Lucky

LUCKY           B                   

USA  (88 mi)  2017  ‘Scope  d:  John Carroll Lynch             Official site

Well, I gotta go, my shows are on.

—Lucky (Harry Dean Stanton)

A slow and meandering tale about the journey of life, as seen through the eyes of an aging character who has been fortunate to remain healthy through his waning years, none other than 90-year old actor Harry Dean Stanton, someone known affectionately as Lucky throughout the small Southwestern town he lives in, where it follows in the footsteps of other outstanding films on the subject, namely David Lynch’s Disney film THE STRAIGHT STORY (1999), starring 79-year old Richard Farnsworth in his final role, with Harry Dean Stanton making an appearance at the end of that film which couldn’t be more appropriate.  Amusingly, David Lynch makes an appearance here as a man suffering from the profound effects of losing his best friend, a 100-year old tortoise that goes by the name of President Roosevelt who makes an escape through an open gate and scoots away, adding a touch of personal intimacy throughout, the kind of characterization that defines the film.  Much of it emblematic of Stanton’s own life, Lucky is seen doing crossword puzzles, watching old game shows on TV, while exhibiting a passion for singing Mexican songs, yet what’s most poignant is the actor’s own death coming just weeks prior to the release of the film, making this a stunning final farewell, becoming the centerpiece of his own film, where he is viewed as a national treasure, with the camera following his every move.  With nearly two-hundred credits in a career spanning six decades, Stanton was a regular on various westerns on TV in the late 50’s and 60’s, was the best man at Jack Nicholson’s wedding in 1962, and even lived together for more than two years after his divorce, while also singing “Danny Boy” at the funeral of Hunter S. Thompson.  Working with eclectic directors from Monte Hellman in Two-Lane Blacktop (1971), Sam Peckinpah in Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973), Ridley Scott in Alien (1979), and John Carpenter in Escape from New York (1981), always playing a character actor in secondary roles, Stanton is among the best to ever do it, where his big breakthrough came with Wim Wenders strange American odyssey film, Paris, Texas (1984), with Stanton finally playing a starring role, a psychologically damaged character who was mostly silent, but whose stunning monologue near the end is a thing of legends, written by Sam Shepard, backtracking through the most painful moments of his life in dreamlike flashback sequences, actually improved upon in Robert Altman’s Fool for Love (1985), another Shepard effort, where Stanton’s profound eloquence speaking over the flashbacks is simply mind-altering.  To his credit, Stanton has become an endearing character on the American cinematic landscape playing primarily isolated or lonesome characters, building his reputation as something of an outcast or an outlaw, a man on the fringe of society who always speaks his mind, uncensored, yet inevitably ends up alone, having spent a lifetime accumulating memories filled with regrets.  According to Shepard, Stanton didn’t really have to act in order to tell a story, reminding us “His face is the story.”

While David Lynch has developed a particular fondness for casting Stanton, appearing in several shorts, four of his feature films, while also featuring him in five episodes of his revamped television series of Twin Peaks (2017), where he is seen here singing “Red River Valley,” Harry Dean Stanton - Red River Valley - YouTube (1:09), this same tune becomes the predominate theme with Stanton on the harmonica playing throughout this new film, where we watch him follow his daily routine, waking up, turning on a Spanish music radio station, washing his face and armpits, brushing his teeth, combing his hair, lighting a cigarette, doing morning yoga exercises in his underwear between puffs, drinking the only thing he has in his refrigerator, a chilled, already poured glass of milk, with several cartons lined up to be next, before finally selecting what he’s going to wear.  As he walks out the door to face a new day, it looks pretty much like every other day, where his established routines define his life.  Heading for the local diner, he orders coffee and works the local newspaper crossword puzzle, frequently asking customers for assistance, where he’s well looked after by the cook, Barry Shabaka Henley, the bartender playing a similar role in Jarmusch’s Paterson (2016), while a doting waitress, Yvonne Huff as Loretta, takes a personal interest, treating him as if he’s family, expressing one of the joys of small towns, where people tend to look after one another.  Afterwards, he heads around the corner to a local market, buying cigarettes and his carton of milk from the Mexican proprietor (Bertila Damas), exchanging pleasantries in a combination of English and Spanish before disappearing back home to watch his quiz shows.  Each evening, he drinks Bloody Mary’s at the local bar, owned and operated by Elaine (Beth Grant) and her husband Paulie (James Darren), often meeting his best friend Howard (David Lynch), commiserating over his missing tortoise, who happens to be Howard’s best friend.  This little touch offers a glimpse into the lives of the elderly, or just lonely people, as often the only friend they have in the world is their pet, heaping all their social skills onto that one animal, not knowing what to do with themselves when the animal is gone.  Howard is particularly effected, making what might be the most heartfelt defense of his missing friend during an anguished moment of exposed vulnerability, yet it’s especially affecting, small and tender, the kind of moment you’ll only find in a film like this, Lucky clip - Gone  (2:29).  It’s always fun to share moments with film directors “in front of” the camera, as it feels like a rare privilege. 

About as intimate as you can get, there are deafening silences in this film, small and large, but there’s also an understated humanness in every sequence, including Ed Begley Jr. as his physician, where Lucky visits him in his office after suffering an inexplicable fall, indicating the tests reveal no lingering issues, who simply has no medical answers for how one man can smoke nearly every day of his life and his lungs are completely clear, reporting Lucky is amazingly healthy for a man of his age, informing him, “You know most people don’t get to where you are, they never get to the moment you’re in right now, where you have the ability to witness what you’re going through and clearly examine it.”  One of the sweeter moments is a visit from Loretta, who simply stops by one day unannounced, checking up on him, catching him in an awkward moment watering his plants in his underwear.  With no ulterior motive other than pure friendship, they sit down and share a joint together while watching Liberace on TV, an entertainer so flamboyantly different he may as well be from outer space, yet it leads to a stunning personal confession, revealing for perhaps the first time in his entire life that “I’m scared,” a universal truth when it comes to aging.  Tom Skerritt shows up in the diner one morning wearing a Marine insignia on his cap, drawing the interest of Lucky, who was in the Navy, as the two rehash old war stories about World War II, but certainly not the kind we’re used to hearing.  While there are moments between moments that are filled only by the presence and personality of Stanton, who easily fills the screen with his monumentally recognizable face, there are a few stand-out moments, one of which is a lengthy scene simply watching Lucky at home alone smoking a cigarette as we hear the somber tones of Johnny Cash calling out to us from the grave, Johnny Cash - I See A Darkness. - YouTube (3:42), a particularly haunting song that sends chills up the spine contemplating one’s own mortality.  Lucky is extremely aware he’s closer to the end, but that doesn’t seem to bother him, instead he shares what little wisdom he has with others while remaining true to himself, laughing in the face of the void, even offering a singular moment when that look is directly at the camera, a cinematic tribute to none other than Giulietta Masina who does the same near the end of Fellini’s THE NIGHTS OF CABIRIA (1957), easily one of her most poignant moments.  But perhaps the scene of the film belongs to Stanton, invited to a young boy’s birthday party, “Juan Wayne,” the son of the grocery lady, where they have food, flan, a piñata, and even a mariachi band, when suddenly out of nowhere Lucky breaks into a traditional mariachi song, “Volver, volver,” dramatically singing in what appears to be perfect Spanish, Exclusive Lucky Clip “Mariachi” - Harry Dean Stanton - YouTube (1:19), surprising everyone, including those in the audience, providing a kind of effortless poetry that is a beautiful tribute to his memory. 

As a kind of bonus video from an earlier documentary, HARRY DEAN STANTON: PARTLY FICTION (2012), Actor Harry Dean Stanton sings (Bonus video) | Kentucky Muse | KET ... YouTube (4:10), Stanton can be seen joyously singing more songs in his living room with Michelle Phillips of The Mamas and the Papas.

2013 Top Ten List #9 Top of the Lake

TOP OF THE LAKE – made for TV        A     

Australia  Great Britain  (350 mi – 7 episodes) 2013 d:  Jane Campion and Garth Davis   

You can be very hard. And what I don't like is that you think it’s strength.    

—Robin’s mother Jude Griffin (Robyn Nevin) 

There’s no match for the tremendous intelligence of the body.     —GJ (Holly Hunter)

There has been a gradual introduction of movies made for television into film festivals, where the Melbourne and Telluride Film Festivals were among the first to program the three films in the RED RIDING TRILOGY (2009) made for British television, while the full-length, 5-hour French version of the Olivier Assayas film Carlos – made for French TV (2010) premiered at Cannes, and the Venice Festival premiered Todd Haynes’ MILDRED PIERCE (2011), all to critical acclaim.  This year Jane Campion’s feminist noir TOP OF THE LAKE became the first television series to ever premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, later screening again at Berlin, a 6-hour jointly produced BBC and Sundance Channel film TV miniseries spread out over 7 episodes, though the pacing and burning intensity are much more effective when compressed into a single viewing, especially without having to undergo commercials and the repeating credit sequence.  Since it had been four years since she made a film, Campion reveals her thoughts on finding more freedom working in television from the Hollywood Reporter, “Feature filmmaking is now quite conservative. The lack of restraints, the longer story arc:  It's a luxury not there generally in film.”  Campion’s An Angel at My Table (1990) was originally produced as a New Zealand television miniseries, but was re-edited and released internationally as a film.  Set in Laketop, a small town set on a gorgeous lake in a remote and mountainous area of New Zealand (actually shot by Adam Arkapaw at South Island’s Moke Lake and the cities of Queenstown and Glenorchy, including Lake Wakatipu seen here:  1,280 × 960 pixels), Elisabeth Moss plays Robin Griffin, a big city Australian police detective from Sydney with a specialty in child investigations, who happens to be visiting her mother who is stricken with cancer, but it’s also something of a coming home experience, as she grew up in the region as well.  Called in for an emergency, the local police, under the command of Detective Sgt. Al Parker (David Wenham), have a pregnant 12-year old Thai girl named Tui Mitcham (newcomer Jacqueline Joe, supposedly discovered at an Auckland swimming pool), who may have been attempting a miscarriage or drowning herself in the lake.  What’s immediately clear is not just the plight of the child, but the antiquated male-dominated police procedures where women continue to be leered at as sexual objects, routinely called sluts (or worse), and crimes against women are not really taken seriously by anyone in town, seen more as the usual sport between a man and a woman, so no one respects Robin’s authority on the case and can be heard making snickering comments on the side.  No one, for instance, takes the crime of rape against a 12-year old girl seriously except Detective Griffin, where they all heartily agree to her face that she’s right but then make no effort whatsoever to find the rapist.

It’s no accident that the best episodes are directed by Campion herself, including the first, fourth, and final two episodes, feeling almost mythical, featuring some stunning performances, where the richly detailed pieces of information unraveling in the opening few minutes are nothing less than intoxicating, filled with the beauty of the landscape, local color and plenty of eccentric characters.  Echoes of David Lynch’s TWIN PEAKS (1990 – 1991) are evident, especially in the exotic setting, the small town mindset, a body washed ashore, the toxic effect of holding onto secrets, strangely offbeat characters, and the presence of an outsider, in each case an abnormally astute police detective.  Like Laura Palmer, Tui is at the heart of the film, attractively appealing and the picture of innocence, as no one knows the truth about her, especially after she reveals the name of the father is literally “no one.”  Through Tui, Campion seems to be suggesting that women’s behavior in particular is a product of family dynamics, the surrounding community values, and the random events that comprise our lives.  What’s perhaps most frightening is the callously disturbing and pathological behavior of her father, Matt Mitcham (Peter Mullan at his most sinister), the town’s drug lord whose two sons are equally psychopathic in carrying out his dirty business (where the patriarchal family circle is actually Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John).  We see evidence of their nonchalant brutality in an opening scene, where they haven’t an ounce of concern for human life, living in a heavily armed fortress compound protected by modern surveillance equipment and intentionally starved pitbulls that run rampant.  When Tui quickly disappears, we begin to understand what it might be like as a girl growing up in this town.  This exact same subject is then explored through black and white flashback sequences, as Robin suffered her own share of childhood trauma growing up in this town, where the parallel lives of Robin and Tui remain linked throughout the film.  Interestingly, Elisabeth Moss was not the first choice for the film, as Campion offered the part to Anna Paquin, who declined due to her pregnancy, and when the part was offered to an American actress, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation pulled out of the project, insisting that it would only fund the film with an Australian or New Zealand lead actress.  The choice of Moss is literally perfect in the role, where it’s hard to think of the film without her, largely because she never overacts or displays too much, and though she is deeply scarred, reminiscent of Jodie Foster’s tenuous predicament as Clarice Starling in THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (1991), she continues to be defined by her intelligence, constantly guarding her thoughts, where the impact of others can easily be read upon her face, an opaque presence that mirrors the world around her, remaining mysteriously vulnerable and even fragile while standing up to a dominating male presence.

What distinguishes this film is the densely plotted novelesque quality, where even comically drawn secondary characters are significant to the overall portrayal of humans desperately in need, where there’s an untapped ferocity of spirit seen in both Tui and Robin.  Adding to this picture of a lone voice in the wilderness is an inspired idea to create a separatist women’s collective, a Greek chorus of damaged women living together in trucked-in shipping containers at a lakeside retreat called Paradise that sits on disputed land, as Matt claims they’re trespassing, a rag tag group of exiled women led by Holly Hunter as the dispassionate GJ, a guru-like presence in pants spouting Zen-like philosophic utterances, as if she can read each person’s future, but possessing the deranged personality of a social misfit herself, often seen pacing the grounds while off in the distance a few naked women are continually seen running free.  The lustful nature of the women is part of the untold story, including the sexual promiscuity of several of the women living on the compound, including a memorable scene from Geneviève Lemon (the 7-minute woman) who played the lead role in Sweetie (1989), as the men in town are perceived as testosterone fueled adolescents, especially in the moments Robin spends enduring endlessly abusive taunting by men in bars, yet woman have to find their place in an existing contemporary landscape, including Robin’s own sexual desires, seen developing for Johnno (Thomas M. Wright), a childhood sweetheart and one of Matt’s offspring, a good son that rejects the maniacal nature of his tyrannical crime boss father.  The two are a sexual force bonded together by her childhood trauma, where Johnno was her high school prom date and suspiciously absent afterwards on a night she was brutally gang raped by four drunken men.  This trauma gives her all the more reason to protect Tui, even if the town has given up looking for her, suspecting she must be dead after the passage of two months.  There’s an interesting thematic projection of men’s fears and limitations, expressed through the perceived effects of hostile elements, as no one thinks she could survive out there alone in the cold, while the repeated mention of the lethal quality of the water is always described as so cold that “no one could survive in that water.”  Yet somehow, just when Robin is told her mother has terminal cancer, easily one of the key moments in the film, intimately captured with the camera holding completely onto Robin’s face, at that exact moment when all hope is lost, there is also a chance that Tui has somehow survived.  

Tui’s absence changes the nature of the film, as her unseen presence, Robin’s own personal trauma, and her mother’s impending death all blend together and continually haunt Robin, who becomes the film’s dominant force, as events are continuously seen through her eyes.  The on again and off again relationship with her boss, Al, always seems to be of secondary importance, part of the police procedural component of the film, as their presence together is usually mandatory.  But his exclusively male take on events offers a differing viewpoint than her own, but Campion is careful not to make him one-dimensional, where he’s one of the more complexly drawn characters in the film, though never entirely likeable, especially as he’s seen to be in cahoots with Matt’s criminal empire, usually protecting him or tipping him off about upcoming police activities.  But Robin doesn’t know this and continually exposes a vulnerable side to him, where her life is an open book while we know almost nothing about him.  His extravagant home offers a clue, and is the setting for one of the more controversial events in the film, as he invites her over for dinner where she stupidly drinks too much and eventually passes out, waking up alone in his bedroom the next morning wearing one of his shirts.  He reassures her that nothing happened, that she vomited all over her clothes, so he was forced to wash them, all of which sounds like a perfectly acceptable explanation.  And that’s the problem with Al’s character, as his answers are too pat, sounding overly detached and too well reasoned ahead of time, never speaking passionately in the moment, where what comes across is an arrogant and pompous man that’s used to getting his way and never having to answer for it.  Al typifies the male mentality of the town, even if Matt is the Alpha male, while he sits quietly lurking in the background collecting his cut of the overall operations, running a secret Ecstasy and amphetamine lab underneath Matt’s home.  In contrast to Robin and Al, Matt has his own sexual experience with one of the women from the compound, Anita, Robyn Malcolm, who simply craves male companionship.  Their hallucinogenic outdoor experience in the woods on Ecstasy is unusual for how it sensitively portrays a ruthless crime boss at his most vulnerable state, used much like the LSD cemetery sequence in Easy Rider (1969), where the dealers are seen under the influence of their own drugs, often haunted by impending thoughts of death and mortality.    

At some point, and one barely realizes when it occurs, the focus shifts from the overly destructive and malicious behavior of the adults to the often misunderstood and more innocent motives of kids, where a strange young girl (Georgi Kay) dropped off at the women’s compound is continuously seen playing an electric guitar in various natural outdoor locations, NEW Ipswich- Georgi Kay (live) (4:50), offering voice to a new and different force that hasn’t been seen much or heard from, namely the next generation, Tui’s generation.  Robin interrogates a young boy for shoplifting, Jamie (Luke Buchanon), seen crossing the lake in a kayak, suspected of bringing food to a drop site, significant as he’s one of Tui’s best friends, perhaps even the father.  Jamie has the unusual habit of not speaking to adults, so Al tries to knock some sense into this kid, using decisively forceful measures until he’s thrown out of the interrogation room by Robin.  The kid disappears the next day, along with all the food in the refrigerator and kitchen cabinets, leading to a kind of idyllic Lord of the Flies gathering of kids in the woods without the presence of a bullying leader, where we discover the re-emergence of Tui along with boatloads of friends.  But Matt and his gang are soon on to them, forcing a very pregnant Tui and Jamie to escape, only to lead to certain tragedy, which has a horrific effect, especially within the women’s compound.  The slowed pacing also reflects a kind of impasse, a turning in the tide, where some of the women are finally willing to stand up to these powerful men, refusing to be scared or intimidated by them.  In a memorial sequence for one of the lost kids, Georgi Kay - Joga (Top of the Lake - Jamies memorial scene ... (2:40), featuring Mirrah Foulkes as the distraught mother, some may be shocked or confused at just how unmanly the women are, as they don’t go the Eastwood vigilante route and demand justice through the power of a gun or through brute strength, which is what movies have trained us to expect, but this psychological transformation has been slow in coming and continues to evolve at an excruciatingly slow pace, yet it’s among the more unique scenes in the film, as the women collectively express a quiet desperation without any hint of violence, viewed as an exclusively male domain.  

The finale goes even further down that road, where the discovery of a date rape drug figures prominently into the tortured lives of teens, many of whom in the past have ended up dead under mysteriously unexplained circumstances.  It’s all a bit alarming, but it also figures into Robin’s own past, where it doesn’t do her any good to dig too deeply into the heart of her own trauma, never wanting to meet the child she gave up for adoption as she never wanted to explain to a child that they were the product of a gang rape, thinking this revelation could induce suicidal thoughts of zero self-worth, deciding it’s better to “Fuck the truth,” where life is so much more complicated than we could ever imagine, where human behavior is simply too despicable.  One theme Campion appears to be advocating is that the more attention paid to pain, the worse things often become.  The movie can be shocking at times with its spurts of sudden violence, but in this film it’s not about women chasing after vengeance, where the obsession for justice only creates more injustice, as it’s so easy to lose sight of the arc of your own life, but it also shouldn’t be some inhumane evil that we continually answer to.  In the end, the film veers into an ambiguously disturbing road movie, like a journey through an existential wasteland, actually discussed at great length in the women’s group talkathons, which are almost a parody of self-help groups, where GJ often berates their whining and moaning, claiming they’re “madder than ever,” saying she needs to “just get away from these crazy bitches,” getting as far away as she can, yet still taking us on an interior journey more self-reflective and psychologically complex than what we’re used to from crime dramas, like say the highly successful THE MILLENNIUM TRILOGY (2009).  Actually it’s more like the continuing arduousness of The Odyssey, a prolonged journey filled with epic challenges, where the hero survives only by extraordinary cunning and perseverance, where likewise the collective effect of this film is an assault on the senses, causing a shock to the system and a rewiring of the circuitry, finding oneself at the center of a great human tragedy, offering no societal cure or moral answers, nothing more than the brave choice of learning how to discover our own humanity, often the last one thing we pay any attention to as we’re so busy navigating our way through life.  But in the end, eerily enough, someone, perhaps even Robin, is going to be in a position to help raise a child that is the product of gang rape, as the cycle of life continues where we’re continually forced to face our worst fears.