Armageddon Time

 

Director James Gray

Gray with cinematographer Darius Khondji

ARMAGEDDON TIME        B                                                                                                     USA  Brazil  (114 mi)  2022  ‘Scope  d: James Gray

The thing that most white people imagine that they can salvage from the storm of life is really, in sum, their innocence.  It was this commodity precisely which I had to get rid of at once, literally, on pain of death.  I am afraid that most of the white people I have ever known impressed me as being in the grip of a weird nostalgia, dreaming of a vanished state of security and order.      —James Baldwin, The Black Boy Looks at the White Boy, from Esquire magazine, May 1, 1961, The Black Boy Looks at the White Boy - ALLISON BOLAH

James Gray is one of those filmmakers who is better received in Europe than he is in America, as his early films like LITTLE ODESSA (1994), The Yards (1999), and WE OWN THE NIGHT (2007) express a shocking violence where death is a prominent theme, known for also creating memorable nightclub sequences, yet despite rave reviews at Cannes, these deeply personal films were often overlooked and received sharply divided reviews.  But for all their dramatic expansiveness, these early crime pictures were of a kind not seen since the New Hollywood classics of the 1970’s, where Gray is a cinephile clearly impacted by the films of that era, citing Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Conformist (Il Conformista) (1970), William Friedkin’s THE FRENCH CONNECTION (1973), Francis Ford Coppola’s THE GODFATHER (1972), and THE GODFATHER Part II (1974), and the films of Martin Scorsese, Robert Altman, and Stanley Kubrick, yet claims the film that has had the most enduring influence on him was Coppola’s APOCALYPSE NOW (1979), noting that the “swell of the architecture of a movie is part of what makes it the most beautiful visual art form.”  While he has passionate supporters, he has just as many detractors, where he’s never been able to find a mass audience, yet French critics love him, which is why he’s become a Cannes regular for over twenty years, with this film receiving a 7-minute standing ovation.  A native of Flushing, Queens, Gray’s first films tell personal, if loosely autobiographical, stories set in Brooklyn, venturing to Ellis Island for his historical drama The Immigrant (2013), making his way to the Amazon jungle and even outer space for his next projects, before finding his way back home to Queens, making his most autobiographical film, a portrait of his upbringing in the 1980’s, with the Gray family name shortened from Greyzerstein at Ellis Island, a time when a post-Vietnam, post-Watergate America returned to conservatism, placing a halt on any socially progressive agenda.  The youngest son in an upwardly mobile Jewish-American family, 11-year old Paul Graff (Banks Repeta) is an alter-ego of the director, with an antagonizing older brother Ted (Ryan Sell), and second-generation parents Esther (Anne Hathaway) and Irving (Jeremy Strong), while Anthony Hopkins plays the kindly grandfather Aaron Rabinowitz, whose family fled first from the murderous acts of the Cossacks, and then the Nazi’s.  While Jewish history is a predominate theme, this film slyly overlays a similar theme taking place in America with the routine persecution of blacks, who are subject to a heavy-handed authoritative approach from government, schools, and police, quickly labeled troublemakers or criminals, never receiving the breaks or second chances that whites often receive.  A family drama that reflects on a small scale where the whole country is headed, the film is a sober reflection, a coming to terms with one’s own past, which clearly haunts the filmmaker to this day, exploring a generational failure, characterized by the 1980 Presidential election of Ronald Reagan, who was swept into office on a tide of racism and a legacy of dog-whistle bigotry, featuring his slogan, “Let’s make America great again (sound familiar?),”  Pandering to racists through Nixon’s Southern Strategy, which continues to harm communities even today, Reagan released southern states from school desegregation and voting rights mandates while demonizing black women as welfare queens who want free hand-outs and are unwilling to work for a living, making the rest of the country despise who they are and everything they stand for, planting the seeds for the white supremacy of Trump, whose family makes its eerie presence, almost like a horror film.  By the time Donald Trump becomes President in 2016, Republicans hold almost every governor’s office and control most legislatures across the South.

The film’s title comes from a 1979 reggae song by The Clash, The Clash - Armagideon Time [Single] - YouTube (3:51), the B-side of London Calling, while also referencing Ronald Reagan’s 1979 quote on Jim Bakker’s evangelical PTL television network, openly campaigning as an evangelical Christian, expressing his growing interest in the anti-gay theology of Armageddon, “Do you ever get the feeling sometimes that if we don’t do it now, if we let this be another Sodom and Gomorrah, that maybe we might be the generation that sees Armageddon?”  This coming-of-age story reveals the different trajectory of the lives of two young boys, one white and one black, Paul and Johnny Davis (Jaylin Webb), quickly becoming best friends in a 6th grade class at P.S. 173, as both are singled out for being disruptive in class by the overzealous teacher Mr. Turkeltaub (Andrew Polk), who bears a resemblance to Ben Stein, the cartoonish teacher in FERRIS BUEHLER’S DAY OFF (1986).  While the point of view follows Paul and his family, we learn that Johnny has none, living with a grandmother suffering from dementia, basically leaving him homeless where he’s fending for himself, held back the previous year, the only black kid in class, with the teacher reminding him of his failures at every turn.  There are subtle differences in the punishment of each student, as Johnny is the one automatically blamed, even when Paul is the instigator, where he’s able to hide behind his race, learning very early about how racial dynamics play out in the real world, which only grew more exacerbated with the election of Reagan.  Despite such different backgrounds, they take solace in being outsiders, with Paul having little interest in school, spending his time drawing instead, with a talent for illustrations, creating a science-fiction superhero character named Captain United, dreaming of one day becoming an important artist.  Both share a passion for outer space, with Johnny dreaming of being an astronaut with NASA, while Paul wants to illustrate comic books about space travel, but their friendship is defined by the rebellious things they do together, like skip out on school, smoke weed in the bathroom, and hang out in the clubhouse built in Paul’s backyard, which Johnny secretly uses as his makeshift home.  While his mother Esther is the head of the PTA, Paul thinks she runs the school, protecting him from any adverse punitive acts, viewing himself as near invincible.  Overall, however, despite telling a personal story, the film feels distantly impersonal and heavy-handed, never becoming dramatically engaging, as outside of Johnny, there are really no likable characters in the film, with Paul in nearly every frame, and he’s kind of a bratty kid, misbehaving at home and at school, where he gives his parents plenty of grief, acting up in inappropriate situations.  When they try to express the gravity of their family history, Jewish-Ukrainian immigrants who escaped anti-Semitism in Europe, it’s beyond his comprehension, showing little interest as he routinely backtalks while tuning them out.  It’s rare to see a coming-of-age film with such a snotnose kid as the lead protagonist, yet he has a special relationship with his grandfather, who looks after him like a guardian angel, buying him gifts, showering him with affection, never letting him forget his past, as they may otherwise end up haunting you, which is exactly what happened in America, where embracing the sins of Ronald Reagan was a breeding ground leading us into the disaster of the Trump era.  Following in the footsteps of demagogue radio priest Father Coughlin, who commanded a massive audience in the 1930’s, viewed as the father of hate speech, spouting anti-Semitic and pro-Nazi tirades on the airwaves during the lead-up to World War II, (The Deplatforming of Father Coughlin - Slate Magazine), these are quasi-celebrities who blend populist appeal and right-wing politics, where today a narcissistic self-interest is the new moral dilemma plaguing the nation, as politicians openly seek face time on the networks, hoping to bathe in the social media spotlight of “Me-ism,” while everything else is purely secondary, like running the government or serving the interests of the nation.   

While America is supposedly a land of equal opportunities, one thing this film makes perfectly clear is how opportunities don’t happen equally, as the privileged take advantage by overlooking the many doors that were opened for them, typically at the cost of excluding the more disadvantaged.  Jews escaped persecution in Europe, as Aaron’s family discovered freedom in the welcoming doors of America, yet blacks have never experienced that same welcoming experience, as the doors have continually been closed for them throughout hundreds of years of history, which is astonishing when you think about it, as it goes back to the era of Columbus.  Even though this autobiographical film is not openly political, the experience of “white privilege” resonates strongly, as the education system fails students from marginalized groups in a disproportional way, while the paths of justice operate only for one of these kids, while the other feels the wrath of racial hatred.  Paul’s parents react with horror when they discover his partner in crime is a black kid, transferring all the blame to that kid, suggesting he’s a “bad influence,” overlooking their own child’s explicit responsibilities, while pulling him from the school and transferring him to Forest Manor, in real-life The Kew-Forest School, an all-white private school located in the affluent neighborhood of Forest Hills, Queens, the same school attended by his brother, along with Donald Trump and his family, where Donald’s father Fred is on the board of trustees.  Paul is extremely unhappy, as this means he will no longer see Johnny, but he quickly experiences a culture shock at the new school, where he’s required to wear a uniform, catering to upper middle class and wealthy families, with readily available computers in the classrooms.  When Johnny visits on the school playground, Paul pretends to barely know him, painfully aware of how his presence is perceived by the other students, who use the n-word to describe him, mocking his lowly status, while making him the butt of racial jokes.  When Paul attempts to talk about this with his grandfather, a bit ashamed that he didn’t stand up for his friend, his grandfather reveals how “the game is rigged” against marginalized groups in America, who experience a collapse of faith when the nation’s promise of freedom and equality doesn’t apply to them, which may explain his own family’s eager assimilation in pursuit of the American Dream.  While Paul and his family also face discrimination, he has the ability to escape much of it, as they have the resources to help him be successful.  Johnny is not so fortunate, with no support whatsoever in helping him achieve his dreams.  A powerful exposé of privilege and inequality, and how it is systematically perpetuated over time, the film is conscientious but difficult, as it’s a rather blunt depiction, providing little insight or background into Johnny’s character, who comes across as a token black figure, and doesn’t compare well to Barry Levinson’s Proustian sagas of Jewish life in post-war Baltimore in films like AVALON (1990) or LIBERTY HEIGHTS (1999).  In addition, the film has a very muted color palette, making it feel colder as it articulates heavier themes, with Gray using digital for the first time, shot by Darius Khondji, where the camerawork is dark and oppressive.  The Trump family are major donors to this new school, with Paul encountering Fred Trump (John Diehl), a powerful real estate magnate in Queens, in the hallway on his first day.  This period in his life is when Paul begins to understand how race, religion, and social class are used as reasons for bigots to inflict their damaging prejudice on others, often veiled and disguised in patriotic and life-affirming rhetoric which is meant only for a privileged few, perfectly encapsulated in a cameo appearance by Jessica Chastain as Maryanne Trump (Donald’s older sister, a federal appellate judge appointed by Ronald Reagan), who gives a rousing speech to the students about the importance of hard work to achieve success, declaring “you are the elite,” conveniently leaving out the part about inheriting a fortune from her father.  While many may not want to hear this message, just as they tuned out on Jimmy Carter’s prescient “crisis of confidence” message in favor of Reagan’s sunny optimism, but it is crucial nonetheless.  

Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn (Babardeala cu bucluc sau porno balamuc)

 

Writer/director Radu Jude

BAD LUCK BANGING OR LOONY PORN (Babardeala cu bucluc sau porno balamuc)  B   Romania  Luxembourg  Czech Republic  Croatia  Switzerland  Great Britain  (106 mi)  2021  ‘Scope  d:  Radu Jude

Bucharest in the year of Covid, a wildly provocative and controversial a film, sure to inspire hisses and groans, yet also uncontrollable laughter, as this rather demented, in-your-face entry into the Berlin Film Fest took away the Golden Bear for Best Film at the first-ever virtual event, where winners offered their congratulation thoughts by Zoom afterwards.  Coming on the heels of I Don't Care if We Go Down in History as Barbarians (Îmi este indiferent daca în istorie vom intra ca barbari) (2018), where a Romanian filmmaker held his own country accountable for what happened during the war, as Romania was complicit in the Holocaust with anti-Semitic Nazi war crimes, responsible for the killing of more Jews than any other country except Germany, yet the nation would prefer to overlook those tiny details, still viewing their military heroes with reverence, with the director claiming it was taboo to even speak about this subject when he was growing up, resorting to comic sarcasm and absurd black comedy, as in Romania the door has opened for more far-right nationalists to push anti-Semitic hate speech among their xenophobic rhetoric.  But that seems mild compared to this film, which opens with an X-rated sex scene that has been censored for American distribution, placing a full-screen block over the material with comic book style wording that reveals what you’re missing, yet few scenes are more absurd than a woman hilariously attempting to carry on a conversation with someone in the next room while delivering a blow job.  Adding the presence of whips, spicy language, dirty talk, and edgy, salacious material only whips audiences into a frenzy, where at the moment, only iTunes carries an uncensored version in America.  This raises an interesting question for today’s society, as what’s worse, porn or genocide?  Explicit violence is routinely shown on television, yet nudity is not, revealing the moral hypocrisy of our own media standards, as nudity sparks public outrage, while no one has any problem with murder or genocide, which often lead the nightly news broadcasts.  Often pointing to the protection of children, apparently showing them nudity is far more harmful than escalating degrees of extreme violence.  But the central premise may be moral hypocrisy, recalling the societal satire of Luis Buñuel, or Godard’s philosophical rants in Two or Three Things I Know About Her (2 ou 3 Choses que Je Sais d’Elle) (1967), where according to Screendaily’s Jonathan Romney ('Bad Luck Banging Or Loony Porn': Berlin Review - Screen Daily), “The real pornography that has overrun Romania, it seems, is the obscenity of capitalism.”  Resorting to an almost Monty Python comic tone, the exaggerated satiric style is often hard to digest, as much of this is presented fast and furious at a relentless pace, where mocking laughter can frequently be heard on the audio soundtrack.  One of the few films depicting a society wearing masks during the Covid crisis, including the lead character, Emi Cilibiu (Katia Pascariu), who ironically played a nun in Mungiu’s Beyond the Hills (După dealuri) (2012), a history teacher at a prominent “Oxford quality” high school for the Romanian elite, seen in the opening having baudy sex with her husband comically set to the music of “Lili Marlene,” 1939 Lale Andersen - Lili Marlene (original German version) YouTube (3:12), a sentimental German love song co-opted by the Nazis during the war, with the husband uploading the sex tape to his phone, creating a public scandal when the tape is leaked from a private web site and the pornographic video starts appearing on various Internet sites, with parents and students outraged at what they see.  Emi is quickly informed that there will be an impromptu parent-teacher meeting later that evening to decide the fate of her teaching career, an event that hangs over her head for the rest of the day. 

Broken down into three segments, the detached and overly somber first reveals Emi wandering through the streets of Bucharest, a kind of scriptless cinéma vérité montage as she wanders in and out of various stores, blending into street traffic and pedestrians, occasionally talking to her husband on the phone, only to receive more bad news, as a series of phone calls suggest that the situation is escalating out of her control, as all attempts to take down the video have failed, eventually walking into a neighborhood pharmacy asking for a single Xanax pill, as she’s suffering from a particularly bad day.  They refuse to fill the prescription without a doctor’s order, but offer her a plant-based alternative instead, which she gladly takes at an outdoor coffee café.  An underlying angst is felt throughout this segment, with the camera often cutting away, finding something else that grabs one’s attention, before relocating Emi meeting overly rude or violently angry men that seem to be thinking only of themselves, blocking sidewalks in their monster cars or yelling obscenities at anyone who objects.  This overriding sense of entitlement via aggression seems to pervade throughout Bucharest, reminiscent of Ulrich Seidl’s take on Vienna in DOG DAYS (2001), revealing characters who are either bigoted, small-minded, or just plain revolting, with an angry motorist deliberately running over a pedestrian who claims to have the right of way, where it’s impossible to tell which is spreading faster, the Covid virus or the pervasive spread of intolerance.  The second narrative-free segment is entitled Short Dictionary of Anecdotes, Signs and Wonders, offering a series of caustic observations that alternate between witty remarks and damning facts, like a malicious human collage of collective stupidity, a surreal audiovisual montage not seen since the days of Dušan Makavejev in WR: MYSTERIES OF THE ORGANISM (1971), or SWEET MOVIE (1974), though his earliest films Man Is Not a Bird (1965) and Love Affair, or The Case of the Missing Switchboard Operator (1967) show irreverent signs of living behind the Iron Curtain, becoming a cinema manifesto on the paradox of living in Romania, often contrasting the communist past with its capitalist present.  Using something of a subversive comic book tone, a Romanian Mad magazine, the film pokes fun at Ceaușescu and the former communist state, using a multitude of archival footage, where one scene shows little kids gathered together singing fascist songs that glorify nationalist patriotism through war, which is entitled “Children, political prisoners of their parents.”  After Ceauşescu banned abortion in 1965 (just legalized in 1957), Romania saw the highest maternal and infant mortality rates in all of Europe, followed by the prevalence of dangerous black market abortions, which was well documented by Cristian Mungiu’s Palme d’Or winning film 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days (4 luni, 3 saptamâni si 2 zile) (2007).  If that’s not enough, there’s a follow-up sequence informing viewers just how strongly the Romanian Orthodox Church supported the ultra-right fascist state and the atrocities they committed, informing us that during the 1989 Romanian revolution to overthrow Ceaușescu, “when revolutionaries sought shelter from Army bullets, the cathedral kept its doors closed,” with footage of nuns happily singing fascist songs.  These sequences leave brief imprints in the minds of viewers, recalling what it was like to grow up in Eastern European countries, particularly under the dictatorial authority of Ceaușescu.  Jude even pokes fun at history, and capitalism, revealing how the French and Romanian Revolutions have become commercial brands of cigarettes and wine.  In a contemporary sequence, farmers are seen dancing during the pandemic, yet maintaining social distancing by holding long sticks between them.  There are curious references to the early days of pornography in cinema, while also documenting that “blowjob” is the most-searched word in the Romanian Internet Dictionary, while the subject of rape is culturally skewed, with statistics highlighting a male-dominated culture that continues to maintain a backwards view of women, still seen as subservient to the needs of men, who maintain their right to take “what is theirs” by force, as apparently 55% of Romanians believe rape is justified in some instances, such as women wearing provocative clothing.  Since the fall of Ceaușescu in 1989, there has been a growing sentiment of hatred towards minorities and the disadvantaged with each passing year, suggesting that Romania lives in a Darwinian universe where only the strongest survives.  Perhaps unsurprisingly, we learn that six out of ten Romanian children experience physical abuse at home.    

In the style of a chamber play, the parent-teacher meeting of the third segment takes place in an outdoor schoolyard setting, due to Covid restrictions, reminiscent of Abderrahmane Sissako’s film BAMAKO (2006), where an African Truth and Justice commission places war criminals on trial in an outdoor setting where neighborhood people can drop by and linger while listening to the testimony.  In this sequence, Emi faces her accusers, all wearing a variety of masks, who offer condemnation for her shocking video which is played in its entirety before the mingling crowd, each coming closer to get a better look, particularly the men, with one man leering at the projected images before the full force of the community weighs against her, calling her a porn star, a harlot, a whore, and all manner of shunned creatures that have no business teaching their children.  Emi strenuously defends herself, claiming she neither put the recording on the Internet, nor distributed it, claiming what she does on her own time is private, as the video represents consensual acts between two married people, then questioning why children have access to adult websites where they are strictly forbidden.  As a teacher she has an impeccable record, with an excellent relationship with the students in her class, but the jury of parents takes on the picture of an eclectic social group, consisting of a priest, an intellectual, a police officer, a military figure, an airline pilot, a diplomat, a career woman, even a Czech émigré who out of nowhere spews some commentary on Václav Havel.  Hounded for her immorality and incredible bad taste, she is barraged by a series of insults, called every name in the book, with the assembled mob taking on a lynch mob mentality, where she is guilty even if facts prove otherwise.  As this mock trial goes on, it becomes a savage indictment of Romanian society, as it deviates into different detours along the way, with parents questioning some of her lesson assignments, promoting “Jewish lies about the Holocaust,” suggesting she may be indoctrinating the children by revealing Romania’s complicity with the Nazi’s during the Holocaust, something they refuse to believe, visibly obsessed with pre-modern ideas on what is considered acceptable class content, harkening back to the pre-Ceaușescu days when they attended school, which plays into Emi’s hands, as she defends herself well, even re-iterating some saucy language written by Romania’s national poet Mihai Eminescu (whose domineering bust sits behind Emi, continually seen being polished by a cleaning woman), quoting one of his verses from memory, which the gathering throng describes as a blatant lie, claiming she’s making it all up.  The intellectual pulls out a strong defense about what’s in the best interest of children, offering lengthy quotes from his phone to support her position, where the director offers an enlightened position, turning this into an intellectual discussion on education that is quite provocative, but then someone will complain about a particular class assignment that required excessive memorization, where she has to defend her teaching methods, quoting the benefits to the developing mind, even if the passages are forgotten after a while.  There are accusations that she’s anti-Antonescu, who presided over a period of authoritarian dictatorship, yet still beloved by the military, even if his fascist and anti-Semitic methods are frowned upon today, with the parents mirroring the prejudices of Romanian society, particularly their outright hatred of Jews, Gypsies, and gays.  What this turns into is a rather exhilarating discussion of ideas, referencing Hannah Arendt and Isaac Babel, yet the shameful name-calling brings the discussion back down to earth, refusing to consider her actual qualities, concluding she’s too morally indecent to teach their precious children. The film has three different endings, none of them good, as each plays out as a version of the truth, yet the distinctive differences add a humorous element of exaggeration and farce, making something of a mockery of the idea of a public trial, turning the teacher into a super hero who implements her own brand of justice.  The director tries to show that sex is a part of life, just like war, public discourse, consumerism, and Covid, where this film succinctly summarizes the culture wars that are currently being fought in a number of Eastern European countries, with the urban elites defending all the achievements of liberal democracies since the 1990’s, yet there is also a regressive wing that prefers a heavier hand of authority, with Romania experiencing a far-right resurgence, opening the door for the more rigidly dogmatic politics from the communist era, yet few films expose what’s happening in contemporary Romania better than Alexander Nanau’s Collective (Colectiv) (2019).