The Phoenician Scheme

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

Director Wes Anderson

Anderson on the set

Anderson with Mathieu Amalric,Mia Threapleton, and Benicio Del Toro

Kate Winslet with her daughter Mia Threapleton

Benicio Del Toro with Mia Threapleton and Scarlett Johansson

THE PHOENICIAN SCHEME             B                                                                               USA  Germany  (101 mi)  2025  d: Wes Anderson

Wes Anderson is a descendant of the Marx brothers and Jacques Tati, humorists enthralled with the idea of creating their own cinematic universe, and while Anderson’s quirky dollhouse world may not be for everyone, with production designer Adam Stockhausen on full display, this esoteric espionage caper is among the harder to follow storylines of all his films, but that hardly matters as this just barrels along at a scintillating pace, with an evocative score by Alexandre Desplat, where one thing that is unmistakable is just how bat-shit crazy it is, told with a deadpan, screwball comedy relish, taking us places no one else in the world is willing to go, where this unique mindset and miniature visual aesthetic are certainly his own, as the attention to detail is stunning.  With all the throwaway gags, witty asides, and the historical and cinematic references, it’s nearly impossible to follow it all onscreen (an entire exhibition is dedicated to Anderson’s career at the Cinémathèque Française in Paris, Enter the world of Wes Anderson at the Cinémathèque ..., while an exhibit at London’s Design Museum is planned in the fall, Wes Anderson: The Archives), as it’s gone in the blink of an eye, like the product placement of L.S./M.F.T. during a blood transfusion, a notorious advertisement for cigarettes, Lucky Strike Means Fine Tobacco, Lucky Strike Commercial #1 (1948) YouTube (1:01), a seemingly insignificant detail that only speaks to those old enough and crazy enough to remember that advertisement jingle.  While a darkness has crept into his later films, often reflecting contemporary authoritarian trends, the director is way ahead of his times in that regard, as evidenced by The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), which allegorized a creeping fascism, or 2018 Top Ten List #7 Isle of Dogs, where a corrupt authoritarian mayor has banned all dogs to an abandoned island, mirroring the current practice of Trump sending so-called dangerous immigrants to languish in overseas prisons.  Anderson’s framing and composition are, as always, exquisite, producing stills that are literally designed to look good enough to hang in an art gallery, where the end credits are among the more uniquely designed in recent memory, showing images of famous paintings that inspired the look of the film, all set to the music of Stravinsky’s Firebird, Stravinsky: Finale - Suite from The Firebird / Los Angeles ... YouTube (3:00), suggesting they have a profoundly liberating influence, while also including an amusing statement that this may not be used for the purposes of training AI.  Perhaps the biggest surprise is the casting of Kate Winslet’s daughter, Mia Threapleton, as a novitiate nun, who surprisingly holds her own against a cast of stars, most only appearing briefly, yet the A-list of names in the ensemble cast is impressive, suggesting there’s no shortage of people who want to work with Anderson, who is one of the defining visionaries of our generation, whose influence is felt far and wide.  Threapleton watched the animated feature FANTASTIC MR. FOX (2009) when she was about eight or nine-years old, then was blown away by 2012 Top Ten Films of the Year: #3 Moonrise Kingdom, deciding then and there that she wanted to work with Anderson one day, sending him a self-made audition tape for this film, recreating a scene from ISLE OF DOGS (2018), which the director loved, choosing her immediately after reading with leading protagonist Benicio Del Toro, who felt a connection working with her.  While people have different reactions to the idiosyncratic Wes Anderson experience, as all the characters are essentially cartoons, yet this film would just not be the same without her, providing the heart and soul that the other characters lack, inspired by Anderson’s relationship with his own daughter, making this a very personal film for him.  The film is dedicated to Anderson’s late father-in-law, Fuad Malouf, a Lebanese engineer and businessman who had a vast array of ongoing international projects in the works.  

Anderson has a multi-billionaire benefactor/business partner in Steven Rales, whose Indian Paintbrush (company) has almost exclusively produced every Anderson movie since 2007, with just a handful of other movies thrown in.  As for the film itself, it’s a wild and wacky affair, shot on 35mm in the Babelsberg Studio in Germany (the same studio where Fritz Lang shot METROPOLIS in 1927) by Bruno Delbonnel, responsible for the cutesy style of Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s AMÉLIE (2001), Julie Taymor’s psychedelic Beatles fantasia ACROSS THE UNIVERSE (2007), and the magnificent look of Joel Coen’s 2022 Top Ten List #5 The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021), where this is the first live-action film not shot by Anderson’s regular cinematographer Robert Yeoman.  Premiering at the Cannes Film Festival, with a script co-written by Anderson and Roman Coppola, this film delves into the nefarious world of trade and commerce, which includes sabotage, a hidden espionage ring, and multiple assassination attempts, as personified by industrialist and arms dealer Anatole “Zsa-Zsa” Korda (Benicio Del Toro), a ruthless opportunist and the richest man in Europe who also dabbles in the defense and aviation industry, loosely based on Armenian oil magnate Calouste Gulbenkian, who helped Western companies exploit the oil-producing regions of the Middle East while amassing a huge fortune and art collection of more than 6000 works of art, which he kept in a private museum at his Paris house (now housed in a museum in Lisbon), described by an art expert in a 1950 article from Life magazine, Mystery billionaire, "Never in modern history has one man owned so much."  This unscrupulous element of wielding power in order to make as much money as possible is a stark contrast to the art-inspired visual feast that commands the screen, showing a darker side of the American artist, perhaps reflected by that same turn of events in American politics, as it’s difficult to say whether Anderson really wanted to offer thoughts on global capitalism, but the connection to a contemporary reality, and some well-known billionaires, is all too evident.  Set in 1950, we first meet Zsa-Zsa flying in his private plane somewhere over the Balkans when he hears a strange sound, like a loud thump, quickly turning around, only to see a bomb blast completely eviscerate a fuselage side panel, taking his personal secretary with it, but he miraculously survives a crash landing.  This near death experience, apparently his sixth or seventh assassination attempt, plunges him headlong into a vision of the afterlife, shifting to black and white imagery, where he literally sits in judgment of his life from beyond the grave, confronted with his own mortality, where God is played by Bill Murray, a large bearded figure in white robes, surrounded by otherworldly beings.  Because of the shadowy forces repeatedly targeting him with assassination attempts, while also trying to undermine his business ventures, he summons his long-abandoned and pious daughter Liesl (Mia Threapleton), who he hasn’t seen in years, to discuss making her the sole heir to his fortune, having mysteriously disinherited all his many sons, The Phoenician Scheme Movie Clip - Sole Heir (2025) YouTube (42 seconds).  This brief, yet highly effective scene taking place in his palazzo-inspired residence full of fine art establishes the particulars, “Never buy good pictures.  Buy masterpieces,” setting the framework for the rest of the film, becoming a battle of wills, like a morality play, where despite all the absurd encounters and theatrical shenanigans turning into an action-packed, globe-trotting romp, it’s all essentially a cover for a story about a father trying, in his own bizarre way, to connect with the daughter he barely knows, embracing themes like tragedy, redemption, honor, and yes, happiness.

Zsa-Zsa has a habit of carrying around a satchel of hand grenades, which he hands out to business partners like souvenirs during their encounters, where he typically starts out with the familiar refrain, “Help yourself to a hand grenade,” which people are more than happy to accept.  His titular “scheme” is to develop multiple infrastructure projects across “Modern Greater Independent Phoenicia,” a fictional land populated by princes, spies, revolutionaries, and large investors, and a mammoth Korda Land and Sea Phoenician Infrastructure Scheme involving a canal, a massive tunnel, a railroad line, and a hydroelectric dam.  His wheeler-dealer style has created many enemies, known disparagingly as “Mr. Five Per Cent” for his ability to always take a cut, hated the world over as he thinks everyone can be bought, having no friends and an unloving family he has largely ignored, but the business world hates him for exploiting local workers as slave labor, for his rampant lies and deceit, accountable to no laws whatsoever, and for dubiously cutting corners to become ridiculously successful.  Liesl has lived in a convent ever since her mother died when she was young, still stinging from the belief that Zsa-Zsa may have had something to do with her demise, as all his ex-wives died under suspicious circumstances, yet he steadfastly denies any involvement.  While he’s obviously a galvanizing figure, her insistence at discovering who was behind her mother’s murder leads her to accept this vaguely conceived succession agreement, on a trial basis, of course, bringing these seeming opposites together.  Zsa-Zsa’s grand scheme is outlined in a series of labeled shoeboxes, each containing a core component to the project, but rising production costs means he needs to close a gap in the plan’s financing, requiring visits to various key players to cover the artificially inflated costs, as his enemies have skyrocketed building material prices for his construction projects.  Liesl agrees to join Zsa-Zsa on his journey, accompanied by his special assistant, the family’s Norwegian tutor and entomologist, Bjørn (Michael Cera), who utters the unthinkable, “I speak my heart, I’m a Bohemian,” returning to the skies once again, with Zsa-Zsa repeatedly offering the reassuring words, “Myself, I feel very safe.”  Liesl is stunned to discover he’s been spying on her, though Zsa-Zsa is quick to retort, “It’s not called spying when you’re the parent.  It’s called nurturing.”  Where it all leads is to pure chaos and pandemonium, with a flurry of scenes strewn together, each more strangely disconcerting than the next, THE PHOENICIAN SCHEME - "Human Rights" Official Clip YouTube (1:10), THE PHOENICIAN SCHEME - "Oh Dear" Official Clip YouTube (42 seconds), THE PHOENICIAN SCHEME - "You Used to Work for Me ... YouTube (44 seconds), meeting with fez-wearing, French nightclub owner Marseille Bob (Mathieu Amalric), a reference to Jacques Becker’s TOUCHEZ PAS AU GRISBI (1954), interrupted by a group of armed revolutionaries, weirdly getting stuck in quicksand, while also visiting his second Cousin Hilda (Scarlett Johansson), who runs a “Utopian Outpost.”  But the ultimate showdown is with his big-bearded brother, Uncle Nubar (Benedict Cumberbatch, looking like a Russian czar), “He’s not human, he’s biblical,” which is literally a blood feud made to resemble a battle between a Marvel superhero and a villain, set to the bombastic music of Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky, Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition (Orch. Ravel) : Promenade 1 YouTube (1:44), turning into a day of reckoning.  What follows is not what anyone would expect, with a beautifully charming Buñuelian twist at the end that does not disappoint, feeling strangely humanizing all of a sudden, saturated with dry wit and humor, yet the incessant business jargon used throughout seems intentionally designed to leave viewers emotionally disconnected through an obsessive ironic detachment, as none of it really makes any sense, nonetheless this is a welcome addition to the Wes Anderson universe, filled with pastel appeal and memorable charm, where what really stands out is that the actors truly shine, displaying impeccable comic timing in this elaborately constructed geometrical puzzle box.      

Half-Nelson

 

Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden

HALF-NELSON        A                                                                                                                   USA  (106 mi)  2006  d: Ryan Fleck

There’s a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart that you can’t take part, you can’t even passively take part, and you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop, and you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all.                            —Mario Salvo, student activist and leader of the Free Speech Movement at a rally in UC-Berkeley, California after the students seized control of an administrative building on campus, 1964

Reminiscent of Jon Voight’s empathetic humaneness in Martin Ritt’s CONRACK (1974), yet also the anguished impressionistic journey in Lynne Ramsay’s MORVERN CALLAR (2002), which takes place nearly entirely inside someone’s head, this is a muddled odyssey through the present day and age, as seen through the eyes of a sympathetic white 8th grade teacher in a predominately black inner-city school in Brooklyn, who scores crack on the side and thinks he can handle the situation.  While teaching history, he asks his students to explore the two opposing forces that confront one another in determining change, as “Everything is made of opposing forces” and “turning points,” both sides fighting for what they believe is right, which he contends is the catalyst or determining factor of history.  Yet it’s also seen through the eyes of a young student in his class who actually catches him smoking crack in the bathroom, but is sympathetic and keeps her mouth shut, as her brother is in prison for selling crack, while the dealer, in a favor to the brother for not turning him in, owes her family.  An expansion of Fleck’s short film GOWANUS, BROOKLYN (2004), as it takes place in the abandoned lots and desolate streets of an ungentrified Brooklyn neighborhood near the Gowanus Canal, co-written by the director and his live-in partner Anna Boden, who also edited and produced the film, Ryan Gosling (in his first Oscar nomination) is unerringly believable as the teacher, Dan Dunne, who isn’t selling anything in the classroom except the freedom to speak one’s own mind while making their own choices, though he’s held on a tight leash by the school principal, often appearing in class in a disheveled state from his previous late night binges.  His open defiance of authority and institutions raises red flags, as he frequently veers away from the “official” curriculum, yet that’s what’s so compelling about this film, as a teacher’s moral dilemma in the classroom comes down to a struggle to do what’s right as opposed to being blindly told what to teach by an often faceless administrative entity.  And while his own choice selection is hazardous, not to mention personally destructive, this issue is not side-stepped in the film, and his deplorable behavior is a force to be reckoned with, including a drunkenly pathetic attempted rape scene, but so is his commitment to stick with these kids, to be honest and not sell them a bill of goods.  Thinking that he can write a children’s book about dialectics on the side, instead he spends all his free time getting wasted, seemingly without friends, with no stable relationships, remaining aloof and emotionally disconnected.  The title is a reference to an immobilizing wrestling hold that is difficult, if not impossible, to escape from, evoking a metaphoric sense of entrapment.  Born out of a frustration with the malaise hanging over America following 9/11 and the Iraq War, this film is about a developing friendship between an adult and a child, with each taking turns taking care of each other, avoiding any overt sexual overtones, as Shareeka Epps plays the inquisitive Drey, a 13-year old latch-key student caught between moving forces, a dead end school, a tired single mother who works too hard to have any time for her, a brother in prison, a dealer that offers money and protection, and a white teacher who, despite his personal problems, actually makes sense.  Her hesitation in exploring each world is the heart and soul of the film, as she’s remarkably appealing, tough and soft at the same time, with an open mind to finding a new way other than the route of her brother or the dealer, but she doesn’t know where to find it.  An amalgamation of race, class, idealism, and self-destruction, with a nod to the rebellious instincts yet surprising honesty of J.D. Salinger’s Holden Caulfield, the film is also about finding forgiveness.     

The always compelling Anthony Mackie plays Frank the dealer, and in the model of Coppola’s THE GODFATHER (1972), which features likeable men who kill for a living, or Craig Brewer’s HUSTLE AND FLOW (2005), which features a likeable, hard-working man who pimps for a living, Mackie has his own appeal, is soft-spoken and considerate, and doesn’t push Drey too hard while gently attempting to persuade her to take over her brother’s business, luring her deeper into his world.  When Dan sees the paternal and potentially dangerous influence, he attempts to intervene, and in an especially effective scene, he confronts Frank in front of his own home and tries to steer him away from Drey, but realizes he’s hardly the role model to be making this request, as his example is no better.  Frank, in a masterful stroke of understated psychological swagger, completely takes the air out of his sails, and therein lies the real complexity of the film.  When have drug dealers been painted with ambiguity and complexity?  And if we’re to be honest, how can we blame black dealers for being dealers, considering the bleak economic options in their ravaged communities and the lure of a lucrative lifestyle?  In fact, what drives the demand for dealers in the first place?  Who are the biggest drug consumers?  In America, it turns out to be the comfortable middle class whites, who may be in denial about the consequences of their actions, like Dan in this film, believing he can handle it, while remaining oblivious to the economic disparity between blacks and whites, and the social injustice contrasted between the races, considering who the police routinely target.  But this film places the responsibility front and center on the white middle class, on the Baby Boomers, the ones who marched against the war in Vietnam, or for voting rights in the South, the ones who supposedly offered an alternate moral view, as reflected by the black and white newsreel footage that Dan shows his kids, such as Attica, where, with the exception of the Indian massacres of the 19th century, the police assault on prison inmates and their hostages was the bloodiest one-day encounter between Americans since the Civil War, or the assassination of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected representative in the U.S, or Cesar Chavez, whose boycotts helped establish rights and benefits for migrant farm workers, or America’s CIA advocating the overthrow and assassination of a freely elected leader of Chile, Salvador Allende, replacing him with a U.S. puppet, General Augusto Pinochet, now up on war crimes charges, while Henry Kissinger expressed the U.S. view that the issue was too important to leave to the Chilean people, or Mario Savio leading the Berkeley free speech rally, with students suggesting they could help open up a crack in “the Machine.”  Why believe in a system that takes away your rights, or takes away your freedom?  While explaining to his students the ways they are oppressed by the system, that the Civil Rights movement is essentially about the injustice of the system, where protests were created to expose that unfairness and have their voices finally heard, Dan, a true child of the 60’s, one of the most misunderstood decades in the movies, makes the connection that by truthfully analyzing the problems of the past, which all of us are a part of, we might find some clues into how to solve these problems in the future.  Like disillusioned characters in a Jean Eustache film, whatever happened to this moral optimism from the 60’s, this belief that people could work together to fight against social injustice?  Everything’s become so comfortably compartmentalized now, so specialized, each looking after only their own interests, which is the modern era status quo, there’s no longer any belief that we are all in this together or that concerted action can make a difference. 

This kind of film could never be made today, where a wave of censorship and conservatism has not only swept across the country, but around the world, as corporate sponsors would never approve of overt drug use and the message that sends, completely missing the larger point of making such a daring and provocative film.  So rather than allow viewers to learn from a film like this, it’s instead tossed into the dustbin of history, like an ancient relic.  Radically departing from the cliché of historical cinematic educators who appear in the teacher savior role, this completely subverts that genre, as Dunne’s left-leaning political orientation stands in stark contrast to those seen in other teacher films, as there are no miracle transformations happening here, with kids seen sleeping in his class, or missing altogether, and no one is spared from the looming trauma of the streets, even the teacher, whose personal struggles with drug use complicate his classroom impact, yet there is a sense of triumph over adversity, with just the briefest hint of hope, choosing moral complexity over easy solutions.  Enhanced by the edgy, somewhat vacuous style, the film at times resembles an amorphous blur, yet it’s grounded in the raw vulnerability of several brilliant dramatic performances, shot on gritty 16mm, often in tight close-ups by Andrij Parekh, capturing every emotional nuance.  But identifying with the film isn’t easy, as it’s disjointed, sometimes out of focus, and the handheld camera keeps physically being knocked around a bit, so there’s a rough quality, a mood of ambiguity, with occasional eerie industrial or electronic sounds along with a psychologically probing indie soundtrack by Canada’s Broken Social Scene.  Despite the film’s unsparingly honest, near documentary style, never lapsing into cheap sentiment, it occasionally departs from naturalism, such as a noticeable scene when Drey visits her brother in prison, which takes place in perfect quiet, unlike the raucous noise that is typical of overcrowded prisons today, or when the students stare straight into the camera and repeat memorized moments in history, like similar set-up scenes in Woody Allen’s Annie Hall (1977), but it also perfectly captures the wretched state of Dan’s wasted mind when a proud parent comes up to him in a bar to thank him for his daughter’s success at Georgetown and he can’t even remember her.  Still, this accurately points out how badly we need good teachers with challenging, inquisitive minds like Dan in the public school system, despite his obvious damaged goods, as his painful honesty is heartfelt and believable, made all the more compelling because the unconventional person behind the message is so openly flawed.  Kids remember being in his class, and not the automatons pushing standardized testing that school boards would prefer, as he is not condescending, yet Dan finds it difficult to find a balance between the demons of his dark personal life and the positive outlook needed to plant the seeds of discovery and self-realization in the classroom. The power dynamic between the teacher and student is inverted in this film, as the wisdom and maturity Drey exhibits in reaching out a hand of friendship, particularly during Dan’s heavy descent into drugs, is something we don’t normally see, actually finding a connection and a chance at redemption.  Born to radical parents on a commune in Berkeley, and growing up in the same area, director Ryan Fleck shares much in common with Dan’s travails, as picking up on the residue of leftover 60’s themes comes with paying a high price for disillusionment, where the loss of that collective spirit feels so defeating, as the crushing reality is that the catastrophic circumstances that so many of these kids come from are not getting any better, despite all good intentions.  This film begins to explore finding a way out by linking some of our cultural connections to our human imperfections, by literally building a bridge of mutual tolerance.  Well worth a look, as you won’t find anything like this in theaters today.   

The film that changed my life: Ryan Fleck | Do the Right Thing  Ryan Fleck from The Guardian, April 17, 2010