"Surrealist tragicomedy horror" is not a genre I generally opt for, but the cast--headed by Joaquin Phoenix and Patti LuPone--was enough of lure to get me to drop my qualms. We were right about the excellent performances--and the iffy premise.
https://a24films.com/films/beau-is-afraid
No recommendation.
As we've come to expect, the small independent films shown nearby are not only relegated to the small screening rooms but also to marginal, take-it-or-leave-it, time slots. So today, we stopped midday to see one of the last showings of R.M.N. We made a good decision.
Set in a Romanian village--that has variously been under the thumbs of the Hapsburgs, the Huns, Russia, the Soviet Union, and now the EU--the film explores the ironies and paradoxes of a globalized workforce where the locals travel west for jobs and (in this case) Sri Lankans make their western journey to take the jobs the locals have abandoned. As quickly as this polyglot community shifts from one language to another, it also turns against the factory employing the outsiders.
In a 15-minute scene, we listen to the community's vitriol (often nonsensical, always familar) against the bakery owner and her foreign workers, figures whom the locals have transformed into synecdoches for the system that's abused and overwhelmed them all. The camera never moves. In the lower right corner, almost off screen, the bakery owner fidgets uncomfortably. Nearby, her manager is being harassed by one of the village ring-leaders; she fears shunning him lest he cause a ruckus.
What the young boy sees in the opening scene (we later learn it's a man hanging from a tree) and what we see in the closing scene (wild bears hovering outside the manager's home)--these frame the film and contribute to its foreboding sense of powerlessness.
Highly recommend.
My fears were misplaced.
I'd also worried the the relentlessly rhyming iambic pentameter couplets would become tedious. They did not. Smith's use of enjambment and off-rhymes buried the rhyming so well that I had to look for them.
We had a jolly group--two students, Mike, Ardis, and I--and the production was worth all the effort.
Very much worth seeing.
This first full-length film from A. V. Rockwell is a gorgeous film about damaged characters whose selflessness is not revealed until almost the end of the film. Everything about the film is meticulous.
Inez (Teyana Taylor) claims Terry (Aaron Kingsley Adetola; Aven Courtney; Josiah Cross) from the foster care system when she returns to the neighborhood after a stint in prison. She finds a steady job and keeps them at the same address (Apt #10-01) for over decade. Meanwhile, things change. Inez marries a long-time beau (who is not Terry's birth father and dies before the end of the film). Terry (using the alias Inez procurred to keep the foster system from finding him) stays out of trouble and prepares for college. Things unravel when Terry applies for an internship and provides (fake, unbeknownst to him) documentation.
Teyana Taylor is fabulous. The three actors playing Terry share the same empty-stare emotion-free affect associated with traumatized children.
Highly recommended
We will be watching for more films from A. V. Rockwell.
The Gentlemen of the Men's and Boy's Choir did not disappoint. A lovely, peaceful service that concluded with 33 tolls of the church tower bells.
Another astonishing film well worth a late night after a long Thursday. Billed as folk horror, Mark Jenkin's film feels more like a psychological horror based on personal and community trauma. What happens to when a community and its individuals have been brutalized by a system and then abandoned when they and their services are deemed no longer necessary?
The cinematography--18mm film with disorienting, unfocused, and claustrophobic closeups--evokes the 1970s. The repetitive narrative (reminds me of a Phillip Glass composition) collapses time and events and figures.
For a good interview with the director, see Tara Judah's https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2023/interviews/enys-men-an-interview-with-mark-jenkin/ .
Well worth seeing once. Even more worth seeing twice to piece together the shattered pieces.
My favorite scene in Shakespeare's Richard III is the seduction scene. Here Richard lures the widow of a man he killed into his marriage bed. A great performance also lures the audience into the seduction, and it's only after the betroyal has been sealed that we realized what Richard, Shakespeare, and the actor have accomplished. Whatever else Shakespeare did to tarnish Richard's reputation, he did establish him as a figure who's difficult to resist.
The Lost King taps into that allure. Not only is Richard's "ghost" (played by Harry Lloyd) handsome and beguiling, he grants the film's protagonist Phillipa Langley (played by Sally Hawkins) what every woman desires (per Chaucer's Wife of Bath's Tale): sovereignty--that is, the freedom to follow her own desires, hunches, and sensibilities.
And as many have pointed out, the film grants that sovereignty by erasing the contributions of other women and vilifying the men affiliated with the University of Leicester. Or, to put it another way, the amateur historian (also frequently incapacitated by a form of chronic fatigue syndrome), Phillipa Langley, is allowed to shine by showing how she triumphs over the know-it-all, image-preening, recognition-hungry professionals at the university.
The story undergirding the film is a good one. Though we weren't expecting a documentary, we were hoping for something that resisted caricature and easy storylines.
The NHSO continues its 2022-23 season with another guest conductor, Perry So, who is also a finalist as the symphony's next maestro. Three pieces this afternoon: Ácana by Tania Léon, Samuel Barber's 14th Violin Concerto featuring Aubree Oliverson on violin, and Beethoven's 3rd "Eroica" Symphony. Held in SCSU's Lyman Hall. Lovely to be there for a live performance.
Just two days after attending a Yale Rep's production of Mojada: A Medea in Los Angeles, I saw with Mike Hartford Stage's production of Kate Snodgrass's The Art of Burning. We were very happy with the well-paced, well-acted production of this strong adaptation of Euripedes's Medea. The play retrieves Medea from the tedium of being a piece worker in the LA barrios to being an artist who seems to have given up the paintbrush for a wedding ring and motherhood. When the play opens, the protagonist (Patricia) has already been abandoned by Jason for another woman, a lawyer at the same firm as his. Patricia and Jason's child is a teen-aged daughter. To conclude their divorce, they need only to agree about the daughter's living arrangements. What would be the terms of the shared custody? Into this mix comes news that the other woman is pregnant and Jason is pressuring her to have the baby, assuring her that he'll be better this time. At this point things get a bit muddled. In an excruciating scene, Patricia gets Jason and their divorce mediator to believe that she's killed the daughter. She hasn't, but her point is made: they are willing to think the worst of her, a propensity that carries into other aspects of their relationship. She's also making the point that the daughter needs to be "saved." Misogyny? Women's "natural" roles as mothers and nurturers? The play ends with a coda: Patricia has an art showing, Jason and his new wife have a baby, and the daughter is excited about being a sister. All are happy and reconciled. Hmmm. Perhaps this is the play's version of Euripede's deus ex machina at the end. Whatever it is, it is unearned and unsatisfying.
Nevertheless, worth seeing.
No wonder this film was a finalist for the Best International Feature Film at the 2023 Academy Awards.
It is a wonder. It opens in a household overwhelmed by poverty, cruelty, and unwanted children. And, slowly, ever so slowly, it reveals how kindness--simple, gentle, and patient--can heal.
Highly recommend. For many reasons. Many times.
A stunning production of Luis Alfaro's play about a woman trapped by rules and laws that make her an easy prey. Building on Euripedes's play and the all-too-common circumstances of immigrants into the US from Mexico, the play avails itself of the the obvious (a woman betrayed by her ambitious husband) and the less obvious (curanderos, traditional healers attributed with magical powers) parallels between its protagonist and the sorceress Medea of Greek legend. Powerful performance by Camila Moreno as Medea.
To belatedly celebrate Mike's 70th birthday (way back in 2022), we spent the past week (11-17 March 2023) in Austin, Texas at SxSW's film festival. Over six days, we viewed 23 narrative shorts, 19 documentary shorts, 8 full-length narratives, and 11 full-length documentaries. We avoided those big films already slated for release, opting instead for the smaller indies we might not have another chance to see. We saw lots of great film! In between, we walked from venue to venue, stood in lots of lines, plotted the next day's film options, met lots of interesting fellow film lovers, and asked our share of questions in the Q&As. Most importantly, we learned that the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema on Lamar has the world's best popcorn.
After more than a 7 year hiatus, I'm resuming this blog account of our engagement with the performing arts. Neither reviews nor just a list, this blog helps us remember what we saw, what we thought of it, and why. And after 3 years of few visits to theaters, cinemas, or other venues, going out for a show feels invigorating and worth recording.
Ciarán O'Reilly's production at NYC's Irish Repertory Theater of this bleak play turned comic actors, Bill Irwin and John Douglas Thompson, into unappealing characters (just like the rest of us).
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