The Workshop (L’Atelier)

The Workshop (L’Atelier)       C+                                                     

France (114 mi) 2017  d:  Laurent Cantet     

Not nearly as much fun, or as deeply insightful as TIME OUT (2001), HEADING SOUTH (2005), or Cantet’s Palme d’Or winning film The Class (Entre Les Murs) (2008), where the director has had a hard time re-establishing his relevancy ever since.  Despite a terrific performance by Marina Foïs (always good) at the center of the picture, playing a well-known Parisian novelist, Olivia Dejazet, who starts a writing workshop in the working class town of La Ciotat, on the southern Mediterranean coast near Marseille, filled with a multiculturalist group of seven promising high school students, the film becomes bogged down by paying so much attention to one white nationalist student Antoine (Matthieu Lucci) who hogs the limelight with petulant soliloquys that are more of a rebuke of his fellow classmates, resulting in endless arguments that go nowhere, while the concept that this racially divisive group, including white, African, Arabic, and Spanish students, none with a propensity for writing, could actually sit down one summer and spontaneously compose a novel is incredibly far-fetched.  Premiering at Un Certain Regard at Cannes, this is another example of a humanist ideal that never lives up to its promise, having to deliver more than what seems credible.  Cantet, and his co-writer Robin Campillo, simply take this premise too far, accentuating the extreme over reality.  Surrounding Foïs with a group of non-professionals is, in itself, an actor’s workshop, each from La Ciotat developing characters that come from differing backgrounds, but few have anything in common other than a similar residence, with every one thoroughly disenchanted with living there, as they can’t wait to get out, finding it a run-down and economically depressed town with no jobs since the huge shipyards at the dock were closed down 25 years ago, still standing, but deserted and empty, an industrial wasteland, a remnant of the past, becoming more of an eye-sore, yet still the most significant landmark of the city, where they all believe they inhabit a ghost town, a shell of its former self.           

While these kids are fairly typical of teenagers today, what seems to fascinate the director is the way they use slang to so easily put each other down, the ordinary insults about hair or clothing, what someone’s wearing, who they were seen with, which also translates to what they have to say, where part of being a kid is instantly rejecting anything that does not fit their world view.  With kids coming from different ethnic backgrounds, what’s clearly evident is so few of them have ever left town, still completely unfamiliar with the world around them, even in their own country.  While they all use cellphones, the Internet is their only connection to the outside world.  Reading is not something we see anyone but Olivia doing, as she carries a book with her everywhere she goes.  Initially the students do not embrace Olivia, finding her elitist, thinking she has no connection to their lives, wondering why she would ever leave the far more interesting sophistication of Paris to be with them, feeling like they’re some kind of charity case, but Olivia makes it clear this is simply part of her interest, sharing knowledge about literature with the younger generation of today so that there is a continued link to the future.  Once they get started, we realize how difficult it is to get a group to agree on anything, even the simplest ideas, where the only real guideline is to write a noir fiction associated with their town.  Immediately Antoine suggests a murder, and is one of the first to actually offer a writing sample, yet the others quickly condemn what he writes as he seems to relish the idea, overly fascinated by killing terrorists and exhibiting extreme levels of violence, yet is completely removed from the subject, like he couldn’t care less about the ramifications.  This quickly escalates the discussion, however, with blacks and Muslims quickly offended by the idea that they are being projected as the terrorists.  While Antoine seems intelligent, he’s also aggressively confrontational, as he seems to enjoy baiting his fellow classmates with white supremist ideas and denouncing anything they come up with, where they only end up butting heads with each other.      

The film essentially evolves around two characters, Olivia and Antoine, only exploring their personal lives with any detail, as Antoine has a habit of hanging out on the rocks overlooking the sea, where he goes swimming each and every day, while Olivia retreats to a comfortable upscale residence, reading with an everpresent glass of wine, and communicating with her husband by Skype.  At some point Antoine develops the habit of spying on his teacher at night, hiding in the surrounding foliage, while Olivia explores Antoine’s personal life on the Internet, discovering he belongs to a white nationalist group with a fascination with guns who brazenly post videos on their website, one of which includes a pretend rehearsal for an assassination plot.  As their narratives intersect, Olivia grows curious about what’s driving Antoine, thinking she could interview him for potential material in her next novel, but Antoine has a surprise of his own, analyzing his teacher’s own psychology and position of privilege by dissecting various passages from one of her novels.  Antoine’s provocation grows more alarming, becoming such a repeated distraction in class that he eventually has to leave, but he’s fuming inside with inner conflict and turmoil, mirroring the problems of contemporary French society, pitting the well-educated intellectuals of Paris against the working class views in industrial towns, the ultra-right nationalists against the socialist left, and the changing perception of Muslims in France, still arguing over the aftereffects of the Bataclan massacre in Paris where now every Muslim is deemed a terrorist.  Antoine’s stalking habits continue, as lurking underneath is a dangerous predator, veering into darker territory when fantasy and reality intersect, revealed in an extended nighttime sequence out on the rocks where he anticipates a brutal crime, coming close to carrying it out, where viewers aren’t sure what’s going to happen.  In the end, he returns to class, like a prodigal son, reading his chilling account of a dispassionate murder that could very easily have actually happened, before departing once again, where his shadow presence continues to remain lurking just under the surface of French consciousness, with a potential to loom even larger had Marine Le Pen won the most recent Presidential election.        

School of Babel (La Cour de Babel)

SCHOOL OF BABEL (La Cour de Babel)             B+                       

France  (89 mi)  2014  d:  Julie Bertucelli          Official website

A unique approach in exploring the diverse nature of the global community is placing a film camera inside schools with newly arriving students from all over the world.  In France these are known as “reception classes,” delving inside the La Grange-aux-Belles secondary school in Paris, where the ages of the students are anywhere from 11 to 15, which includes 24 students with 24 different nationalities.  Most are unable to speak French, so they need intensified training with others in a similar situation, where the goal is to be able to integrate these kids into the regular classrooms where they can communicate with their fellow French students.  While they begin with the simplest tasks, like identifying themselves or saying hello in their native language, their teacher, Brigitte Cervoni, slowly tries to engage them in French, very similar to leading an ESL, or English as a second language class here in America.  Many kids have to overcome various levels of shyness, cultural stigmas, preconceived notions, and often poor educational skills, which might be the norm, but they all carry some degree of excess baggage that is their own personal story.  In addition to the teacher, the filmmaker helps draw out several introverted students whose stories are heartbreaking, often filled with abuse within their own families, where some were denied access to any education for several years, while others have been sent to aunts, uncles, or extended family in France with near delusional hopes and expectations, as if this is their only hope.  Still, the mood of the classroom is upbeat and positive, where everyone is urged to dream what kind of life they’d like, and then attempt to make that happen.  Initially we only see the kids in the classroom, where some are more dominant verbally, while others are aloof and sullen, where every single one of them has been picked on and humiliated by the intolerant French students for their poor language skills.  This commonality has a way of bringing these kids together, as no one wants to live in shame.  School gives kids a chance just to be kids, but it also offers them educational opportunities they might not have otherwise, where the goal is to educate each and every one of them, leaving no child behind, where they at least have a fighting chance.  It’s curious to learn where may of these kids live, a dozen fitting into a one-room apartment under emergency circumstances, where they continue to seek new living accommodations, but even if they succeed, it means leaving the few friends they have in this classroom, the only thing that represents stability in their fractured lives. 

Parent-teacher conferences expand the universe for many of the kids, as we’re able to see their living situations, where kids are expected to succeed in school or be sent back home to their country where African girls will be married off at 14 with or without their consent.  In this way, education is a threat, learn or else, as their young lives have no way to conceive the possible outcomes, where it’s not exactly a motivating technique.  It may leave the kids feeling more helpless, as realistically no one is on their side, where often they are literally dumped into these schools with little or no parental supervision.  Xin, a Chinese girl, is urged to speak more, as she’s easily the shyest one in class, but her mother works two jobs and is never at home when her daughter’s there, so she’s raising herself all alone and literally has no one to talk to, where her mother eloquently reveals “Not speak, all alone.”  We learn later, almost by accident, that she hasn’t seen her mother in ten years.  Oksana fled from the fighting in the Ukraine, but has hopes one day of returning as a pop singer, breaking out into an a cappella song at one point, a rare moment of beauty and artistry, where we see her later helping translate for other Eastern European students.  Miguel is a classical cellist from Venezuela who practiced 9-hours a day for three months prior to an audition into a French music conservatory, playing an atonal 20th century piece in the classroom that couldn’t have felt more uplifting.  Luca is from Northern Ireland, but has been shunned by students wherever he’s gone due to signs of Asperger’s Syndrome, where his mother tries to protect him by explaining his failings in math, but you can see she’s only reinforcing failure in his mind.  Mihajlo and his family are Jews that were attacked by neo-Nazi groups in Serbia.  When asked if he might spend a little more time doing his homework, we discover he’s been filling out all the copious paperwork for the entire family in requesting asylum in France, while also providing all the interpreting services for every family member, leaving him no available time.  Ramatoulaye is the class diva from Mauritania, regularly driven to tears when she discovers the difficulties others have had to endure, but when asked, she can’t name a single student as a friend.  We discover she lived with her father in Senegal where she was kept out of school and beaten regularly, now living with her mother who can’t read or write, but threatens to send her back to her father if she doesn’t succeed.  One can sense the hostility seething under the surface with this young woman, who has known nothing but mistreatment her entire life, finding it impossible to believe there is any real hope.          

The multicultural immersion is like a United Nations school for refugees, yet it also recalls the provocative French teacher in Laurent Cantet’s Palme d’Or winning film The Class (Entre Les Murs) (2008), where the classroom discussions about race, religion, nationality, and prejudice couldn’t have been more lively, where the situations at home provided so little support due to the economic circumstances, where these young kids are largely expected to raise themselves on their own by the time they’re age 10, as the parents are forced to work.  It’s also reminiscent of Greek filmmaker Lucia Rikaki’s Dreams in Another Language (Oneira se alli glossa) (2010), featuring refugee students at the Faneromeni school in Cyprus from 21 different nationalities in primary and high school.  The beauty of these films is what these kids bring to the classroom, which is a fierce spirit of hope as well as a deep, profound loss as the viewer begins to understand what their shattered lives have been like, much of which is unimaginable to Western families.  The teachers in these films are indefatigable, offering encouragement to each student, no matter the errors or mistakes, trying to paint in their minds and imaginations the possibility that they may meet a different future, where if they’re prepared for it, they might have a different outcome than whatever it was that led them to these classrooms, which is largely family abandonment.  Each of these kids brings their own story and their own personal insight, often becoming an ambassador for their reflective cultures.  When Maryam, a fierce defender of Islam from Libya is pulled out of the school as they’ve located a larger home in another town, the impact on the other students is literally heartbreaking, as the solidarity among themselves is all they have to hold onto, and when one link of the chain is lost, they feel suddenly more exposed and vulnerable.  Filmed without narration or explanation, the entire story evolves in the classroom, where the most unique features are the emotional responses from the kids, who have a way of expressing the universality of childhood, where it’s something that happens in every nation around the world, irregardless of political events, where this film shows them on the cusp of young adulthood, where they can be seen still clinging to the innocence of their youth.  Part of their frustration is the inability to communicate in a foreign language, where they are regularly teased and derided by other students for trying, yet their goal is to be able to be in the same classroom with this bullying majority.  That is the immigrant experience, poignantly expressed by the heartfelt experiences shared by the kids in this film. 

At Berkeley

AT BERKELEY            A-  
USA  (244 mi)  2013  d:  Frederick Wiseman 

What I’m interested in is making movies about as many different subjects as I can, and as many different forms of human experience. 
— Frederick Wiseman

Wiseman has made a couple of shorter documentaries of late, including BOXING GYM (2010) and Crazy Horse (2011), which seemed all too brief, requiring shorter shots with more edits, and while still interesting, the director feels much more comfortable returning to his longer format of four-hours here, which allows greater exploration.  Without any identifying commentary, and no narration whatsoever, the chosen subject here, the University of California at Berkeley, is a sprawling campus situated on 172 acres across the bay from San Francisco, still managing several major American laboratories, two for the Department of Energy, and perhaps the most infamous, the Los Alamos National Laboratory (still the largest employer in the State of New Mexico), where Berkeley physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer was the scientific director of the Manhattan Project that developed the first atomic bomb during World War II.  The Berkeley Lab has discovered 16 chemical elements, more than any other university in the world, while also producing 72 Nobel prizes.  Yet today, when people think of Berkeley, they are likely reminded of the radical activism of the 60’s, including anti-war demonstrations and the birth of the Free Speech Movement that spread across college campuses throughout the nation.  The same site remains an active location for protests and marches, where a Free Speech monument has been erected, also the Mario Savio Free Speech Movement Café.  Wiseman was granted free access to the university by Chancellor Robert Birgeneau, who also happens to be a physicist, by the way, where we’re witness to the fall 2010 semester, a time that coincides with the downward spiraling economy, where between the years 2008 and 2012, the state appropriations decreased by 27%, or nearly a billion dollars, to its current all-time low, causing salary reductions and furloughs for faculty and staff while roughly doubling the tuition costs.  Of course, the student response was a drumbeat of protests, where Birgeneau reveals “Protests are part of the culture at Berkeley.”      

The economic reality is state expenditures have undergone a radical shift from appropriations for higher education to massive expenditures for prisons and correction programs, where that trend isn’t likely to turn around any time soon.  Despite the budget storm, the university has maintained their top global position (currently ranked #9) and top national U.S. News and World public school rankings (listed as #1), the top public university for the 16th year in a row.  What’s clear from the outset is Berkeley is a public funded institution, yet it more than holds its own with the prestigious Ivy League private schools with histories dating back to the Puritans.  This is no small accomplishment, as they must carry the torch that public funded universities are more accessible and offer greater diversity, a theme heard throughout the film, but with higher tuition and fees, students are witnessing the benefits of the best and cheapest systems of higher education eroding away.  And while the film may surprisingly offer more air time to the administrators, it’s the classroom sections that truly elevate the film.  Wiseman provides a cross section view of the administration, faculty, and students, literally eavesdropping on a variety of subjects, where we immediately zero in on a classroom discussion about whether it is in the public interest, whether it is considered part of the greater good to provide financial incentives and aid to help the poor both here at home and abroad, where the lone black woman in the classroom indicates the country has been averse to helping poor black neighborhoods throughout her entire lifetime, so it’s something she’s grown to expect, suggesting people of color have had to learn early on that if they work hard enough, they may at least get *an opportunity* to receive a world class education and the accompanying career benefits that come with it, while middle class whites, who are suddenly suffering from the economic challenges themselves, have always *expected* that education should be given to them as a birthright.  So from her perspective, why should black tax dollars help support poor whites that generationally have never wanted their tax dollars to help support black students?  This searingly intense discussion contains some of the most interesting classroom discussion heard since the high school class in Laurent Cantet’s Palme d’Or prize winning film The Class (Entre Les Murs) (2008), and is easily one of the most riveting scenes of the year, yet it provocatively expresses what kinds of challenges are unique to public schools, where they are part of a larger ideological clash between idealism and practicality, and are expected to define their own vision for the future.

When the camera moves outside, there’s plenty of activity with music groups performing before a largely disinterested throng, or various student protests marching through the center of the campus, yelling their slogans while other students are seen lying on the grass.  Meanwhile the campus security is holding a meeting devising a plan on how to maintain adequate security in anticipation of a large student protest expected later in October.  Working in cooperation with the city of Berkeley mayor, police, and fire departments, three tiers of security are agreed upon, one where the campus police provide all the necessary containment, or a second level that may need available units from local police to assist, while the most serious is an official request for back up, a state of emergency that wasn’t used for over ten years, perhaps out of respect for the school’s history, but was called upon twice in the past year. Chancellor Birgeneau is a fascinating and sympathetic figure, always upbeat, looking for new ideas and comments, where as a former protester himself, he supports student protests, as the university is a major player in the existing free speech movement.  He’s also addressing the subject of tenure with his faculty team, suggesting there’s a difference between making a case supported by evidence, and cheerleading, liking someone and thinking they deserve tenure, something easily seen through in a matter of minutes.  Like any university, it’s only as good as the teachers in the classroom, where despite laudatory research projects and other commendable work, he still insists upon excellence in the classroom.  For most of the other administrators, they appear to be doing their job, where we see them at work, while Chancellor Birgeneau operates at a different level, seen more as a visionary, as he oversees every aspect of the university, always seeking ways to improve at every level, to leave it in better standing than when he took over.  Currently the ethnic enrollment of new students in the Fall of 2012 is 24% White, 21% Chinese, 12% International, 9% Mexican, 8% South Asian, 5% Korean, and only 3% Black. 

When the demonstration finally materializes, it’s a big event, with speeches touting the effectiveness of protests held a year ago when the legislature caved and rescinded some of their planned cuts, where they recall the significance of 60’s activism, where a movement is larger than any few individuals and has the power to change history.  As they march to the student library, they take over the building, issuing a set of demands that the Chancellor must meet by 5 pm of that same day, where a lot of loud rhetoric with students holding microphones makes a lot of noise.  What’s perhaps most interesting is not the various speeches, but watching those from China or Muslim women with their faces covered in headdress staring silently at what must seem like life on another planet, as all of this activity is forbidden in their countries, yet this has to have a profound effect upon them, extending to their network of family and friends.  No one is arrested, as they are allowed to voice their concerns, and when the Chancellor’s office drafts a carefully worded response that doesn’t really commit to anything, they all soon dissipate and return to their classes.  While this momentarily creates an empty void where there was an energetic build-up for a major confrontation, but its all part of the college experience, building ideals and expectations, followed by disappointments that lead to a new set of expectations.  One of the classroom discussions is on Thoreau’s Walden Pond, where behind the placidity and stillness of the peaceful lake, an image that renews itself even after seasonal storms or icy winters and lives on in perpetuity, is a carnage of animal and plant attacks, where in order to sustain life, one set eats the other to survive, something that caused great concern to Thoreau, who despite all attempts to live a spartan existence, himself relied upon food and local resources for sustenance, concluding that man would always be separate from nature.  One of the unique perspectives offered is that of a veteran’s group, many of whom were initially sinking from the difficulties incurred in the transition from military to student life, but with the help of a campus veteran’s group, a resource not always available at universities, they were able to reassess what their goals and missions were.            

As always, some segments are more intriguing than others, but Wiseman’s film absorbs the many arguments and perspectives offered and remains accessible throughout, feeling perhaps more political than his earlier work, but due to the all-encompassing depth of the examination, it’s an invigorating and continually thought-provoking piece, where the viewer receives a variety of relevant insight not likely encountered any other way other than experiencing it yourself.  Some of the more interesting shots might be called transition shots, used much like Ozu, where Wiseman films a janitor sweeping a lengthy staircase, or a landscaper’s leafblower clearing a walkway, or various construction projects taking place, where we see a team pouring cement, eventually leveling it off, or a steamroller flatten out a layer of road asphalt, as these are projects showing the public’s tax dollars at work.  Former Cabinet Secretary of Labor Robert Reich is seen instilling his views that all major goals of any project need to be challenged in order to be successful, where part of a good working team is providing that self criticism.  Working in the Clinton Administration, it nearly killed him that in government he was surrounded by so many “yes men,” people whose idea of keeping their jobs was simply telling the boss what they think he wants to hear, revealing a story about being in a crowded elevator full of his handlers after a particularly ineffective TV talk show, asking what did he do wrong?  While the consensus told him he remained on point and made effective arguments, a lone voice from the back from a nearly inaudible woman suggested that he used his hands too much, immediately generating daggers in the looks from superiors.  But she reiterated, when asked again, that for TV you’re more effective without all the hand gestures.  Reich said he remembered that woman and kept her on his staff, and gave her multiple promotions, always remembering that she was someone who would provide an honest answer when he needed it.  There’s another classroom discussion dissecting the metaphors in John Donne’s love poems, a humorous skit on the social pressures of Facebook, while there’s also a staged performance of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, where one of the hallmarks of the play, besides depicting ordinary life in America, is deciding what time capsules to choose that a hundred or a thousand years from now will tell the future something about these times we’re living in.  In a beautifully abstract dance piece, mixing fantasy and a folksy American reality, what’s clear from this film is art survives as a timeless expression. 

Paradise: Love (Paradies: Liebe)

Ulrich Seidl 

PARADISE:  LOVE (Paradies: Liebe)   B                   

Austria  Germany France  (120 mi)  d:  Ulrich Seidl

Austrian filmmaker Ulrich Seidl has cornered the market on miserablism, making films that are guaranteed to make the audience feel uncomfortable, and unlike his compatriot Michael Haneke who dabbles in violence and horror, where Funny Games (1997) was intended to drive people from their seats in droves, Seidl uses strictly human qualities to make people squirm.  Seidl’s specialty is humiliation, where characters are intentionally forced to feel debased and humiliated, and the audience in turn is forced to endure it as well.  At festivals, there are usually many walkouts that accompany his films, as not everyone is willing to sit through what feels like a marathon session in human degradation.  But what gets his films invited to festivals in the first place is the social relevancy and consummate form of his films, where the line between truth and fiction is blurred somewhat, but his films are grounded in a documentary style objective truth.  In the Paradise Trilogy, Seidl explores human nature by creating three intimate and highly personalized portraits that seen as a whole offer a collective glimpse into modern Austrian society.  PARADISE:  LOVE is a departure for Seidl, as it’s his first venture outside Austria and Europe, where he ironically follows a small group of single, oversized, middle-aged Austrian women to a vacation resort on the sunny beaches of Kenya in Africa, led by Teresa, Margarete Tiesel in a fiercely brave performance, who stashes her daughter and cat with her sister before heading to paradise in search for love.  The opening sequence, however, gives us a glimpse of Teresa at her normal job, supervising a group of developmentally disabled adults on a demolition derby field trip excursion of ramming each other in bumper cars.  It’s clear this challenges the audience’s view of what’s considered strange, a lead-in to the showcasing of oversized women in their typical beachware.

There are certainly parallels to this film and Laurent Cantet’s HEADING SOUTH (2005), which takes place in an upscale resort in Haiti, as both examine sex tourism by affluent white women in exotic black locales, where women literally purchase young boys for the sleek look of their bodies and for sex.  While Cantet views the work as violating child labor laws and also explores the colonialist impact, where the poor are manipulated into unspeakable actions, enhanced by their need to survive, where from their position of powerlessness they overcompensate by becoming tradable commodities in human flesh, Seidl avoids the political ramifications and seems content to let the audience view the experience largely through Teresa’s eyes.  Unfortunately, this choice determines where Seidl points his camera, as he’s a brilliant observer of minute details, but he avoids the political and sticks with what he’s familiar with, as the European women are there largely to indulge themselves.  Much of what we see seems absurdly ridiculous, where up until the finale, much of the audience was in stitches with laughter, as these women certainly objectify the black male anatomy, where in their minds these are boy toys, where they can pleasure themselves night and day with whomever they choose.  Teresa meets a fellow Austrian woman at the bar, Teresas Freundin (Inge Maux), who can’t stop gushing about the carnal opportunities at this resort, where there are young boys everywhere hawking their goods, where sex is for sale along with the bracelets and necklaces they carry with them to entice the women.  A walk to the beach immediately reveals the class barriers, as the young beach boys are restricted to standing in the sun like statues on the other side of a rope separating all the resort patrons who are more comfortably lying in the shade next to the pool.    

Teresa, in typical Austrian fashion, is used to a customary order in her home and nation, where in no time she has these African beach boys following her instructions, as ludicrous as that may be, as she offers primary lessons on how to fondle her breasts, gently stroke and not grab, French kiss, not using too much tongue, until they eventually learn to give her what she wants.  After an initial disappointment with one kid, she discovers the amorous touch of Munga (real life beach boy Peter Kazunga), with Tiesel seen in various states of nudity throughout, actually developing an emotional connection with this kid, or so she thinks, until she’s lured into paying extra cash for various family ailments, all of which appears to be part of the two-sided exploitation game.  Once he’s played her for the cash, he moves on, but Teresa can’t let him go, wanting more, believing with money she sets the terms, but this is an extension of colonialist thinking.  Once she realizes how she was scammed, she finds him on the beach and literally pulverizes the poor kid in a state of rage.  The film is really an exposé on human depravity, revealed with stark honesty, using nudity as a provocation, exploring the depths of just how far people are willing to go when staring in the face of loneliness and poverty.  Despite Teresa’s newfound understanding, the women continue to look for human sex toys, where their real interest is continually pleasing themselves, often humiliating others in the process, but this hardly matters, as they’ll never see these kids again after the vacation ends, but they will have to live with themselves and their own aberrant behavior.  Perhaps the most humiliating ordeal of all is hearing Teresa’s pathetic attempts to call her daughter on her own birthday, but her daughter refuses to call her back, leaving her alone and emotionally devastated at the end, where the real love she needs is never reciprocated.