Julianne Nicholson (La Doctora in Monos) has a weird daughter, tries dating Will Patton (last seen as a religious nut in Minari) then Sophie Okonedo (oscar nominee, had hands-for-feet in Aeon Flux) then Elias Koteas (pride of Canada, last and probably next seen in Crash). Janet breaks up with the first two, Elias vanishes mid-picnic. The writer/director was the daughter’s age in 1991 when the movie is set, what a coincidence.
Tag: 2020s
Dahomey (2024, Mati Diop)
Really is a doc about artworks being repatriated from France to Benin. The conceit of having the ancient artworks do the narration and the responses from modern museum attendees made this more interesting than it might’ve been.
Daaaaaali! (2023, Quentin Dupieux)
A goof on Salvador Dali (who is played by multiple actors wearing the same mustache), and another meta-game after The Second Act. Journalist (Bird People star Anaïs Demoustier) repeatedly schedules interviews with a preposteous, self-obsessed Dali, and he keeps walking out. Even more Buñuelian than the last Dupieux/Demoustier movie Incredible But True, the action loops and rewinds, roles swap, there’s Black Lodge reverse motion, and it ends with everyone watching the interview film which was never made.
The Second Act (2024, Quentin Dupieux)
Meta-movie where the actors keep “breaking character” between takes because they are playing actors who are appearing in the first movie directed by AI (represented by a button-down man in a white void on a laptop screen). Louis Garrel is meeting Léa Seydoux for a date, she brings her dad Vincent Lindon, Louis brings his friend Yannick, who he’s hoping Léa can date instead. Manuel Guillot the waiter can’t handle the performance pressure and kills himself in his car (in character), then after the shoot he kills himself in his car. As a final meta-touch, it closes by showing us the extremely long track setup for the opening tracking shot. Filipe: “It does not really have much to say about AI or industry, but as a vehicle for a terrific group of actors who are as usual all-in in the filmmaker’s concept, this a very good time.”
Zorn I-III (2010-2022, Mathieu Amalric)
Zorn I (2010-2016)
Rehearsing bands, mixing albums… setting up and breaking down equipment, cleaning his sax, unglamorous work. It documents JZ’s first time working with Nate Smith at The Stone, which is such a small place. Amalric is recruited to read some Rimbaud on the Conneries album. No onscreen text but if you cross-reference with Discogs you can figure out when some of the scenes took place. When I am rich, after buying every Tzadik album I’d like to find or recreate the black t-shirts Zorn is always wearing with his different ensemble designs.
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Zorn II (2016-2018)
“It was terrible when John started working with people who could actually read music. It fucked things up for the rest of us” – Ribot. Zorn and Dave Lombardo played a duo set at the Louvre. They soundtrack Harry Smith films, and during a dance scene Amalric cuts in some Maya Deren. This episode is more concert-backstage, shows and rehearsals, almost wall-to-wall music, and is therefore great.
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Zorn III (2018 – 2022)
Emails between Barbara Hannigan and JZ combines with some Cobra philosophy scenes to make this one about the composer’s relationship with the musician, really good. Prepping a difficult vocal piece which will be Hannigan’s JZ debut in Lisbon with Gosling as her pianist. Gave me a better appreciation for that first BH/JZ CD, which I’d written off as “not my thing” a few weeks earlier. Amalric seems intent on making each of these movies a different type of thing (this one is intensive prep/process) instead of just “more adventures in the life of Zorn.” Good quotes:
“You’ll see me start to die. That’ll be your cue.”
“You can go relatively satanic on this one.”
“I keep forgetting you people have to breathe.”
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Must hear soon:
Masada box
Moonchild trio
Psychomagia
Zorn/Hannigan 1 and 2
Here (2023, Bas Devos)
Two bearded guys head home from a construction site and alas, we follow the guy with the less interesting beard, who makes a stew of everything edible in his fridge, like we did after thanksgiving. Long-take, follow-cam, 4:3, meditative fest-film – too quiet and patient for Katy, who ditched after five minutes.
The guy is getting his car repaired for a trip to his mom’s house, where he’s hinting he might stay for a long period, and in the meantime he visits coworkers and friends and family, dropping off bowls of soup. People talk about plants, and their dreams, and eat soup. He meets a woman who studies moss (whose thoughts we’d heard in an earlier scene) at a restaurant, then sees his sister Anca, and briefly dreams the movie’s best scene: crossfades and focus pulls in the forest. When he runs into the moss woman a second time he drops everything to follow her for a quiet day in the woods before finally exiting Brussels (leaving behind soup for her).
Devos in Cinema Scope:
“What is it that I want to do? I think it came down to wanting to make films about people being relatively OK with each other, and making that into something challenging and exciting enough to stand on its own.”
Music (2023, Angela Schanelec)
No music in Music for 40 minutes, and then it’s opera.
People falling down and bonking their heads in Greece.
Phil Coldiron does a good job in Cinema Scope 94 recounting everything that happens, and how, and why.
Challengers (2024, Luca Guadagnino)
Love/tennis triangle with the best possible ending.
The Serpent’s Path (2024, Kiyoshi Kurosawa)
French remake of Kurosawa’s own film with Ko Shibasaki (Miike’s Over Your Dead Body) in the Sho Aikawa role, and Staying Vertical star Damien Bonnard as Creepy. This one is more straightforward, less cryptic than the original (especially in Ko/Sho’s plan and motivation), maybe more grounded and less absurd. As a spiraling-revenge film chock full of cool French actors (kidnappees, in order, are Amalric, Gregoire Colin, and Slimane the Temple Woods guy) I was bound to enjoy this, but after watching the original and its companion this year, and in the wake of the great Chime, this can’t help but feel superfluous.
