Vicky Cristina Barcelona

 

Director Woody Allen

director on the set

Scarlett Johansson with Woody

Rebecca Hall with Woody

Bardem and Cruz with Woody

Woody on the set

VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA                         B+                                                        Spain  (96 mi)  2008  d: Woody Allen

Preserving the template of previous Woody Allen movies, it is no secret that Woody can steal from the best of them, including himself (!), as this attempts to resurrect the romantic comedy magic of Annie Hall (1977).  Using a breezy energy that respects the pulse of its players, it’s actually the first French film Woody Allen has always wanted to make filling the screen with sensuous but superficial characters that have intimate revelations and near inexhaustible bank accounts.  Re-interpreting Alfonso Cuarón’s Y Tu Mamá También (2001) and updating Éric Rohmer, we have an idyllic portrait of summer bliss in Barcelona as experienced by two American tourists, Scarlett Johansson as Cristina and Rebecca Hall as Vicky.  Having the good fortune to know someone with a palatial estate there (who turns out to be Patricia Clarkson) who is in the middle of her own midlife doldrums, the girls are surrounded by luxury and the bloom of youth.  Vicky is engaged to Doug (Chris Messina) back in the states, a well-meaning but emptyheaded corporate attorney with an eye on living a comfortable life of stability, wealth and status, where their future together has been mapped out well ahead of time before they ever get married.  Vicky’s life is one of order and structure, where the thought of acting on impulse is simply unthinkable, while Cristina is just the opposite, an utterly unpredictable, dreamy-eyed girl who hasn’t a clue what she wants, who’ll jump into troubling relationships just for the thrill of danger and suspense, but then bale once she feels the least bit pressured.  All this is explained to us through a narrator (Christopher Evan Welch) in a snide and sarcastic tone of understatement who seems to relish the idea of telling it to us straight, leaving the humor and hysterics to the drama queens onscreen.  Almost immediately, the characters play to stereotype, as if the game is poking fun of themselves by floundering in scenes that are as broadly familiarized as possible, with odd little plot tweaks where they must remain in character.  Javier Bardem is spot on as the earnest Latin heart throb Juan Antonio, a bohemian painter who attempts to pick up the two American girls by whisking them to a remote weekend location in Oviedo where they can see a more intimate side of the country and each other.  Vicky, of course, is furious at the mere suggestion while Cristina is enamored with his charms instantly. 

Woody Allen has been writing his own films for so long that as we hear each new line of dialogue, we can literally place them in other character’s mouths from earlier films, for instance, Vicky very much resembles Diane Keaton in Annie Hall, with her pretensions to art and intellect while remaining aloof to romantic inclinations.  Cristina on the other hand sounds at times like the hesitating voice of Woody himself, neurotic and likeable enough to others, but never satisfied, a girl who appreciates the artistic aspirations of others but has no real talent for it herself.  In this film, Juan Antonio plies the girls with music and alcohol and lures them into the beauty of art before attempting to seduce them both, preferably at the same time.  Shot by Javier Aguirresarobe, the cinematographer for Pedro Almodóvar’s TALK TO HER (2002), continually saturating the screen with works of art by Gaudi and Miro and an incessant classical Spanish guitar soundtrack that strangely repeats itself to the rhythm of the film with refrains from a dramatically hushed version of a song called “Barcelona” by Giulia y Los Tellarini, Giulia y los Tellarini - Barcellona "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" - YouTube (2:23), the film is also bathed in golden pastoral hues as the two girls and a guy venture through a series of idyllic rural locations, permeated by a warm summer glow enhanced by the everflowing glasses of Spanish wine.  This kind of upper class milieu has been fertile Woody Allen territory for years, but never punctuated by the rambling pastoral landscapes more typically found in Éric Rohmer romances.  However in Rohmer films, the earthy characters are reflective of the region and emblematic of the pastoral French soil, but here the common theme is American superficiality on display with an overblown appraisal of themselves, usually expressed through a misguided notion that money and class status buys happiness along with the accompanying snooty superiority, always taking themselves much too seriously with little or no understanding of others, such as Cristina’s reluctance to converse with Juan Antonio’s father, who only speaks Spanish. 

Enter Penélope Cruz as Bardem’s ex-wife, whose exaggerated hysterics are priceless, causing Bardem to repeat to her at least twenty times in the film to please “Speak English,” as she continually rants in Spanish and has for years had a resolute refusal to speak English.  Her notion of being a drama queen is put to the test in this movie as under Allen’s direction her hilarity is her utter caricature of herself, yet she steals the film.  Scarlett Johansson’s acting career has suffered under Allen’s direction, as she appears gorgeously appealing but so out of place and emptyheaded all the time, a confused American who brings with her the baggage of immaturity and bad acting.  The screenplay attempts to grapple with this obvious oversight by attributing artistic skills and abilities to her character that are too preposterous to believe, as the audience continues to see her as that glamor girl on the cover of People magazine.  She is simply out acted in every scene, but since the theme of caricature runs throughout, she seems to be playing a bad version of herself, but somehow the brooding, self-centered pretentiousness of it all actually works here as it typifies the theme of American superficiality.  Rebecca Hall on the other hand is impressive and a constant delight, especially her earlier scenes where she sternly and appropriately fends off Juan Antonio with an indignant aplomb.  When she falls under his spell, however, her dizzying mood swings questioning what she really wants out of life are equally appealing, even as they are subjugated by the less than believable storyline. Her husband Doug?  He’s like a dull, grown up yet stupefyingly successful version of a now subservient and completely ass-wiping Ferris Bueller.  What’s there to think about?  The emphasis isn’t really on explicit bedroom scenes or in providing laughs, but instead finds a beautiful rhythm that delves into an intricate examination of the complex nature of relationships.  But of course, everything begins and ends with the virtues and values found only in America.  This Mediterranean fling only makes sense under the intoxicating summer swoon of reverie and make believe. 

Mother!

Javier Bardem (left to right), Jennifer Lawrence, and Michelle Pfeiffer in Venice

Jennifer Lawrence

MOTHER!                  B                                            

USA  (121 mi)  2017  ‘Scope  d:  Darren Aronofsky         Official Site [France]

Well there’s at least one man that would love to see a return of Roman Polanski to the United States, and that would be director Darren Aronofsky, as he seems to worship at the feet of this noted Polish director, as while watching this film, other films that come to mind are Roman Polanski's REPULSION (1965), Rosemary's Baby (1968), and THE NINTH GATE (1999), where the mood and tone are similar, creating a central character where the world is pushing back at them from all sides, forcing them to carry immense weight, which becomes too much of a psychological burden, eventually breaking under the pressure, creating cataclysmic fissures in the way they perceive the world around them, turning luridly offensive and grotesque, as if caught in a nightmarish dream world.  Just a coincidence?  Probably not. While what distinguishes this film, which has instantly become an incendiary talking point on social media, is that it is like nothing else, mindboggling and disturbing, yet two other films come to mind that also deserve mention.  The granddaddy of all religious satire belongs to Luis Buñuel, particularly an infamous “Last Supper” sequence in VIRIDIANA (1961) where all hell breaks loose, literally, set to the “Hallelujah Chorus” from Handel’s Messiah.  This film borrows liberally from that original idea and expands on it in new ways, creating a world of horrifying monstrosity, where there’s just no stopping the evil ways of mankind.  And finally someone must mention the Epilogue in Fassbinder’s mammoth epic BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ (1980), at 15 and a half-hours, still considered the longest narrative film ever made, ending with a two-hour fantasy sequence that breaks with the unprecedented realism in the preceding 13-hours, becoming a series of fragmented, illusory imaginings from the deteriorating mind of the central character, suddenly exploding into a minefield of phantasmagorical images of carnage and human wreckage.  These previous cinematic conceptions lay a groundwork for this film, which attempts to take you where no one else has gone.  While that’s debatable, it’s clear this is a highly toxic yet visionary work that fuels cinematic debates concerning what it’s about, while also reminding us that once a film is released, the director no longer controls the process, as it’s in the hands of audiences that might have their own ideas about what they’ve just witnessed.  That is the power of art, that it’s highly subjective, where each work’s place in history is as volatile as the shifting winds of time, as many films considered out of favor in one period have been elevated to masterworks in other time periods.  And while DVD’s and streaming networks allow films greater access, there are simply some films that defy commercialization, Hou Hsiao-hsien’s A City of Sadness (Bei qing cheng shi) (1989), for instance, which still has no version with English subtitles, or the Beatles’ LET IT BE (1970), Dennis Hopper’s THE LAST MOVIE (1971), John Sayles’ CITY OF HOPE (1991), Raul Peck’s The Man On the Shore (L’Homme sur les quais), Naomi Kawazi’s SUZAKU (1997), Pascale Breton’s ILLUMINATION (2004), along with a slew of Valerio Zurlini and Jacques Rivette films, or even the chronologically edited GODFATHER series that curiously did screen on television once in 2012 in a high-definition version, for instance (and there are so many others), that have simply never been released on DVD, so their place in the pantheon of cinema history remains an open question, as they haven’t been scrutinized by a wider audience.

It should be stated that much of this is drop dead hilarious, despite the severity of the subject matter, where this is truly a divine comedy, where it would not be surprising if in some future millennium this film might be chosen as a visionary work, lightyears ahead of its time, but beaten down and fallen prey to a drumbeat of critics that either want to condemn it as worthless, sheer lunacy, or ostracize it altogether as an off-the-fringe outlier that fails to benefit the public in any recognizable way.  While some films will always deserve this kind of critical purgatory, I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE (1978) anyone?, this is not one of them, as it’s ambitious as hell, layered with an extraordinary amount of ambiguity, while the story itself and the way it’s expressed defies anything else coming out of Hollywood, where it has such an edge and attitude about it that you have to wonder how this ever made it through?  The film is a cosmic expression of humanity as an Edenesque Lost Paradise given a Sisyphean tone of futility, showing how we inevitably lose our way, despite the presence of the church, and more specifically, THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, rules supposedly handed down by God to help guide us on a path of righteousness, yet we continually get sidetracked, developing an obsession with false prophets, often deluding ourselves, where our destructive capacity apparently has no bounds, with plenty of saber rattling and war mongering officials leading the charge.  In the Biblical stories of Sodom and Gomorrah, God was so angered that He destroyed the world, sending massive floods, allowing the world to begin anew, starting fresh.  But if history has told us anything, it is that those who don’t learn from the past are destined to repeat the same mistakes.  Despite our capacity for knowledge and systematic education, including a stunning curiosity for planetary explorations and other scientific missions heading into dark space beyond our solar system, we remain inhibited by our basic instincts, as we still commit crimes, fly into a rage, and brutally suppress others, often resorting to atrocities as a means to an end, thinking only of ourselves and what we want to accomplish, using money and power to obtain even more power, becoming insatiated by it, paying too little attention to the needs of others.  Sheer chaos and anarchy is what the world would look like without order, and this film offers a before and after view, where the results are startling.  Aronofsky seems to specialize in a cinema of discomfort, where the last 15-minutes of REQUIEM FOR A DREAM (2000), for instance, one of his most highly acclaimed movies, is nearly unwatchable due to the intensity of the nightmarish experience he realizes onscreen, where it closely resembles a bad acid trip, listed at #9 in this unique poll, 9. Requiem for a Dream (2000) - The 50 Most Disturbing Movies of All ....  Despite one’s reservation with the raw and graphic horror of drug addiction, the film has redeeming qualities, with the lead actress nominated for an Academy Award.  Despite the popularity of Jennifer Lawrence, the lead actress and director’s current girlfriend, she’s not likely to earn similar honors, though she risks plenty with this performance, even breaking an arm during the filming.  By paying so much attention to a dark and ugly side of humanity, few will actually “like” this film, though audiences can appreciate it in much the same way as people today praise Pasolini’s SALÒ (1976), as they are gutsy attempts to expose our darkest impulses by graphically exposing an inherent barbarism that normally never sees the light of day.  

Perhaps the film this comes closest to is the director’s own THE FOUNTAIN (2006), where a prominent theme is “Death, as an act of creation,” while also showcasing his girlfriend at the time, Rachel Weisz, as his muse, playing a character of eternal light while her overly grim husband, whose single-minded purpose makes him completely oblivious to others, is absorbed with the constant presence of death, searching for a scientific cure that never comes.  In much the same way, Jennifer Lawrence plays a Madonna figure, defined by her innocence and eternal love, while her husband, known as Poet (Javier Bardem), is a failing writer consumed in the bitterness of his own shortcomings, while also professing eternal love, though he fails to live up to it.  At least initially it’s beautifully written, where a series of characters knock at the door and suddenly take over her house and home, first Ed Harris, followed by an utterly sublime performance by Michelle Pfeiffer (where have you been?), which is only a warm up for what’s to follow.  Yet the internalized friction and overt antagonism caused by the guest’s total disdain in following normal guest protocol is overwhelming, reaching states of delirium, where they actually seem to be taunting her, like Rosemary's Baby, treating her with blatant disregard.  When their kids show up, a Cain and Abel tag team of fighters, all hell breaks loose, breaking furniture and whatever else stands in their way, altering the mood to such an extent that it initially seems humorous, but that is quickly remedied when one of them murders the other, bringing the house to a sense of calm only after they’ve left for a hospital, as at that point he’s only bleeding to death.  The Poet goes with them, allowing the film to completely embrace Lawrence’s character, where strange things start to happen, as reality is altered and distorted by her elevated paranoia and fears, embracing Catherine Deneuve in REPULSION.  By the time the family returns, this time filling the home with unwanted guests attending the wake, she’s already on the edge, but is pushed to the limit, as people intentionally disobey her instructions, literally wrecking the plumbing, as an exploding water leak drives the crowd away.  Get it?  The flood.  In the midst of an ensuing argument about how he abandoned her, the couple engages in sex on the staircase, continuing into their bedroom, where she awakens fully cognizant she is pregnant, where the couple gets a new start.  Almost simultaneously, this breaks his writer’s block, suddenly an unstoppable force, and within minutes, amusingly, he’s a published author, with first Kristen Wiig arriving at their door as his publisher, somehow showing knowledge of personal intimacy between them, then heaps more disdain on his now visibly pregnant wife, as crowds suddenly arrive at the door, unstoppable and unending, showing mad devotion to her husband, as if he’s a cult savant, eventually breaking into the house and taking whatever they want, reiterating his verse, share and share alike, claiming it all belongs to them, not her, basically stealing them out of house and home, where they can’t find a single solitary space that hasn’t been invaded by the mob, with people breaking through windows and Wiig absurdly leading a military assassination team, leaving plenty of dead bodies in her wake.  This heinous attack causes panic and mass confusion, ideal conditions for the birth.  From there things only deteriorate further, growing more and more feverish, where the Poet clearly loves the attention and can’t separate himself from his adoring fans, even when it’s destroying whatever beating pulse is left in his wife, attacked and disfigured, clawing her way over people, fighting for her life, but all for naught, eventually exploding into an apocalyptic fire and brimstone spectacle, suddenly turning into a Twilight Zone episode where it mysteriously rewinds and plays out all over again.  Breaking all rules, making no capitulation whatsoever for commercialism, this film is well worth the experience, as it’s an artist’s dream, even if it never rises to levels of transcendence.