Clouds of Sils Maria Review

Clouds of Sils Maria Review

A trio of females question concepts of youth, love, and true happiness in Oliver Assayas’ Clouds of Silis Maria. Maria Enders (Juliette Binoche) is suffering a mid life crisis within the film as she is requested to play a role opposite to the one which started her fame as an actress 20 years ago.  Maria attempts to discover the character of Helena with her assistant Val (Kristen Stewart) in the remote area of Sils Maria. Jo-Ann Ellis (Chloe Grace Moretz) is the young actress that is playing Maria’s original part of Sigrid. The relationships between the women intertwine in an interesting way within the narration of the film and the narration of the play within the film. Through the scooping views of the Alps in Sils Maraia, this text within text rings with extreme poetry and verse. Juliette Binoche’s does the role justice of Maria illustrating the complexities of age, identity, and worth in the media. She is the backbone of this film and the stories imbedded within it. Both Moretz and Stewart are outshined by Binoche. 

Director: Oliver Assayas

Cast: Juliette Binoche, Kristen Stewart, Chloe Grace Moretz

Writer: Oliver Assayas

Producers: Gerard Ruey, Charles Gillibert, Jean-Louis Porchet, Karm Barmgarter, Thanassis Karathanos

BIRD PEOPLE REVIEW

BIRD PEOPLE REVIEW

Stylistic and innovative are two characteristics that describe French New Wave. Directors such as Truffaut and Godard are known throughout the world for rejecting the way cinema existed and innovated film forever. All French film whether following the rules of the French New Wave style or not, arguably use it as a historic basis and sense of identity (similar to Americans and the Classical Hollywood system).

Pascale Ferran attempted to break ground in the innovation of French film in his film Bird People and tragically failed. Watching an all around bad film sucks, watching a bad film that started off great but turned bad is unbearable. The latter is most definitely the case for Bird People

The filmed opened by illustrating the different individuals on the train in Paris. It had a “city symphony” effect that was most definitely effective and had me intrigued. The panning along with close illustrated through the camera told a story. I felt like I was on the train with all of these people. I was so interested to meet these so-called “bird people” and their stories. I wanted to know them and find out more. From the introduction, I anticipated a “crash” sequence or mutli narrative film to depict the story of the “bird people.”

Much to my surprise, I frankly in unconventional terms got “punked.” Bird People should actually named Bird Person. Unlike the opening of the film that suggests following the story of multiple individuals, it follows the story on two characters, Audrey (Anais Demoustier) and Gary (Josh Charles).

Audrey is a cleaning lady at an up-scale hotel in Paris. Like most young women her age, she is trying to find her identity and purpose in life. She hates her job as a cleaning lady and desires for more freeness and purpose in life.

Gary is an American businessman for a huge corporation in the United States. He like Audrey is tired of the cyclical routine in his life despite his ability to travel around the world with his job. Gary has a life epiphany which selfishly changes the life of himself, his family, and co workers forever.

Josh Charles’ performance was forced and dry at best. Not only did I not like his character, he got on my nerves. The Voice of God that Ferran used in the film made Charles’ performance more flat as the voice was narrating to the audience how he felt. This should be able to be conveyed to the audience by Charles’ acting not told from an outside voice that went away after 10 minuetes and further created a great detachment between the audience and the protagonist.

Anais Demoustier’s portrayal of Audrey was better than Charles’ but still lacked gusto and worth. I am most interested with Audrey when she transforms into a bird.

It is quite sad that my favorite character in the film was a CGI bird that randomly appears in the middle of the film. The personality shown from the bird is exquisite and illustrates what the film is desperately trying to convey with words but cannot.

 I wish that Aubrey did not speak as a bird. The characterization of Aubrey and Gary is as inconsistent as the stylistic elements of the film cinematically. This film repetitively works better when no one is speaking. The CGI work of the bird within the film was the most amazing part of the film. Nevertheless, the illustration of the bird in flight completely mimicked an airplane more than a bird at times. The characterization of the bird overshadows the performances of Aubrey and Gary ten fold.

The film has some of the most cliché dialogue and interactions that I have ever heard. From “what’s the opposite of opposite” or “I feel like I am a sugar cube dissolving into nothing” this film is trying so hard to be artistic and innovative. It’s annoying not affective.

The characterization of Aubrey and Gary is as inconsistent as the stylistic elements of the film cinematically. Ferran’s voice in Bird People got extremely lost. Through the themes of flight and true identity being a common motif, the desire to illustrate two individuals lost in the world but becoming “free” just made me as a spectator more lost and puzzled.

Perhaps, Ferran’s stylistic discontinuity was meant to illustrate the complexities of his characters; however, the dry dialogue mixed with the latter inevitably comes across as elementary.

Bird People had so much potential to be a French Classic but the disjointed style, story, and acting is anything but innovative.

Cast: Anais Demoustier, Josh Charles

Director: Pascale Ferran

Screenwriter: Pascale Ferran, Guillaume Breaud

Producer: Denis Freyd

Xavier Dolan's Mommy Review

Mommy Review

Xavier Dolan’s Mommy rings truth of the complexities between mother son relationships. The film tells the story of a middle aged mother named Diane (aka Die) and her mentally challenged son Steve. The pair is living together once again after Steve set fire to the cafeteria of his previous boarding school. With the help of their neighbor Kyla (Suzanne Clement) Die and Steve grow their relationship to new heights. Despite this, the violent bipolar mood swings which couple Steve’s extreme ADHD continue to break and burden their relationship.  Through the eyes of Die, this story undeniably gives the spectator a glimpse of the multifaceted characteristics that exist within a mother’s love.

Anne Dorval was Mommy Die. Throughout her performance, she illustrated the love, frustration, annoyance, hate, and confusion of motherhood in various different ways. The connection that she creates beyond the screen crosses language and societal construction. The raw animalistic desire to just want to take care of her son consistently is conveyed within the film. Die as a character brings up so many social and societal issues from the media’s obsession with youth to the perceptions of single mothers, widowed mothers, and the affects of having a child at a young age. Antoine-Olivier Pilon as Steve is the relentless rascal. His performance is compelling, as the camera loves him. The depth within Steve was accurately portrayed yet at times I felt abandoned. Antoine-Olivier Pilon still has so much time to grow as an actor. This role undeniably aided in his growth. Suzanne Clement is the epitome of graceful impact as the character Kyla. She is the foil of Die in many ways yet still retains interest and presence. She is a puzzle within the film that adds to Dolan’s artistic narrative puzzles.

Aesthetically Mommy pushes the limits of modern film by alluding to previous film styles and techniques foreign to the modern spectator.  Nevertheless, it possesses cliché like aesthetic and narrative characteristics alike that cancel out its artistry. At times the soundtrack accurately aids to the mood of the scene and at times it was distracting. The melodrama within the film rang truthful, but at times the blocking seemed too formulaic. For example, in one scene Steve is riding his longboard down the street and puts his hands up pretending to fly.  The latter seems cliché yet it is coupled with him then pushing the frame out from a portrait to a wide screen. This illustrates the constant battle between art, arbitrariness, or just plain absent excess. Nevertheless, the performances of Anne Dorval as (Die) along with Suzanne Clement (Kyla) and Antoine-Olivier Pilon (Steve) translated characters that push beyond stylistic disagreements.

Similar to films in the early 1950’s and 60’s Dolan chooses to play with the aspect ratio of the film reducing the actual film to the size of a portrait. This window like characteristic relates to formalists and constructivists theories in film. Theorists such as Sergei Eisenstein and Dziga Vertov considered that by limiting the spectator to a frame they would see their social statement and not necessarily in turn create their own. Dolan hopes to do just that by showing the spectator exactly what he wants them to know. The extra is not necessary. Similar to both Vertov and Eisenstein, Dolan also plays with the concept of montage in his film in a way that aids to the narration of the film.

Frame by frame every shot tells a story. Dolan’s precision mimics the storyboards of the late Alfred Hitchcock and his undeniable “mother issues” perhaps also do the same? Film Theorists, Laura Mulvey is known for her concept of the male gaze, but also her use of Freudism to study filmmakers such as Hitchcock. Her conclusion is simply that due to a difference in genetilia males desire to fetishize or punish females. Mulvey drew these conclusions and saw such in all of Hitchcock’s films. Through studying Dolan’s pervious films, such can definitely be true for him as well. From his first film I Killed My Mommy,Heartbearts, and his current film Mommy. Dolan’s stories centered on a mother character similar to his son characters are undeniably rooted in deeper psychological and sub conscious truth.

Mommy is a film that individuals will either connect with and appreciate or hate and feel detached. The soundtrack may make you want to sing along to Oasis’ Wonderwall or make a face of disgust. Nevertheless, the film will undeniably get your attention as it did mine. The characterization of Die is one that exists around the world and Dolan made it artistic. Through the media saturated with young twenty year olds, Dolan’s ability to convey the story of a middle aged women successfully is one that needs to become a norm in modern film. Dolan possesses a voice as a director that individuals two and three times his senior still struggle to achieve. Mommy will hopefully in turn birth more stories that root in the complexities of being a woman.

Cast: Anne Dorval, Antoine-Olivier Pilon, Suzanne Clement

Director: Xavier Dolan

Screenwriter: Xavier Dolan

Producer: Xavier Dolan, Nancy Grant, Sylvain Corbeil

Lovely Girl Review

The Lovely Girl is Lonely

The relationship between a father and daughter has the potential to be the strongest and most influential backbone in a woman’s life.  It also has the potential to be the sole cause of her loss. The Lovely Girl directed by Israeli writer and director Keren Yedaya illustrates the story of one woman’s relationship between her father. Sadly her groundwork is based on loss rather than encouragement.

Tammy (Maayan Turjeman) and her father Mosche (Tzahi Grad) possess a father daughter relationship that crosses conventional lines like a tsunami engulfing an entire city. The mind of Tammy has been consumed by her father’s continued abuse in a way that is traumatic and shocking. The two developed an incestual relationship.  With the lines of father and daughter being nonexistent. The couple exist with the power structure undeniably catering to Mosche. Tammy’s love is dependent on her father’s sexual, physical, and emotional abuse, obsession, and abandonment.

She cooks for him. She cleans for him. She is his sex toy. That is all she knows. Tammy is domesticated in every sense as both a daughter and girlfriend. Her identity is found from the perpetual engulfing storm that is Mosche. This instability is illustrated through the cuts on her wrist, the repetitive brushing of her teeth after binging, and constant external body insecurities.

Tammy’s weakness is excessive to the point that her personality comes across as dry and repetitive. The simplicity of her bodily external repetitive chores as a domestic carry over to the complex essence of her being or lack there of.

 Yedaya tells the story of Tammy through  her protagonist perspective with a great use of close ups. Mosche’s every movement tells a story of Tammy’s repetitive, enclosed life.

Through the perspective of French film theorists Bazin, Tammy’s constant close up’s illustrate a coded complexity between the spectator and herself.  In one moment in particular, Tammy is partaking in binge eating through a constant and explicit take that lasts about a minute. From the tears of her eyes, to the snot of her nose, and the excessive contents in her mouth; it was bewildering to feel so close yet so far away to Tammy.

Maayan portrays Tammy in a way that will cause the spectator to cringe. Many times throughout the film, I just wanted to shake her; but the remembrance of her frailty would cause pity to reform in replacement. The frustration of how Tammy constantly returns back to her father no matter how much pain he inflicts upon her is one that continually haunts the entire film.

Tzahi Grad played his role as a monster with ease. The hate and utter disgust of Mosche as an abuser is one that plagues the film like an epidemic. He has a presence on film that symbolizes the male ego and entitlement in society in an overwhelming way.

Maayan Turjeman’s performance of Tammy was a chilling one. The constant bodily reactions and “excess” that stemmed personally from her portrayal is one that cannot be ignored. Her beauty is one that is not appreciated in the realm of film and the media. Tammy has a curvy, stout body similar to paintings by Michelangelo or Rapheal.  Her round face could be called plain but possesses great character with moles and freckles. 

It is frustrating that films with unconventional actresses such as Maayan must constantly focus on issues concerning the weakness and frailty of women.  The self-esteem problems and shortcomings for women on and off the screen seem to be cyclical. The stories are real and true yet may in turn just create a superficial awareness.

Issues in The Lovely Girl exist and are sadly more prevalent than most individuals care to know. Nevertheless, will the raw, explicit nature of The Lovely Girl make a difference in the world of abuse and domestic violence for women or just further the male ego and dominance of control?  

Prepare to leave The Lovely Girl with unsettling feelings that words would rather hide than try to express due to its inexpressible core.

It is a film that a one-time sitting is enough to evoke its message and carry the spirits of billions of women both past and present around the world.

Cast: Maayan Turjeman, Tzahi Grad, Yael Abecassis, Tal Ben Bina

Director: Keren Yedaya

Screenwriter: Keren Yedaya, adapted from a novel by Shez

Producers: Marek Rozenbaum, Michael Rozenbaum, Jérôme Bleitrach, Emmanuel Agneray, Michael Eckelt