December | 2017 | Asian and Entertained

Victoria! V-I-C-T-O-R-I-A!

Posted on December 28, 2017 by babemoby

The tracking shot is like the holy grail for technical movie nerds. It is always impressive when a director and their actors go all out and set up an elaborate single extended shot. It’s been used to great effect in movies like “Children of Men,” and “Birdman” simulated the effect of the tracking shot for the entire film. Sometimes it feels like a director might do it simply to show off, like in that famous “True Detective” scene, which was exciting, though it didn’t really feel like it fit into the narrative.

The year after Best Picture winner “Birdman” was released, there was also a lesser-known movie out of Germany, called “Victoria,” which made its debut. Instead of simulating an entire seamless movie, director Sebastian Schipper actually made the entire 138-minute movie in a single shot (and it only took him three tries to get it right).

For this type of movie, it’s best to go into it knowing as little as possible, so it’s probably best to avoid sharing too many details, but it is an incredible movie with amazing performances from the actors — some of which is obviously improvised — especially given the circumstances they were working under with the nature of the film.

Victoria, the movie’s namesake, played by Lala Costa, is a young Spanish woman living in Germany who goes out to the club for a wild night, not expecting it would end up being the wildest night ever, beyond even her wildest dreams. While she’s out, she runs into some guys, including a man by the name of Sonne (Frederick Lau), whom she hits it off with. It should seem pretty obvious to the audience that deciding to hang out with these Berliners might be against her better judgment, though as it turns out, probably not for the reasons you’d typically think.

Worst hangover ever

For twentysomethings, this decade has been the decade of ennui, and it would make sense that that feeling certainly fuels Victoria’s decision-making. But the movie also reflects the general “economic anxiety,” which for common people worldwide is pretty much a life-defining issue. Though economic anxiety is no doubt a real feeling people get, it has become a term, at least in the U.S., that gets used to justify any sort of bigoted behavior and to place blame on whichever people group that’s easy to malign at the time. The US president has used the legitimate issue of “economic anxiety” to stir up fear and anger toward immigrants, racial minorities, LGBT people, women, and everyone with a liberal political mindset.

If Sonne and company’s story had happened in 2017, would they have joined some Far-Right movement too, railing against immigration and women in the workplace? Their main motivation in the movie is to get into a club, which they don’t have the money to get into, so who knows? Victoria mentions in the film that she makes only 4 euros an hour at her job, so economic anxiety definitely plays a role in her life. And as the director was a producer for “Toni Erdmann,” which took a humanitarian view on other aspects of Europe’s economy, it makes sense that he would sympathize with the plight of the economically anxious too.

It is interesting that most of the dialogue is spoken in English, but since Victoria is from Spain and the guys are from Germany, that makes sense, as English is the default common tongue. It’s an odd quirk of globalization that people who have different native languages have to communicate through a second language, but, that’s the way it is. The movie was disqualified from the Best Foreign Language Film category at the Oscars because there was too much English for it to qualify.

As the movie is shot in real time, it also takes place in real-time, so everything that happens (and a hell of a lot does happen) happens in that 2-hour, 18-minute time frame that matches the movie’s running time. It’s a cool effect that is still unique from the effect a similar technique created in “Birdman.” It is a bit incredible how a woman’s life could from mundane to a wide range of extreme emotions in such a short amount of time. The late night slowly bleeds into the early morning, which conveys the feeling of the wildest night out ever gone wrong in a million different ways. And the effect certainly adds a feeling of gravitas and even creepiness to the movie. You know something is going to go wrong for these characters, but Schipper keeps you guessing as to when, and as to just how wrong things will eventually go.

In addition to Costa and Lau being excellent leads who expertly and entrancingly carry the movie, also excellent are Franz Rogowski as Boxer, and Burak Yigit as Blinker. And for the time he is present, Max Mauff is very funny as Fuss. They feel like buddies who enjoy partying together, yet they all display a very relatable, human, emotional side at times that makes them both endearing and frightening by different turns. And it begs the question of what could be Victoria’s motivation for spending her night with these guys: Is is that she’s that naive about what she’s getting herself into, or is she simply bored by her current circumstances and desperate for some excitement in her life (she gets it, and then some)?

“Victoria” is a great experience, and an enjoyable film, featuring some admirable performances, and an interesting commentary on the atmosphere of the EU from a couple years ago, which has escalated into the present situation for those countries and the rest of the world. It’s a movie for anyone who’s interested in technical creativity in their films. Instead of getting yourself into trouble having your own wild night out, you can watch someone else have theirs from the comfort of your own home.

Mud, Sweat, and Tears (“Mudbound”)

Posted on December 5, 2017 by babemoby

***POSSIBLE SPOILERS***

Hollywood has been a bit of a hotbed for movies about race over the last few years. It seems like now is the time to explore the ways in which racism has shaped and been shaped by the US throughout history.

Netflix’s new movie, “Mudbound” takes a view at life around the time of World War II. To generate tension, the movie is centered around two families in Mississippi, one white, one black, who are linked to each other through the farmland they share, as its ownership is in question as the country begins to recover from the Great Depression and enter into the prosperity of the New Deal. This is really a “slice of life” film, but the many characters it examines have plenty of hot-button — even for the modern day — issues to work through.

Between the use of voiceovers from multiple characters, and the farm setting, it feels like director Dee Rees is attempting to film the next Great American Novel. The dialogue and the historical fiction make it feel like the forgotten John Steinbeck work someone found in his closet 50 years after he died and decided to script and film it.

Henry McAllen (Jason Clarke) has purchased a plot of farmland, or so he believes, and Hap Jackson’s (Rob Morgan) family has been working on the land for decades for the previous owner. It turns out that someone else swiped the land out from under Henry’s nose, as another buyer made a deal with the owner before he got there. You always need to get those things in writing. Both patriarchs are hoping to gain more control over the land because, hey, it’s a tough market out there, and owning your own land means you get to keep more of the fruits of your labor of the literal fruits of your labor.

Farmin’ is hard.

Along the way, WWII breaks out. After a single day of infamy, on Dec. 7, the US decides it’s going to enter the war, and soon after comes the draft. Henry’s brother, Jamie (Garrett Hedlund) and Hap’s son, Ronsel (Jason Mitchell) are both drafted, and off they go to war, though not together, as they get assigned to different branches of the service.

Meanwhile, Jonathan Banks plays a racist old son of a bitch, who also happens to be Henry’s pappy. And Carey Mulligan is Henry’s wife, Laura, though Jamie certainly is not at all shy in his ogling of her. Henry explains it away that Jamie has his eyes on all the girls, but that doesn’t really put Henry’s mind at ease. And Mary J. Blige puts in a great performance as Hap’s wife, Florence.

The movie goes through the hardships of farm life, especially when two families are kind of sharing a farm, but the truce between them is an uneasy one, as both families want more of the land, but at present, they’re in the same boat, so success for one means success for the other too. But Laura doesn’t like the tension between Henry and Hap, and she tries often to make peace between the two families. Being the real leader of the wealthier of the two families, Laura offers Florence a job as a maid, as an olive branch. Laura is obviously much more empathetic to the Jacksons than her husband is.

Meanwhile, Ronsel is off in Europe, having sex with white women, and taking in how much more awesome it is to be there where people are welcoming to him, despite the color of his skin. If it weren’t for his war buddies getting blown up in the tank he commands, he’d almost prefer to never go home. Meanwhile, Jamie takes the losses of his own Air Force pals much harder. He liked the booze before, but now he never wants it to stop flowing.

Eventually, the war is won, and Jamie and Ronsel return home, and they quickly become bros, both being in the military and drowning in booze their sorrows about their experiences together, as Ronsel laments that German girl he wishes he was with. They both have a hard time adjusting to life on a farm. Ronsel feels like he’s wasting his life away just working for the family, when he’s not really building any sort of future for himself, especially apart from his Deutsche Liebhaber. Jamie just wants to drink all the time, so he’s not much use around the farm.

Bros

OF course, the other problem Ronsel has adjusting to being back home is that in Europe, he wasn’t reviled for his skin color. But in the US, he gets nothing but a rude welcome for attempting to use the wrong door at the grocery store, from Pappy, his neighbor’s dad. Ronsel says that in Europe, there weren’t separate doors for white people and colored people, they just treated everyone the same there. And he brags that when he was in Germany, he and his crew took good care of Hitler and those Nazis. Mitchell braggadociously displays some of that Eazy-E fire he showed in “Straight Outta Compton.”

As they’re sharing a bottle of whisky, Ronsel explains to Jamie that in Europe “I was a liberator. People lined up in the streets waiting for us. Throwing flowers and cheering. And here, I’m just another n—– pushing a plow.” That’s a powerful statement coming from a black American man. To be a liberator for someone else is completely upending history. Yet, he still is treated as less than human in the US. One minute, he’s a hero saving the world from Nazi Germany; the next, he’s trash.

There isn’t a lot of flash in this movie. It really feels like the stories behind something you’d read about in the newspaper in rural Mississippi from that time period. None of the actors take over the movie at any point. The one with the most visibility is probably Banks, but only for “Breaking Bad” fans. All of the actors are solid, certainly, but none are spectacular. But Morgan and Blige are the biggest surprises, as a lesser-known actor and someone who has more clout in the music world, who are such naturals in their roles. But clearly, the movie is supposed to feel average, normal, mundane even. It is supposed to feel like life, and it is convincing at doing that.

The original Jackson 5?

But mostly, the movie is subtly setting up for a climactic ending, which comes as a surprise, though it really shouldn’t. Without giving too much away (but really giving a lot away, if you get it), sometimes old racist dad is not so harmless after all, and he makes his impact felt in the worst way possible.

“Mudbound” is densely detailed for life during its time period. Rees has put together an impressive movie that feels like reading a novel, in the best way. The actors do their jobs well in keeping everything understated, which makes the explosion at the end rock the viewer’s world. It’s something people should watch, though people of color should be warned that the ending is rough. But they also are quite aware of how things go in life.

It’s interesting that Rees decided to set this movie in the ’40s, after the New Deal, when the subject matter she deals with is so relevant to modern times. Obviously, there are quite a few high-profile World War II movies out there, even another one that came out this year, “Dunkirk.” But there aren’t as many about life on the homefront, far away from the fields of battle, and the years before and after the war. But even as a member of the vaunted Golden Generation, even as veterans of the Great War, Jamie and Ronsel are not treated to ticker tape parades when they return home, like American history books make post-WWII out to be. They are simply thrust back into their old lives. Ronsel, in particular, is not so revered as Americans now revere veterans, especially those who fought in WWII, pre-Civil Rights. It makes one question how much disenfranchised people have to do in order to be treated as full equal citizens in the US? Maybe there’s no answer to that.

For another thing, people today talk a lot about systemic racism manifested in the economy and the Military-Industrial complex, etc., and the idea that everyone is a little racist because that’s what American society teaches and it takes effort to not buy into common stereotypes. But there is also racism that’s deeply personal, and there are, as in the movie, people who live out their own racism through violence and with little provocation. Racism returns from theory to painfully present reality for its victims. It’s difficult when you don’t know what’s behind that racist comment or that microaggression. It could be coming from a place of ignorance, or it could be coming from something much more sinister. You don’t know. Aggressive racism was something that, since the ’40s, has become less acceptable in public than it had been — until this year, when it has become more accepted, in part because of the attitudes of certain influential politicians. Perhaps, if there is any positive to take away from this current administration, it is that Americans are being forced to come to terms with what the US has always been about, rather than some sanitized and romanticized version of history.

Though the movie feels relevant for today, its really a story that’s replayed itself throughout American history since the Civil War and the end of slavery. It replayed itself in the Civil Rights era of the ’60s. It replayed itself throughout Barack Obama’s election and into Donald Trump’s. Racial tension never really disappeared. On the contrary, it has been a constant struggle. There are times when people of color, and black people especially, have made gains in civil rights, only to be knocked back again. Then, it comes time to regroup and work toward moments of triumph, proving themselves, once again, to be equals with white people. Over a long period of time, progress is made, and things do change for the better, but it is exhausting, and progress is really slow.

If Pappy represents the US’ past, with its history of racism, it’s time for this country to put away the past. Unfortunately, it seems as though there will always be more Pappys. The alt-right, white supremacist groups and neo-Nazis gaining influence in the US this year wasn’t what most people were hoping for, and it wasn’t what most people were expecting. But again, it’s time for the rest of us to put away the past and try to do better. The future depends on it.

The past is about to be dead and buried.