2023 Top Ten List #8 Passages

 

Director Ira Sachs

Sachs with lead actor Franz Rogowski

PASSAGES                B+                                                                                                         France  Germany  (93 mi)  2023  d: Ira Sachs

A tumultuous assault to the senses from a quintessential New York City filmmaker who changed venues by making a film in Paris, the director of the tenderly crafted Little Men (2016), but also KEEP THE LIGHTS ON (2012), winner of a Teddy Award at the Berlin Film Festival for Best Queer film. and LOVE IS STRANGE (2014), films that are deeply humane and involving, Sachs is a preeminent storyteller and leading voice in New Queer Cinema who showcases a wide range of poignant and emotionally gripping work, reflected by his 2022 BFI Sight and Sound Poll vote for the ten greatest films (Ira Sachs), revealing the affects others have had on his own developing career.  Making films about protagonists who find themselves in their own very isolated and painful processes of self-discovery, the central relationships that drive his films have an integrity and moral honesty that feel unique to his artistic vision, where this film feels more in line with the uncompromising style of Maurice Pialat, who he cites as one of his influences, featuring strong performances that are deliberately unglamorous.  Perfectly evoking a sense of chaotic alienation with the intensity of a stage play, told with a mature assurance, the intimacy can be both tender and merciless, reflecting a paradise of the lonely, Sachs and his longtime co-writer Maurice Zacharias have chosen the indelible German actor Franz Rogowski from Christian Petzold’s 2018 Top Ten List #3 Transit (2018) and 2020 Top Ten List #6 Undine (2020), but also Thomas Stuber’s In the Aisles (In den Gängen) (2018), to reflect the central malaise at the heart of the film.  Veering from pathos to absurd humor, he steamrolls his way through relationships, showing no remorse for the pain he inflicts, motivated by his own sense of narcissistic entitlement, placing himself at the center of every driving thought and feeling.  When screening the film at Sundance, Sachs was genuinely surprised by the audience laughter, as bad behavior, even in a wrenching drama, can be viewed as social comedy, where the exaggerated extremes are projected as liberating.  Rogowski plays German film director Tomas at work in Paris, seen early in the film painstakingly focusing on minute details on the set, yet he exhibits a flair for the dramatic (no doubt bored without all the drama), making sure the film is made exactly the way he wants, so his imprint is all over it.  Afterwards, he and his crew celebrate the completion of the shoot with a party, yet Tomas is perturbed that his longtime partner, British graphic designer Martin (Ben Whishaw), is disinterested and wants to leave early, creating an awkward moment, but thankfully Agathe (Adèle Exarchopoulos) steps in to fill the void and offers to dance with him, taking his mind elsewhere.  It’s a sensual explosion of sound and color, yet meticulously woven together, shot by French-Canadian cinematographer Josée Deshaies, PASSAGES | Official Clip | Now Streaming YouTube (1:05), with the camera rarely leaving Tomas’s point of view, as he ends up spending the night with Agathe, taking great pleasure in his newfound excitement, which he immediately wants to share with Martin the next morning, confessing he slept with a “girl,” obviously a rarity in their gay relationship, describing it as “something different,” but Martin fails to share his interest, extremely hurt and turned off by what he views as a betrayal of trust, something Tomas fails to see, having a blind spot for his own moral indiscretions, refusing to believe he’s done anything wrong.  This incident frames everything that follows, creating a fissure in their relationship, as Tomas is driven by his own narrow focus, where he’s like a bull in a china shop, leaving shattered glass everywhere 

Tomas and Martin are part of a network of friends that meet frequently for social occasions, though they seem to click more on an intellectual level, with no real sparks indicated, but they thrive on being part of an existing gay community, where artistic expression is a driving force within the group, allowing Tomas the freedom he needs, while also satisfying Martin’s curiosity, yet both feel comfortable with this sense of place.  In an interesting aside, Martin is drawn to the literary exploits of a young French-African novelist, Amad (Erwan Kepoa Falé), whose book is all the rage, seen chatting together in a local bar, yet Tomas fails to see what all the fuss is about, not the least bit interested, especially when Amad confesses he has no ambition to write another book, never really seeing himself as a writer, something Tomas finds utterly bogus and false, as art is part of their collective identity.  Among the better realized scenes is a weekend trip to a countryside house that Martin and Tomas share, accompanied by a coterie of friends, where one of the highlights is when their friend Clément (William Nadylam), a literary agent, accompanies himself on piano as he sings Carrie Jacobs-Bond’s A Perfect Day - Carrie Jacobs Bond YouTube (3:31), a composer of sentimental art songs that attained great popularity in the early 20th century that feels like the kind of parlor song Terrence Davies might have chosen, filled with a nostalgic sentiment from a much earlier time, yet in this company it elicits a contemporary elegiac message that plays out again over the end credits.  While the strong performances are an essential ingredient, music also plays a prominent part of this film, expressing great imagination in broadening the viewer’s range of interest, which is one of the inherent achievements of the film overall, as this is never what we expect, intentionally branching out into new territory.  While the central focus is the on again and off again relationship between Tomas and Martin, where there’s an element of growing tired with each other, the attraction to Agathe, who is a primary school teacher, is an unexpected surprise, with the language changing from French to English, as both eagerly take to one another with a heated passion, even uttering the word “love,” with Tomas actually moving in with her while Martin begins his own relationship with Amad.  This is easily the best acting performance of Adèle Exarchopoulos, who’s never been convincing as a lead actress, but with most of the attention focused elsewhere, she delivers a warmly authentic performance that feels entirely natural, exuding a sympathetic warmth lacking in both men, who spend much of their time either ignoring one another, exploring new loves in their lives, or furiously making up for lost time with make-up sex, which never feels artificial, but is more like a torrential river with no return, which might recall the unpretentious simplicity of the Andrew Haigh film Weekend (2011), who is listed among the many thanks in the final credits.  No breasts or genitalia are shown, though there is simulated anal sex filmed from the vantage point of a bare behind, yet the film strangely has an NC-17 rating, so uninhibited, realistically portrayed gay sex is viewed as something that must be censored, which is a disturbing revelation, so the film was released unrated, which limits the number of theaters that are willing to show it.  In response, Sachs told the Los Angeles Times, “It’s really about a form of cultural censorship that is quite dangerous, particularly in a culture which is already battling, in such extreme ways, the possibility of LGBT imagery to exist.”  It is perhaps for this reason that the director went to France to make his film.

There is an uncensored aspect to this film that feels unique, especially the straightforward and brutally honest manner of Tomas, as he has no filter and no inhibitions, but plunges headlong into whatever interests him, while his flamboyant wardrobe choices provide comic hilarity, feeling more like a non-conformist, bohemian free spirit, yet there are metaphorical implications, as an artist in order to create needs to remain unhindered by societal restrictions, where discovering their own voice is a liberating aspect of developing an artistic identity.  The novelty of the experience with Agathe quickly flames out, however, but not until after she’s pregnant, with Tomas having a contentious dinner together with her more bourgeois parents who view him as a flight risk, which he finds both offensive and unnerving, but he doubles down on his stubborn refusal to even accept that possibility, yet the vociferousness of his denial reveals how closely the accusation comes to the truth, as starting a family requires domestic qualities he simply does not have, loyalty, patience, and responsibility.  Seemingly driving him back into the arms of Martin, Agathe can hear them having sex through the thin walls of the country home, leaving her utterly devastated, with nowhere to turn.  Tomas is tone deaf to her sudden silence, as she has nothing more to say to him, feeling like an intruder in their house, infuriated that she was so easily fooled, as her future has been unceremoniously gutted by such blatant disregard.  It’s a savage act, tearing her world apart, yet Tomas is so consumed by his own needs that he can’t for a moment step outside of his own vantage point and place himself in anyone else’s shoes.  The brazenness of his actions impresses Martin, who takes him back, thinking they’ve righted the ship and reconnected, as if their sins have been purged, feeling optimistic about what comes next.  This is no politely rendered ménage à trois from François Truffaut’s JULES AND JIM (1962), instead the shifting dynamics are brutally harsh, exposing a raw vulnerability of inflamed nerves, showing a steely resolve in matters of the heart that only grow more complicated, leaving viewers on edge, like a suspense thriller, where you wonder who will be the next tortured soul.  There’s something morbidly fascinating yet ultimately despairing about this film, where lives are left shattered, yet this poetically insightful drama explores the complexities and contradictions of love and the cruelties it often brings.  Inspired during the pandemic to create a film about intimacy, some might recall the tyrannical behavior and sexual exploits of German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder, who had sex mostly with men, but also had serious romances with women, rarely keeping his professional and personal life private, as the emotional casualties he left behind (two lovers committed suicide, while his own death came from a lethal cocktail of cocaine and barbiturates) seamlessly found their way onscreen.  There is an exalted finale that feels like a contemporary example of the French New Wave, shot on the streets of Paris, as Tomas has worn out his welcome, having alienated everyone he knows, where all that’s left is the chaos that thrives within, a wild, unimaginable force that cannot be tamed, as he furiously bikes through the streets as if escaping an unseen force steadily gaining on him, though most likely fleeing from the demons within, which have the capacity to suffocate him.  The ingenious musical choice accompanying the lengthy tracking shot is an excerpt from free jazz saxophonist  Albert Ayler - Spirits Rejoice YouTube (11:39), recorded live in a rented hall in New York without an audience in 1965, where the faintest outline of the French anthem La Marseillaise can be heard, something akin to Jimi Hendrix’s incendiary performance of the national anthem at Woodstock, Jimi Hendrix National Anthem USA Woodstock 1969 YouTube (4:25), feeling like something literally no other filmmaker has ever used, infusing the film with a staggering originality and ferocity of spirit. 

Sibyl

 

Director Justine Triet

Triet with actress Virginie Efira

Efira and Triet with actress Adèle Exarchopoulos

SIBYL            B                                                                                                                           France  Belgium  (100 mi)  2019 ‘Scope  d: Justine Triet

The subjectivity of her words must seem objective to you.                                                       —Igor Maleski (Gaspard Uliel)

Justine Triet is a graduate of École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris, a classical and historical School of Fine Arts that mostly graduates painters, sculptors, and architects, where she discovered video editing, having made documentaries before turning to fiction, exploring the gray areas and vagueness in our lives, using subtlety, dry wit, and sensuality. Describing her movies as “self-portraits,” according to Triet in an interview with Le Monde, “I have a crazy fear of things disappearing.  I make films to freeze a moment in the present.  Films, for me, have the possibility of organizing the chaos of our existence a little.”  Accordingly, this is a fractured puzzle piece, a carefully choreographed musical chairs of rotating pieces, where Sibyl (Virginie Efira, described as “The best Belgian actress you probably don’t know” by the Flemish newspaper De Standaard) is at the center, a one-time novelist who has turned into an apparently successful Parisian psychoanalyst, but is having second thoughts, lacking any real connection to any of her patients, still devastated by the messy break-up of an earlier relationship years ago with Gabriel (Niels Schneider), ultimately leading to the birth of her first child, also reeling from the alcohol-fueled suicide of her mother, with whom she had a distant relationship, now having the unpleasant task of informing her patients that she is leaving her practice to return to her initial passion and take up writing fiction again, which causes violent outbursts for some who are not too pleased at the news.  This state of imbalance sets the tone, as this is a subtle drama about the cruelties that people, consciously and unconsciously, inflict on themselves and others, through selfishness, manipulation, self-deceptions, and half-hearted decisions, where the film is a whirlwind, blackly comic drama growing ever more exaggerated by the second, with the supposedly even-keeled Sibyl slowly losing her sense of equilibrium, discovering writer’s block even before she writes a single word.  She’s a recovering alcoholic who lives with a graciously understanding boyfriend Étienne (Paul Hamy), two young children, and her brazenly calculating sister Édith (Laure Calamy) who endlessly complains about the difficulty of being single and her lousy career prospects, eliciting Sibyl’s sympathy, yet seems to delight in deceptively undermining her more successful sister, hilariously seen teaching Sibyl’s daughter how to trigger her mother’s feelings of guilt.  Sibyl’s own therapist, Dr. Katz (Arthur Harari, the director’s partner and cowriter), recalling the evils from the diabolical, sado-masochistic lesbian Dr. Katz from Fassbinder’s Veronika Voss (Die Sehnsucht der Veronika Voss) (1981), thinks she’s making a bad decision, for reasons we only discover later, continually avoiding the demons of the past, as this is a tragicomic farce that delves into the intricasies of impulsive tendencies and human manipulation, exposing sexual, drug-related, and emotional addictions.  Anything but straight forward, the film takes a circuitous route through intrusive flashbacks and oblique references told out of time, where there’s always a suspenseful level of uncertainty to what we’re witnessing, never quite sure what to make of it, but Efira offers a stellar, tour de force performance that never wavers, yet borders on the edge of hysteria.  Psychoanalysis and cinema come together, blurring fiction and reality, where this exhilarating yet often confusing drama escapes any classification.  A somewhat subversive take on the modern, bourgeois woman, the title is likely a reference to the best-selling 1973 book Sybil (Sybil Dorsett, a pseudonym for Shirley Ardell Mason) that documents a patient’s multiple personality disorders, supposedly manifesting 16 different personalities, mirroring the Triet character’s erratic behavior and the changing nature of her identity, continually evolving into something new and different as the need presents itself, while Sibyl also references a prophetess in ancient Greek legend, speaking by divine inspiration on behalf of the gods, most commonly Apollo.  Neither one is ever mentioned in the film. 

Premiering at Cannes in the main competition, having already worked together with Efira in VICTORIA (2016), where she was nominated for a Best Actress César Award in France, Triet gets into the narrative mixer right from the outset, delivering a stunning amount of exposition in the first half hour through a dizzying series of edited vignettes that may leave viewers gasping for breath, wondering what in the hell is going on.  Just as Sibyl is ridding herself of her patients, she receives a desperate phone call from an up-and-coming actress on the verge of suicide, Margot, Adèle Exarchopoulos from Abdellatif Kechiche’s Blue Is the Warmest Color (La Vie d'Adèle, Chapitres 1 et 2) (2013) and Michaël R. Roskam’s Racer and the Jailbird (Le Fidèle) (2017), who tearfully begs to see her.  Sibyl resists, but ultimately gives in shortly afterwards from the sheer persistence while scenes from David Robert Mitchell’s It Follows (2014) appear on her television set, as Margot discovers that she has become pregnant by her onscreen partner Igor (Gaspard Uliel in his final film before his tragic ski accident death), who is himself in a relationship with the German film director Mika (Sandra Hüller).  Fascinated to the point of obsession, Sibyl becomes more and more involved in Margot’s tumultuous life, with all signs pointing to an abortion, as otherwise her pregnancy could sabotage her career, with Sibyl secretly recording the young woman’s therapy sessions which she then uses as inspiration for her novel, taking salacious material directly from her emotionally distraught circumstances, living vicariously through her, raising legitimate questions about where artists actually draw their inspiration from.  There may be traces back to Gena Rowlands suffering a midlife crisis in the Woody Allen film ANOTHER WOMAN (1988), as she’s also trying to write a book, drawing inspiration from overhearing the psychiatric sessions of a pregnant woman in a neighboring apartment, becoming a stand-in for her own repressed emotions, while Sibyl also relives her own repressed tragedies.  Apparently unconcerned about artistic plagiarism, or how her novel might undermine her existing relationship with Margot, Sibyl is always viewed as the sane authority figure in the room, yet this blurring of reality is only heightened by recurring flashbacks of her love affair with Gabriel, becoming the cause of her earlier alcoholism, plunging her back into the vortex of her past, leaving behind a terrible sense of emptiness and loss.  The onscreen intimacy of Efira and Schneider is only heightened by the fact they are a couple in real life, where a central fireside scene together is erotic and brilliantly choreographed, as clothes are removed in one long sequence leading into nakedness and sex, always feeling natural and organic.  Despite reducing her caseload, Sibyl still holds onto a young boy, Daniel (Adrien Bellemare), playing board games together as a way of extracting pertinent information, but he’s clever enough to make sure she abides by rules they devised, apparently taking extreme pleasure in preventing her from asking too much at one time, thereby shielding her efforts to help him process the trauma of his mother’s death, but they have a delicate balance in their relationship that may be the healthiest and most satisfactory in the entire film.  Sibyl plunges headlong into her relationship with Margot, offering vague encouragement every step of the way, as she apparently cannot work without consulting her, developing a dependent psychological crutch that quickly goes off the rails, losing any pretense of professionalism, joining the actress on the movie set on the island of Stromboli, just off the north coast of Sicily, containing Mount Stromboli, one of the four active volcanoes in Italy, recalling Ingrid Bergman’s existential crisis in Rossellini’s Stromboli (1950) that famously sparked a scandalous affair between the actress and her chosen director.  In an absurd development, Margot refuses to speak to the lead actor Igor, demanding that he speak through Sibyl when communicating, which over-emphasizes her role on the set, with everyone quickly turning to her whenever there’s a problem, expecting she’ll provide a calming fix to escalating tensions in the air.  

Once we get on the set of the film, the chaotic, behind-the-scenes atmosphere resembles Fassbinder’s BEWARE OF A HOLY WHORE (1971), a satire on the film business itself with a doomed production unit where both the cast and crew are besieged by every possible thing that can go wrong, where nerves are continually on edge.  At the center of the controversy is the unraveling relationship between Margot and Igor, the stars of the film, which sends shockwaves through the rest of the crew, having a debilitating effect on the exquisitely high-strung director Mika, especially when Igor ignores Mika’s exasperated stage directions, constantly pleading for more emotions from her actors, even as they personally despise one another.  One by one they turn to Sibyl for some sense of balance and sanity, seeking in-the-moment professional help, yet Sibyl strangely ends up taking the place of the actors when they refuse to participate, actually walking off the set in disgust.  Inevitably, Sibyl’s best intentions are sabotaged by her own deluded obsessions and unfilled desires, as they are all dysfunctional without her, becoming too close to each one of them to render any objective impartiality, where she can’t help impulsively catering to the needs of others, so there are daily meltdowns of histrionic theatrics, with a kind of screwball comedy in the dizzying dialogue that grows ever more exaggerated at every turn, elevating the tragic dimensions of the idiosyncratic characters, evidently a staple in Triet’s films, where the inappropriate emotional eruptions match the sputtering volcano seen in the background.  The insanity is fun to watch, filming on a yacht out in the open sea, as Sibyl is helpless to stop the production tailspin, actually contributing to it, where Sandra Hüller’s comic talent is effectively utilized, continually asking for what the actors can’t give, literally driving them headfirst into a wall over and over again, creating indescribable tension, yet she’s unable to see the ridiculous aspect of her unhealthy and unrealistic expectations, as her self-righteous focus is more interested in maintaining her tyrannical control over the set, turning to Sibyl, of course, to back her up, yet the crew is having none of it, so in total desperation Mika simply jumps into the sea and swims to shore, leaving Sibyl in charge of directing the final scenes.  While it’s bravura filmmaking of comedic outlandishness, each of the characters contributes to the dysfunction, always turning to Sibyl as some kind of savior for a seemingly doomed film, where her calm demeanor becomes more and more frazzled, clearly out of her element, having no experience whatsoever in this kind of artistic endeavor, yet she meticulously documents it all in writing her new novel, actually reenacting scenes each night in her room, literally immersing herself in someone else’s life, violating all professional boundaries, where ethics and art are diametrically opposing forces that merge into personal ambition.  Sibyl’s publishers are overjoyed with their first glance at this new material, describing it as a war of the sexes on a backdrop of social revenge.  Sibyl recedes back into alcoholism from all the added pressures, where drunken scenes escalate into slapstick comedy, always uncomfortable territory unless handled deftly, and Triet seems content on pushing the uncomfortable limits of the audience, with Sibyl sliding ever further out of control, unleashing a flood of emotions, as her past and present repeatedly collide, creating a more volatile personality, making a mockery out of her life and profession, and her surprising career move to transition back into being an author.  She sacrifices her soul by stealing the life of one of her patients solely for personal gain, which has an increasingly pathetic look about it, especially when an out-of-control Margot destroys a hotel room in a fit of rage, but it’s wrapped in a bow of comic sketches brilliantly stitched together designed to titillate viewers with a grotesque yet carefully choreographed theater of the absurd that grows bleaker by the minute.  While it’s a curious venture, reprehensible characters with dubious motives fill the screen, as there’s nothing in this chaotic narrative that ever draws in an audience or ties any of this together, as if the director herself lost her way in this sea of possibilities, continually leaving viewers on the outside looking in.