Tag Archives: Period piece

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CAPSULE: PEDRO PÁRAMO (2024)

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DIRECTED BY: Rodrigo Prieto

FEATURING: Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Tenoch Huerta, Mayra Batalla, Ilse Salas, Roberto Sosa, Dolores Heredia

PLOT: A man travels to the Mexican ghost town of Comala searching for his father, Pedro Páramo.

Still from Pedro Paramo (2024)
Pedro Páramo. (L to R) Tenoch Huerta as Juan Preciado, Mayra Batalla as Damiana in Pedro Páramo. Cr. Juan Rosas / Netflix ©2024

COMMENTS: Trekking through an endless expanse of desolate desert, Juan meets a man leading a train of burros. Juan explains that he’s going to Comala searching for his father, Pedro Páramo, to fulfill his mother’s dying wish. The traveler knows Pedro Páramo—pretty well, it turns out—but warns Juan that the village is deserted and his father is long dead. Juan nevertheless enters the town and finds lodging with a psychic woman who just happens to be an old friend of his mother’s (and, naturally, of Pedro Páramo). In the eerie silence of the abandoned town, strange things begin happening; then, with little forewarning, the movie shuttles us into flashbacks from Pedro Páramo’s life.

These flashbacks are presented in an entirely different style and tone from Juan’s experiences during what turns into an eternal night in Comala. The town is now drab, dusty, and decrepit, lensed in weathered browns and worn grays, but in its heyday it was lush and green and thriving. The flashbacks flow in a nonlinear stream, and there are brief moments of disorientation as the audience figures out who the characters are and at what stage of life; but the past holds no spectral magic, unlike Juan’s present. An unflattering portrait of Pedro Páramo emerges: an ambitious man, driven by greed and lust, who brings tragedy to the town. He fathers many children (mostly though seduction, adultery, and rape), kills many rivals, and has a contentious relationship with the town priest, who has as much reason to resent him as to fear him. Pedro Páramo seems to represent Mexico’s landed class, and will clash with a group of armed peasant rebels—although he chooses not to fight them, but tries to negotiate while hoping for a chance to betray them. You search in vain for a reason to like Pedro, but even his genuine loves, for a rapist son and for his childhood sweetheart, are tinged with perversity and instinctual evil.

While both parts of the film—the magical realist ghost story and the completely realist generational saga—are engaging in their own way, there is a serious imbalance between them that turns into a major flaw. The film is caught between two worlds, but chooses one over the other, as it abandons Juan’s mystical experiences in Comala at about the halfway point—just as they reach a peak coinciding with a vision of a cyclone of naked bodies spinning in the desert air over the town square. I am not sure how the original source novel handled the frequent switching between Juan and Pedro’s perspectives, but it feels wrong here; as we watch the second half of  Pedro Páramo’s story play out, we keep expecting to return to check in with Juan, and that never really happens. His absence is particularly hard to take if the part of the movie that really interests you was the encounters with the town’s many ghosts, rather than the tragic backstory.

This odd pacing decision is a blow to the film, but not a fatal one. By the time Juan disappeared from the story, I still wanted to see how his father turned out in the end. Like most petty tyrants, he comes to a bad end, but only after too long of a life spent enjoying the fruits his wickedness.

Pedro Páramo was adapted from a famous and influential 1955 Mexican novel by Juan Rulfo, which was lauded by writers like Gabriel García Márquez and Jorge Luis Borges. It has been adapted once before, for Mexican television. Prieto, the acclaimed cinematographer of Brokeback Mountain, Killers of the Flower Moon, and Barbie chose this novel as his feature directing debut. Naturally, the film looks amazing, and the cast of Mexican actors unknown north of the border put in excellent work, particularly the stoical Manuel Garcia-Rulfo in the title role. The film debuted at the Toronto Film Festival and then was snatched up by Netflix, who did it a disservice by not giving it a U.S. theatrical release (therefore making it ineligible for awards season consideration). At least more people will have the chance to view it on the mega-streamer—assuming they can find it buried in Netflix’s content graveyard, international art film quadrant.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“It’s hard not to get lost in ‘Pedro Páramo’ even as the movie eventually gets lost in itself, taking on a more classical cinematic form that doesn’t fully click. Thankfully, its surreal allure — buoyed by a sense of tragic longing — is powerful enough to echo throughout its runtime.”–Siddhant Adlakha, Variety (contemporaneous)

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CAPSULE: THE BEAST (2023)

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La bête

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DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: , George MacKay

PLOT: To get a job in a dystopian future, a woman undergoes a procedure designed to dampen her emotional responses by ridding herself of past-life traumas.

Still from The Beast (2023)

COMMENTS: Surely Henry James could never have imagined that, more than a hundred years after he wrote it, a Frenchman would loosely adapt his story “The Beast in the Jungle” as a centuries-spanning science fiction story incorporating a belief in past lives. James’ protagonist suffers a certain paralyzing presentiment of obliteration (the titular Beast), which is shared by (at least one of) Seydoux’s characters; but truthfully, Bertrand Bonello’s ambitious screenplay incorporates almost nothing from the original story—just the theme of loneliness and regret for missed opportunities, and a similar European setting for about 1/3 of the film. It also throws in a metric ton of other concerns, including artificial intelligence, incel culture, and reincarnation.

As suggested by the plot summary and hinted above, The Beast tells three different stories: one set at the turn of the twentieth century, one set approximately in contemporary times, and one set in 2044. This last date is the film’s base reality, despite not being the first story we’re thrown into. The Beast sets up the rather ridiculous premise that past life experiences are encoded in DNA and traumas that lead to automatic emotional responses can be overcome through a therapeutic regression that involves being submerged in a tub of black goo while a computer probes your ear—a concept that sounds like it came out of an esoteric Scientology text. While the procedure, and the theory underlying it, are insane, it doesn’t matter whether we accept them; it only matters that the movie believes in them, and creates a world that operates according to those rules. In Gabrielle’s case, the recurring trauma is her unconsummated passion for Louis, who is a gentleman in the 1900s, a stalker in the early 2000s, and an aspiring functionary like her in his current incarnation. The future’s rationale for the operation is legitimately unsettling, tapping into fears of cybertechnological dehumanization: with so much work automated and taken over by A.I., humans voluntarily try to rid themselves of passion and emotion in order to make more rational decisions that enable them to compete with the dominant machines.

So The Beast is, in a sense, three movies in one. There’s the science fiction fable; the Parisian period piece; and a contemporary stalker drama that quickly shades into (pretty effective) thriller territory.  As a standalone film, the full-length petticoat and starched collars of the Belle Epoque section would have made for a staid and respectable period drama, with a tremendous closing image. The modern day incel story can come off as a preachy, with on-the-nose commentary; MacKay’s portrayal of a 30-year old virgin who vlogs about how he’s “magnificent” and “deserves girls” but “can only have sex in my dreams” would seem like an eye-rolling caricature, if the character were not directly based on real-life incel mass-murderer Elliot Rodger (I believe some of MacKay’s monologues were taken verbatim from Rodger’s YouTube videos). But although each section is merely competent on its own—and arguably make for a bloated picture with a lot of unnecessary fat left in—tying them together in the reincarnation format makes for a whole greater than its parts. Certain conversations are repeated in full in different eras, and recurring themes like dolls/puppets resonate across time. Both previous Gabrielles consult psychics, in radically different contexts, who are able to see through the years and reference things that occurred in other lifetimes. Looking for common threads and shared symbols across the three stories engages the mind more than any of the issues the three tales address. And Bonello sprinkles significant weirdness throughout the project, much of it justified as artifacts of the disorientating effects of the procedure, but some of it freestanding. In the latter category is the opening with in a green screen studio, apparently rehearsing a scene for the upcoming film as she takes direction form an unseen voice (belonging to Bonello). Disorienting editing, uncanny dolls, dream interludes, unexpected clips from movies, a panicky laptop pop-up nightmare, and a nightclub with rotating mid-20th century themes all contribute to the strange flavor. The end result is a challenging art-house feature that doesn’t always hit its marks, but nevertheless remains intellectually stimulating.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…a weird sweeping romance and sci-fi dystopia mix that taps into so many contemporary anxieties, from AI stealing our jobs to climate disaster and the overall sense that the world is becoming unfeeling. It’s existential, yes, but it’s at its core a love story.”–Sara Clements, Pajiba (contemporaneous)

The Beast (Janus Contemporaries) [Blu-ray]

The Beast (Janus Contemporaries) [Blu-ray]
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CAPSULE: THE BLUE ROSE (2023)

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The Blue Rose is currently available for rental or purchase on-demand.

DIRECTED BY: George Baron

FEATURING: Olivia Scott Welch, George Baron, Danielle Bisutti, Nikko Austen Smith, Viola Odette Harlow

PLOT: Los Angeles detectives Lilly and Dalton investigate a savage murder and fall into a dream-laden conspiracy.

Still from The Blue Rose (2023)

COMMENTS: It was unplanned, but I ended up waking from one surreal nightmare and immediately stumbled into another. (There’s a lesson to be learned here, perhaps, about the dangers of napping just before watching a David Lynch fan-film.) With his directorial debut, George Baron—not quite twenty years old—has planted his flag firmly in the murky grounds of dream-logic and accented reality, boldly avowing his love of all the flavors of Lynch: bright colors, dark secrets, stylized milieux, and muddled plot structures. Indeed, everything I’ve come to associate with the Montanan Mæstro is on display here, for better and worse, with even the the film’s name and recurring visual motif lifted from the mysterious gent from America’s mountain West. The first question to ask yourself before watching The Blue Rose is: do you like David Lynch movies?

Presuming the answer is in the vicinity of “yes”, do continue; but bear in mind that this is a debut, from an enthusiast, working more from his heart than his head. This is for the best, though; a coldly clinical take on the whole Lynchian thing would make for something both incomprehensible and tedious (as opposed to merely incomprehensible). I’m something of an idiot when it comes to interpreting this kind of thing, so I shall forego plot remarks in favor of a pithy description of the plot’s vibe: The Blue Rose story travels along the narrative line at the intersection of Mulholland Drive and Blue Velvet, with the gee-shucks young detectives (one of them, Dalton, played by George Baron—with none other than Ray Wise as papa detective) traveling a Twin Peaks-y inscape during the heady days of Wild At Heart-spun 1950s Los Angeles, with a subplot involving an Eraserhead–ful baby. There’s probably Lost Highway kicking around in there somewhere, but frankly, there’s a lot going on.

Which is good, because not everything going on here works, so that when you find yourself trapped in a scene or sub-story scenario, you can comfort yourself in the knowledge that sooner or later you will emerge into a new one, with everything tying up far more nicely than Inland Empire could ever dream of. The acting is uniformly uneven, but the two leads are generally on the mark; George Baron’s detective, in particular, has an interesting arc wherein he encounters an alternate, feminine, version of himself during an insane asylum art-installation human showcase. And such—among many—cruel machinations give the cinematography a chance to shine: although the action on-screen is tedious on occasion, the props, costumes, and color-schemes always demand attention.

And speaking of attention, I am interested where this kid (if you’ll pardon my old-man speak) ends up going after this. With a little luck, he’ll find his own path to pursue, as it’s already clear he knows the nuts-and-bolts of filmmaking. But, even if he merely refines his Lynch-pirations, retreading the ground already walked by the auteur, it would be no bad thing to have a younger storyteller on-hand to continue that particular tradition.

So, Mr Baron, hopefully we’ll see you when next we dream in blue.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…not for all tastes (it’s Lynchian-like weird)... mostly effective as an unconventional visionary film on Hollyweird. It delves into its narrative with the Lynchian Blue Velvet touch for dealing with mysteries, as it takes us down a nightmare-like scenario with only a few stumbles.”–Dennis Schwartz, Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews (festival screening)

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FANTASIA 2024: APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: MONONOKE THE MOVIE (2024)

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劇場版モノノ怪 唐傘

Gekijouban Mononoke Karakasa

AKA Mononoke Movie: Paper Umbrella; AKA Mononoke the Movie: Phantom in the Rain

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DIRECTED BY: Kenji Nakamura

FEATURING: Voices of , , Hiroshi Kamiya

PLOT: Two new attendants arrive at Lord Tenshi’s pleasure palace, and a karakasa is poised to infiltrate the world of humans unless it is thwarted by a mysterious medicine man loitering  by the castle doorway.

Still from Mononoke the Movie (2024)

WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: Psychedelic colors and flourishes permeate the grand castle, nearly overwhelming the eye. Mononoke then finishes the job with its massive bursts of vibrant imagery and unceasing kinetics whenever the demon attempts to slam into our world.

COMMENTS: From start to finish—and this includes the credit sequence wherein we circle around a beautifully detailed temple chamber as the characters whiz by—Kenji Nakamura’s Mononoke grabs and throttles the eyes with a palette both wondrous and classic, as fluid images in Edo style play across a rice-paper surface. The mundane is majestic, the majestic is mysterious, and the mystery unfolds in one of the most intense exhibits of swirls, spirals, whirls, and wonderment I’ve laid my eyes on in quite some time. If, perhaps, ever.

While the visuals hog the screen (as they are wont to do), the story is more than just a backdrop for artistic razzmatazz. Taking place during the Edo period, almost completely within a pleasure palace, intrigue aplenty fuels the adventure. Crammed into under ninety minutes, we follow the daily struggles of two new “recruits,” Asa and Kame; we learn dribs and drabs about conspiracies and power struggles; we take in the hijinks of the gate’s guardian as he alternately attempts to shoo away the medicine man (insisting, often and emphatically, he does “not need a love a potion!”) and relishes his company. The plot threads move forward at a steady clip, interweaving delightfully into an iridescent tapestry of secrets, emotions, and supernatural to-dos, all held less and less in check by the palace’s strict protocols and the overarching devotion to duty.

Beyond the mad flights of demonic fancy, Nakamura’s vision dazzles from moment to moment. In colored geometric form, we see the delicious scent of food; the air and gusts loom blue or brown, as the circumstances demand; and the faces of the innumerable women in the background spiral and shift color. This third touch evokes their ambitions, for they are trained to blend beautifully into the background, standing out only if they have authority or are irredeemably awkward (Kame, I’m looking at you). Scenes end with forcefully slamming ornamental doors. We often see the shifty medicine seller in close-ups of his ever-moving eyes. He knows something bad is coming, and only he has the avian-form scales, sheeves of binding paper, and Sword of Exorcism. (That toothful, piebald little weapon is practically a character in its own right.)

This is nutso, this is fast, and it is a full-frontal assault on the eyes. (I opted to sit in the center of the front-most row. I have no regrets.) You’ve been warned, and I’ll warn you further: you will not want to miss out on this spectacle.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“I’m not entirely certain what it is that I just watched but I’m glad that I got to see it on the big screen with good sound… This all stands beside psychedelic imagery that mixes better than one might think – the evils being committed are ancient and incomprehensible.”–Jason Seaver, Jay’s Movie Blog (Fantasia screening)