CAROL — CANNES 2015

 Welcome!

Groupthink doesn't live here, critical thought does. Punk heart still beating.

This ad-free website is dedicated to Agnès Varda and to Luis Buñuel.

Get cool rewards when you click on the button to pledge your support through Patreon.

Thanks a lot acorns!

Your kind generosity keeps the reviews coming!

 

An undeniable highlight of the 2015 Cannes Film Festival, Todd Haynes’s masterful adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s 1952 novel “The Price of Salt,” is an opposite-sex companion piece to Haynes’s self-penned ‘50s era homosexual drama “Far From Heaven.”

Think of “Carol” as “Farther From Heaven.” Where his former film was a Douglas Sirk-inspired time capsule of autumnal Connecticut, “Carol” asserts wintery Manhattan thematic motifs through the clothing, manners, and simmering desires of its would-be lesbian lovers. The time frame is Christmas through New Year's 1952-53.

Phyllis Nagy’s economical script adaptation is flawless under Haynes’s confident control. The movie breathes with furtive yet absolute passion. Filmed on Super 16, Haynes’s usual cinematographer Ed Lachman captures the film’s brilliantly executed retro look.

Cate Blanchett’s Carol Aird is in the midst of a divorce, for which her wealthy but small-minded husband Harge (Kyle Chandler) seeks sole custody of their young daughter Riley.

While Christmas shopping, Carol meets, and passively stalks, Therese Belivet (Rooney Mara), a department store sales clerk with a twinkle in her eye for Carol. Blanchett and Mara deliver spellbinding performances teeming with subtle interplay and erotic tension. Mara’s channeling of Audrey Hepburn provides the movie with a kick of stylish carefree charm, and young lust.

Added to the film’s powerful sense of erotic suspense is Carol’s predatory nature that draws into question her tactics in achieving her romantic goals. Blanchett’s character is both antagonist and protagonist. Her layers of carnal intention are at direct odds with America’s puritanical codes of behavior.

Despite American society's raging denunciation of gay relations as illicit and harmful, neither Carol nor Therese attempt to hide their mutual attraction. They are outsiders on a mission. When hubby Harge comes home to discover the would-be lovers together in the family living room of his fancy mansion, a predictably dramatic scene plays out.

The picture's sub-theme, regarding the era’s socially limited mindset of its white male population, is embodied in Therese’s boyfriend Richard (Jake Lacy). Richard speaks Highsmith’s theme lines about society’s disapproval of homosexuality. The fact that Richard is intent on marrying Therese without having slept with her, speaks to differences in the characters’ ideals and motivations.

Here is a film that doesn’t need any awards to stake its worthiness. That said, awards of some variety will surely follow.

Rated R. 118 mins.

HIROSHIMA MON AMOUR — THE CRITERION COLLECTION

     Groupthink doesn't live here, critical thought does.

Welcome!

This ad-free website is dedicated to Agnès Varda and to Luis Buñuel.

Get cool rewards when you click on the button to pledge your support through Patreon.

Thanks a lot acorns!

Your kind generosity keeps the reviews coming!

 

Smart New Media Presents

ColeSmithey.com

Alain Resnais’s early addition to the Nouvelle Vague cannon finds his pair of culturally diverse lovers rising from the rubble of World War II.

Emmanuelle Riva’s character Elle (she) is a French actress working on an anti-war movie staged in 1959 Hiroshima. Elle plays a nurse in the agitprop movie within the film. On her last day in Japan, Elle takes a Japanese lover. Lui (him — Elji Okada) is a married man as smitten with Elle as she is with him. They share an overwhelming erotic attraction that Resnais fearlessly reveals in close-up and medium shots of their naked interactions.

During its extended opening sequence the post-coital lovers lie together in bed. Resnais films the lovers’ nude bodies as if they are made of stone, or covered in ash.

The pair discuss Hiroshima’s recent history of devastation under America’s August 6, 1945 atomic bomb attack that wiped out most of the city and left survivors with strips of flesh, and handfuls of hair, falling from their newly toxic bodies.

Newsreel footage shows stark images from the awful aftermath of the carnage as documentary proof of the malicious attack against innocent civilians. Elle describes what she saw at a museum dedicated to the bombing. Repeatedly, Lui reminds Elle that she “knows nothing” about Hiroshima. His constant refrain reminds the audience that we too, comprehend none of the actual horrors inflicted on the residents of Hiroshima regardless of how much we imagine about the nightmare reality.

Authored by the prolific French Indochina-born writer Marguerite Duras, the historically, politically, and romantically charged narrative takes place over the course of a single day and a night.

Elle carries psychological baggage from her wartime experiences living in her hometown of Nevers, in the Bourgogne region of central France. Having been married to a German officer, Elle was attacked by her French neighbors after they assassinated her husband. Like other women who fraternized with German military men, Elle was considered a collaborator and a slut in the eyes of French society. Locals held her down and shaved her head before imprisoning her in a dungeon prison under the accusation that she was insane. 

Elle can never return to her hometown. She is an outcast and a survivor. She is honest about her attraction toward men, and her hunger for sex that cast her as a “slut.” Here is a proto-feminist archetype unlike any that existed in cinema before.

Jean-Luc Godard famously called “Hiroshima Mon Amour,” “the first film without any cinematic references.” Godard purposefully ignored “Casablanca” as an obvious filmic touchstone since the bar where the couple meet for the last time is called “The Casablanca.”

Fierce in its condemnation of America’s racist military attacks against Hiroshima and Nagasaki that killed a quarter of a million Japanese citizens, “Hiroshima Mon Amour” bridges a gap between death and life via a doomed love affair that helps heal two emotionally damaged people from different races. Thoroughly honest, original, and modern in its format and narrative approach, “Hiroshima Mon Amour” continues to inspire filmmakers and audiences alike.

Not Rated. 90 mins.

ALL IS LOST — NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL 2013

           Welcome!

Groupthink doesn't live here, critical thought does.

This ad-free website is dedicated to Agnès Varda and to Luis Buñuel. Punk heart still beating.

Get cool rewards when you click on the button to pledge your support through Patreon.

Thanks a lot acorns!

Your kind generosity keeps the reviews coming!

 

 

 

Fighting Fate
Robert Redford Goes the Distance

Robert Redford gives the finest performance of his career in writer-director J.C. Chandor’s literal and metaphorical tale of one man’s attempts to survive on the high seas. Redford carries Chandor’s one-man showcase with a depth of character and emotion that speaks volumes in spite of the film’s nearly complete lack of dialogue.

Like a fine wine, Robert Redford’s gifts as an actor have grown into an effortless complexity that is transparent as it is rich. An Oscar nomination is surely forthcoming.

Water pours into Redford’s unnamed character’s 39-foot yacht — a “1978 Cal 39 sailboat” — waking him from his sleep. His punctured vessel — the “Virginia Jean” — is lodged on the puncturing corner of a giant red cargo bin that floats in the middle of the Indian Ocean. Children’s tennis shoes float out from the broken container — an ugly reminder of how far capitalism’s nature-dissolving effect has reached.

Decisions and repairs must be made. For the next 100 minutes our unnamed embodiment of brawny adaptability will meet every escalating challenge that nature throws at him with a stoic resolve that is fascinating and inspiring to witness.

Sharing single-person survival elements with last year’s “The Life of Pi,” and this year’s sci-fi nail-biter “Gravity,” “All is Lost” carries greater implications pertaining to the fragile state of a planet in free-fall. This is in part due to a bevvy of unanswered questions regarding our protagonist’s backstory and purpose for sailing alone in the open ocean on a boat barely fit for such a voyage. J.C. Chandor wants the audience to struggle right along with his daring protagonist. A single mistake could mean the end.

Existentialism prevails. “Our Man’s” constant struggle for existence takes on a macro-micro vision of cool-headed logic used to battle increasing odds against him. Terrible storms toss the sailboat like a child’s toy. The captain is forced to improvise and learn on the fly. Navigating his way into a shipping lane seems to offer hope for rescue. Redford’s stoic character perseveres with grace and determination in spite of the fierce conditions he faces.

Chandor’s pitch-perfect use of special effects never overshadows the nuances of Redford’s seamless performance that marks every dramatic beat as a virtuoso of his instrument. Likewise, Alex Ebert’s evocative musical score never draws attention away from the highly energized escape story at hand.

At 77 Robert Redford represents a Hollywood icon whose career of unforgettable performances stretches back farther than the eye can see. Not only does Redford do nearly all of his own stunts in the movie, he weaves narrative wool with his every gesture and facial expression. It is a pure cinematic delight to watch Robert Redford acting alone beside such an organic and dynamic backdrop as J.C. Chandor (“Margin Call”) creates. It really doesn’t get any better than this.

Rated PG-13. 105 mins.