First of all, if you’re a vintage film buff who has already seen 1937’s MIDNIGHT TAXI, this new movie one bears no similarity beyond the shared name. This is a surreal indie drama featuring Eddie (Ladi Emeruwa), a London cabbie who likes the night shift with its relatively light traffic. After dozing off in his cab, he awakens to find a murdered woman lying on the street in front of him. After that, he’s so haunted by the memory and the cops’ seeming indifference to finding her killer that he begins his own obsessive investigation.
The rest is a suspenseful ordeal with a few wrinkles and twists. One cop seems hell-bent on blaming Eddie for the crime. We gradually learn more about Eddie’s past and psychological issues that blur the picture for him and the viewer. There are a few moments of peril and violence but it’s mostly conversations with passengers and others that fill the screen. Co-writers/directors Bertie and Samantha Speirs keep the mystery up in the air to the end, while fleshing out a protagonist to root for, even as his good-guy nature becomes questionable.
The surreal part is that there’s hardly any traffic on the roads or the sidewalks in this dense urban setting. Ever. Eddie’s cab is usually the only vehicle in motion. Most of the people on foot are a handful of hookers plying their trade despite the dearth of passersby to solicit. Presumably, budget was a consideration in how to fill the frames but the result is a product that looks like they crept onto film set exteriors after shooting of the studio’s movies wrapped for the day. That does have the benefit of adding an eerie mystique to the proceedings that might have been an artistic choice, rather than financial. But the ending comes so abruptly that it reinforces the thought that they may have been running out of time or money. Even so, it’s an interesting story in a tight little package.
MIDNIGHT TAXI is available in digital formats and VOD starting Tuesday, July 23.
A scene from SHE IS CONANN. Courtesy of Altered Innocence
Let’s begin with the title, SHE IS CONANN. One might expect a distaff approximation of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 1982 CONAN THE BARBARIAN, its sequel CONAN THE DESTROYER two years later, and the zillion, or so, incarnations those spawned in live action or anime over the following 41 years. Or a reboot of 1985’s RED SONJA, in which statuesque Brigitte Nielsen matched Ahnuld’s Kalidor (think Conan Lite) blow-for-blow. But, as the Pythons would say, “And now for something completely different…”
This version comes from France, Belgium and Luxembourg. It’s sort of a post-apocalyptic or alternate universe piece of mysticism, with time travel in the mix. The tale is narrated in a wraparound with an elderly Conann telling her story to a possible successor to her throne, guided by dog-faced vassal, Rainer (Elina Lowensohn). I didn’t mention who plays Conann because every 10 years she meets her future self and morphs into the elder with a new actress. One time her change is from Caucasian to a shorter Black woman’s body; a decade later, she becomes a tall, skinny Tilda Swinton look-alike. Ebeneezer Scrooge’s ghosts were much easier on the old curmudgeon than the Conanns were on their younger selves. I don’t know why this Conann is spelled with two n’s. Perhaps in their universe, that’s what they made from Adam’s rib.
The sets are inexplicably surreal, with wardrobe to match. The opening temporal setting for them (God only knows when it is compared to our past or future) has them all dressed in pelts, living in caverns and using spears and swords. But several denizens frequently snap pictures with flash cameras! Conann starts as girl abducted and tortured by the prior queen until she’s toughened up enough to start taking over. There’s considerable gore, including some tasty (for those so inclined) bits of cannibalism, along the way. Since the film is mainly in B&W, including almost all the nastiest segments, their visceral impact is somewhat muted. Even so, those tending to lose their lunch during eviscerations and other yucky activities should look elsewhere for their escapist entertainment.
The cast is almost all female, with lesbian relationships among several. There’s kissing and foreplay periodically but virtually no nudity or protracted sex scenes. Writer/director Bertrand Mandico invested more resources in elaborate, largely creepy sets and the wide array of unlikely costumes than in plot coherence. There’s a lot of ambiguity, creating a combination of the 1970s’ French New Wave and American psychedelia, backed by a score that’s all over the place. The switches among color, B&W, and the latter with highlighted parts of scenes in color seem fairly random. Or maybe they’re drenched with purpose and message that went over my head. This film might be better appreciated with the aid of appropriate substances.
There is quite a bit of dialog about empowering women – especially during the second half – but it rings rather hollow in the context of who are delivering the lines and what they’re actually doing. Lowensohn, perhaps the best-known cast member on this side of the Atlantic, may have pissed off Mandico in one of their several previous collaborations, since her lovely, expressive face is almost completely covered throughout, while our view of all the other major players’ visages is largely unimpeded. I’d call that a loss for her and her fans.
SHE IS CONANN, in English, French and German, with English subtitles, opens Friday, Feb. 9, in theaters.
Joaquin Phoenix as Beau in BEAU IS AFRAID. Courtesy of A24.
BEAU IS AFRAID – and confused and feeling guilty and often fleeing in panic, as he is caught in a world of bizarre events, in director/writer Ari Aster’s nightmarish fever dream of a movie, BEAU IS AFRAID. And mostly, Beau has mommy issues. This unsettling horror mind-trip, with a touch of darkest humor and surrealist fantasy, has the prefect star, that master of madness, Joaquin Phoenix, who plays an anxious, nervous man who might be prone to hallucinations who sets out to do a seemingly simple thing: visit his mother.
Craziness is afoot and there is plenty for Beau to be afraid of in Ari Aster’s BEAU IS AFRAID. The weird, imaginative and sometimes darkly humorous BEAU IS AFRAID is a squirm-inducing experience from a director who is scary good at creating unsettling movies, whose previous films MIDSOMMAR and HEREDITARY are striking examples of stylish psychological horror. While some films defined as horror are more bloody than actually scary, this is one that is truly scary, like the director’s previous two. BEAU IS AFRAID is masterfully-made, creative and often visually beautiful (particularly in a haunting fantasy sequence in the middle) and brilliantly acted, but it is a crazy, sometimes unsettling experience. While it is a creatively impressive film, it is not something for everyone, nor perhaps even an experience one would repeat.
Despite it’s nearly 3 hour length, it never drags and keeps up an almost breathless pace as the terrified Beau flees from one danger after another, and it is a tour-de-force performance by Joaquin Phoenix, with fine supporting work from Patti LuPone, Nathan Lane, Amy Ryan, Parker Posey and others.
In BEAU IS AFRAID, Beau Wasserman (Joaquin Phoenix), an anxious, solitary man, is just trying to travel to home to visit his mother, but is beset by a host of obstacles that evokes the trials of a modern odyssey. But unlike Odysseus’ travels to get back to his loyal wife and comfortable home, Beau’s destination is to visit a mother with whom he has a toxic relationship. Sort of Freud meets Homer.
Beau lives alone in a modest apartment in an impoverished, chaotic and crime-ridden area of a big city, one that seems to be a cartoonish version of all the violent stereotypes of a crime-filled New York. Beau is seeing a psychiatrist ((Stephen McKinley Henderson), who prescribes a new medication with a warning of side effects. This therapy session early in the movie gives us a glimpse into Beau’s troubled relationship with his strong mother (Patti LuPone), as her timid only child. Although the therapist questions the wisdom of Beau’s plan to visit her, Beau is determined to see his beloved mother, on his parent’s wedding anniversary, which is also the anniversary of the death of the father he never met. On his way back to his apartment, Beau stops at a street-side vendor to buy a little white ceramic figurine of a mother and child as a gift for his mother.
Visiting his mother seems such a simple thing but everything goes wrong that could. A series of unfortunate events, starting with an alarm clock that does not wake him, prevent him from catching his plane. Calling his mother, he gets a response that suggests Beau has been unreliable in the past, which both doubles his guilt and resolve to get home. But even more disasters ensue, as Beau tries to make his way through a remarkably malevolent world.
The film starts out with such over-the-top absurdities and dark humor, that the audience is forced to laughter. But the laughter becomes more nervous and uncomfortable as the film unfolds, until it fades away entirely in the later part of this journey of delirious horror.
Beau is buffeted by multiple horrific events which increase his fear and often his sense of guilt, and generally send him running in panic. At one point, he is essentially trapped in the suburban home of a seemingly well-meaning couple (Nathan Lane and Amy Ryan) who had accidentally hit him with their car, sharing space with their resentful teen-aged daughter Toni (Kylie Rogers), which shortly descends into an unexpected madness. A flashback to Beau’s youth, and a cruise with his mother in which the pubescent Beau (Armen Nahapetian) meets a girl (Julia Antonelli), gives insight on his toxic relationship with his mother (played at that age by Zoey Lister Jones), in a gorgeously-shot Freudian interlude.
The flashback is one of many with uncomfortable scenes skirting some disturbing stuff. The film purports to be an exploration of modern life and its challenges, and there are a host of awful forces surrounding Beau, starting with a crowd gather on a city street, who are urging a man on a skyscraper ledge to jump, and a corpse laying in the street, ignored, near his apartment, and later a deranged war veteran intent on murder pursuing him through the woods. But, for the most part, it is all about his mother. While the movie plays with stereotypes about overbearing Jewish mothers, Beau’s issues with his mother goes well beyond that and deep into creepiness – enough to make you wonder about the writer of this script.
Still, it is hard to overemphasize the impressive cinematic and visual artistry (from director of photography Pawel Pogorzelski) in this film, despite the squirm-inducing events taking place. One particularly impressive example of the visual artistry comes midway through the film, in a fantasy sequence that provides the audience (and the character) with a welcome break from Beau’s trials in the film. An escape into the woods leads to a magical fantasy sequence, in which Beau meets a traveling theater troupe and while watching their play, becomes a different character on a very different life journey, putting Joaquin Phoenix in a partly-animated and color-drenched landscape. This beautiful, creative fantasy sequence provides a respite from the terror of the Beau’s experiences and a relaxing breather for the audience, as well as the film’s highlight. After this delightful interlude, however, we come back to Beau’s nightmare journey.
Whether what is happening in this whole film is only in Beau’s imagination, whether it is all a nightmarish fever dream, the result of his new medication, a hallucination of a mentally ill mind, or some combination of those things, is never made clear in this crazy film. One has to admire the film’s artistry and the director’s skill and that of the actors but this film is an unsettling experience.
Casting Joaquin Phoenix for this role is the perfect choice, and in fact, the whole cast is impressive as well. Phoenix gives the kind of tour-de-force performance he is famous for, in this case, not as a villain but as a victim. Whether he is a victim of his own weakness, a mentally ill mind, a domineering mother, a series of unfortunate events or just evil afoot in the world, is not clear, but it sure falls hard on the unprepared Beau. Patti LuPone gives a powerful performance as Beau’s mother, a strong personality who has a host of her own issues, and represents some classic bad parenting. Nathan Lane and Amy Ryan play a weird couple who are obsessed with their son who was killed in the military yet ignore their angry teen-aged daughter.
At nearly 3 hours, BEAU IS AFRAID has all the earmarks of being yet another of those films that incubated during the Covid lock-down, joining a line of inward-gazing, and often long, films by major directors that were released last year and this. Among those are Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s visually lush BARDO: FALSE CHRONICLE OF A HANDFUL OF TRUTH. BEAU IS AFRAID has several things in common with the rambling, surreal BARDO, but where that film is an imagined biography, here the major tone is terror.
BEAU IS AFRAID is impressive as cinematic art and a nightmarish psychological horror film that fits in well with director Ari Aster’s previous works HEREDITARY and MIDSOMMAR and features a perfectly-cast Joaquin Phoenix, but it is an intense experience that is not for every audience and one that is even more disturbing than the previous two. Frustratingly, nothing is really resolved in this story, although we do get the answers to a few questions, and little is really revealed about Beau’s or his mother’s inner life or motivations.
BEAU IS AFRAID opens Friday, Apr. 21, in theaters.
Jim Gaffigan as Cameron in LINOLEUM. Courtesy of Shout! Studios
Bear with me on this one, since LINOLEUM is a unique and admirable film to savor if you approach it with a different mindset. Jim Gaffigan stars as Cameron, a 50ish sad sack with superb astrophysics credentials who dreamt of becoming an astronaut, but settled for hosting a Bill Nye type of kids’ science show in a lousy time slot on a marginal TV station. His wife and former co-host Erin (Rhea Seehorn, best known from “Better Call Saul”) is divorcing him. Their two kids barely notice his presence. He’s getting less respect than Rodney Dangerfield, but taking all the hits without a whimper. Or a one-liner.
Problems pile on quickly. Instead of getting the Saturday morning spot in the schedule he’d been promised, he’s replaced by a younger, more accomplished version of himself (also Gaffigan). His dad has severe dementia. A satellite crashes in their back yard, forcing them from their home by government order. His teen daughter (Katelyn Nacon) becomes chummy with the new guy’s son (Gabriel Rush) developing a friendship that both fathers dislike. Several other plot elements we see may or may not be happening. None of them bode well for Cameron.
Now for the hard part. Suspending disbelief is routine for movie buffs. This one requires flipping one’s logic switch to the off position, as well. It’s a quiet, slow-moving film that dangles the surreal. If you think about events too much, what you’re watching won’t make sense. The film is set during the years of VHS dominance, but otherwise rather timeless and peppered with flashbacks. Writer/director Colin West’s script includes the era’s Red Scare and a handful of red herrings. A phrase that’s repeated – what you see is unique to you; your own personal universe – encapsulates the content of the film, as well as the experience of the viewer.
Fans of Gaffigan’s stand-up career will appreciate how smoothly his persona in that arena morphs into the self-effacing, fatalistic loser that defines Cameron. A dreamer whose dreams were attainable but unrealized. The supporting cast is rock-solid, as well. The teenagers get a large share of the screen time and story significance. They stick the landing. The stretch for Gaffigan comes from also playing his Doppelganger, who shows himself to be more than a bit of an asshole.
The tenor of the film is mostly dominated by Cameron’s passive acceptance of every slight and disappointment that comes his way. There are moments of humor, but not enough of them to call this a dramedy. Any viewers who grow confused and/or impatient should persevere. The last act comes with reveals and resolutions that will moisten the eyes that share bodies with the hardest of hearts. I’m no fan of sentimental fare, but this ending worked. Big time. Still not sure about what everything meant, but quite satisfied with what I’d gotten when the credits started rolling by.
LINOLEUM opens Friday, Feb. 24, in theaters nationwide.
Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand in “The Tragedy of Macbeth” in theaters and coming soon to Apple TV+. Courtesy of APPLE TV+ / A24
Macbeth is Shakespeare’s most murderous play, and a favorite of actors, even if they won’t say its name. Director Joel Coen, working for the first time without his brother/film-making partner Ethan, leans into that darkness with a noir-ish thriller adaptation that pares down the Bard’s work about a ruthlessly ambitious couple, played by Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand, to its most furious, fiery essence. Shot in gorgeous black and white, with striking cinematography, surrealist sets in stark, wide-spaces, but with a pared-down narrative tightness, it is Shakespeare as taut, noirish thriller.
At a brisk 105 minutes, Coen’s THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH is shorter than most film adaptions. Joel Coen’s version slashes lines and even whole scenes, to focus in on a elegant, mad core. The result is electrifying nightmare, a tale with a sense of both nail-biting tension and horrifying inevitability. Visually, the film is as spare, nightmarish and crackling as the action, shot in a stark black and white, with surreal sets that evoke German expressionism and Orson Welles’ innovative adaptation of the Scottish play. Crows are a motif, with flocks of them (called a murder) sometimes exploding across the screen or wheeling through a fog-drenched sky. Landscapes are frequently obscured by fog, clouds fill skies, but shafts of light stab through windows and doorways. Dramatic light falls on door handles, transforming them into daggers.
The striking, shadowed, surreal visual landscape pairs perfectly with outstanding performances, particularly a never-better Denzel Washington. Yet, an unforgettable Kathryn Hunter, a British stage actor with contortionist skills, nearly steals the show at the start, playing all three witches in an unholy trinity. The film grips you right from the first, with a weirdly wild meeting of the three witches, all played by Hunter, and followed by an encounter with Macbeth (Denzel Washington), the Thane of Glamis, and his fellow Scottish noble Banquo (Bertie Carvel), two battle-weary generals returning home from war. On the road, they encounter the weird sisters – Hunter in a black robe, with duel reflections in a pool of water before her – who hail Macbeth as Thane of Cawdor and King to be, and predict Banquo will beget kings but not be one.
Macbeth thinks little of their mysterious prophesies, jokingly dismissing them to Banquo as they continue on their way to King Duncan (Brendan Gleeson). When an emissary from Duncan, a thane named Ross (Alex Hassell), greets Macbeth with the news that he is now Thane of Cawdor, he reconsiders what the witches have said.
While Macbeth is comfortable with just letting the prediction about becoming king play out on its own, his wife is not. Ambitious and ruthless from the start, Lady Macbeth (Frances McDormand) urges her husband to take bloody action. Macbeth is reluctant, and is conflicted, but once persuaded, proceeds with bloody determination.
Denzel Washington brings all his considerable skill to bear for this Macbeth. He is amazing as he takes Macbeth from loyal, brave soldier serving King Duncan to a madman consumed by power and haunted by guilt. Frances McDormand is coldly calculating from the start but as things unravel, so does she. Usually the roles are played by younger actors but by making the couple older, director Coen adds an urgency to them, a sense of a last chance for unfulfilled ambitions.
That twist is something that fits well with this adaptation’s film noir tone, casting them as a desperate pair making a last grab at a golden ring, but with a sense of inevitable failure typical of noir. Each turn of events leads to new desperate actions, also with that grim sense of the inevitable. The violence is often up-close, giving it an extra rawness and edge. When Macbeth murders King Duncan, the camera moves in close, giving a gut-wrenching immediacy to the deed.
The rest of the cast excels as well, with some particular standouts in small roles. Brendon Gleeson plays King Duncan with a quiet gravitas, and Harry Melling, as Duncan’s son and heir Malcolm, takes him from an expressive, enthusiastic boy to a steely, more hardened man. Stephen Root makes the most of his small role as the porter, adding a singular moment of bawdy humor before the first murder is discovered. Other standouts are Alex Hassell as the coolly calculating Ross, Corey Hawkins as the skeptical, upright Macduff and Moses Ingram as the ill-fated Lady Macduff.
The starkly beautiful photography by Bruno Delbonnel emphasizes the shadows and sharp lines of the sets and adds to the film noir feel as well. There are no ceiling fans and Venetian blinds, but sets often have slanting light and actors are half-lit, Fog and clouds often fill the skies. Overhead shots isolate characters and make them appear small. Crows fly out of foggy landscapes. Angular, stony sets loom like giants over the players. Landscapes are both surreal and hauntingly empty.
The noirish surreal tone is aided by Carter Burwell’s powerful but spare score. There are strains of music in a minor key, sometimes suggesting bagpipes, but also eerie tones, bird-like sounds, and insistent drum beats that reflect the images on screen. Set design by Stefan Dechant suggest a stark Scottish landscape and harsh brutalist buildings that loom threateningly, dwarfing the people within, while Mary Zophres’ costume designs suggest period Scottish outfits but pared-down to basic outlines.
THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH is a remarkable, muscular adaption of Shakespeare’s bloody tragedy, pared-down to its basics but packed with haunting performances, and set in an unforgettable surreal landscape with breathtaking cinematography. It is a must-see for both fans of the Bard and the Coens, as well as a creative, lightening strike of a drama that is a top contender for Oscar seasons gold.
THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH opens Saturday, Jan. 1, in theaters and streaming on Apple TV+ beginning Friday, January 14.
Michiel Huisman as Shepherd in Malgorzata Szumowska’s THE OTHER LAMB. Courtesy of IFC Films. An IFC Films Release.
The surreal horror/drama THE OTHER LAMB centers on a teen-aged girl in a cult led by a man called Shepherd (Dutch actor Michiel Huisman of “Game of Thrones”), who has a striking resemblance to traditional depictions of Jesus. But there is little that is lamb-like in this charismatic autocratic leader of a flock of obedient wives as they live a communal pastoral existence hidden deep in the woods, until their lives are disrupted by an event that send them on a journey with a violent end.
The girl, Selah (Raffey Cassidy), is
one of the daughters of the Shepherd, although it is unclear whether
they are all his actual offspring. Indeed, Shepherd barely looks old
enough to have fathered a teen, much less so many. The “wives”
are clad in red or purple and the “daughters” are dressed
in blue, but some of the wives look little older than the daughters.
And then you notice something odd – all the children are girls, there
are no little boys. Actually there are few young children at all,
with most of the girls adolescents or pre-adolescent, which seems
even more unsettling.
THE OTHER LAMB brings to mind the
Charles Manson cult, “The Handmaiden’s Tale,” and MIDSOMMAR
among others. The film is beautifully shot, an atmospheric tale that
opens with dream-like scene in which Selah, clad in long white robes,
is floating in water, an image that evokes Hamlet’s Ophelia. That is
a lot of unsettling allusions to pack in, but Polish director
Malgorzata Szumowska, making her English-language film debut, is
just getting started, in this surreal tale of abuse, misogyny and
patriarchy.
Selah has known no other life than the
cult, and seems content sharing quarters with her sisters and filling
her day doing chores for their simple, pastoral life. The cult
occupies in several buildings deep in the woods, with the daughters
living in one, the wives in another, and Shepherd in his own. The
whole compound covered by an awning of strings. At dinner, the wives
and daughters praise and thank Shepherd, who concludes the meal by
selecting a wife for the night, asking her if she will receive his
grace. On Sunday, the wives and daughters dress in white and listen
adoringly while Shepherd gives his sermon in a “church”
made of a string box enclosing a clearing among the trees. The sermon
is followed by a bloody sacrifice of a lamb.
From the beginning, there is something creepy about Shepherd whenever he speaks to Selah, an unsettling whiff of incestuous interest that is hard to shake. Paired with the film’s frequent nightmarish fantasy sequences, the feeling of unease suffused the drama.
However, THE OTHER LAMB is more a
surreal and visually stunning study of the topics it raised than
either a plot driven mystery or even a deep exploration of the themes
it touches on. Still, it is a haunting film that raises questions
about how women are treated in society. It also offers a series of
haunting, horrifying images, and tense atmospheric scenes between the
gifted cast, although what ultimately happens is not entirely a
surprise. The mysterious dream-like images that open the film are
followed by a series of other surreal, more nightmarish sequences
sprinkled throughout, images just as mysterious as the opening one
(is this a baptism or drowning?) but far more disturbing – a skinned
lamb, the rotting remains of a bird, and other haunting images.
In addition to its striking
photography, fine acting performances are a major strength of this
symbolic horror/drama. Time and again, the camera focuses on Raffey
Cassidy’s expressive face, shifting from innocent wonder to confusion
to fear and rage, as she grapples with her nightmares and her
shifting ideas about her faith and her life. Selah’s close
relationship with her half-sister Tamar (Ailbhe Cowley) is shaken by
Selah’s evolving doubts, and all are shaken by the horrific events
that transpire. Denise Gough plays Sarah, one of the older wives who
has fallen out of favor with Shepherd and is exiled to a hidden
shack. The bitter, sarcastic Sarah has been with the cult from the
start, and offers Selah her only insights on the outside world and on
her dead mother. Michiel Huisman is brilliant disturbing as Shepherd,
veering from posing as a benevolent, protective father figure who
dispenses wisdom to something much darker, as his mask slips to
reveal the selfish egotist beneath.
THE OTHER LAMB is unsettling to watch,
and while it does not explore in depth the topics it raises, its
haunting meditation on them and its haunting visuals are enough to
keep it in your mind long after the film ends. THE OTHER LAMB debuted
April 3 as digital and cable video-on-demand on streaming platforms
Amazon Digital, Vudu, Spectrum, Apple TV, Xbox, GooglePlay and
others.
Lakeith Stanfield stars as Cassius Green in Boots Riley’s SORRY TO BOTHER YOU, an Annapurna Pictures release.
Director/writer Boots Riley’s ambitious, inspired social satire SORRY TO BOTHER YOU sets its protagonist, a young black man trying to make a living as a telemarketer, in a world nearly like our own but imbued with the surreal, magical realism and even science fiction. The comedy is excellent but the director also makes hold-no-punches points about our country’s unequal economic system.
Bitingly funny, creative and intelligent, SORRY TO BOTHER YOU is a welcome breeze shaking up the summer doldrums and our comfortable assumptions.
Lakeith Stanfield is outstanding as Cassius Green, a likable African American every-man living in Oakland, California, who is struggling to just trying to pay the rent but ambitious to get ahead in life. His girlfriend Detroit (Tessa Thompson) is an aspiring performance and visual artist but works a minimum job as a sign-twirler. Cassius drives a junker car and lives in his uncle’s garage, but the uncle is on the edge of foreclosure. Just in time, Cassius lands a job at a telemarketing firm, RegalView, but new opportunities really open up for him after an older worker named Langston, played by Danny Glover, tips him off to use his “white voice” (provided by David Cross) when selling to customers. Soon he’s making sales and he finds himself conflicted between moving up the corporate ladder and standing by his co-workers as they strike for better wages.
It’s a classic conundrum but Riley uses it as a springboard that takes us through some unusual twists that touch on race, capitalism, prisons, economic opportunity, artists, and other social issues in a fearless and effective fashion. Cassius finds himself lifted from poverty into wealth and material comfort but also finds himself at odds with his own values.
The “white voice” that Cassius and other black characters use are supplied by actors Patton Oswalt, David Cross and Rosario Dawson. Riley mines the “white voice” thing for comedy gold, but never loses the pointed nature of the joke.
This film is the feature film debut for Riley, the head of San Francisco Bay area hip-hop collective The Coup. The film met with critical acclaim when it debuted at Sundance and has been highly anticipated by film buffs.
One can see some parallels with GET OUT but this production was well underway when that film came out. The film starts out in the similar territory as workplace comedy OFFICE SPACE but gets much more surreal as it goes, particularly after Cassius discovers a sinister plan by the company’s celebrity CEO. In an inspired bit of casting, Armie Hammer plays billionaire CEO Steve Lift, a creepy performance that is perhaps Hammer’s best. Another company the billionaire is involved in is called WorryFree, a combination workplace and housing “option” marketed to working people but which looks a lot like prison and offers life-long contract that sounds a lot like slavery.
The director is aided greatly by lead Lakeith Stanfield and a strong supporting cast that includes Omari Hardwick, Jermaine Fowler, Steven Yeun, and Terry Crews. Stanfield seems to be having a moment now. More audiences might recognize him from his small but affecting part in GET OUT but he also delivered a remarkable performance in the less-seen but moving CROWN HEIGHTS, a true-story drama about a young Caribbean immigrant falsely convicted of a crime whose childhood friend fights for years to free him. Stanfield should have received more attention for that affecting performance but perhaps this role will give this gifted actor the fame he deserves.
Sometimes comedy can say hard things more effectively than if they are said directly, as anyone who has seen DR. STRANGLOVE can attest. SORRY TO BOTHER YOU starts out with laugh-out-loud comedy and pointed situations and visual jokes anyone might recognize, but then the film goes deeper. And deeper – down a rabbit hole that runs under our socioeconomic structure, until Cassius Green is Alice in a nightmarish Wonderland that is a fun-house mirror of our own.
This sharp-witted comedy touches on social media, twisted reality-show entertainment, and makes other social commentary in a pointed but comically effective fashion. Where director/writer Boots Riley might lose some audience members is when the film veers directly in science fiction, with an uncomfortable turn that some, particularly black audiences, might find disturbing. Others will follow along with the director in this risky move.
SORRY TO BOTHER YOU is not perfect but it is pretty darn good, a brilliantly ambitious social satire that has the courage to say things about this society that need saying. Boots Riley deserves credit for his willingness to say what he has to say, even when it makes his audience uncomfortable, and Lakeith Stanfield deserves recognition for his winning performance as the ordinary/ not ordinary guy at the center of this excursion into modern madness.
Most of us think we have a solid grasp on the definition of good and evil. This is good and right, but that over there is so bad and evil. I’m good because I do this, but what they do over there is evil. We like to throw these labels around like they are black and white, carved in stone and not at all subject to interpretation or context. At this, I laugh heartily with the best of intentions. One of the many things I love so much about cinema is the freedom it gives the artist to explore sides of humanity that most of us would otherwise dare not even think of acting out in real life. Nor would most of us ever wish such things on others, but there is something to be said for exploring such things on a philosophical and artistic level instead of avoiding and ignoring the urges and curiosities.
BORGMAN is written and directed by Dutch filmmaker Alex van Warmerdam. The film begins harmlessly enough, with a small mob of angry men and their dogs led by a priest carrying a shotgun. Nothing out of the ordinary. The priest and his posse appear to be hunting a vagrant who has ingeniously dug out an underground home for himself beneath the forest floor, complete with a hidden entrance and furniture. The vagrant’s name is Camiel Borgman, played by Jan Bijvoet, and he will prove to be much more complex than he appears at face value. Camiel is a relatively small, skinny man, filthy and unkempt with long ratty hair and beard. Despite our first impressions, there is something about the way Camile moves and carries himself, right from the beginning, that sets him apart and conveys an unmistakable intelligence.
Having caught wind of the intruders, Camiel abandons his home and warns his neighboring vagrants as he stealthily retreats from the oncoming threat. He happens upon an upper class home nestled within the woods and takes it upon himself to knock upon the front door. Richard, played by Jeroen Pereval, answers and with perfect politeness, Camiel asks the man if he may take a bath, or even a shower would suffice, as its been ages since he’s had the opportunity. It may come with great shock when Richard refuses, politely enough at first, but this is when things really begin to get interesting. Masterfully improvising as he goes, Camile begins to spin a seemingly believable tale of how he knows Richard’s wife Marina, played by Hadewych Minis. This, of course, reestablishes Richard’s interest which ultimately leads to Camiel receiving a testosterone-fueled beat down from Richard on his front lawn. Shocked and genuinely concerned for his health, Marina feels drawn to help Camile and make up for the barbaric display of masculine pride her husband has bestowed upon him. After all, Camiel appears harmless enough, right?
With each step he takes and boundary he pushes, Camiel reveals more of his true nature. Simultaneously, Marina — an artist — falls deeper and deeper into his spell as we watch her loyalty shift. Meanwhile, Richard’s corporate career is falling apart and their family life is beginning to crumble and Camiel leaves out of boredom. As a crucial turning point, Camiel returns to Marina’s house as their new gardener. He is cleaned up, almost unrecognizable except to Marina. With him Camiel brings a motley crew of fellow confidence artists who share his diabolical taste for manipulating others’ lives and, in some cases, ending them as well. Pascal, Ilonka, Brenda and Ludwig — played by Alex van Warmerdam — are a team of brilliant misfits who thrive on anarchy and deception. As the new gardeners, they begin constructing their intricate design which will forever change the lives of Marina and her family. Equally disturbing, but on a much less noticeable scale than Camiel, is the quietly discomforting performance given by Elve Lijbaart as Isolde, Marina’s blonde-haired white-skinned daughter. Isolde gets credit for the most shockingly unexpected and disturbing moment in the film, revealing that perhaps she too is predisposed to being a sociopath.
BORGMAN is rich with dark details and curious notions. Camiel comes across as some mysterious Loki-like deity of mischief, playing with peoples’ lives like so many fragile tin soldiers in a young boy’s toy chest. Camiel operates with a malevolent modesty that is disarming. He picks and chooses those he knows he can control and discards those he chooses not to control, instead toying with them first like setting ants on fire with a magnifying glass. They slowly feel the burn, not knowing the source, then suddenly they are dead. Warmerdam leaves plenty open to interpretation and discussion. While BORGMAN has a complicated but accessible plot, there are many elements that raise questions rather provide answers. Pay close attention to these key moments in the film and enjoy discussing them with fellow viewers afterwards. Few films since PULP FICTION have provided this caliber of debatable cinematic content.
What begins as a dry, quirky tale of a homeless man rapidly escalates and transforms into something more sinister. BORGMAN is often surreal and edgy, never ceasing to surprise the viewer as Camiel gradually unfolds his devilishly wicked wings from beneath his mild-mannered cloak. Such a change might prove too much and over the top, but Warmerdam does it with such subtlety and attention to keeping the tone of the film calm and almost meditative, that the transition from good to evil appears almost seamless and natural. In a sense, BORGMAN attempts to blur the lines between what is good and evil. Marina and those close to her are Camiel’s playthings and Camiel is the filmmaker’s master of puppets in his deadly and seductive game of chess.
If you enjoyed Michael Haneke’s FUNNY GAMES, I highly recommend Warmerdam’s BORGMAN, as it falls somewhere on the slightly less psychotic end of the scale for such films.
BORGMAN opens theatrically in NY on June 6th, 2014 at Lincoln Plaza & IFC Center with an expanded release on June 13th & 20th, 2014
