Tag Archives: Minimalist

List Candidates

LIST CANDIDATE: UNDER THE SKIN (2013)

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DIRECTED BY: Jonathan Glazer

FEATURING: , Adam Pearson

PLOT: An alien in the form of a beautiful woman skulks around Glasgow in a white van hunting for single men, whom she collects for some unknown but supposedly nefarious purpose. Eventually she becomes confused by her own temporary humanity, and her physical body starts to shut down.

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WHY IT MIGHT MAKE THE LIST: With an acute vision and a puzzling but highly rewarding plot, Under the Skin is easily among the best of 2014, and may well turn out to be the weirdest. The action moves slowly, but is filled with wonderfully bizarre imagery and powerful space-y scoundscapes. Its storytelling is inventive, and nothing is obvious.

COMMENTS: Under the Skin opens with abstract images of space and birth, with the sounds of a woman learning to talk played over the ambient score. An unnamed biker pulls a dead woman into a van, in which a naked Scarlett Johansson takes on her appearance, and her clothing. The next day, she begins her unexplained quest for bodies, driving around and innocently asking for directions while slyly prying into her prey’s background. If they have girlfriends or family, or are on their way to meet friends, she leaves, but if she determines them to be alone and single, she invites them back to her weird abandoned-looking house. Entranced by her beauty, they follow her blindly until they are absorbed into the floor, sinking into black goo. When she comes upon a disfigured young man (Adam Pearson), she falters in her single-minded mission, and begins to look for human experiences, though she is generally unable to understand them.

Adamantly maintaining a “show, don’t tell” attitude, Jonathan Glazer teases his audience with nibbles of information, encouraging us to assemble the puzzle pieces ourselves. This type of storytelling forces us to carefully consider every image presented, questioning characters’ unstated motives and giving a close reading to each scene. The movie is almost palpably quiet, relying little on dialogue and offering a mix of natural background noise and unearthly music, leaving a lot of room for inner thought to fill in the stillness. We must connect how the silent biker is related to Scarlett Johansson’s character, what purpose the abducted men serve, what prompts the protagonist to abandon her hunt, and why she seems to be struggling with her alien body. All of this information is made available to us, if we pay attention. Every shot is precise and deliberate, with many scenes carefully constructed through the use of hidden cameras—so many of the men interacting with Johansson are at first unaware that they are in a movie. There is an intriguing combination of gritty, rainy urban areas, dark but lush forests, and weird alien spaces, plus the juxtaposition of hidden-camera verism and sci-fi unreality. It is at once unsettling, confusing, exciting, and utterly compelling.

This is, for the most part, understated weirdness. Glazer’s non-expository, matter-of-fact style belies how inventive the film’s approach really is. He reveals an alien’s view of our world, and often makes humanity as strange to his audience as it is to his protagonist. The men’s thickly-accented, slang-ridden speech is often confusing (to this American viewer, that is), and common human rituals are made to appear odd. Why do we wear make-up? Or eat chocolate cake? Or have sex? An extended sequence shows a family spending time on a rocky beach, but the parents leave their toddler on the shore as they swim out to save their drowning dog. The protagonist watches this dramatic scene from afar, a nonpartisan observer, not so much uncaring as she is disengaged, never moved to help or hinder because their plight just isn’t related to her. Even the considerable nudity is approached with a sense of detachment, and made to be completely nonsexual despite the context. Though her origins are never actually mentioned, there is no doubt she is an alien creature, a hunter given human form but never made to understand the person she inhabits. The sick joke is that while visually she embodies the human equivalent of prey—female, beautiful, small, alone—inwardly she is a powerful predator. Under the Skin is a strange and dark thriller that manages to wryly comment on gender stereotyping and (straight) sexual relations without actually delivering any kind of message. As a film, as a story, as a work of art, it simply is.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“Under the Skin sometimes feels like it should be more elusive, but the moment you try and lock it down it slips away from you, going off into weirder territory.” –Matt Prigge, Metro

List Candidates

LIST CANDIDATE: RUSSIAN ARK (2002)

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DIRECTED BY: Aleksandr Sokurov

FEATURING: Sergey Dreyden, Aleksandr Sokurov

PLOT: In one take, a ghostlike figure wanders through the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, watching re-enactments of Russian history and debating art and culture with a French aristocrat.

Still from Russian Ark (2002)
WHY IT MIGHT MAKE THE LIST: As the longest unbroken take in the history of cinema, Russian Ark is somewhat experimental in form, and with its intermingling of various eras of Russian history inside the Hermitage museum, it is somewhat surreal in content. Viewed simply as tour de force filmmaking, it’s worth seeing for the curious and cultured, and a must-see for film school types. The film’s only drawback is that its high art, highly Russophilic preoccupations make it unavoidably stuffy at times, and risk limiting its appeal to the tea-and-crumpets (er, samovar-and-beluga?) crowd.

COMMENTS: Who is the main character of Russian Ark? Ghost? Amnesiac time traveler? Dreamer? Or just a metaphorical representative of the Russian spirit? The speaker through whose eyes we watch Russian Ark remembers some vague accident, but opens his eyes to see women in furs and feathered headdresses emerging from a carriage; accompanied by men in formal scarlet military uniforms, he judges their fashions to be from the 1800s. He’s swept along with the guests from a snowy courtyard through a wooden door; he eventually deduces he is the Winter Palace section of the Hermitage, the ancient home of the Czars that was turned into the world’s largest art museum. No can see or hear him until he encounters an older man in black, who is equally lost in time and space; this is the Marquis, who will be his companion through the rest of his odyssey through the Hermitage.

That journey involves the pair passing through the various rooms of the museum, some of which are occupied by today’s art patrons, and some by ghosts from prior ages, including Peter the Great, Anastasia, and Catherine the Great (who is looking for a chamberpot). Curiously, there is little focus on the individual works of art; the camera rarely gives the paintings and statuary more than a passing glance, instead maintaining a constant wide-angle view of each sprawling, packed chamber. We watch courtly episodes from history and eavesdrop on some conversations, but the meat of the movie are the conversations between the European Marquis and the modern Russian through whose eyes we see the museum. Some of their dialogue is absurd, but much of it is self-reflective hand-wringing over the state of Russian culture. Russians come off as having a bit of an inferiority complex towards Europe. The Marquis sneers that Russians are great copyists in the fine arts, but produce nothing original; all the great works in the museum come from the French, the Italians, or others. He is disdainful towards the Russian people, yet he is slowly won over by the final scene, a massive Czarist ball where he joins in a mazurka with the ghosts of past maidens. Overcome with nostalgia for the lovely aristocratic past, the Marquis decides to stay behind at the phantasmagorical ballet. His decision validates the Ark’s role in preserving Western culture, but the Russian chooses to go on without him, headed towards an unknown destiny. Although we get a few clues as to the man behind the point-of-view’s identity, it isn’t really important. Russian Ark‘s main character is actually the Hermitage.

Russian Ark was shot in a single 87-minute take with a digital camera that followed the characters through thirty-three rooms of the Winter Palace. The cast included over 2,000 extras, and a full orchestra, all of whom had to be costumed and choreographed. Rehearsals lasted for months before the shot was attempted. Depending on which source you believe, the take was flawlessly executed on either the third or the fourth attempt. (To make things slightly easier, the sound was recorded later). Only one day was allocated to actual filming.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“If cinema is sometimes dreamlike, then every edit is an awakening. ‘Russian Ark’ spins a daydream made of centuries.”–Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times (contemporaneous)

(This movie was nominated for review by Jenn, who insightfully suggested that it was “perhaps artsy instead of weird” but added “[i]t is super pretty and certainly unusual and dreamy.” Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)

Capsules

CAPSULE: SOMEBODY UP THERE LIKES ME (2012)

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DIRECTED BY: Bob Byington

FEATURING: Keith Poulson, Nick Offerman, , Stephanie Hunt,

PLOT: Thirty-five years in the life of a waiter who goes through three lovers and one friend while not visibly aging, possibly thanks to a magical suitcase.

Still from Somebody Up There Likes Me (2012)

WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST: Somebody Up There Likes Me is an experiment that dares to ask the question: just how deadpan can you make your comedy before the funny completely evaporates? It comes perilously close to finding the answer.

COMMENTS: Struggling valiantly to fashion the listless happenings that occur during the running time of Somebody Up There Likes Me into some kind of plot synopsis, the distributor’s copywriter came up with a notion that the movie involves two men named Sal and Max and “a love triangle with Lyla, the woman they both adore.” This is blatantly incorrect. The characters in Somebody simply don’t “adore”; that’s far too strong an emotion for the universe in which this movie takes place. This is a world where a woman cries out “OK!” rather than “yes!” during sex, while another confesses to “kind of liking” intercourse. This extreme understatement and emotional flatness is the movie’s joke; I suspect it may all be an arch, meta-ironic comment on fashionable hipster detachment. For long stretches, the movie won’t even attempt a real gag, skating by on its incongruously nonchalant tone: everyone is bored and inexpressive during sex, weddings, and funerals, except for Nick Offerman’s Sal, who is mildly irritated by everything, and therefore is the script’s most alive character. Although the two pals do sleep with the same woman, there is no adoration and, consequently, no love triangle (because there is no love). It’s hard not to sympathize with the poor synopsizer trying to explain what happens in the shambolic Somebody. Besides the inaccurate suggestion that the film is some sort of romantic comedy, the other potential hook the writer seizes upon is the notion that the movie contains “a magic suitcase [that] prevents Max from getting older.” This is a reasonable supposition, although there are significant problems with this description as well. Max only peers into the suitcase, whose origin or function is never explained, a couple of times. And although it’s true, and notable, that he doesn’t visibly age as the movie covers three and a half decades, what’s even odder is that some of the supporting cast age normally (a child grows to an adult), others sort of age, but don’t really look much older (Offerman develops a slight touch of grey in his beard and Jess Weixler acquires thick-rimmed glasses), while at least one other character remains as eternally youthful as Max. It’s reasonable to conclude the baggage keeps Max from visibly aging, but it’s hard to make any definitive statements about anything in this movie. The magical realist conceit enclosed in the suitcase is a surreal joke a would have taken and run with, but here, it’s sidelined and almost forgotten. Somebody‘s poker-faced twee aesthetic is strange and distinctive, but not particularly endearing. It’s like something Wes Anderson might direct while under heavy sedation.

Utilizing some of the cast from his hit TV show “Parks and Recreation” Nick Offerman co-directed a very strange (and not-safe-for-work) “virile video” for Somebody Up There Likes Me, in a style that’s nothing at all like the movie (it’s much funnier).

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…nihilistic, misanthropic, and weirdly relaxing. I’ve never seen anything like it.”–Leah Churner, Austin Chronicle (contemporaneous)

Capsules

CAPSULE: A NOISY DELIVERY (2013)

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Beware

DIRECTED BY: GX Jupitter-Larsen

FEATURING: Jessica King, Dave Phillips

PLOT: A woman goes to the post office to mail a package, but the clerk is unresponsive.

Still from A Noisy Delivery

WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST: Weird? Yes. Unfortunately, that’s all that can be said in this failed experiment’s favor.

COMMENTS: Your movie is in trouble when after watching it for five minutes, the reviewer’s primary thought is “how in the world am I going to review this honestly without sounding insulting?” Although A Noisy Delivery is not a bad movie, in the sense that I don’t believe it actively sets out to hurt the viewer, I can’t imagine anyone I know who would want to watch it. I even have to stretch my powers of imagination to come up with a hypothetical viewer who might enjoy it. Essentially, the movie is a series of very long takes of people sitting around, not moving, usually with no expression. Occasionally the onscreen actors check their watches (never a good sign). The next-to-last shot is about eight minutes long and completely static; long-take specialist would have walked out on it. Very rarely, the characters will speak: one gives a discourse on ZIP codes, one speaks in untranslated German, and a third is vaguely threatening, in a disturbed-loner-ranting-about-government-implanted-computer-chips sort of way (in between obscenities he drops lines like “the truth comes out as the truth, but, you never know”). Much of the infrequent dialogue is directed at the postal clerk who sits behind bars and blinks, I think, once. Forty-five minutes into the movie a woman silently eats a piece of notebook paper in real time, tearing off strips and chewing it to a pulp, which is a welcome change of pace from nothing at all happening. I suppose the main appeal is meant to be the industrial noise soundtrack; it’s an hour of someone randomly plunking away on a toy piano, mixed with a coarse background drone (the “noisy” part of A Noisy Delivery). Maybe noise music aficionados will dig it, but the score is even more minimalist than the visuals, which at least change every couples of minutes. The soundscape never varies much or shows musical development except for adjustments to the volume levels between the piano and the industrial hum. It’s definitely an acquired taste. A Noisy Delivery looks like a labor of love that got a little carried away and bloated: the entire package could have easily been compressed into fifteen minutes. Chances of any readers out there actually seeing this are, of course, very slim; but you should realize that this kind of thing is out there, playing at small experimental film festivals and screening in arty bars in college towns.

Speaking of college towns, A Noisy Delivery is screening tomorrow (Wednesday, June 12, 2013) at House of Caca in Austin, Texas, (some time between 6 and 10 P.M.) along with noise acts and art displays. The IMDB lists A Noisy Delivery as GX Jupitter-Larsen’s first movie, but his Wikipedia article lists two prior shorts: one called “Black Banner” and a lesbian vampire movie set at a garlic farm entitled “Holes in the Neck.”

DISCLAIMER: A copy of this movie was provided by the producer for review.

Alfred Eaker's Fringe Cinema, List Candidates

SATANTANGO (1994)

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Bela Tarr’s Satantango (1994) is a seven and half hour long, glacially paced, acerbic adaptation of László Krasznahorkai’s novel. It is the second of four films in which Tarr has collaborated with Krasznahraki as writer, beginning with Damnation (1988) and most recently The Turin Horse (2011).

Tarr is frequently and aptly compared to . Like Tarkovsky, Tarr’s films require intelligence and patience. At this length, Tarkovsky may seem hyperkinetic, particularly to Western viewers. Yet, patience reaps a rich spiritual reward. Indeed, Tarr may be the most spiritually intuitive filmmaker since Tarkvosky, Bresson, and Dreyer.

In certain ways Satantango is comparable to composer Morton Feldman’s six-hour string quartet. Dissonance, pauses, and silence, mixed with humor and desolation cast a shimmering, hypnotic spell. The monochromatic humor of Satantango lingers on in the consciousness, demanding viewer concentration. Despite, and because of, its challenges, it is best viewed in a single setting.

The opening is akin to a prolonged overture: a ten minute, continuous tracking shot of cows wandering aimlessly through a barren village, setting the bleak, avant tone. The film is broken down into twelve episodic movements: the twelve steps of a tango. Savage canines, unrelenting rain, wretched peasants and magnetic charlatans are the town’s muddy occupants. Never has mud seemed so simultaneously visceral and ethereal. Never has a tango been presented as so relentlessly static.

Still from Satantango (1994)In one of most unsettling moments in the entirety of cinema, a young girl (Eirka Bok) torments and poisons her cat (yes, it was staged) before she samples the poison herself. Architectural facades and soaked, dilapidated concrete slabs adorn the film like mildew from relics of Christmases past.

Much of Satantango is filmed in long, continuous takes in real-time. A five-minute tracking shot follows two characters besmirched with trash from a blowing wind. Tarr’s camera envelops seven sleeping characters while the narrator describes their dreams. The devil’s tango is “plodding, plodding, plodding” like a hysterical, whimsical apocalypse homing in on the dying breaths of Hungarian communism. Its denizens face their slide into oblivion with an inebriated stupor, moving like the overture’s lethargic herd. Tarr’s camera details “the logic of life” with gorgeous precision, memorializing the villagers’ moribund aimlessness. They will go down scheming, defiantly mocking western capitalism’s attention deficit disorder.

There is tension aplenty in the arrival of a resurrected messiah, and so the film is indeed as much about its duration as it is about narration. Thankfully, Tarr keeps his narrative structure diaphanous. Opacity would have rendered it lifeless. Everything is caught in Tarr’s courageously mundane odyssey: buzzing flies, raspy coughs, and repetitively ticking clocks are beautifully preserved in celluloid amber. The Jonah-like prophet (Mihaly Vig) proves to be as dubious a hope as the political systems Tarr so mercilessly parodies.

The final shot, of the doctor boarding up a window, methodically removing every vestige of light, is replete with multifarious meanings. Satantango has an innovative texture. It is experiential rather than narrative. It is also startlingly visionary and postmodern, reminding us that the medium of film is a relatively young one with boundless potential.