You know what they say about best laid plans.

Ok so I lied a little on the last one. Pedro got pushed to the next showing on Saturday because I didn’t want to have gap with another one today, and because I didn’t feel like seeing Vermiglio. As much as I do try to plan things out, scheduling is an ever-changing thing since I have no one but myself to be held accountable. I promise to do better, it will happen again.

My first movie of the day was one I’d wavered a bit back and forth on. The thing about LGBT films is that – for obvious reasons dramatical, sociological, and historical – they can tend towards the bleaker side if they’re not diabetically saccharine or pitched at that one straight person trying way too hard. Seeing a log-line about a gay teen taking up sex work after a prison stint raises the warning signs of “coming out story” (overdone, boring) and worse “trauma dump” (lazy). Baby (Grade: B+) doesn’t entirely shy away from the dangers of sex work, and generally being gay in Brazil. Thankfully, this Brazillian drama from Marcelo Caetano is much more clear eyed and open to the nuances of gay life and sex work writ large.

The baby of the title is Wellington (João Pedro Mariano) a strikingly beautiful 18-year-old on the streets. A brief miscommunication in a porno theater leads him to Ronaldo (Ricardo Teodoro), a much older man working as an escort who decides to take him under his wing. It’s a sexually explicit kind of love affair in multiple senses and my what senses they are. Caetano depicts their relationship as something beautiful and yes, sexy, with dashes of a mentor-mentee power dynamic ever so precarious. I don’t know that it does anything particularly ground-breaking besides show a younger man in love with an older man that isn’t predatory (though some flashes of jealousy threaten to take it there) but I appreciate something so vibrant and almost cute. If nothing else, the men are very beautiful to look at. God Bless Brazil.

While I find myself a little more on the forgiving side generally, I’ve started to consider something critic Mike D’Angelo (inspiration/rip-off source for this series structurally, if not occasionally stylistically) often cites of documentaries: could this film have been an article ? Men Of War (Grade: C+) is a perfect example of this to the point where I was surprised it had been picked up by NEON. Directors Billy Corben and Jen Gatien utilize the typical reenactments, stock footage, and talking head techniques to reconstruct the 2020 Venezuelan coup attempt. Their main subject and source is ex-Green Beret and mercenary leader Jordan Goudreau; he’s given quite a bit of screen time to argue that he was fully under the impression it was a US government sanctioned operation along with opposition leader Juan Guaidó.

I suppose the first problem comes there: he – and multiple Trump White House staff – refer to Guaidó as the legitimate ruler of Venezuela, and at least from context one would assume the directors do not – in fact – believe this, and that current president Nicholas Maduro is the rightful ruler. Almost zero context is given to the political situation in the country or even what interests the US might have in staging a coup beyond oil and money. It’s not even clear whether they believe Goudreau or think he’s some mixture of stupid and delusional. By the end they work their way towards pointing out how the government builds people into killing machines and then mostly sets them loose to fend for themselves. Don’t get me wrong, the way we treat veterans in this country is one of our many failings (and the bare minimum). But when the people you’re trying to rescue are in jail because they tried to overthrow the sovereign government of a foreign country, you’re going to have to work a lot harder to get me feeling sympathy for you and your own bad decisions. There’s a thread of the networks of power working overtime to help fascist interests here; the Behind The Bastards episode on Goudreau would be excellent.

Small Things Like These (Grade: B-) covers the different and more upsetting strain of Behind The Bastards subject matter that is the Magdalene Laundries. To summarize: for nearly 2 centuries in Ireland, women and girls thought to be “fallen” or otherwise unsupported were sent to convents and workhouses where they suffered horrific abuse. I don’t know how the movie would play if you didn’t know that; to me, I saw a movie set in Ireland about secrets at a convent and immediately went there. It’s among the most infamous scandals of the Catholic Church in Ireland (though a quick Wikipedia scan tells me that there were some Protestant ones as well).

Perhaps it plays better for someone from there. I confess the whole thing sort of went over my head in rather abrupt fashion. Cillian Murphy – in his first role post Oppenheimer – plays coal worker Bill Furlong in New Ross, Ireland. You can tell he’s haunted by his general aire, and the way he scrubs his hands vigorously when he comes home (metaphor!). Ostensibly the plot unfolds when he discovers a woman in the convents shed during a delivery, furthered by the sinister behavior of the Mother Superior (Emily Watson). Interspersed are memories of his childhood with what I presume is his single mother. This is a movie in a lot of ways about national guilt; the way Bill’s wife seems to know bad things happen there, a girl fighting as she’s brought in the first time, the mentions of how much power the convent wields in town. All of this is primed for a truly excellent movie. And then I checked my phone thinking there was at least an hour left only to discover it was more like 7 minutes. I haven’t read the book by Claire Keegan so it’s possible this all plays better on the page, or that the third act was cut down significantly. It certainly has all the ingredients to be a solid drama; if only it drew the connections between the past and the present stronger.

I’ve mentioned it a bit before but as good as it is to catch movies months before they’re released, one of the best parts of a Film Festival are the hidden gems. I’d agonized for weeks over whether to pass over The Seed of the Sacred Fig – one of the most acclaimed films at Cannes – for one such film, ultimately deciding that since NEON was handling it I’d eventually see it in Philly at some point. My choice was for Night Call (Grade: B+), a lean and nasty Belgian thriller with impressive chops that for some reason I’d gone into thinking it was about a firefighter. Michiel Blanchart’s debut is an entry into the subgenre of “Person Has The Worst Night of Their Life”. That person is locksmith and student Mady (Jonathan Feltre), on call during a night when Black Lives Matter protests are roiling Brussels. A simple call for a woman named Claire (Natacha Krief) escalates into a fight that ends in a dead man and a mob boss on his tail.

Many such cases, but Blanchart proves an expert in orchestrating brutal action sequences and tense pacing. His script is also rather smart, keeping Mady constantly on his toes but active, dispensing easy ways out and even making great use of a sea of protestors and the tensions with police. For a while, I was thinking it was one of the best of the fest. The set pieces aren’t elaborate but they’re staged beautifully, always hinting at where it’s going to go, never making it too obvious. Unfortunately, Blanchart botches the landing in a way that ripples backwards. It’s not all that interested in politics – though it is keenly aware of how Mady being Black changes this situation for him, enough that Blanchart only has to cut to some distinct objects in an apartment to let us know Mady is about to be in deep shit. One might be able to argue to the ending on political grounds but it’s tricky given the optics at play. Still, man what a ride it is. Programming Director Trey Shields (shout-out) told us before that Blanchart is working on something with Sam Raimi (Evil Dead 2 even makes a cameo) and I think he could be going places. 80% out of 100 ain’t too bad after all.

Tomorrow: Bit of a lighter day for trivia league, but expect a creepy doll and Nigerian film.