Couple Berlin features and one of the year’s best
Might’ve mentioned before but we’re getting to the spots where I left my schedule open, mainly because I’d gotten everything down I “needed” to see. It’s good for me to watch things I don’t necessarily think I’ll be interested in I suppose (at least that’s what I tell myself) but hopefully I didn’t make it so that the gaps come about because I’ve already seen the films.
Salvation (Emin Alper): C+/B-
I think I got lost somewhere along the way, maybe in expecting it to be something like a horror or a possession film. There are some creepy moments but frustratingly they come across as dream sequences that are so seamless that by the third time or so it starts to feel like a rugpull. Opening text said it’s based on a true event and I got that it’s about ethnic tensions between two Turkish groups but Alper doesn’t always make it clear who is on what side or even what those sides necessarily want in the moment. Builds and builds to an appropriately horrific conclusion that I’m sure is also allegorical and the direction is engaging enough with the scenes set in the dark. Just not quite sure that I got who all the characters were and what the truth of the situation was, nor was I ever particularly frightened or spooked by the forays into horror. Fairly well-acted from what I can tell and ends strongly enough.
Wolfram (Warwick Thornton): C
Fairly standard Western of the Australian variety, ie All About Colonialism (not that our Westerns aren’t). Never saw Sweet Country which is apparently related to this rather inert story about a trio of Aboriginal kids on the run from their white masters and searching for their mom. Unique in that I don’t know another film that features so many flies both on screen and on the soundtrack, it’s truly impressive after a while. The rest won’t be new unless you’re completely unfamiliar with Australia’s dark history and need to be really shown that the obviously bad guys are bad by having them shoot some women by a river. Thornton is also fond of inserting split-second flashbacks/flashforwards that come across as random rather than tied to any particular memory or moment and other than Joe Bird from Leviticus getting the shit kicked out of him by an old Chinese guy I was faintly bored throughout most of it. If you’re gonna give us a kid survival story, give us the kids the whole time! No one cares about the adults, especially not these stock characters.
La Gradiva (Marine Atlan): A
As someone who went on a (partial) trip to Italy in the summer between junior and senior years, let me add to the chorus singing this low-key stunner’s praise. Atlan’s gorgeous 16mm camera never judges, simply observes her group of students as they fumble about adulthood, cracking jokes, getting up to no good and generally being a bunch of teens; it’s nice to see that no matter the time or place, some things never change. Sometimes achingly sad and lonely, sometimes bursting with life and joy, it feels like something I’ve been waiting since I was a teen, down to the occasional focus on the teacher and her struggles professional and personal. And as much as some may quibble with how the story of Toni ends, I found it refreshing that not only is he out but he has some level of self-respect and seems lost for other reasons. In the end you can’t ever really know someone or how they felt, whether they stand next to you or exist only as a plaster cast from Pompeii. Truly major cinema, Do Not Miss.
Test (Sam McConnell): B+
Much more complex than it would seem out the outset, specifically when Tammy Blanchard comes on as a collection of Indiewood quirk and neuroses. Brock Yurich gives an actual, full-bodied performance and his screenplay too has some more interesting ideas than simplicities like “closeted bodybuilder with daddy issues”. I was rather delighted when his relationship with his mom began to crack and reveal something much darker; also liked that his ex-girlfriend is incredibly sympathetic and understanding about his unknown-to-him queerness, getting paid dust in return that suggests a deep history both are only starting to become aware of. Can’t say I wasn’t disappointed by where it ultimately ends up, both in his relationship with Coach Mike (rather sweet, I will not say more about Mike Edward lest I get bullied) and with his mom, or really with the church despite Matthew Morrison’s (perfectly casted, no shade) genuine concern. I do like a good process movie so for all its regular sports clichés you do feel an actual director’s hand behind it, visual and otherwise, and I’m intrigued by what Yurich does next offscreen or on.
