Young & Beautiful (Jeune & Jolie)

YOUNG AND BEAUTIFUL (Jeune & Jolie)           B-                       

France  (95 mi)  2013  d:  François Ozon          Official site [France]

The French have always been fascinated with prostitution in films, so the subject should come as no surprise.  Godard’s VIVRE SA VIE (1962) is still one of his best efforts, which almost clinically explores the day-to-day life of a woman’s downward descent into prostitution.  Buñuel’s BELLE DE JOUR (1967) was shot in Paris, where an otherwise frigid housewife works as a call girl in her free afternoons, complete with surrealistic fantasies.  Abdellatif Kechiche’s Black Venus (Vénus noire) (2010) is a historical recreation of the life of Sarah Baartman (1789 – 1815), featuring an oversized black African woman with pronounced breasts and buttocks who heads a carnival act of the wild and the grotesque, becoming a freak of nature, openly displayed to the public half naked and exhibited as one of the wonders of the world.  When she refuses to continue to be treated like a whipped slave, she spends the rest of her life as a dying and diseased prostitute.  Bertrand Bonello’s House of Tolerance (L’Apollonide – souvenirs de la maison close) (2011) is seen as cinematic reverie, where the film has a remarkably lush decorative bordello environment, featuring plenty of nudity, but also a documentary style repetition of banal detail showing the ordinary, day-to-day routines that the women follow, while Malgorzata Szumowska’s Elles (2011) is also a quintessential French film, especially as seen through the emptiness of the middle class in yet another film that exploits female nudity while offering a social comment on the status of women in society.  To this we can add Ozon’s film, which can also be seen as a teenage angst movie, as the film follows a single 17-year old girl named Isabelle (Marine Vacth) through four seasons of a year (much like an Éric Rohmer film), from her loss of virginity to a surge in her sexual awareness, developing a sex-oriented website offering adult sexual services in upscale hotels.  Despite the colorful feel of innocent reverie from the opening, Ozon may be targeting the dangers of the Internet on today’s youth, where there are no boundaries that prevent teenagers from exploring and marketing their sexuality.   

Ozon, who is outwardly gay, has always written strong women’s parts, especially UNDER THE SAND (2000), SWIMMING POOL (2003), 5 X 2 (2004), and ANGEL (2007), which feature not only extraordinary performances, but showcase characteristics of women’s inner strength that match their outer beauty, often at odds in the same film between different characters, where he’s expressed amazing insight into the female psyche.  While this may have been his goal here as well, the naïveté and tender age of the lead actress creates unintended obstacles, where the way she breezes through a life of prostitution, seemingly unaffected and without a care in the world suggests a certain separation with reality.  It’s unclear if this fantasized sexual ease is the view of the director or the young character herself, but either way, it’s a bit offputting, evoking a less than sympathetic identification with the character, as she’s simply oblivious to the negative ramifications.  Perhaps this is due to the ease of her bourgeois, upper class lifestyle, where at the outset on holiday in the south of France, we see Isabelle sunbathing topless at an idyllic secluded beach that she apparently has all to herself.  This recurrent beach setting exists throughout Ozon’s works, and may be his identification with queer culture which is otherwise absent in many of his films.  Spied on by her younger brother Victor (Fantin Ravat), who also sees her masturbating in her room, she is already something of an exhibitionist, catching the eye of a German vacationer Felix (Laurent Belbecque) who takes her virginity on the beach one night, and while seen as an out of body experience, as if she’s a separate entity able to escape her body and watch herself, the event seems to have little effect upon her.  Jumping ahead, Isabelle, aka Lea, is already in the habit of meeting older men in upscale hotel rooms, where we see her with Georges (Johan Leysen), who could easily be her grandfather.  This establishes a stream of similar visits in hotel rooms, offering the appearance of luxury and hedonism, where her naïveté becomes more obviously uncomfortable with crudeness and more demanding customers who are used to getting exactly what they ask for. 

Understated and apathetic, it’s never apparent whether Isabelle receives any sexual gratification at all, as she rarely changes facial expressions, or why she chooses prostitution, never even spending the money, simply stashing the money away in a cash purse in her closet afterwards, but what is clear is that she begins to associate sex with power.  Often at odds with her mother, Géraldine Pailhas, who worked with Ozon in 5 X 2 (2004), Isabelle sees this as a way of exerting her own sense of rebellious independence, which parallels her mother’s own behavior, caught by Isabelle flirting openly with another man.  Perhaps only because it’s easier, she begins seeing Georges more often, where all she really has to do to please him is look young and beautiful, resembling Kiarostami’s latest Like Someone in Love (2012), though not nearly as involved, where the viewer here is more attuned to the vacuous repetition of hotel sex, where there’s little interaction or personal satisfaction.  Isabelle’s life undergoes an upheaval when one of her customers is found dead in a hotel room, where security cameras trace her to the room, with the police exposing her secret to the family, who simply can’t come to terms with their somewhat aloof little girl who has lacked nothing during her lifetime turning to a life of prostitution, almost as if it was a lifestyle choice.  Instead of hanging out with students her age, she was receiving compliments from older men by making a career out of granting sexual favors, basically becoming her own Make a Wish foundation.  At seventeen, this is all a bit much, but Isabelle is unscathed by the revelations, showing little if any concern, where her world starts coming apart only afterwards when she no longer has the same control over her life, having to answer once again to her parents, feeling more like a kid—exactly what she was trying to get away from.  Her only recourse is to withhold information and to rebel against their better instincts.  The problem with this film is beauty is only skin deep, and Ozon never penetrates this young girl’s psyche like he has with older women in previous films.  In something of an ode to those glory years, Charlotte Rampling, who is associated with Ozon’s best films, makes an appearance near the end that feels somewhat surreal, but even she can’t provide the depth or emotional heft that’s missing from this film.  The film resembles the sexual objectification of Julia Leigh’s Sleeping Beauty (2011) (hint:  remove the wall to wall nudity from these films and what have you got?), where the subject is oversexualized young women, both mystifyingly strange by their emotional passivity, and both incapable of any real connection in the world, where the unique formalism of the film couldn’t express more human detachment, as the stark nudity on display is stylishly empty.  

The Hunter (2011)

THE HUNTER                        B

Australia  (100 mi)  2011  ‘Scope  d:  Daniel Nettheim                Official site

Most probably couldn’t find Tasmania on a map, but it’s located about 150 miles due south of Australia, where nearly 40% of the island is an unspoiled natural environment, a protected park and wilderness reserve and one of the World Heritage Sites.  It makes for a unique setting to shoot a film that dwells in the interior forests chasing a mythical animal, the Tasmanian tiger, the last one in the early 1930’s can be seen here:  Last Tasmanian Tiger, Thylacine, 1933 - YouTube (42 seconds), now believed extinct, though science has a vested interested in tracking one down.  It’s not science, however, but the monetary greed of a pharmaceutical company that secretly hires a mercenary hunter, Martin Davis (Willem Dafoe), to obtain evidence that such an animal still exists in the wild, which could bring in astronomical prices, as these mythical animals are rumored to have properties that can save humans from life-threatening disease.  With this in mind, Martin sets out for the outback, renting a room from a farmhouse on the outskirts of the nearest town.  While Martin is all business, keeping his emotions continually in check, he can’t help but notice the state of filth and disarray in the home, where the mother spends all her time in bed while the two children run free, the talkative Sass (Morgana Davies) and her mute little brother Bike (Finn Woodlock), decidedly more shy.  Apparently their father left for the woods on a naturalist expedition but never returned.  When Martin goes into town to seek a room elsewhere, he’s greeted with a seething hostility, where outsiders are definitely not appreciated and urged to get out of town as soon as possible.  With that in mind, he decides to clean up the place and make it minimally habitable before venturing into the wild.  Initially he is guided into the outskirts of the wilderness by Jack (Sam Neill), a local who looks in on the family from time to time, helping cross the picket line of angry loggers who guard the forest entrance, put out of work by environmental protests from “greenies,” who they actively despise, associating Martin with their camp, as he’s allegedly a university scientist come to study the habits of the Tasmanian devils, a raccoon-like animal the size of a small dog, believed to be the largest carnivorous marsupial, exceeded only by Tasmanian tigers, which are larger, wolf-like creatures.

The film is an adaptation of Julia Leigh’s first novel, the author who wrote and directed the baffling Sleeping Beauty (2011) starring Emily Browning.  Both works are obsessions of sorts, where this is more of a Moby Dick adventure, where a specialized hunter is sent in for the kill, spending all his time scouring the landscape, shooting animals for food, setting up traps, taking photos, and looking for signs of the tigers, where he makes multiple visits into the wild, beautifully shot in ‘Scope by Robert Humphreys, featuring exquisitely chosen music from Dvorak, Handel, and Vivaldi, among others, and a great sound design.  Initially Martin discovers troubling signs of cameras apparently designed to study his path, where it’s clear he was being watched as well, his vehicle’s lights and windows smashed upon his return with feces spread across his windshield telling him to go home.  With each successive visit, the wordlessness of his experience in the woods is shattered by the ever talkative Sass upon his return, where it’s impossible not to take notice of these kids, who follow him everywhere, and are extremely well developed characters, never rising to the level of stereotype.  He helps their mother Lucy (Frances O’Connor) get back on her feet, weaning her off the excessive doses of psychotropic medicine, where in a surprisingly uplifting moment, he finally gets the broken generator working again, which turns the lights and electricity on, where the sounds of Springsteen’s “I’m on Fire” The Hunter (2011) - I'm on Fire - YouTube (2:12) awakes the sleeping mother who erroneously thinks her husband has returned.  The film beautifully interweaves the intensity of each section, where he continually learns more information about each of the two worlds.  The drama here is exacerbated by the ferocity of the antagonism associated with exploring the wild, as Martin learns the kid’s father was on the same mission before he disappeared, while at the same time, Martin entered the film with no family connection, no back story whatsoever, but clearly disconnected from the family of man, where the coming to life of this little dysfunctional family awakens something deep inside him as well. 

The question of man’s disturbance of the primitive world has long been the subject of fascination, where Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness may best define the lurking darkness that prevails the deeper one explores uncharted and unspoiled territory, which has long defined a darkness within ourselves as well that shadows good and evil, each a shaded reflection of the other.  Similarly, Martin’s journey has severe ramifications, where if he delivers what’s asked of him, it will only line the pocketbooks of the greedy, much like the original colonial empires that harvested riches from colonial nations, where they will pay plenty to obtain what they want, actually sending another hunter when Martin doesn’t act swiftly enough, to cover their concerns, forcing Martin to at least explore an alternative path that prevents them from ever getting what they want.  Caught in this existential dilemma, where there are continuing threats of violence at every level, as everyone associated with the forest region feels threatened, as the loggers are out of work, unable to feed their families, blaming the environmentalists who simply wish to protect the land, while corporate interests have their own invading raiders who threaten to steal the last of a possibly extinct species.  Every avenue feels slightly shortchanged by the end, as they are all blended together into the mix, but there’s a bleak road staring at him from each direction.  There’s little chance of redemption, as he’s supposedly the master thief who can outmaneuver and outsurvive any other plunderer they send into the wilderness, where the man to man battle of the big game hunters has a fairly contrived feel to it, ultimately, and is the weakest link, where after all is said and done, he still has to grapple with the ghost of a potentially extinct species staring him in the face.  Meanwhile, the journey to remain connected to the family of man is fraught with perhaps even greater dangers and risks than he has ever known, having to improvise and redefine his entire mission in life, something completely foreign to him.  The film offers horrifying consequences, where destruction is the only sure path man feels familiar with.  The rest is all unknown        

Sleeping Beauty

SLEEPING BEAUTY                           B-              

Australia  (101 mi)  2011  d:  Julia Leigh                      Official site

It’s hard to fathom what women find groundbreaking in sexual objectification these days, but in this film novelist Julia Leigh has brought her talents to screenwriting and directing, creating a mystifyingly strange film defined by its emotional passivity, which may be a comment on the human condition, as we’re allowing anything to happen to the planet without reacting with much outrage, the United States invaded Iraq under false pretext, but the world sat around and offered little response and instead simply allowed it to happen, and AIDS is ravaging through the continent of Africa while many progressive African leaders still remain in denial about even acknowledging the disease and how it spreads, doing little to counteract its horrific impact.  What separates humans from the other animals is supposedly the human consciousness, but do you suppose Ms. Leigh is suggesting we’re simply not using ours or that we’re sitting around and allowing governments and wars to run amok, where the feeble human outcry is pitiful?  Perhaps, yet this is expressed through a strictly sexual contextualization, where Emily Browning plays Lucy, a college student who also works as a Xerox copy girl, a waitress, and side jobs as a high class prostitute, but needing more cash, becomes an upscale specialized call girl for an exclusive men’s club serviced by scantily clad women designed to please.  Lucy hasn’t reached the level of prostitute there yet, as she’s considered entry level material, but should things go well, career advancements are offered. 

Lucy’s specialty at the men’s club is taking a sleeping potion that effectively puts her to sleep, where men can do anything they wish except penetration, where she wakes in the morning without any recollection of what transpired.  This is a job that requires beauty, where amnesia is built right into the job description.  This seems to fit into Lucy’s impassive demeanor, where she has few friends, doesn’t care much about school, yet allows strange things to happen to her, where she signs up for weird scientific experiments which are difficult to watch.  She seems to have a serious relationship with a guy known as Birdman (Ewen Leslie) who we never see leave his room, as he’s apparently an ex-addict, yet their dialogue together feels intentionally forced and artificial, as if this a standard routine between them, perhaps learned behavior which feels like a variation of the outlandishly tame Ozzie and Harriet TV show of the 1950’s.  So they spice things up by drinking vodka.  Still, despite a personal connection, she remains perfectly detached, never showing the slightest feelings, which is exactly how she expresses herself in all her other work, including her specialized nighttime performance of Sleeping Beauty.        

Leigh’s sensibility is a writer, where the accumulation of details is a refined skill, where Geoffrey Simpson’s lush cinematography is significant as well, opening in a dreary medical lab, continuing to find more elaborate settings until eventually she’s photographed under ideal circumstances and appears to be a porcelain doll, perhaps a perfect expression of female beauty, like THE STEPFORD WIVES (1975), whose beauty remains illusory.  In this view, women are perceived as empty receptacles, like a beautiful vase that holds fresh flowers, which will be useless in a week after the flowers wilt.  The real flaw is that in her pursuit of perfection, she’s incapable of any real connection in the world, as evidenced by the near perfect exterior veneer at the men’s club, which is all about manner and the appearance of luxury and hedonism, as the men themselves are old and withering, rather pathetic imitations of the virile men they once were, now disgusted with themselves and their lives, hardly the sort of men who could appreciate the sexual company of any woman any more, so they purchase a picture of pretense, an unsoiled, artificial world where women are no more than decorations, like a wall painting to look at.  The unique formalism of the film couldn’t express more human detachment, where the stark nudity on display is stylishly empty, like turning the pages of a magazine.  Not sure this ever really makes its point, but the experience is unsettling.