Gloria (2013)

GLORIA          C+           
Spain  Chile  (110 mi)  2013  ‘Scope  d:  Sebastián Lelio          Official site [Japan]

Not as cool as the original Laura Branigan version singing “Gloria” Laura Branigan - Gloria YouTube (3:52), or Van Morrison with an earlier song from Them, Them Gloria Original 1963  YouTube (2:36) singing G-L-O-R-I-A, Glo-o-ria, or even a cover version from the Chicago garage rock band Shadows of Knight Gloria - The Shadows of Knight YouTube (2:33), but one guesses anyone who’s never heard those prior versions of the song might find this film version enthralling, as they’re hearing it for the very first time.  But hey, the song was even used in Adrian Lyne’s FLASHDANCE (1983) for Christ’s sake, and interestingly enough to despairing effect after getting amped up in an ice-skating sequence, so what are we talking about?  Not sure what to make of all the festival love for this film, as any movie with a distinctively disco soundtrack is going to alienate a certain element if it’s not used in a clever manner, and it was impossible to separate Paulina García’s look as the lead character Gloria from Dustin Hoffman in drag playing the role of a woman in TOOTSIE (1982), as their look is remarkably similar.  The problem is how grounded this film is in mainstream cinema, where it remains on the surface, revealing the obvious, but never really digs deeper or provides much more.  Despite being in nearly every shot of the movie set in Santiago, Chile, we still know very little about the lead character of Gloria other than the fact that she’s desperately lonely, ten years divorced in her late 50’s, working a dull job, where she appears as disconnected from her own family, including two grown children, as she is from any pulse of student political activity, where instead she’s rather typical of dull and insipid bourgeois middle class thinking, people who have the luxury to think about themselves all the time, showing little reflective ability or much of a social conscience.  Instead we watch her go through a midlife crisis where there are few evenings when she is not plied with alcohol, where she is not an altogether sympathetic figure.

To its credit, this feminist-light film insists that Gloria is altogether ordinary, constantly seen humming or singing along to the radio, where she never exhibits signs that she is remotely special or unique, instead she is the picture of mediocrity, but her divorce has left her isolated and excluded from the mainstream, so she tries hard to fit in, where it’s extremely important for her to get out of the apartment and socialize with others, to be seen in public and make contacts.  So while constantly wearing the same insincere smile, she goes dancing at a local singles club for the middle-aged and sips cocktails, which is the sum total of her social life.  Much of her life is left unfilled, such as her job, where we’re not even sure what she does for a living, as she has no interaction with any of her associates, which quite frankly, seems rather strange.  Even if it’s just an office job, with little or no job satisfaction, one of the few pleasures of lonely people is having contact with other people, even at a lousy job.  Instead it’s only the lonely hearts dance club that feels inviting, where she soon meets another middle aged man, Rodolfo (Sergio Hernández), where they end up in the sack together, where the film does not shy away from expressing nudity.  While they obviously enjoy each other’s company, their conversations are always interrupted by cellphone calls, where both spend much of their time connected to these annoying electronic devices, but Rodolfo simply can’t turn his phone off, where he’s always receiving catastrophic calls from his grown daughters, which he continues to receive during dinner dates, often excusing himself, claiming they need him, much to Gloria’s expressed resentment, as the melodramas of overly dependent, grown individuals who must learn to handle their own affairs should simply not be her problem, but Rodolfo constantly gives in to their demands for his time.  Nonetheless, Gloria takes this guy seriously enough to bring to her son’s birthday party, a family gathering where they drink, reminisce, and look at old family photos, but to everyone’s surprise, Rodolfo ends up missing, having left without telling anyone.  Despite his pleas afterwards about being ignored, Gloria tells him to grow a pair of cojones and gives him the brush off.  

In a strange moment where Gloria observes a dancing skeleton (like a puppet show) in a crowded street scene, this deathly image of mortality apparently inspires her to give Rodolfo another chance, where they are seen checking in together at a swanky hotel.  After another interrupting phone call, Gloria is about to walk out the door, for good, but turns semi-naked and seduces him instead, a decision she quickly learns to regret, as Rodolfo does another disappearing act from the hotel, leaving her high and dry, where her inappropriate actions afterwards, getting drop dead drunk in the company of strangers, leaves her in a disheveled and disastrous state in the morning where she can’t remember what, if anything, happened.  This collective memory lapse is reflective of a generation under a 15-year dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet in Chile.  While the musical threads that run through the picture form a kind of internal narrative of their own that often parallel Gloria’s state of mind, this is another overly conventional device, especially when using such artificial sounding Spanish radio music, where a Chilean couple sitting behind in the theater were singing along to the lyrics the entire time.  In contrast to this generic, mass produced sound, Gloria attends a gathering at a friend’s home where a couple are singing a heartfelt song to a single guitar, while dozens of bourgeois middle-class people are sitting around drinking wine in a scene that looks like a reflection of their college experiences.  This is the only moment in the entire film where something real might be happening, where people are attuned to something more important than themselves, where perhaps there’s more to one’s life, but this is not to be, as this same couple is seen getting married near the end, and rather than live music, or anything from the heart, it’s non-stop disco music playing in the background, where the surge of Laura Branigan’s song sung in Spanish by Umberto Tozzi, much like Gloria Gaynor’s disco anthem “I Will Survive,” sends an inspiring message that Gloria and the rest of her generation can pick up the pieces of the nation’s collective dysfunction and somehow find their own way to move forward with their lives.  It all just feels overly conventional.

The Silver Cliff (O Abismo Prateado)

 

THE SILVER CLIFF (O Abismo Prateado)     B                   

Brazil  (82 mi)  2011  d:  Karim Aïnouz

When you left me, my dear,                                                                 

You told me to be happy and well.                                                       

I wanted to die of envy, almost went crazy,                                          

But afterward, as usual, I took heed.                                                    

If you want to see me again,                                                                 

You're going to see me remade, it's true.                                              

Eye to eye,                                                                                          

I want to see what you will do,                                                             

When you realize that without you I am doing so well.                           

I'm looking younger,                                                                            

and catch myself singing for no reason at all.                                         

So much has happened,                                                                       

So many men have loved me                                                                

More fully and much better than you.                                                    

If by chance you need me one day,                                                      

You're always welcome, come over.                                                    

Eye to eye.                                                                                          

I want to see what you will say,                                                            

How you will bear it to see me so happy.                                             

—Chico Buarque “Olhos nos Olhos” (Eye to Eye)

Aïnouz, who directed the unconventional MADAME SATÃ (2002) about the anguishing life of a drag queen, which won the Chicago Film Festival 1st Prize that year, has made a much more quietly conventional film here, set in the busy Rio de Janeiro district along the beach, where the viewer is immediately immersed in the noise and sidewalk rhythms of a thriving city, a neighborhood where the well-to-do live.  It’s here that we see middle-aged Djalma (Otto Jr.) make his way from an ocean swim to what appears to be a passionate morning sexual encounter with his wife Violeta (Alessandra Negrini) before heading out of town for a brief business trip.  All appears well in the world as Violeta sends her son to school and wanders through the same city streets on her way to work as a dentist.  Without notice and seemingly without reason, Violeta is blindsided by a phone message from her husband telling her that they’re marriage is over, which sends her reeling back out into the streets again, this time to a dizzying effect, where the city that appeared friendly and inviting in the opening suddenly feels harsh and threatening.  The mood shift is so starkly unbalanced that Negrini appears to be overacting, as where there was calm is now a storm, as she is simply unable to comprehend the impersonal nature of making such a life-altering decision on a phone message. 

Like any woman of means, Violeta decides to hop on the next plane in search of her husband, but she’s frustrated to the point of disoriented at missing the last flight out, grabbing a cheap motel room nearby where she is immersed in the uninviting noise of city confusion, stepping into a neighborhood disco where they’re inexplicably playing the hyperkinetic Jennifer Beals music out of FLASHDANCE (1983), Michael Sembello’s “Maniac,” Maniac - michael sembello - YouTube  (4:05), where Negrini’s surreal out of body experience on the dance floor is indicative of her frantic, mind-bending state of anxiety, eventually thrust back out into the city streets, finding solace in the nearby beach.  Calmed somewhat afterwards, Aïnouz beautifully shifts the entire mood of the film, shifting the focus from Violeta who has commanded the screen for nearly the duration of the film to a young unidentified girl, Bel (Gabi Pereira), who seems surprisingly mature for her age, almost as if she’s living alone on the streets, where she seems to be handling life’s difficulties with more self-assurance than Violeta, where this meeting literally smacks her in the face like a jolt of reality.  As it turns out, Bel is with her father, Thiago Martins, and the two of them are living in his van, stopping at the nearby beach for ice cream.  The mood of doubt and confusion has been replaced by a curious fascination with discovering this playful young girl.

As this trio moves through the city together like newly discovered friends, the audience is treated to multiple tracking shots of Rio de Janeiro at night, dark but strangely luminescent, still pulsating with an undiscovered mystery that is the heart of every magical city, making this a love letter to the city where Violeta’s internal search for missing answers has been replaced by the soothing rhythms of Rio, beautifully captured on 35 mm film by Mauro Pinheiro (who might have shot this in ‘Scope), whose sensual images light up the screen.  There’s an underlying melancholic tone that continues throughout, where often nothing much happens, allowing extended wordless sequences to set the mood, with perhaps an overreliance at the end on what inspired the film in the first place, a 1976 song “Olhos Nos Olhos” (Eye to Eye) by Chico Buarque, Chico Buarque - Olhos nos Olhos  seen on YouTube (4:32), a kind of revengeful defiance following an abrupt end of a love affair.  The film does nothing surprising, but Negrini’s anguished performance is accompanied by a lush visualization of her internalized realm, something the director beautifully intermixes with the revelation of discovering the young girl, who seems to be the secret surprise of the entire film. 

To Live and Die in LA

TO LIVE AND DIE IN LA           B+               

USA  (116 mi)  1985  d:  William Friedkin

Guess what, Uncle Sam don’t give a shit about your expenses. You want bread, fuck a baker.       —Richard Chance (William Peterson)

If you didn’t know any better, you’d think this was a Michael Mann film, a gritty portrait of Los Angeles filled with a stylistic flourish from the exquisite cinematography of Robby Müller with gorgeous shots of the city at sunrise and dusk illuminated by a sheen of smog and a 1980’s Wang Chung soundtrack that gives the film a pulsating edge.  Very much driven by a synthesized techno beat so prominently featured in FLASHDANCE (1983) and the Miami Vice TV series (1984 – 90), this is a hard hitting, adrenaline-laced cop drama where the cops straddle the same ethical line as the criminals, in fact they are mirror images of one another, oftentimes getting more caught up in the business than they’d prefer, usually driven by a manic personality that settles for nothing less than a full-out assault.  Using a cast of relative unknowns, featuring two prominent Chicago actors who got their start in local community theater, this was William Peterson’s first starring movie role while John Pankow, whose older brother plays in the rock band Chicago, had worked earlier in Miami Vice.  Both play FBI agents in the counterfeit division, Chance and Vukovich, where their boss is murdered when he gets too close to one operation, giving this a tone of revenge, where getting this guy becomes personal, using any means necessary to bring him down.  Willem Dafoe is excellent as the cold-blooded killer and counterfeiter Rick Masters, a complete professional who carries out his business with icy control, whose creepiness becomes more accentuated through his eerie calm.  He also has his hand in kinky sex and modern art, often blending the two, almost always with a gorgeous girl, Debra Feuer, who follows his every lead.   

Shot all on location in some of the seedier sections of town, Friedkin offers a cynically realistic approach to the film noir crime thriller, using a near documentary style, but the characters are all outcasts, outlaws beyond the reach of the law and cops who think they are above the law, both living on the margins, creating a feeling of detachment and alienation.  One of the most extraordinary scenes is watching Masters diligently working at his craft, printing counterfeit bills, step by step using his artistic skills with the meticulous precision of a Bach cantata, where his detailed professionalism is nothing less than impressive, offering a window to the audience into this highly skilled criminal enterprise.  It’s interesting that Friedkin reveals so clearly what Chance is up against, as this is Peterson’s film, where he dominates the action sequences and all the build up to them, as he’s a man on a mission, an adrenaline junkie who’s not afraid to bungee jump off a bridge with a rope tethered to his foot, swinging just above the water’s edge, creating a rush of energy that he needs to make him feel alive.  He also has a girl, Ruth (Darlanne Fluegel), an inmate out on parole working at a strip club where she hears things, where Chance uses her for sex and information, threatening to cut off her parole if she stops feeding him tips.  His moral character is questionable, as he’s like a cowboy with an itchy trigger finger, obsessed with tracking down his man, where he doesn’t care what methods are used to pull it off.  His partner Vukovich is more nervous about his full throttle, free-wheeling style, thinking it’s reckless and outside the bounds of department regulations, but it’s his partner, a guy you just don’t cross in police business, so he goes along with it, creating, in effect, a counterfeit persona.

The measure of an action thriller, of course, is the action, and this one features a doozy of a car chase, one precipitated by Chance’s dubious choice to carry out a robbery to raise the needed cash in an undercover sting operation that his own bureau won’t cover.  What seemed like a sure bet turns into a sprawling mess, where they literally kidnap a guy for the contents of his briefcase.  In perhaps the turning point in the film, they bring the guy to a freeway underpass to open the contents, but he hasn’t got the key, so in a fit of rage Chance repeatedly smashes the briefcase against the cement pylons only to discover they are taking rifle fire from the road above.  This event seems to activate his hair trigger, clicking the on switch, as the ensuing car chase ends up as a hair-raising ride through a crowded warehouse district before ending up on the freeway going the wrong way, creating a tremendous logjam, not to mention a stockpile of cars smashing into one another.  This is thrillingly photographed, slowly developing where initially you're not even aware it is a car chase before it kicks into high gear, where the action seems to symbolize Chance’s spiraling moral void, as the look into his eyes as he’s driving suggest the actions of a madman.  Just as they think they might have gotten away, Frieidkin yet again defies all expectations by continuing the heist gone wrong theme, where the ramifications are endless, all spinning out of control, where the audience is treated to a visceral experience that again opens a window into this kind of dangerous world, where Vukovich especially continually sees his career and his life passing before his eyes during the final third of the film.  This is a rare style of film in that it provides incidents of graphic nudity mixed with blunt trauma in such an entertaining style, which was highly unusual in its day.  The counterfeit theme is intriguing as well, blurring the lines of moral corruption between the police and the criminals, where the Los Angeles police are notorious for their rampant abuse and misconduct, where it’s impossible to tell with the human eye just which cops and what pedestrians walking down the street are free of criminal interests and associations.