Revolutionary Road

 

Director Sam Mendes and his wife Kate Winslet

 Actress Kate Winslet

Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio on the set

Director Sam Mendes with DiCaprio and Winslet

DiCaprio and Winslet

Director Sam Mendes with his wife Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

REVOLUTIONARY ROAD            A-                                                                                          Great Britain  USA  (119 mi)  2008  ‘Scope  d: Sam Mendes               

Plenty of people are on to the emptiness, but it takes real guts to see the hopelessness.                 —John Givings (Michael Shannon), “It takes real guts to see the hopelessness” YouTube (2:11)

Another one of those incendiary emotional dramas about doomed lovers, fractured American Dreams, and a marriage on the rocks with plenty of unleashed fireworks, where the real drama is what’s left unsaid in the empty spaces between people that over time all but consumes them, perhaps sealing their fates.  Adapted by Justin Haythe from the infuriatingly personal 1961 Richard Yates novel, this examines the flight to the suburbs in the 1950’s supposedly to lead idyllic lives that never materialize, and how some people are simply disappointed to lead sad, meaningless lives, while others are crushed by it.  What’s truly unique about this film is not only the amount of screen time between the two extraordinary leads, Leonardo DiCaprio (perfectly cast for his naiveté, but no match for Winslet) and Kate Winslet as Frank and April Wheeler, but how the perfect couple (“You’re the Wheelers!”) in their perfect little suburban home come to resemble Ibsen’s Doll House, where Winslet, with the internal force of a hurricane, is truly trapped living a life with a man she comes to loath and despise with so few options available to her.  In hindsight, one might project possibilities that simply didn’t exist yet, instead she was forced to suffer and endure her stiflingly empty existence, made all the more uncomfortable by a husband who was clueless that his own demeaning behavior was the source of her unhappiness, leaving her feeling trapped with no way out.  What’s also interesting here is how few shots include the children, and how their home barely even acknowledges their existence.  This accentuates the self-centered ambitions of the adults, particularly the man, who’s overly defensive and quick to point out things are never his fault, while she believes the only hope is getting the hell out, moving elsewhere, anywhere, suggesting Paris, as that’s the last place her husband felt really happy.  As fate would have it, her husband was given a good sales pitch that he couldn’t refuse, where money induces him into believing he is getting what he wants, while she’s left to fall on the tip of her own sword and expunge any last vestiges of hope.  The last act of the film feels like a horror movie, especially the transition from their worst blow up to an eerily haunting breakfast scene that looks like something out of THE STEPFORD WIVES (1975), as we’re simply waiting in the end to see what tragedy will bring down the final curtain. 

What’s interesting is from the outset, no one tells the truth, as they all seem to be fooling themselves living under a cloud of self delusion.  Early on, we see potholes along the way, as Frank crudely responds to the poor reception an off Broadway play receives in Greenwich Village with his wife as the lead, deciding inappropriately that this is a moment to have a heart to heart talk, which seems more like bullying and taking advantage of her when she’s vulnerable and feeling low.  But she stands up to him in a way only Winslet can, leaving her husband feeling more than a little inadequate.  Next thing you know his inadequacy is replaced by a dream house in Connecticut.  This typifies the problems in their relationship, as he has a built in system of rewards just for himself, which includes an after hours affair, the ability to climb up a career ladder, and the aggravating habit of having the final word on any given subject, including their lives.  He’s also seen as a typically immature male who’s so caught up in himself that he can’t even conceive what she’s going through, a guy who always demands that they see things his way and when she refuses, it leads to acrimony, where he even threatens to call in the shrink, believing she must be crazy not to adhere to his views.  Such is the male-centric world of America in the 1950’s.  There are flashback sequences to their earlier, happier days, where there’s an interesting use of 50’s doo wop songs that shine a light on Winslet’s sensuality, but in no time, their intimacy has been replaced by a mundane life, a dreary job that Frank can’t stand, and an over-indulgence in cigarettes and martini’s and dreams of a better day.  And when Frank pulls the rug out from under her on that score, never really taking the idea of moving to Paris seriously, she feels betrayed, knowing he’s incapable of ever taking her seriously again.  In terms of dramatic fireworks, it’s the film that sets the table for Noah Baumbach’s more recent 2019 Top Ten List #3 Marriage Story.

Kate Winslet is brilliant, as she never resorts to largesse or the Sean Penn style of overdramatized histrionics, but always reels her emotions in, providing a much more naturalistic fit to whatever story she’s in.  She never becomes a character through mimicry, by imitating or duplicating the behavior of others, instead she invents an original person in every single role.  She has an exquisite dance sequence that’s unlike anything we’ve ever seen in her career, Revolutionary Road (2008) | dance scene YouTube (1:15), much of it due to the stylish manner in which it is filmed (by her husband), but her commitment to that character who is simply fed up with the world around her is overwhelming.  And that look on her face as she’s being verbally assaulted by her husband is a thing of beauty, as without a word she couldn’t possibly portray greater strength than that look when she’s staring him right between the eyes.  Frank, as usual, gets the final word, but it’s a lie cruelly designed to demoralize and humiliate her in pure domineering fashion.  But it’s not all gloom and doom.  The unmistakable presence of Michael Shannon as the realtor’s son recently released from a psychiatric ward adds both a humorous change of pace but also a devastating tone of unvarnished, no holds barred truth, the kind that feels like surgically precise, heat seeking missiles shot from a gatling gun as this guy lets them have it and what he has to say is at the very core of the film.  The question is can they handle the truth?  By the end, we may be asking ourselves the same question.  Though it’s an overly somber affair, seen through modern eyes this is an extremely well written film that resembles the acerbic dialogue and cruel power games of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), which itself was a daring display of acting on the highest order.  Hopefully this may motivate many viewers to rediscover the writing of Richard Yates, as this is a towering work that doesn’t fully come alive onscreen, but its lacerating portrait of middle class despair is completely on target. 

After having read the book:

The book very much resembles the movie, almost exactly, though they each offer their own unique emphasis, as the book emphasizes the constant attention and affirmation demanded by the husband while the movie broadens and intensifies the interior world of the wife.  In the movie, the ending is inevitable, while in the book, the ending is a shock, even in its concise description, as most of the book meticulously details Frank’s perspective, as the world continually revolves around him.  Though short, the book is extremely dense, offering considerable psychological background for every character mentioned, even the minor roles.  Painting a contradictory yet lacerating portrait of the idealized marriage, seemingly the perfect couple to all outsiders, living in their wonderful house in the suburbs, the marriage of Frank and April Wheeler is really deteriorating inside right from the outset when they fly off into one of their many George and Martha Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) tirades, which in every single instance features a more insecure man browbeating his more emotionally mature wife.  Frank is perfectly played by Leonard DiCaprio, a guy who’s always a little full of himself, but utterly naïve about the consequences of his own decisions, always blaming his own catastrophes on others.  Outside of What’s Eating Gilbert Grape (1993), and perhaps an underrated Spielberg sleeper, Catch Me If You Can (2002), it’s hard to see him in a role that matters, as he’s always too full of his own self-importance.  But that’s exactly the character of Frank Wheeler, a hard drinking computer salesman who thinks he’s smarter than the rest and proves it by doing as little as possible while pulling a paycheck, all the while convincing others, including his wife, that he’s hard at work.  She, on the other hand, has sacrificed whatever artistic possibilities exist in her life to raise their two children, both of whom are barely mentioned in either the movie or book, almost as if they are an afterthought.

Black Girl (La Noir de...)

 

Director Ousmane Sembène

deleted color scene

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                 BLACK GIRL (La Noir de…)            A                                                                                         Senegal  France  (65 mi)  1966 d:  Ousmane Sembène

At a moral level, I don’t think we have any lesson to learn from Europe.                        —Ousmane Sembène, Village voice | Film | The Guardian 

Another film that reveals what it means to be black, and while primarily targeting black audiences, it’s also a useful primer for whites, offering an analysis of the underlying root of racism that is simplistically told from a black perspective, running into resistance from even educated whites who refuse to process or comprehend the cogent message contained within, as their lives are relatively undisturbed, remaining largely unaffected by what Sembène is trying to express, yet it’s a call of anguish, a cry for help, desperately trying to change the damaging colonialist relationships that prevail, which lay the foundation for racial oppression, where without fail one class is served while the other is the server, with no regard whatsoever for the consequences, so long as the white dominant class remains dominant.  To whites, that’s all that seems to matter, while blacks remain economically exploited and damaged psychologically, enduring emotional hardships that whites can’t even begin to understand.  Made nearly half a century ago, it is the first feature film made by a black African in sub-Saharan Africa to reach an international audience, certainly among the first to provide complex interiority in an African character, opening new doors, yet his potent message has fallen on deaf ears.  It’s a powerful film, difficult to endure, barely an hour long, yet it’s hard not to be shaken by the allegorical quality of the content, an experience shared by other young Africans who are part of the transitory migrant labor experience to Europe, looking elsewhere for a better life, suggesting freedom and dignity will never be achieved on terms set by the oppressor.  Adapting a 1962 short story he’d written entitled The Promised Land, Sembène offers a fictional framework of what Frantz Fanon was writing about in his 1967 historical critique Black Skin, White Masks, revelatory material exploring the dehumanizing effects of colonial domination, with Fanon merging medical case history with historical realities, where continually acting in a submissive and subordinate manner demeans one’s self-worth, eliminating any idea of aspiring to something greater, leaving one instead helplessly demoralized.  Part of what’s so striking about this film is the casual air of indifference associated with the white middle class, where the lighthearted musical leitmotif playing when whites are onscreen sounds more like Nino Rota in Fellini’s LA DOLCE VITA (THE GOOD LIFE) (1960), while an unmistakable African soundtrack of thumb pianos and koras are a constant reminder of the life left behind.  Following the life of Diouana (Mbissine Thérèse Diop), an illiterate young girl from Dakar, Senegal, her life is uprooted when she obtains a job as a governess with a white French family living in Dakar, basically looking after their children.  But when the family moves back to Antibes in France, bringing her with them, the relationship changes drastically, as she’s ordered around, abusively yelled at constantly, with cooking and cleaning duties added to her job duties, basically becoming the household maid, feeling duped and demeaned, without ever discussing any of this with her.  Using bold black and white color contrasts, her life is solitary and routine, never given any time off, where she’s continually at the beck and call of the family, who regularly and rudely put her in her place, constantly reminded of her lowly status, where she internalizes the negativity, manifesting signs of abuse.  The euphoria she displayed when she got the job disappears, replaced by a sullen attitude of passive hostility, where she doesn’t want to be there, as they never allow her out of the house, so she has no life of her own.   Making things worse, they don’t even pay her, so she has no economic alternatives, stuck like a prisoner across the continents in someone else’s home.  Her dilemma is given an existential voice, speaking her innermost thoughts in voiceover, and while this is her story, her thoughts are curiously spoken by another Haitian actress in French, Toto Bissainthe, who plays the grandmother in Raoul Peck’s 1993 Haitian powerhouse The Man On the Shore (L’Homme sur les quais), with French being a language Diouana does not understand, basically telegraphing the degree of her disconnect, allowing viewers to acknowledge the emotional upheaval she’s going through, even as her host family ignores it completely.  

An early 70-minute version included a brief color sequence on her arrival to France, but was altered and rewritten in French in order to get the film financed, as the African script was initially rejected by the Film Bureau of Senegal, instead meeting the short film requirements in order to bypass the Bureau’s ruling.  Of interest, Sembène has a small role in the film as a Dakar school instructor who’s also in the business of writing letters to family members abroad for those who can’t read and write.  Sembène worked as a mason, carpenter, mechanic, dockworker, union organizer, and had also served as a sharp-shooter in the French colonial army during the Second World War before becoming a socially committed writer, a provocative politically-oriented griot filmmaker, social activist and critic, frequently described as the “father of African cinema,” yet this film in particular is among the most studied films by scholars, even taught in schools around the world, as it typifies not only colonial exploitation, but common elements of unhindered racism that prevail with whites in complete denial about what role they play in the perpetuation of human suffering.  Primarily intended for African audiences, the film is a tool for progress that demands self-examination, while bringing new awareness to others of Africa’s history and traditions, using a social realist film technique that feels like a documentary, resembling the New Wave cinéma vérité style, with the film offering a mirror of history.  Along with music, an African mask follows Diouana throughout her ordeal, initially given to her by a young boy who could be her younger brother in Dakar, promising to pay him with her first wages, then offered as a gift to her host white family, who hang it on the wall, adding it to their art collection, where it stands alone, watching over her, like an unseen conscience, or a godly African spirit, an image of Négritude, reminding her of her African roots.  Before the film is over, however, the mask is returned to that same boy on the street in Dakar, who dons the mask, becoming an avenging force, threatening Monsieur (Robert Fontaine), the white man who returned it, acting increasingly nervous, suddenly feeling out of place, rapidly escaping to the safety of his car and driving away.  Yet when the boy removes the mask at the end, he’s just a boy, vulnerable and fragile, and alone, which is the haunting final shot as the credits roll, with suggestions that his future is an open question.  That mask shadows her life, giving it meaning, even as she loses all connection.  Growing more and more disillusioned and discouraged as the film progresses, Diouana falls into a lethargic depression, finding it hard to get out of bed, as she’s lost any sense of her own humanity, treated more like a pet animal balancing a ball on its nose, where she’s supposed to bemuse and entertain her host family, who never show any concern about her changing mood, as all they care about are the duties she’s expected to perform.  Their casual indifference is appalling, leaving her no one to talk to, no one to trust, literally no way out, as she grows to despise her host family, but never utters a word.  They don’t believe she can speak French anyway, but understands by instinct, “like an animal,” suggesting if you don’t speak French, you are less than human.  One white guest abruptly kisses Diouana without consent, claiming he never kissed a black woman before, never thinking he had to ask, believing it was his right to do what he wanted with her, viewing her as little more than a family pet to play with.  Diouana had dreams about travelling to France, loving the pictures in the fashion magazines, thinking she would explore the country and shop to her heart’s delight, but none of her initial hopes materialize, as instead she’s become co-opted and enslaved, turned into someone she loathes, afraid to even look at herself in the mirror, imprisoned by her circumstances, withering away into a dull void.  When she looks out her window into the night she sees a blackness, which appears like a black hole that has sucked all the life out of her.  It’s an extraordinary portrait of living separate lives, black and white, two entirely different worlds of understanding, yet whites see no problem in continually bossing around the black hired help, expecting them to work on command.  

Sembène builds dramatic tension through Diouana’s deteriorating mindset, which is expressed openly to the audience through voiceover revelations, while the host family remains clueless, and more to the point, they’re not really interested.  Their lives revolve around themselves, excluding even their own children most of the time, continually sending them outside to play just to get rid of them.  From Diouana’s point of view, all they do is gorge themselves on food while spending their lives drinking excessively, then expecting her to clean up the mess they’ve left behind.  What’s truly startling is the extravagance and wealth just outside their door, as this is the French Riviera of Nice and Cannes and Antibes, which she can get a glimpse of through her window, but she may as well be on planet Mars, as she’s totally excluded from French society while being exiled from her own African home and family, where her future only grows more dire. The extent to which she deteriorates reflects her open humiliation and all-consuming anger at how egregiously she’s mistreated, eventually refusing to work altogether, or endure any more commands, having reached her psychological limit, where “never again” becomes her final mantra, veering into the fractured reality of Polanski’s REPULSION (1965), playing out like a Greek tragedy, where passive resistance is her only means, remaining silent and withdrawn.  Her silence is particularly affecting, her emotions muted, offering a chilling testimony, yet it was that same silence that got her the job in the first place, as the other job applicants were overly aggressive, with her employer admiring her passivity.  That polite silence is a mask she wears while around her host family, as it covers up her real interior thoughts, showing them the face they want to see, docile and submissive.  Her withdrawn alienation is the key to the film, in stark contrast to the assertiveness of her white employer, who herself grows displeased with her own husband, finding her marriage in turmoil, only exacerbated by a servant work stoppage she fails to comprehend.  The starkness of the story is coupled by a series of flashbacks, where Diouana has a brief romance with a young student (Momar Nar Sene) in Dakar, who has a tapestry portrait of Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba on the wall, lying in bed eying magazines together, dreaming of what life will be like in France, imagining all the opportunities she will have.  Much worse than simple cultural misunderstanding, it’s important to point out that Senegal gained their independence in 1960, a time when French expatriates still comprised 10% of Dakar’s population, 33% of the nation’s cabinet positions, and 66% of the university faculty, making it, in essence, a neo-colonialist state, where Diouana still feels obligated to look to France for post-colonial employment and a future, finding herself drowning and suffocating in that same colonialist mentality the nation extricated itself from.  Let’s not forget that Senegal was a former French colony that banned Africans from filming in their own country, one of the primary reasons Sembène became a filmmaker, viewing it as an act of liberation, and it was the French that historically gained control of the Atlantic slave trade, using the island of Gorée, a short distance from Dakar, to house, auction, and transport slaves across the ocean, the subject of another film RETURN TO GORÉE (2007), where Senegalese singer Youssou N’Dour returned to the “Maison des esclaves” for a live musical performance that offers a sanctuary of hope.  Known only as Madame (Anne-Marie Jelinek), her selection process in viewing prospective job applicants resembles a new black slave trade, with black aspiring applicants all waiting on a street corner for potential white employers to select one of them, eying them up from behind her dark glasses, checking them out, choosing a path of least resistance, finding the one that conforms to her predetermined point of view.  That racial assessment is at the heart of the film, as Madame believes she owns Diouana, viewing her as little more than a piece of purchased property, free to do with as she pleases.  That’s the arrangement, built on commerce, but fueled by a history of racist superiority that allows whites to casually dismiss any element of humanity associated with a worker for hire.  As far as Madame is concerned, she unambiguously has sole and exclusive rights, blind to any interior story of exile and despair.