Calvary

Benbulbin

Benbulbin

CALVARY                  A-          
Ireland  Great Britain  (100 mi)  2014  ‘Scope  d:  John Michael McDonagh     Official Facebook

Many times man lives and dies
Between his two eternities,
That of race and that of soul,
And ancient Ireland knew it all.
Whether man die in his bed
Or the rifle knocks him dead,
A brief parting from those dear
Is the worst man has to fear.
Though grave-diggers’ toil is long,
Sharp their spades, their muscles strong.
They but thrust their buried men
Back in the human mind again.

—Second stanza, Under Ben Bulben by William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), a poem addressing his own mortality, from Last Poems, 1939

I’ve always felt there's something inherently psychopathic about joining the army in peace time, as far as I’m concerned people join the army to find out what its like to kill someone.  I hardly think that’s an inclination that should be encouraged in modern society, do you?          —Father James Lavelle (Brendan Gleeson) 

This is a film unlike anything else seen in awhile, perhaps ever, as one needs to be psychically prepared for the metaphysical seriousness of tone, a modern morality play where despite the religious subject matter wrapped in Catholic doctrine, this plays out like a bleak existential western, a morbid take on HIGH NOON (1952), where one man alone takes on the forces of evil, unable to use the powers of the church or God to stop the inevitable doom from happening.  Named after the site where Christ was crucified, the film opens in the confession booth as a priest, Father James Lavelle (Brendan Gleeson), hears a man threaten to kill him in one week’s time, naming the date and place of his murder.  The film then recounts the events of the week, day by day, leading up to that fateful hour.  This is as far from an action film as one gets, taking the audience completely off-guard, as the film relies instead upon the expository writing of the author, the writer/director of the hilariously offbeat The Guard (2011), also featuring a magnificent performance by Gleeson, but this is about as hushed and toned down as films can be, as the priest makes his usual rounds visiting various people in the community unannounced, where the entire film is a character study that consists of these intensely personal conversations, becoming a slowly unraveling philosophical treatise on man’s fate.  The Catholic church is as much the target as Father James, as the wounded parishioner was sexually abused by a priest from the ages of seven to twelve, recalling the horrendous pain he was forced to endure that has never left him, carrying the hurt and anguish around with him where his only consolation, since the offending priest is dead, is to target a good priest.  Father James, by all accounts, is well-liked and respected by all, where he has a worldly intelligence, as he came late to the calling, only after overcoming a drinking problem and ending in the death of his wife.  Adding to his own personal shame, his troubled daughter Fiona (Kelly Reilly) has been the victim of failed romances, the most recent resulting in a suicide attempt.  While the priest is the film’s centerpiece, she’s his able assistant, where the two make a remarkably astute pair, going on long walks together, recovering what they can from their own damaged lives.   

McDonagh, along with his brother Martin, one of the best known living Irish playwrights who wrote and directed In Bruges (2008), intends this to be the second installment of a Suicide Trilogy, all starring Brendon Gleeson, beginning with The Guard featuring Gleeson as a policeman schooling an American FBI agent (Don Cheadle) on local Irish police procedures while tracking down a drug smuggling ring, while in the third, THE LAME SHALL ENTER FIRST, Gleeson will play a paraplegic ex-policeman attempting to solve the murder of a friend whose death has been overlooked by the carelessness of the police.  As an older, bearded man in a wheelchair, expect Gleeson’s character to spew vitriol at every “able-bodied” human being.  So while the first and third appear to be laced with acerbic black comedy, CALVARY is one of the more profoundly contemplative films of the year, yet also feels like a mournful death march, similar to the atmospheric mood of Jim Jarmusch’s DEAD MAN (1995), complete with similar philosophical examinations.  The film is a full frontal attack on the Catholic church, who turned a blind eye to the Catholic sexual abuse scandal in Ireland, an epidemic of sexual abuse cases by Catholic priests in Ireland (Republic), where more than 35,000 Irish teenagers and children from Catholic-run orphanages or reformatories were abused by priests from the 1930’s until their discovery in the early 1990’s, not to mention priests from prominently renowned churches to the Magdalene asylum.  Despite thousands of witnesses coming forward, including a 9-year government commission to investigate the allegations, few offenders have been prosecuted, but this hasn’t in any way altered the Church’s practice of accepting money.  Because of the public notoriety of the church sex scandal around the world, it is almost universally accepted that no female nuns come from Ireland, Western Europe, or even North America anymore.  While the ramifications of this detestable scandal, almost invisible within the church itself, is a central theme of the film, where the suggestion seems to be life goes on, so let’s get on with our lives.  But some scars never heal, where they fester and only grow worse over time, with the act of revenge becoming the only viable response that matters, that gives meaning to every last breath, as all else has already died long ago.  It is in this anguishing spiritual abyss that CALVARY resides, a deeply introspective film that attempts to examine the meaning of faith in a faithless world, or find value in hope only after all hope is lost.     

As much as any Western country, Ireland has certainly had its faith tested in recent years, crawling out from under the absolutism of the Catholic Church, where money and modernity have been equally elusive.  Shot by Larry Smith, the film makes exquisite use of the rugged Irish coastline with seemingly endless rolling waves and the picturesque rural locale of County Sligo, including the looming omnipresence of Benbulben lurking off in the distance, a large rock formation in the Dartry Mountains, an area sometimes called “Yeats Country,” as the poet spent part of his youth there and is buried nearby.  The stunning beauty of these exterior geographical locations only heightens an interior examination of the characters, where this is a sin and redemption movie with Father James spending what could potentially be his final week making unannounced visits to any number of damaged individuals as he consoles a grief-stricken widow (Marie-Josée Croze) whose husband dies senselessly in a car crash while touring the region, an aging writer (M. Emmett Walsh) with a love for Hoagy Carmichael and American jazz of the 20’s and 30’s who begins to have contemplations about his impending death, an attractive butcher’s wife Veronica (Orla O’Rourke) who recently left her husband Jack (Chris O’Dowd) after sporting a black eye, though he blames it on an African boyfriend (Isaach de Bankolé) who takes offense to the priest’s prying insinuations.  Perhaps most pathetic is a retired stock trader Michael (Dylan Moran) who has earned a fortune, recently purchasing a fabulously expensive mansion without his wife and child who left him, leaving him to stew in his own self-imposed existential emptiness where life has lost all meaning, while the creepiest is a visit to the prison seeing a former student, Freddie Joyce (Gleeson’s own son Domhnall Gleeson), a convicted serial killer sentenced to life, as Ireland has no death penalty, who reminds the priest that he’s also one of God’s creations, wondering if God could understand him, to which Father James judiciously responds, “If God can’t understand you, no one can.” 

Throughout these visits, he continues to interact with his daughter Fiona, who felt doubly betrayed both by the death of her mother and then the absence of her father when he left to join the priesthood, where this visit is an attempt to heal their wounds.  This is a dark and somber drama, thoughtful and quietly moving throughout, showcasing an acerbic wit and black humor, especially since an ugly nature permeates throughout this country town, with scorn and resentment filling the air, where any one of them could be guilty.  They are a sorry bunch filled with the devil’s mischief, deserving of the Father’s pity, yet they hold him in utter contempt, as nobody believes in anything anymore.  A brooding study of human nature where Father James is thwarted at every turn, the film slowly and deliberately moves towards that inevitable confrontation between the forces of good and evil, resulting in a vividly unsparing climax that leaves nothing to the imagination.  “I was one of the lucky ones!  There’s bodies buried back there,” where the tortuous pain of the afflicted parishioner bares its ugly soul with the volcanic fury of insufferable pain, as the film revisits the same places over the end credits without the presence of people, losing all sense of humanity, where the stark emptiness is a jolt to the system, especially accompanied by hauntingly transcendent Guaraní harp music from Paraguay, Los Chiriguanos - Subo - YouTube (“Subo” I Climb, 3:01), where Los Chiriguanos are two men from the tribe of Chirigua that have existed in central South America since long before the Spaniards came in 1527, who themselves have suffered their own indignities, yet produce such heavenly music.  The common thread throughout is carried by the good intentions of mortal men, much like the country priest in Bresson’s Diary of a Country Priest (Journal d'un curé de campagne) (1951), whose persistent effort to help build a better understanding in the world brings the eternal into ordinary day to day experiences, which may as well be the grace of God.   

Only God Forgives

ONLY GOD FORGIVES                    C+                  

Denmark  France  Thailand  USA  Sweden  (90 mi)  2013  d:  Nicolas Winding Refn    Official site [France]

An overly somber style over substance film, where except for the excessively violent subject matter, one might think this is a Wong Kar-wai film, as the lush visuals combined with the highly eclectic musical soundtrack written by Cliff Martinez add a hypnotic, near surreal color palette.  Stylishly impressive, set in the dreamy underworld of Bangkok, Thailand, but the characters all feel like they’re sleepwalking through their roles, not unlike Gaspar Noé’s ENTER THE VOID (2009), a director singled out in the credits by Refn, stuck in a netherworld purgatory waiting to be judged by a martial arts policeman named Chang (Vithaya Pansringarm), dressed out of uniform in loosely fitting and comfortable clothing, who like a spaghetti western Avenging Angel or God, restores order through brutal punishments, bordering on torture porn, but his judgment comes swift and decisive instead of inflicting prolonged agony.  Afterwards, in perhaps the most surreal moments in the film, Chang sings karaoke while his fellow cops sit around in uniform to listen.  While the surface effects can be near spectacular, as the composition of each shot couldn’t be more remarkable, along with an edgy use of lighting and a dazzling color scheme, shot by cinematographer Larry Smith who worked on three Kubrick films, recreating the spooky element of surprise in the long hallways shots of the Overlook Hotel, but there’s little to no interior involvement, where the viewer is never connected emotionally to anything onscreen.  The dialogue is so campy during some of the most violent showdowns that it borders on the ridiculous, adding an element of the absurd to the already over-the-top visualizations, making this a midnight run cult film at the time of its initial release.  Refn also dedicates this film to Alejandro Jodorowsky, a cult figure whose films depict picturesque horrors and humiliations, where Peter Schjedahl in his New York Times review calls EL TOPO (1970) “a violent surreal fantasy, a work of fabulous but probably deranged imagination.”  Jodorowski himself is quoted as saying, “Everyday life is surrealistic, made of miracles, weird and inexplicable events.  There is no borderline between reality and magic.”  All of which means this was meant to be a head-scratcher, something of a mindfuck of a movie, where the Argento-like atmosphere of menacing doom defines the film.

Ryan Gosling is Julian, who along with his brother Billy (Tom Burke), run a Thai kickboxing club, which we learn later is just a front for a major drug operation.  Julian’s demeanor is so calm and understated that he barely utters more than a sentence or two throughout the entire film, where he doesn’t act so much as sulk, but like Chang, he’s more of a presence than an actual character.  When his brother inexplicably goes berserk, raping and killing an underage prostitute, leaving her lying in a pool of her own blood, the sickening aspect is so acute that the regular cops turn to Chang, something of a specialized expert only called upon in the most hideous crimes, where his unique method renders immediate judgment, with no arrest, no trial, and no imprisonment, as if he’s not really a part of the human condition, but an elevated force to contend with, seemingly drawing upon supernatural powers.  Except for his lightning quick martial arts strikes, he does everything else in a Zen-like calm, in near slow motion, as if he’s hovering over the consciousness of these criminal suspects with their fates in his hands, outraged at hearing their pathetic, self-justifying defenses, demanding that they admit to their crimes, enacting a savagely vicious arm mutilation when they don’t answer swiftly enough.  In this way, the act of justice is decisively rendered and remains permanent, not some idealized concept.  When Chang allows the girl’s father to take his revenge upon Billy, it’s as if the world turns upside down.  Kristin Scott-Thomas arrives on the scene in an outrageously over-the-top performance as the diabolical mother mourning the death of her firstborn, still fuming and in a state of rage that Julian hasn’t exacted revenge for his brother’s murder, re-establishing her iron-like control over the drug operations, and ordering Julian around as if he was still an insolent child.  The scene of the film is a formal dinner sequence between mother and son, where Julian is joined by Mai (Rhatha Phongam), a prostitute pretending to be his steady girlfriend, where the vile flamboyance of the mother turns this into a classic scene and one of the memorable highlights of the year, a uniquely horrific and thoroughly embarrassing moment where Scott Thomas becomes a dragon lady that turns belittling and malicious humiliation of her son and his hooker girlfriend into an artform, initiating an assault of crude language so debasing that she’s a contender for the most evil mother in screen history, something of a parallel to the Albert Brooks character in Refn’s previous film Drive (2011). 

Thematically, a film this very much resembles is Taxi Driver (1976), another avenging angel film where Chang has to literally clean up the scum and garbage on the streets, holding the same contempt for moral rot and decay as Travis Bickle, using many of the same unorthodox methods as well, creating an eternal bloodbath as human salvation.   But Scorsese’s film is deeply rooted in an incendiary, character driven performance, something altogether missing here, as outside of the commanding performance of Scott Thomas, the rest may as well be zombies or the walking dead.  With each successive shot so perfectly rendered, Refn uses the photograph-like composition to advance each scene, where except for the violent action sequences, much of this film is a picture of stillness, an induced calm, like an oasis on the horizon, but something of an illusion covering up the internal turmoil hidden within.  The sins of the world are covered in a kind of toxic moral laziness, while Chang’s job is to root out each rotting soul one by one.  Scott Thomas blames Chang for allowing her son to be murdered, completely overlooking Billy’s own wretched acts, and sets into motion a series of blistering assaults on the police designed to remove Chang from the picture, but it’s as if he’s from a different realm, inscrutable and untouchable, surviving every attempt, until ultimately Chang finds Julian.  In exaggerated spaghetti western fashion, the two head for the ultimate showdown playing out in Julian’s own boxing ring, now nearly deserted except for a few miscellaneous cops, Mai, and  Julian’s mother.  In the emptiness of the room, Julian proves no match, as his opponent is a phantom, a demented godlike figure with a bloodthirsty appetite for inflicting pain, literally pulverizing his victims before walking away unscathed, leaving behind a grim and overly solemn world that resembles a morgue.  The film lacks the energy and entertaining appeal of any Bruce Lee movie, but overwhelms with its superb production design, ultimately feeling like an empty experience that is all surface visuals with little more to offer.  Lacking the well-crafted characterization of Sergio Leone, this feels more like a cartoonish homage to the macho revenge genre, where the Tarantino-ish, overly stylish bloodletting continues, but it all feels so meaningless after awhile, becoming a one note film that only grows more tiresome.

The Guard

THE GUARD                          B+                  

Ireland  (96 mi)  2011  ‘Scope  d:  John Michael McDonagh

Why don’t you fuck off to America with your Barack O’Fucking Bama?
—Sergeant Gerry Boyle (Brendan Gleeson)

Written and directed by the brother of Martin McDonagh (one of the film’s producers), who wrote and directed the hitman black comedy IN BRUGES (2008), which made fun of the boring Belgium city of Bruges as a ghost town where absolutely nothing happens, both starring Brendan Gleeson, though here he single handedly carries the film in a wickedly comic performance that is nothing less than brilliant, even rivaling the British film THE TRIP (2011) as the funniest movie of the year.  While THE TRIP is wildly improvisational, relying on rival comics providing a steady stream of comic impressions, each trying to outdo the other, this film has hilariously perceptive writing, featuring an Irish cop, Sergeant Gerry Boyle (Gleeson), in a Gaelic-speaking region of Ireland poking fun at a black American FBI agent (Don Cheadle) flown in, supposedly an expert on international drug trafficking, continually pestering him with racial humor that also undercuts the so-called competency of American law enforcement, making this among the funniest and most socially relevant uses of humor seen in any recent movie.  “I'm Irish, sir, racism is a part of me culture.”  It’s funny, for a change, to see how the rest of the world amusingly views America as a cowboy culture that continually shoots itself in the foot, where our blunders are world renown, yet we continually perceive ourselves as experts.  American films rarely poke fun at our own ineptitude, as this would be seen as unpatriotic and anti-American.  But in an Irish film, showing a traditional, old-fashioned cop that except for his proclivity for profanity might be a brethren to Peter Falk’s Columbo, continually expressing himself with subversive humor in that thick Irish brogue, Gleeson gives one of the best performances of the year.

Foregoing the cheaper video route, this was shot on real film by Larry Smith, who worked on three Kubrick films, Barry Lyndon (chief electrician), The Shining (gaffer), and Eyes Wide Shut (lighting cameraman).  Somebody obviously paid attention, giving a luscious texture to the constant and steady stream of overcast gray that seems to perpetually hover over Ireland, shot mostly in Galway, suggesting a smaller rural location that culturally takes its pot shots at the ineptitude expected from the urban Irish capital of Dublin.  One of the more off the wall sequences even pokes fun of the IRA, finding little gems of humor across both sides of the ocean.  While the dialogue may need subtitling, as much of the humor is missed on an American audience simply due to the foreign accent, the tone of the film is a mixture of sharp, in-your-face humor, a showcase for strangely original side characters, and some refreshingly poignant, quiet intimacy between several of the characters, all of whom are connected in some way to Boyle, whose actions confound the drug smugglers, as he doesn’t act in the predictable manner they have come to expect.  That’s putting it mildly, as the guy doesn’t get riled, shows little fear, will stand up to anyone, face to face, and is the kind of down-to-earth guy you’d want to share a drink with, as that’s really when he’s in his element.  When he visits his terminally ill mother (Fionnula Flanagan) in a senior home, where everyone around her is just as old and sick as she is (how depressing!), their moments together are priceless, sharing a flask that he brings along, altering their memories to brighten up her day, where they even have a crack up moment giggling in church, where he wonders what she’s done at her age that needs to be confessed. 

But it’s the sudden arrival of bad guys in the vicinity that alters the landscape, that brings over the heralded “Yank,” and where dead bodies start turning up with regularity.  When we meet the trio of outlaws in a car, the ringleader Liam Cunningham is reading Schopenhauer in the back seat, while the nervous sociopath driver David Wilmot is competing with hitman Mark Strong for who can come up with the most obscure Nietzschean quote.  This is like something seen in a Hal Hartley movie, as is the very clever use of music, the Sergio Leone style score written by Calexico, a Mexican mariachi/Tejano band, while choice selections include the Bobbie Gentry ballad “Ode to Billie Joe,” which is heard playing in a diner while Gleeson and Cunningham have a face to face, like Pacino and De Niro in Michael Mann’s HEAT (1995), each conjuring up thoughts about what might have been thrown off the Tallahatchie bridge.  Reminiscent of the rich and detailed atmospheric mood established in Bill Forsyth’s LOCAL HERO (1983), the shoot ‘em up intrigue that develops from the inevitable attempt to stop the drug deal never outshines the attention to small details in this clever indie film, made for one-third the cost of IN BRUGES, where the authenticity of the characters really shines through, especially in the bar scenes, where musicians might be huddled off in the corner playing quietly, where the customers can actually hear one another, establish a dialogue and a familiar relationship, while developing that amicable jocular tone.  John Denver singing “Leaving On a Jet Plane” couldn’t be more poignant in its use here, as this film has a dynamite ending, not overpowering, as this remains a small film, but clever all the way through to the end, allowing some of the film’s smaller characters to shine.