Sorry We Missed You

Director Ken Loach

SORRY WE MISSED YOU             B-                   

Great Britain France  Belgium  (100 mi)  2019  d: Ken Loach

Not making the same mistake as the theatrical release of I, Daniel Blake (2016) which was NOT subtitled, leaving plenty of missed dialogue, though it was subtitled at Cannes when it won the Palme d’Or for the second time in Loach’s career after previously winning for The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006).  While the subtitling was extremely helpful, this is probably the most by-the-numbers Ken Loach film ever seen, easily the most predictable, where the outcome is known within the first few minutes of the film, so despite some tender moments, any emotional connection with the story may be lacking, as you’ve heard it and seen it before.  While it’s an attempt to be a blistering indictment of an economic system doomed to fail, an examination of the 2008 financial crisis in Great Britain, as experienced by a debt-ridden family, where the working class gets short-changed by temporary positions and a part-time living wage, Loach never connects this particular example to the system overall, as much of this is simply too individualized to the specific circumstances of this largely dysfunctional family, despite their best efforts, offering no way out, mired instead in a downbeat portrait of misery porn.  Shot on 16mm by Robbie Ryan, who also works with Andrea Arnold, Ricky (Kris Hitchen) is a middle-aged father recently out of work, an everyman losing his construction job and his home to the economic crash, while his warmhearted wife Abbie (Debbie Honeywood) is a nurse providing in-home care, visiting dozens of elderly or disabled people every day, providing meals, baths, clean-ups when needed, and “tuck-ins,” which is really just spending a little one-on-one with lonely people who have no one else, where her golden rule is “Treat them like your mum.”  They have a 15-year old teenage son Seb (Rhys Stone) who exhibits artistic talent, but displays it rebelliously through graffiti signing, which gets him in trouble with the law, while 12-year old Liza Jane (Katie Proctor) has all the smarts, excelling in school.  When one of his friends urges him to sign on with a big delivery company that resembles Amazon, with the promise of free same-day, one-day, and two-day shipping, he explores the options of becoming a self-employed contractor.  Lured by the wonders of a life of autonomy and financial stability, he gets the message straight from the hard-nosed depot boss, Gavin Maloney (Ross Brewster), buying into the sales pitch, “You don’t get hired here, you come on board.  We call it on-boarding…You don’t work for us, you work with us,” or so goes the sloganistic sales pitch to get you to sign your life away on the dotted line and with it all your inalienable rights.  It’s an opportunity to become “the master of your own destiny,” a franchise owner, freed from wage slavery, where you can work your own hours and be your own boss, as everything here “is your choice.”  Or so they would have you believe, clearly glorifying the job in its most glowing terms.        

What Ricky quickly discovers is that the devil is in the details, mindboggling in its complexity, as he needs a van, which they can rent at an exorbitant daily rate, or lease, but requires a £1,000 deposit, which they don’t have, until Ricky gets the bright idea to sell his wife’s car, which she needs to make her rounds, already overstretched as is, where you don’t get paid for all the time lost waiting for public transportation, which really slows her down, streamlining the time available to spend with each client, basically forcing her to work longer hours into the night.  Nonetheless, Ricky is obsessed with the opportunity, quickly discovering he has all the responsibilities of an employee, but none of the privileges, as in reality, he’s signed over all his rights, allowing him to be ruthlessly exploited by the company, deprived of any of the rights and protections that ordinary workers enjoy, like mandatory breaks where you can use a lavatory (drivers have to bring plastic pee bottles with them) or an 8-hour day subject to overtime, even protections if you’re injured on the job.  Here there are tickets and fines incurred that are simply associated with driving, with an additional hundreds of pounds lost in penalties if he’s late or can’t show up, subject to a draconian penalty process that may even get him ousted from the program, while he’s responsible for lost parcels, even if he gets robbed.  More importantly, his time is monitored on the handheld tracking device drivers carry with them, called “a gun,” so employers know exactly where they are at all hours of the day.  These devices also include built-in delivery targets to meet which are strictly enforced.  In no time, both Ricky and Abbie are working 14-hour days, six days a week, with no overtime pay, often returning home well after dinner, or when their kids should be or are already in bed, so the kids are essentially raising themselves, as every waking hour is devoured by work.  The problem with this completely filled work schedule where you’re already stretched to the limits is you’re doomed if you need a day off for any reason, be it an injury, a broken window, a family funeral, police arrests, a court appearance, school meetings or events, doctor appointments, or just getting sick, as there’s no wiggle room for any of the kinds of things that happen in the real world, things that are bound to happen, which simply send them into a downward spiral before pushing them into crisis mode where all hell breaks loose. 

Resembling the trials and tribulations of Job or the endless futility of Sisyphus, this family is tested like no other, becoming a rather monotonous journey into a minefield of continuous turmoil, where there’s simply no saving grace, or anything resembling hope.  Grim realities set in as Seb runs into trouble with authorities, seen receiving a lecture from a stern policeman who comes across as one of the good guys, yet their son only grows more aloof, missing school, while spending reckless hours away from home at night, completely unaccounted for, where his parents are clueless where he’s gone, becoming more of a problem than they have time for.  Arguments at home end up as scream fests, which only upset Liza Jane, who can’t sleep anymore, filled with pent-up anxieties from being home alone all the time, faced with grown-up responsibilities.  As Ricky attempts to negotiate some time off to deal with some of these family issues, Maloney, who boasts that he is ”patron saint of nasty bastards,” is a brick wall of resistance, obsessed only with meeting delivery targets, where even catastrophic circumstances leave him immune to sympathy, as he’s a company man through and through.  With accumulating debt, and a tragic accident that leaves him among the walking wounded, Ricky refuses to cut the cord, even faced with the realization that he’s basically a slave to the company, little more than owned property.  So what we have is the intractable company man and the tireless worker who continues putting himself in harm’s way as he views work as his only salvation, even as he’s driving full-speed into a brick wall.  With two working parents, if you’re not allowed time off to care for troubled family members, when you know you have children with disturbing emotional episodes, you’re probably in the wrong job.  Knowing that at the outset, the story is set up to fail, with predictable results.  The much bigger mistake made is the patriarchal bullying, allowing the father to make all the decisions (more and more an unsympathetic figure), as if we’re still living in the 1950’s.  The best “family” decision was obviously not made early on, which they come to regret, with the husband telling the wife what to do in order to meet his own needs, quickly sending them down a sinkhole of debt and unending problems, where they lost any flexibility to address family issues at home, which oftentimes supersedes financial needs.  Sometimes you need to be there for kids during episodic growing pains, as otherwise it can get worse, becoming a more permanent affliction, but this family simply couldn’t adjust to their own internal dysfunction, and it cost them, making this as much an indictment of this specific family and the poor decisions they made as opposed to the inflexible economic system that would not budge when they needed a break.  Viewers certainly get the point, as it’s drilled into them from the outset, where despite an affectionately compelling performance by Debbie Honeywood who constantly puts her client’s needs before her own, this is sadly one of Loach’s weaker films, predetermined and overly fatalistic, feeling mechanically overwritten, offering plenty of punishment to fit the crime. 

The Passion of Anna

THE PASSION OF ANNA                             B                    

aka:  A Passion

aka:  L 182

Sweden  (101 mi)  1969 d:  Ingmar Bergman

A break from the past, a startling shift reveals a film shot in color, with Bergman one of the last holdouts to make the color conversion, opening beautifully on a flock of sheep, like a Buñuelian reference to the human condition, or a reminder of the grace of Bresson in Au Hasard Balthazar (1966), only his second film shot in color, after ALL THESE WOMEN (1964), Bergman shifts to the final film in his Fårö Island Trilogy, where the isolation of the island setting serves as a metaphor for a beleaguered consciousness.  Each of the three films autobiographically examine the artistic temperament, with Max von Sydow and Liv Ullmann starring as a couple besieged by mysterious external forces beyond one’s control, from the onset of insanity to war in Hour of the Wolf (Vargtimmen) (1968) and Shame (Skammen) (1968), while this is another artist as fugitive film, where the harmony and stability of relationships are undercut by someone who is viciously slaughtering animals on the small island, shattering any and all hopes of trust.  Equally flimsy are lives built upon lies, with people spending most of their life finding a plausible denial for their own shortcomings, refusing to grow from the experience, remaining stuck in time, paralyzed, having to relive the same traumatic experience over and over again in a recurring Sisyphean nightmare that undercuts any hopes for real happiness.  The raging war in Shame (Skammen) becomes a battle within, an exploration for the internalization of love, with characters finding themselves on an emotional island unable to give and receive love, where Bergman’s obsession for the absence of God in his Faith Trilogy has been replaced by the absence of love and affection, perhaps culminating with SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE (1973), where dysfunctional relationships disintegrate right before our eyes, with the roving eye of Sven Nyqvist’s camera intimately capturing it all in close-ups on the faces.  It should be noted that the actors themselves were underwhelmed by the film as they were making it, not sure what Bergman had in mind, confused by the amount of improvisation on the set, which was atypical for this director, believing it was less narratively coherent and more abstract, perhaps even unfathomable, showing a distinct change in emphasis, using new techniques, introducing an avant garde twist, with artificial cutaways of the actors as themselves commenting upon the roles they’re playing, adding depth and personal insight into their characters.  Not privy to the director’s vision, they appreciate the film when seen today, but at the time they had their doubts.  Part of the anxiety surrounding the film was the break-up of Bergman and Liv Ullmann, now living separately, where a certain amount of uncertainty actually defined the picture, where it must have been particularly painful for the two of them having to be reminded daily of their regrets and open wounds that are still bleeding, painfully obvious for the world to see.  For the record, few other directors portray emotional desolation like Bergman.  The title may also be misleading, as the American title, The Passion of Anna, was not the title used in Sweden, A Passion, not restrictive to the point of view of a single character, opening up the interpretations, as the film feels more about von Sydow’s psychic disintegration and mental meltdown. 

Right off the bat, a narrative voice of Bergman himself describes what we see, identifying Andreas Winkelman (Max von Sydow) as a man running from his past, a hermit choosing to live in isolation after recovering from a messy divorce, basically avoiding all human contact.  What’s perhaps most surprising about the Fårö Island Trilogy is the dubious nature of the von Sydow character in each, a stand-in for the director, yet with few noble intentions, becoming instead a despicable character who seems incapable of love, stubborn beyond belief, where his way of handling conflict is brutally offensive and misogynistic, prone to getting drunk and beating women, flying into a rage, where his overall base crudeness is striking, the exact opposite of our impressions of von Sydow as a man, a kind and gentle soul, showing exemplary manners, the perfect example of charm and sophisticated restraint, perhaps best expressed in THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR (1975), yet again and again he’s reduced to primal urges, where his calm exterior conceals deplorable human behavior.  The same happens here, eavesdropping on phone calls, opening private letters, borrowing money with no prospect of paying it back, sleeping with another man’s wife, and when moments are bleakest, he resorts to violent outbursts that include attempted murder threats.  All of this reflects the raging confusion that was overwhelming Bergman at the time, internally wrought with anxiety and pain.  When Anna Fromm (Liv Ullmann) shows up on his doorstep needing to use a telephone, he pretends to step outside, opening and closing the door, but remains inside to overhear her undergo a personal crisis.  Overwhelmed with grief at the loss of her husband and son in a car accident she caused, yet survived, walking with a noticeable limp and cane, she is desperate to turn her life around.  When she leaves her purse behind, he goes through it, reading a painfully revealing letter from her deceased husband (also named Andreas, strangely mirroring one another) about their impending breakup, suggesting otherwise it would lead to a nervous breakdown and psychological and physical violence.  Bergman highlights the effects of the letter by projecting it onscreen, examining it line by line.  Yet when he returns the purse, he’s invited for dinner, looking completely ill at ease dressed in a formal suit, with Anna living with her best friend Eva (Bibi Andersson) and her husband Elis (Erland Josephson), with a delusional Anna recalling with some degree of self-satisfaction that the truthfulness of her marriage has left her “something to believe in,” repeatedly describing a harmonious marriage based upon absolute honesty, “living in the truth,” though Andreas knows otherwise, having read the contents of the letter which again flashes onto the screen.  This dinner conversation was largely improvised, with Bergman having a horrific reaction to Ullmann’s comments, cutting her off midstream, refusing to allow her to continue, as if that is the bone of contention in their own deteriorating relationship. 

Re-establishing the chamber drama format, this is largely a character-based film, where Elis is a wealthy architect, paid handsomely for his latest creations, yet he’s utterly cynical, to the point of being weirdly creepy, finding his work completely meaningless, the embodiment of a disaffected existentialist without a heart or soul, getting little to no satisfaction from his creative work, taking much greater pleasure in his amateur hobby as a photographer, curiously taking portrait shots of people in emotional distress (sucking the life blood right out of them), with a studio that resembles a forensics lab, with boxes of files stored in the most meticulous fashion.  His wife Eva is a thoroughly modern woman, but initially seems overly bourgeois and superficial, as if that is her comfort zone, but she has a serious case of insomnia, suggesting deeper psychological issues.  Arriving on his doorstep one day while her husband is away, the mood quickly shifts, sensuously shot in red color filters, sipping wine, with Eva choosing a soft jazz record to play called “Always Romantic,” becoming an intoxicating prelude to love, offering kisses, but she only wants to sleep.  When she awakes, however, they make love, though mostly off camera, revealing a pregnancy that went wrong, leaving her feeling useless and alone, always living in the shadows of her husband, only understanding herself in response to others, yet stirring something inside them both, though the mood shifts again with Andreas now living with Anna.  Omitting narrative backstory has a way of intensifying what we do see, as viewers must realign the missing pieces, often having to navigate dream sequences that appear like minefields left along the road.  The atrocities of the late 60’s were reflected in Vietnam, again seen on grainy television images, but just how deeply troubled people were, driven by a need for change, was also a sign of the times, where Bergman’s Fårö Island Trilogy attempts to explore that lurking contentiousness.  While on the surface, this newly developing relationship offers the appearance of happiness, with Anna working at her typewriter as a translator while in another room Andreas sits at a desk working in some capacity for Elis, both speaking largely in coded shorthand, like many married couples do, yet under the surface they remain victims of their haunting pasts, like a weight they both carry that eats away at them, stripping them of any self-esteem or identity, instead hiding from what they fear the most, having to address their own failings, Devastating Scene from Ingmar Bergman's "The Passion of Anna ...  YouTube (4:19).  With the living Andreas eerily taking the place of the dead Andreas, it’s impossible to forget the stark image of von Sydow attacking Ullman with an ax in the wintry cold, the epitome of communication breakdown, with each hating what has become of them.  Punctuated throughout are lone characters randomly appearing living in isolation, disconnected from any social fabric, seemingly untouched by prevailing influence, yet becoming objects of suspicion.  This underlying backdrop of anger and resentment runs throughout the film, like an unseen Greek chorus displaying a hostile lynch mob mentality, a communal reaction to the animal atrocities taking place, but also a barn burning, where unsolved crimes foreshadow a deep-seeded nerve of everwidening anguish and dread.  When one poor soul is erroneously identified as the suspect at large, based completely upon rumors that he’s a former mental patient, the knives come out, where he’s suddenly a target for all the evil in the world, showing how easily the ire of our wrath is misguided.  At the center of the film is disconnection, eroding faith, fear of the unknown, and the elusiveness of love, where we all respond differently to the longing for connection, while lashing out at others feels like a reflex reaction covering up our own considerable inadequacies.  Hard to shrink away from the brutal honesty, though it seriously examines the tumultuousness of relationships, where the finale shows a picture of man as a wounded animal, completely exasperated and utterly helpless in accepting his dismal fate.