NOCTURAMA B
France Germany Belgium
(130) 2016 ‘Scope
d: Bertrand Bonello
Another variation of Fassbinder’s THE THIRD GENERATION
(1979), a political film set during the era of the Baader-Meinhof Gang (later
called the Red Army Faction), revolutionary cells in the 70’s that carried out
terrorist activities across the country, wreaking havoc with the status
quo. Fassbinder’s film is more of a
satiric spoof of the bourgeois elite who comprise an offshoot underground
movement of leftist radicals who come across more like a gang that couldn’t
shoot straight, a rag tag group that reads all the literature, holds
clandestine meetings, and believes fervently in what they’re doing, but haven’t
any coherent ideology to speak of, remaining utterly clueless about how to
accomplish social change, instead it’s more of a lifestyle choice, where they
believe what they’re doing is fashionably chic.
The biting sarcasm becomes even more exaggerated in this film, which is
basically divided into two halves, with the first part nearly wordless,
featuring various characters following an exact regimen, following their
watches, with time repeatedly imprinted onscreen, as if everything is scripted
and coordinated as they take metro trains, pick up or deliver packages,
including keys to carefully placed cars, enter buildings, pass through
security, and walk through endless hallways, most of it in real time, where it
feels like a satiric take of a meticulously synchronized thriller, like RIFIFI
(1955), but pales in comparison, as this is more spread out, covering more
territory, where the audience has no idea what’s going on as no background
information is provided, yet it all seems to be taking place in secret, behind
closed doors or in cloistered chambers before finally discarding burner phones
after exiting. Something we find odd is
that it’s hard to care about what these individuals are doing as none of the
characters are revealed to the viewers, remaining blank slates, where an hour
into the film we still haven’t a clue who they are or what they’re doing, where
the aloof style of the film intentionally distances the audience, nonetheless,
what it amounts to is a choreography in motion through the streets of Paris,
like something Rivette accomplished in a variety of his films such as Out 1 and
Jacques Rivette R.I.P. (1971), Céline
and Julie Go Boating (Céline et Julie vont en bateau) (1974),
and Le
Pont du Nord (1981), where he made it a point to crisscross through
distinctly recognizable Parisian streets, creating what amounts to loving time
capsules of a beautiful city. Bonello on
the other hand is content to travel through non-descript hallways and inner rooms
that could be just about anywhere, where the city and featured characters
remain discreetly anonymous.
Certainly one aspect driving the suspense is a pulsating,
electronic score written by the director himself, paying homage to none other
than John Carpenter, whose haunting, atmospheric musical themes provide
chilling counterpoint to his visceral thrillers throughout his indelible
career. As daylight turns into early
evening, Bonello uses a device of four screens, like security experts watching
a panel of different viewpoints, with explosions of violence erupting on each
screen, followed by close-up views of each moment, where this is the first sign
of what this film is really about. When
jolted into a better understanding of the master plan, the irony is that it
seems small and insignificant, as the target was not human life, but they just
wanted to blow up stuff, like the Weather Underground of the late 60’s and
early 70’s. But while the 60’s radicals
targeted government buildings, along with several banks, they were also careful
to alert these institutions ahead of time in order to evacuate humans to
safety, while also sending a political message with each attack. This group showed no such foresight, nor does
it appear they are particularly concerned about others, as throughout the film
they show a decided self-interest, identifying with the Selfie generation. This scattershot approach to radicalism
resembles Antonioni’s Zabriskie
Point (1970), a picture of a fractured America expressed through a portrait
of young radicals, police violence, capitalist cronies, endless desert
landscapes and discontented youth, using unknown stars who had never acted
before, where the prerequisite was not acting talent, but to flaunt their youth
and be completely unashamed. Jump ahead
half a century and this film seems to be exploring similar themes, using a
modern era context where smartphones have replaced the counterculture, where
people are nearly always electronically connected to something of interest,
resembling the giant advertising billboards in Antonioni’s film, as much of
this feels entirely random. In a
mysterious turn, all the participants meet afterwards in an upscale department
store, hiding to avoid detection until it is safely closed and locked up for
the night. While we see a few security
guards start their rounds, in a gruesome turn of events, none are around to
complete them, subject to a specific brutality that makes little sense and
seems like it happened more out of convenience than anything else. What’s radically different about this
eclectic group of outsiders is that they have no common cause or ideology,
where the director leaves out any hint at why this happened, suggesting they
may not know themselves, which makes it all the more chilling.
When an all clear is given, our motley group comes out into
the open and is finally identified as a group, a collection of privileged white
university students along with a couple of Arab kids, where it’s never clear
how they all came together, or even what they were trying to accomplish. Instead, a security guy from the building, a
new character we’ve never seen, has complete familiarity with the building,
turning on the lights as well as the escalator, where people are free to wander
around at will, trying on clothes, playing with various electronic gadgets,
even riding around on a little mini-car, as well as invading the food courts
and liquor cabinets, turning it into a party atmosphere, breaking off into
smaller groups, friendships or love affairs, where they even blast contemporary
music out of the sound system, feeling very good about themselves, completely
disconnected from their earlier business.
As they wander around the building, the interaction with name brands and
recognizable merchandise adds a degree of interest, as they’re hardly
anti-capitalists, as these kids are completely at home in a capitalistic
paradise, happily indulging themselves.
While there are televisions galore to watch the city recovering from the
attacks, most show little interest, where the lack of curiosity certainly
stands out, as these are not the brightest kids, some obviously having it all
too easy, where a brother and sister compare alibis given to their mother for a
night away from home, revealing the kind of personal attachments they still
have. Borrowing the security guard
phone, who must remain accessible to his employer, one even calls his mother to
send his love. Other than that, they
are all cellphone free so as not to leave any traces for the police. Without it, apparently, this kids are
completely rudderless, as not one of them is seen reading a book or writing
something of significance, instead they appear bored with themselves and each
other, as if that is their driving force.
As they wander the grounds, one of them even goes outside to smoke a
cigarette, exploring the vicinity, asking about what happened, clearly unafraid
of being seen by security cameras or the thought of being captured, even
inviting a homeless couple inside, telling them there is plenty of food, adding
a Buñuelian touch of the macabre when they have a feast and gorge themselves,
where it all looks so ridiculously out of place, perhaps the only carefree zone
in the entire city that is not affected by what is being described as terror
attacks. Occasionally one or two of them
will have thoughts about what might happen to them, even thinking the worst,
but they’re only really thinking of themselves.
Without warning, or revealing how they found out, a SWAT team moves into
the ground floor and works its way up each floor, radically altering their smug
view of themselves. Immediately, two
films come to mind, the fatalism of van Sant’s ELEPHANT (2003), where viewers
remain clueless to the killer’s motives throughout, yet the camera wanders the
halls first revealing the banality of just another ordinary day before the
armed killers alter the mood entirely by seeking to execute anyone they see in
those same halls, but also Fritz Lang’s M (1931),
where the police systematically go floor by floor in a similar multi-floor
office building that is closed for the night, hunting a trapped criminal
suspect who is hidden somewhere inside.
But Lang builds an extensive psychological profile of both the deranged
criminal and the police while all but inventing the police procedural film,
while this in comparison feels overwhelmingly empty, void of any real purpose,
with characters we never really get to know, where you couldn’t even call these
kids terrorists, but in this day and age the police have little choice but to
mercilessly treat them as such. This
film feels like terrorism light, as it’s not the real thing, becoming more of a
satire on how easily kids can confuse grandiose ambitions with reality.
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