little bit of “M*A*S*H” and an aesthetic heavily influenced by “Homicide: Life in the Streets.” It’s also firmly anchored in institutional satires like The Hospital (1971) and Britannia Hospital (1982). Stephen King1 is also a big influence. Von Trier uses popular tropes to deliver the horror bits: a ghost girl, haunted transports (ambulances in early seasons, a helicopter in “Exodus”), mass graveyards (or bleaching ground stand-ins), spirits on the premises. There’s also some play with severed body parts, and “Kingdom”‘s big set piece, the introduction of ‘Little Brother’ at the end of the first series.

The tropes of medical dramas are twisted here: the heroic doctor figure runs an underground black market; a doctor researching a specific form of liver cancer has an organ transplanted into him Continue reading CHANNEL 366: THE KINGDOM TRILOGY (THE KINGDOM, THE KINGDOM II, THE KINGDOM: EXODUS)

CAPSULE: COSMIC DISCO DETECTIVE RENE (2023)

AKA Cosmic Disco Detective Rene: The Mystery of the Immortal Time Travelers; Cosmic Disco Detective Rene: The Secret Society for Slow Romance 2

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Cosmic Disco Detective Rene can be rented on Vimeo until 9/14.

DIRECTED BY: Sujewa Ekanayake

FEATURING: Sujewa Ekanayake, Alia Lorae, Natalie Osborne, Genoveva Rossi

PLOT: Cosmic Disco Detective Rene is hired to investigate the light bridges cutting through the Brooklyn skyline while his lady friend Allyson considers various potential film projects.

Still from Cosmic Disco Detective Rene: The Mystery of the Immortal Time Travelers (2023)

COMMENTS: Sujewa Ekanayake’s film tackles three topics simultaneously:

  • The current state and future prospects of independent and underground cinema, particularly in the context of New York City
  • Cosmic Detective work, focusing on a case involving immortal time travelers
  • Allyson’s butt, which is “looking really good right now.”

The particulars of the final item I will hold off on for the time being to allow more thorough discussion of the first two items which are the primary focus of Cosmic Disco Detective Rene (though considering the tone of this film, it would not surprise me if Ekanayake & Co. opted for a further analysis of the third topic). Join me now as I attempt the inadvisable and review the case results from the titular Cosmic Detective.

Ekanayake hangs his cinematic musings on a delightfully flimsy pretext: a government agent asks that he determine the motives of “immortal time travelers” who are passing through contemporary Brooklyn, hopefully so as to stave off the possibility of the US government sanctioning a nuclear attack on the “light bridges” used by these entities. That’s enough plot. Possibly, even, enough review. There are two disarming sequences in Cosmic Disco Detective Rene which make me question this exercise. First, I am presumably viewing this film through my “imperialist” lens, and as such, I will be bringing my own pre-existing biases and hang-ups to this process. (I will politely disagree with the accusation, and suggest I’d be happy to discuss the issue with the filmmaker.) This ties in with the second point: that each movie should be judged on its intentions.

Sujewa (if I may), that’s how I roll. While definitions of “entertainment” can, and should, vary, every film should divert the mind in some manner. This can be for motives as basic as simple amusement, or more ambitiously, to trigger entirely new chains of thought and reaction in the mind of the beholder. As Rene absorbs his surroundings, occasionally tuning in to the “Cosmic Disco” beneath it all—a simple process: place your left hand near your left ear, with that hand’s pointer and index fingers raised upwards—potential motives for the travelers emerge. (One of my favorites concerns dangerous future-bears.) Every now and again, socio-political asides spike the easy-breezy atmosphere, which prompted me to consider some of my notions. I have no doubt that is Ekanayake’s intention.

Cosmic Disco Detective Rene is akin to a train ride of semi-focused discussion while watching dozens of potential plot-lines and stories passing by the window. I give nothing away when I tell you that Rene solves the case; New York City is not leveled by nuclear weapons. And while that’s partially the point—otherwise this movie would not have its (primary) title—the real Cosmic Disco detective work is the ideas triggered whilst traveling along this nonsensical plot structure. If you want a linear narrative, think twice before popping this on-screen; but if you want some affably catalyzed food for thought about storytelling, breaking through preconceptions, and the nature of cinema—as well as plenty of shots of Allyson’s butt—then you should consider tapping into the Cosmic Disco and giving this film a look.

See also our Pod 366 interview with the director.

Addendum: audio review for film enthusiasts who prefer audio reviews.

CAPSULE: LEONOR WILL NEVER DIE (2022)

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Recommended

DIRECTED BY: Martika Ramirez Escobar

FEATURING: Sheila Francisco, Bong Cabrera, Rocky Salumbides, Anthony Falcon

PLOT: After a conk on the noggin, an aging filmmaker finds herself inside her unfinished action movie script.

Still from Leonor Will Never Die (2022)

COMMENTS: Leonor Will Never Die is two movies for the price of one: a gritty revenge-based actioner (Ang Pagbabalik ng Kwago, “The Return of the Owl”) wrapped inside a charming dramedy about an eccentric grandmother. Actually, it may be even more than two movies, because there’s also a ghost running around, a pregnant man, another amateur version of the action movie, and some meta-movie noodling and behind-the-scenes footage of this movie as it’s being made. And a couple random musical numbers thrown in, too. The movie is as overpopulated and ramshackle as the cramped shantytowns where much of Kwago takes place.

With all of that going on, Leonor might be forgiven for confusing audiences accustomed to straightforward fare. The film flirts with a number of reality-collides-with-fiction conceits—including a hint of Author as God, when kindly Leonor apologizes to one of her own creations for the troubled life she gave her and confesses, “I also lost my son.” Leonor sometimes rewrites the movie-within-the-movie as it’s happening, by clacking her fingers on an imaginary typewriter: Renwaldo’s final showdown with the vicious criminal Mayor goes through multiple iterations before reaching its climax. And Leonor has particular trouble figuring out how to end itself; Escobar says that she went through twenty-five edits before finally settling on the version we see today. You could argue that Leonor has too many ideas and strays from narrative and thematic rigor, but the ragged impulses and loose ends are a large part of what makes it a weird, and wonderful, experience.

I shouldn’t overstress how supposedly confusing Leonor is, however; it’s more joyously jumbled. At its core, the movie tells the story of how Leonor’s experiences shape the script that she writes as a way to redeem her own personal history. The movie’s surrealistic intrusions are gentle and don’t undermine its crowd-pleasing aspects. Shelia Francisco, frumping around in a floral muumuu with a kindly smile, holds it all together as the title character. In reality, she’s a pathetic, fading has-been on her way out; in the world of her screenplay, on the other hand, she’s an omniscient (but still troubled) entity. The movie-within-the-movie is the real wonder here: it’s an affectionate tribute and parody of the action films that dominated the Philippines’ domestic cinema during the Marcos regime. You’ve probably never seen one of these (though if you’re lucky you’ve caught a Weng Weng movie), but you’ll immediately recognize the tropes from revenge-minded B-movies everywhere: melodramatic acting, intense closeups, overdramatic lighting, eye-candy leading ladies, men’s shirts unbuttoned to their navels, energetic but incoherent editing, and sadistic violence (it’s good thing for Leonor’s script that Filipinos traditionally have hammers and nails hanging on their living room walls). The fight scenes are brutal, but fun: the kind where every thug knows a little kung fu, and you can’t fling a combatant five feet without them shattering the breakaway furniture. Leonor’s troubled relations with her own family highlight the appeal of this morally uncomplicated fantasy world where good guys protect the weak from predators and inevitably triumph over evil, and deaths are never in vain. In this way, Leonor settles into its main themes: the way stories inform our understanding of the world; the genuine value of escapism, both personal and communal; and, finally, how we all are like film editors, cutting and pasting and recasting our memories to fit the story we want to tell about ourselves.

Spoiler: Leonor will actually die. But Leonor Will Never Die will exist as long as Blu-rays are sold or movies are streamed. It has already joined the immortals in the eternal world of cinema.

The packed Blu-ray contains trailers for this and other Music Box releases, an Escobar commentary, a “making of” interview with the filmmaker, a video diary about the film’s festival run, three stills galleries, and the director’s 2014 short “Pusong Bato,” which references a lot of the same strands of Filipino cinema nostalgia that will appear in Leonor, but adds a woman falling in love with a rock.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“Packed with self-reflexive humor and a deep reverence for the art of filmmaking, ‘Leonor Will Never Die’ establishes writer/director Martika Ramirez Escobar as an artist with a singular voice and bright future in halls of weird cinema.”–Marya E. Gates, RogerEbert.com, (festival screening)

APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: LUX ÆTERNA (2019)

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DIRECTED BY: Gaspar Noé

FEATURING: , ,

PLOT: An art-house movie shoot is falling to pieces, with the director losing her cool, the lead receiving dreadful news from home, and the director of photography angling to take over the production.

Still from Lux Aeterna (2019)

WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: Noé continues his exploration of artistic collapse with a deep dive into the traumatic possibilities found within filmmaking. Iconoclastic quotations, chaotic social disintegration, and dizzying technicolor strobe effects do a quick hit-and-run on the viewer, leaving the brain addled and the eyeballs reeling from the flicker.

COMMENTS: “Fuck entertainment movies” is either a defiant stance against mass media or a pretentious defense of fringe cinema. Either way, it is a very Frenchy disposition—or at least a very Frenchy cinematic disposition. Just off dooming a dance troupe in the psychedelic horror experience, Climax, Gaspar Noé continues to follow his chaotic muse. In LUX ÆTERNA he takes on his own field, filmmaking, and drags his cast and the viewers along with him on a quick trip into nightmare in his pursuit of art.

Events begin calmly enough. After a brief Häxan-influenced opener, we find Charlotte, an actress, and Béatrice, the director, calmly chatting about witches. Sometimes in one shot, sometimes in two photograph-slide frames side-by-side. This camera trick continues regularly throughout, capturing the behind the scenes chaos of the production of God’s Craft. The camera slides fluidly to, from, around, and between various concurrent scenes of imminent collapse: the producer cannot believe this erstwhile actress is such a horrible director; the various leads wonder just what is going on after a five-hour wait; the director of photography (who, as he reminds us, has done camera work for Godard) is on the cusp of quitting, lingering only in the hope that he might replace the current director.

LUX ÆTERNA is one of those very “meta” meta-movies. It’s a movie about a making a movie, certainly—and that’s been done. But it is informed and influenced exclusively by films pertaining to cinematigraphicality (to coin a phrase). Yellow Veil felt it advisable to include four iconic short films on the Blu-ray release: Kenneth Anger‘s “Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome,” which clearly inspired Noe’s stylistic chaos; Pier Paolo Pasolini‘s “La Ricotta,” a religious-comedic-(existentialist) romp about a meaningless death on the set of a Crucifixion film shoot; and “Ray Gun Virus” and “The Flicker”—two items that both explore, at length, strobing effects both aural and visual. This in mind, you should only approach LUX ÆTERNA if you’re willing to do some homework.

That line above probably sounded like a closer, but it’s not. Gaspar Noé’s purpose here is that, as an artist, and by extension an appreciator of art, one cannot stop. Climax covered much of the narrative and stylistic ground retread here, but it is through an artist’s pursuit of complete expression, of expression as close to one’s vision as possible, that all art continues, no matter humanity’s circumstances. As LUX ÆTERNA reaches its climax, a stroboscopic nightmare blinds the cast, crew, and hangers-on. The director melts into self pity; the lead actress reaches peaks of psychological ill-ease; but the cameraman, an old fellow with experience, is clued in to what it is that is happening. Freak misfortune has given this ill-fated a movie a chance to achieve greatness despite itself, to bottle that lightning that has eluded all the planning and practice. He keeps rolling as Charlotte writhes—at first in pain, then in ecstasy—and the strobing lights blast the crowd. Films, per Noé, are not about entertainment. They’re about snatching that divine spark and showing it off to the world.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…like all of Noé’s films [it] is as much overwhelming hallucinatory experience as straightforward narrative… this “dream-like movie”, shot metacinematically behind the scenes, exposes the ugliness of a set, and of society, while also finding room in its ultimate, flickering apocalypse for a peak moment of multi-hued rapture.”–Anton Bitel, Little White Lies (Blu-ray)