Janet Planet

 

Writer/director Annie Baker on the set

Annie Baker with Elias Koteas

Annie Baker with Sophie Okonedo

JANET PLANET       B+                                                                                                         USA  Great Britain  (113 mi)  2023  d: Annie Baker

Winner of a Pulitzer prize-winning play, The Flick, by Annie Baker, in 2014, and named a MacArthur Fellow in 2017, Baker is one of the preeminent voices of her generation while also a professor teaching playwriting in various institutions, including NYU, Barnard College, Hunter College, the University of Texas at Austin, and Stony Brook Southamption.  Married to Nico Baumbach, younger brother of Noah, fictionally portrayed by Owen Kline in Noah’s autobiographical family portrait The Squid and the Whale (2005), currently a film theorist and professor at Columbia University, and part of the extended family of film director partners Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig, with Baker appearing briefly in Baumbach’s While We're Young (2014), her first film as a writer and director is unusual in that it appears to be told from the perspective of a quirky 11-year old child, Lacy (Zoe Ziegler, who has her own YouTube channel, Zoe._.Ziegler), a lonely, introverted, yet delightfully insightful daughter who has no real friends of her own, but has an extremely close relationship with her single mother Janet, an effectively understated Julianne Nicholson, most recently seen in Krystoffer Borgli’s Dream Scenario (2023).  What sets this apart is not only the time period of 1991, when the director would have been the same childhood age, but more importantly the woodland setting outside Amherst, Massachusetts (where Baker was raised) known as the Happy Valley, a quiet and peaceful rural community known for its beautiful trees and wildlife, where it recalls that spacy West coast atmosphere of growing up in the 60’s, when alternative living was in vogue, like living off the land in communes.  It’s rare for films to capture that unpretentious mentality so effortlessly, but this is one of the better mother/daughter films out there, as they actually talk and listen to one another, respecting what the other person has to say, strangely enough still sharing a bed together, remaining organically attached, with the director having a gift for extremely natural and realistic dialogue that is reminiscent of a Cassavetes film, complete with “likes,” “ums,” and plenty of weird pauses, where the hushed silences are full of meaning.  They remain isolated from the outside world, living in their own private world where time passes slowly, Time Passes Slowly YouTube (2:36), a song that doesn’t actually play in the film, but it appropriately captures the time and space this film travels in, completely removed from the social media rampage and hurried pace of modern life.  Baker’s plays are lessons of empathy, as she is a playwright who carefully listens to people, re-creating human speech with such delicacy that her characters feel startlingly familiar, as if we know these people.  That is the beauty of this film, a study in mood and character, as it takes us places we’ve never been, having the luxury of spending time with people we never knew, yet they remind us not only of ourselves but those people around us.  From the outset, we know this is operating on a different wavelength, with an unhurried, unconventional structure of scenes that rarely have a traditional beginning and end, but seem to exist midway between, often cutting off midstream or lingering long after they presumably end, utilizing a short script, shooting only 50 of the screenplay’s 70 pages, with a sound design that encapsulates the noises of nature, particularly frogs and crickets at night.  Reflecting a lifestyle we probably tuned out years ago, this takes us back anyways, immersed in such a beautiful pastoral setting that allows us to simply spend time with these two characters who we become become intimately familiar with by the end, as if they are members of our own families.  Drawing comparisons to the self-reflective cinema of Charlotte Wells’ 2023 Top Ten List #7 Aftersun or the magical realist world Céline Sciamma’s Petite Maman (2021), a compelling aspect of the film is that it takes us into the imagination of a child, where there are moments of adolescence that have not yet been articulated into words, but remain unspoken, a time of confusion and uncertainty, but also magic, with this film drawn to those inexplicable feelings of growing up, where we carefully observe the adults around us, trying to understand the mistakes they make, along with their sadness and pain.

Shot on 16mm by Swedish cinematographer Maria von Hausswolff, known for her work with Icelandic filmmaker Hlynur Pálmason, using oblique angles and unique compositions, this contemplative, low-budget indie film with lengthy takes subtly captures a hidden life we rarely have access to, drawing on fragments of dialogue, casual conversations, and a calculated use of reflective silences to focus on the quiet drama of everyday life, exploring how our environment and the people that inhabit it end up shaping us, yet perhaps the biggest surprise is that Janet talks to Lacy like an adult.  Reminiscent of Anna Paquin’s candid relationship with Holly Hunter in Jane Campion’s The Piano (1993), this is a portrait of two lost souls coming together over a brief period of time, with Lacy having a rather possessive relationship with her mother, where all outsiders feel like interlopers.  An atypical maternal figure, drawn to the counterculture hippie lifestyle, yet still feeling a bit lost, Janet seems to collect people, apparently attracted to damaged men she can take care of, appealing to her nurturing instincts, perhaps rooted in a difficult relationship with her Holocaust survivor father, while Lacy is influenced by the peripheral people she lets into her life, even spying on them, but it's never permanent.  The only constant in Janet’s life is her daughter, as friendships come and go, but Janet and her daughter are two misfits bound together by trust and love, expressed with a refreshing lack of sentimentality.  Lacy watches her mother intently, shown with remarkable detail and sensitivity as she practices Suzuki piano lessons on her miniature keyboard while also delving into imaginative worlds of her own creation, occasionally breaking out in humorously direct outbursts, like “You know what’s funny?  Every moment of my life is hell,” while Janet is a healing acupuncturist who works out of their home, with the name Janet Planet appearing on the front door identifying her place of business.  Lacy has little figurines that she arranges like an extended family on a small shelf, opening and closing a curtain, as if putting them to bed for the night, providing her immeasurable comfort, evoking similar scenes from Ingmar Bergman’s FANNY AND ALEXANDER (1982).  Following other playwrights who have successfully made the transition to directing films, like Harold Pinter, Kenneth Lonergan, Martin McDonagh, Neil LaBute, Mike Leigh, David Mamet, John Patrick Shanley, or more recently Celine Song and Tina Satter, this film is told in chapter headings, where each chapter marks both a beginning and an end, like the changing seasons, reflecting people that wander in and out of their lives.  First and foremost this is a quiet film, offering an experience of watching ordinary people doing ordinary things, where the surprises that come are reflected in how Lacy views what she sees, as both mother and daughter struggle with human connection.  The first chapter is Janet’s current boyfriend Wayne (Will Patton), a Vietnam veteran with a troubled past.  While he has a daughter, Sequoia (Edie Moon Kearns), that lives with her mother, Lacy enjoys playing with her, as we see them gleefully running around a shopping mall like an adventure playground, a happy and joyful experience, yet she’s endlessly curious why she doesn’t live with Wayne, a question he never answers, but seems to grow more and more irritated by the question, at one point succumbing to a migraine headache, where Lacy’s pestering questions touch a nerve, perturbed that she won’t leave the room when asked, growing so exasperated that he lunges at her, which is the last we see of Wayne.  Janet asks her daughter what to do, and Lacy suggests that she break up with Wayne.  As simple as that may be, what mothers actually take their 11-year old daughter’s advice?  That, in itself, is a revelation, as is the music heard by Laurie Anderson, Laurie Anderson - My Eyes (Remastered) YouTube (5:28), an artist who sings about the randomness of our fates and the seeming insignificance of our place in the universe, asking existential questions about the choices people make. 

The film takes a different turn in the next chapter entitled Regina, as the two of them visit an unusual performance troupe in a local farm commune that features life-size puppets (from an artist-run theater company, Double Edge Theatre Official Website), which takes us back in time, singing Elizabethan rounds and madrigals, including the melancholic Round and Round by Libana, YouTube (2:15), an a cappella women’s chorus, recalling the atmosphere of outdoor country fairs (like the Oregon Country Fair), with Janet recognizing one of the actresses as an old friend, Regina (Sophie Okonedo), who soon comes to live with them.  While she’s black and speaks with a British accent, she has that same laid-back atmosphere of the 60’s, a soul searcher attempting to find meaning in her life, hoping a change will do her good, taking up Janet’s offer to literally rescue her from a group that she describes as cult-like, Janet Planet Exclusive Movie Clip - What's a Cult? YouTube (1:39).  Despite their longtime friendship, and a few adventures with Lacy, Do lots of people fall in love with you? #JanetPlanet TikTok (1:07), Regina intrudes on their familiar space, getting high together with Janet and suddenly turns judgmental, stumbling into unwelcome psychic regions, Who’s to say? Annie Baker’s #JanetPlanet is now playing in ... TikTok (54 seconds), bringing a heavy sadness that suggests she’s still got her own issues to work out, with her ex-boyfriend, the theater group leader Avi (Elias Koteas), seen out the window picking her up and returning her back to the commune.  That’s the lead-in to the third chapter, Avi, the bearded yet soft-spoken, spiritual guru from the commune, who’s much nicer than Janet was led to believe from Regina, surprisingly so, quickly growing closer together, where the biggest surprise is that he goes off on these off-kilter philosophical tangents that come out of nowhere, with both Janet and Lacy seemingly in awe and admiration, as if in a trance, but the hypnotic spell quickly wears off and he disappears back to the commune as well, leaving mother and daughter alone once again to reflect on their lives.  With undercurrents of mysticism and spirituality, this is the kind of film that will completely alienate conventional viewers, lacking the patience to discover what lies beneath.  An unusual coming-of-age film, going against the grain of child performances, Lacy’s communication style is very direct, something her mother calls “forthrightness,” nothing particularly off-putting, but it can be startling coming from a child who’s so openly curious, observant, and straightforward.  Her mother, whose performance seems to evolve over time, has a speech late in the film that penetrates to the very soul, with Lacy remaining completely silent after asking if her mother would mind if she dated a girl, responding that she’s often thought she might be a lesbian due to her assertiveness, which might be too much for a man, yet remains judgment free (all the more impressive since it comes during the AIDS epidemic), while also confessing about her own cyclical series of constant ups and downs with revolving partners, wondering if that array of swirling emotions has screwed up her life (Baker’s own parents each married multiple times, which can be very destabilizing as a child, very infuriating), thoughts few mothers would ever consider sharing with their daughters, yet that’s essentially the heart of the film, as this young girl is trying to find her place in the world with a mother who doesn’t seem to have ever found her place.  While there are sudden revelatory monologues, and a mystical presence that surrounds the story’s edges, the motivations of the characters are often left unexplained, yet each, in their own way, is searching for self-acceptance.  One afternoon, during a bucolic picnic, Avi reads to Janet a section of Rilke’s Duino Elegies, Elegy IV by Rainer Maria Rilke - Famous poems, where afterwards he admits, “I really like you.”  But she is more interested in the poem than the man, asking him to “Read it again.”

… and when I feel
inclined to wait before the puppet stage, no,
rather to stare at it so intensely that in the end
to counter-balance my searching gaze, an angel
has to come as an actor, and begin manipulating
the lifeless bodies of the puppets to perform.
Angel and puppet! Now at last there is a play!
Then what we separate can come together by our
very presence. And only then the entire cycle
of our own life-seasons is revealed and set in motion.

2021 #9 Film of the Year Sweet Thing

 

Writer/director Alexandre Rockwell

Rockwell with earlier wife Jennifer Beals

Rockwell and current wife, Karyn Parsons, with Lana and Nico

Rockwell with daughter Lana

Lana Rockwell

Rockwell with daughter Lana

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SWEET THING                     B+                                                                                                    USA  (91 mi)  2020  d: Alexandre Rockwell

My dad says that some people say Billie didn’t have a good voice, but he says that nobody else sang like her.                                                                                                                                   — Billie (Lana Rockwell), on being named after Billie Holiday

Miserablism on parade, yet with a killer soundtrack, shot on 16mm in a naturalistic setting in grainy black and white, this is a defiantly unsentimental, low-budget indie film that initially feels mired in the poverty porn of alcoholism and family dysfunction, yet seen from a child’s perspective, where parental authority is so absent and deficient that these two kids basically have to raise themselves.  One astonishing aspect of the film is that the mother and two kids all come from the director’s own family, as he’s married to the mother.  Even more interesting, he was previously married to Jennifer Beals, who along with Sam Rockwell (no relation) is an executive producer on the film.  The entire crew was only 12 people, most of whom were Alexandre Rockwell’s students from New York University, where he is Head of the Directing department at the NYU Tisch School of the Arts Grad Film Program.  Few directors could make a film as distinctly raw and unembellished as this, which only gets better the longer you stick with it, becoming positively revelatory by the end.  Much like his earlier short film LITTLE FEET (2013), the magic comes from featuring his own children, as they are the heart and soul of the picture.  Shot in a cinéma-vérité style, made on next to nothing for $150,000, the film recalls Morris Engel’s Little Fugitive (1953), Terrence Malick’s BADLANDS (1973), and Benh Zeitlin’s 2012 Top Ten Films of the Year: #1 Beasts of the Southern Wild, where some of the imagery is a carbon copy from that film.  Described by Quentin Tarantino as “one of the most powerful new films I’ve seen in years,” there is a raw, empowering spirit, but it initially feels bogged down in stereotypical dreariness, where everything that could possibly go wrong does, yet there’s an exhilaration of spirit expressed in the musical choices, becoming a central theme of the film, as it has a way of transporting them to other places, offering a kind of peace when there is none to be found.  Billie (Lana Rockwell) and Nico (Nico Rockwell) are 15 and 11, two biracial kids living with their white father, Will Patton, yet he is in the grips of alcoholism and can’t keep a stable job, where they actually have to look after him most of the time.  Spending most of their time alone, living on the margins, both avoid attending school and spend their days wandering around the neighborhood in New Bedford, Massachusetts.  Billie fantasizes that Billie Holiday (played by Kelly Charpent) is her fairy godmother after learning she was named after her, abruptly changing to color, as if daydreaming, seeing faint images of her at the beach waving, like a faded picture in a photo album that is all she has to hold onto before returning back to black and white.  Another color image has Holiday at her side, both looking into the mirror, which allows her to dream of a better life.  The unending miserablism on display is wrenching to watch and is not for the faint of heart, as their father is just too drunk to notice any problems or daily changes in their lives, leaving them to fend for themselves, doing their best to entertain each other, remaining extremely close and supportive.  The mood shifts when she sings a bedtime song to help put her brother to sleep, a refrain from Van Morrison’s iconic Sweet Thing (2015 Remaster) YouTube (4:22) that recurs throughout the film, becoming a loving spirit that guides the two of them through some tough times.  There are two halves to this film, where the first half is submerged in misery, while the second half is a heartbreaking expression of youth, offering a poetic yearning for something better, interwoven by the sounds of the titular song.  Some of the imagery is starkly beautiful, shot by Lasse Ulvedal Tolbøll, evocative of some of the abstract dreamy expressions of Harmony Korine’s JULIAN DONKEY-BOY (1999), a rare portrait of schizophrenia that few have ever seen.  Winner of a Crystal Bear for Best Film in the Generation Kplus competition at the Berlin Film Festival, an award from the Children’s and Youth Jury, the naturalist performances of the children onscreen offer their own jarring authenticity, yet one of the marvels of this film are the 27 musical cues, giving an uplifting, elegiac feel, like Arvo Pärt: Spiegel im Spiegel YouTube (10:51), altering the tone of the film through music, adding another dimension, like opening up a new door, creating a more hopeful allure.

Sean Baker’s The Florida Project (2017) comes to mind (with far more financial backing), yet feels like a step up for these kids, who have fallen so far off the edge into dismal poverty that society would view them as invisible, a non-entity, outside the realm of all social service agencies, where in our everyday world kids like this simply don’t register, as even schools have likely lost track of them, existing only to themselves, with no one looking out for them.  As it approaches Christmas, they each give one another something special (or something stolen), splashing water on their father’s face to help him face another day, where her father gives Billie a ukulele, which she immediately learns how to play, singing various songs of poetic elation.  Their father makes a fuss about meeting their mother for Chinese food on Christmas day, but it ends in a disappointment, as she arrives with another man and never even gets out of the car, instead she squabbles endlessly with their father, with the other man getting out of the car and pummeling him to the ground, leaving without ever saying a word to her children, an extreme disappointment, which their father uses as an excuse to drink some more, getting raging drunk, stepping on Billie’s ukulele, really unaware of the damage he’s done, made even more deflating when he insists on cutting her hair, giving her a Christmas trim, which has her in tears, with her little brother insisting that it will grow back, as he cuts his own locks as well as an act of emotional support, yet the damage caused by their father can’t even be explained, as he’s just too far gone, eventually arrested by the police and taken to a sanitarium to get well, leaving the kids all alone.  They’re supposed to spend the summer with their mother Eve, Karyn Parsons, about as far as possible from her role of Hilary in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (1990 – 96), at a beach home while their father recuperates, but they drink non-stop as well, coming under the thumb of her brutish white boyfriend, Beaux (M.L. Josepher), who orders them around through intimidation, making everything all about him, a thoroughly disgusting individual who starts making inappropriate sexual advances as well.  Eve refuses to believe what her children are telling her, blaming them instead, insisting they apologize for ruining Beaux’s day, becoming an utter disgrace for a mother.  But there’s no stopping the despicable behavior of Beaux, so they end up wandering the streets in search of something better, meeting Malik (Jabari Watkins), another free spirit about her age at a 4th of July fireworks celebration, his Afro hair and black face framed by the white hot explosions, a kid who hotwires cars and takes them on a joy ride, ending up at an isolated riverside location where they can swim and have fun and just be kids before walking back home.  Malik seems like a wandering soul himself, with no real roots anywhere, and may also be as homeless as they are.  When Eve goes off to work one morning, Beaux takes the opportunity to sexually reveal himself to both kids, leaving them no other choice, so Nico fends him off with a knife, stabbing him, with Malik breaking in and adding a kind of knock-out blow, as the three run away, calling themselves outlaws and renegades, eluding authorities, fleeing for their lives, discovering a newly found freedom along the railroad tracks and boatyards, breaking into a boat, stealing what little food they can find, before ending up in a more upscale neighborhood where they break into a huge estate that they discover is empty, as rich people often leave their homes deserted while they travel elsewhere.  What follows is a fantasy celebration, eating ice cream, dressing up in costumes, elated in their newly discovered freedom, all set to the tune of Miriam Makeba’s Pata Pata, Miriam Makeba - Pata Pata (Stereo Version) - YouTube (3:00), which has the dreamlike vibe of BEETLEJUICE (1988), signifying freedom and ghostly mischief, delivering moments of pure unadulterated joy, where the film changes speed, quickening the pace, but also slows down into slow motion.

But when a neighbor spots them the next morning, they’re off again with a renewed spirit, giving rise to the daunting theme from BADLANDS, Carl Orff - Gassenhauer [1973 "Badlands" Version] YouTube (2:44), an irresistible and irrepressible melody that exerts innocence and a haunting beauty, unmistakingly associated with that movie, a lovers on the run crime drama that put Terrence Malick on the map with his exquisite cinematic poetry.  These kids are similarly on the run, where the world suddenly opens up to them, offering vast landscapes and a sense of adventure, elegantly seen through their eyes, yet there’s a downbeat edge to what we see, as Nico grows tired of the impoverished instability, not really wanting to be a gangster anymore.  Malik, on the other hand, has a way with these opportunities, unafraid of the challenges that await them, helping navigate their way through the unknown, exuding confidence and resilience in the face of life’s uncertainties, while Billie’s rich fantasy life continually intrudes, breaking into vibrant color while wishing for a better life, as distant memories and wayward dreams all coincide, creating a cinematic mosaic of the abstract, where the dream language exerts its own counterpoint to the hard-edged, dreary life they’ve come to know and expect, becoming a film within the film, portraying wandering souls in search of salvation, but all they’ve come to know are disappointments and neglect, with a full-out assault of violence.  Billie’s singing pulls them through, offering a softly sung yet heartfelt intimacy that yearns for something positive and affirmative that remains elusively distant and hard to grasp.  Easily the best part of the picture are these random collection of images associated with her, becoming the driving force of the film, where the evocative Van Morrison poetry offers a mood that is positive, even giddy, an exquisitely worded poem whose meaning is reconfigured throughout the film, yet ultimately offers them the freedom that doesn’t really exist in their lives, but can be felt and sensed, adding rare insight into the wonder and imagination of childhood, and a kind of awe to the moment.  When they run into an eccentric interracial couple offering them food in their trailer home, the generosity is unexpected, yet appreciated, as it actually feels like a home, allowing them to sleep in a neighboring trailer, feeling somehow safe and protected, perhaps even happy.  But the morning greets them with an unexpected suddenness, alarming Malik when the police are present, as the couple has turned them in, making his escape out the window where he is immediately shot, laying still on the ground, like a kind of memorial for all the black kids who have been shot by police, given further poetic resonance by the musical choice of Brian Eno’s anthem-like An Ending, An Ending (Ascent) YouTube (4:24), which utterly enthralls, providing depth and complexity to the moment, which is described as accidental, yet it happens all too often.  By some stroke of luck, he survives, but can’t talk and lives in a hospital setting spending most of his time in a wheelchair, where they steal him out of there and hotwire a truck in another run for freedom, but Malik’s muted expression reveals all, as he’s alive, but internally damaged, no longer recognizing them.  Billie’s eloquent narration brings the film to a close, revealing their father is successfully released from the sanitarium, looking happier, while their mother is a changed person as well, perhaps a bit nicer than before, finally jettisoned from an abusive relationship, as Beaux survived as well, but now struggles to put words together.  There is a timeless feel to this film, which could be set in any era, as there isn’t even a hint of cellphones, or any other recognizable marker of the time period.  This small gem of a film offers astonishing power and grace, taking viewers by surprise, connected by Billie’s singing, with the Van Morrison song eloquently playing over the end credits, looking forward, not backwards, actually feeling celebratory.   

Van Morrison - Sweet Thing [Unplugged, 1971] YouTube (8:41)