The German Sisters (von Trotta, 1981) and The Second Awakening of Christa Klages (von Trotta, 1978)

SPOILERS below!

Margarethe von Trotta’s The German Sisters, AKA Marianne & Juliane is an unquestionable masterpiece. It’s a film that will stay with me for a long time for so many reasons – the structure (particularly vis-à-vis the child, Jan (played by both Samir Jawad and Patrick Estrada-Pox)); the way it cuts neatly through time; an exchange of sweaters(!); a script that somehow seems to deviate, yet never actually deviates; and complex, delicate performances.

I really like how von Trotta treats Werner’s (Luc Bondy) suicide early in the film. Here is a wide of him driving to visit Juliane (Jutta Lampe) with Jan:

And here’s a wide a few scenes later:

The latter really holds. This is not only a great example of one of the varied ways that von Trotta moves through time (here, via the seasons), but also how she shows us things. First shot: moving car, green landscape; second shot: static car; cold landscape. The context of course also helps a lot, but these ingredients, plus the duration of shot #2 tell the story. We know before Juliane knows, and that von Trotta keeps her distance and let’s us slowly realize over the length of the shot is all the more effective.

There’s a later scene where Juliane learns of yet another tragedy. I love that von Trotta chooses to stage that on a vacation, at an Italian restaurant, with a healthy dose of love and comedy. It just makes the news all the more shattering and unexpected. Right after this, she rushes out and her partner, Wolfgang (Rüdiger Vogler) races after her. He’s briefly alone in their hotel lobby:

This beat is so great. It’s pretty non-narrative, but it means so much for him. His hopes, new life, beauty amidst the sadness, etc. Until he finds her and returns to real life-

This moment feels like Paris, Texas or Bergman, and makes so much sense in the film:

And here is first and last image:

I like that Juliane begins alone in the start (just near the window), and with Jan at the end. That we start with the world and end with the person. And that these could nearly be juxtaposed.

The Second Awakening of Christa Klages

I don’t have stills for this one, but it’s also a great film. I love so many of the wides. I think of Christa (Tina Engel) and Werner (Marius Müller-Westernhagen) walking to the pastor’s house, through the square with all the kids on the bikes, or a low angle shot with buildings framing either side, and a hotel in the background.

Like in The German Sisters, we move nicely through time here. The Second Awakening feels like we’ll get flashbacks throughout, but we really don’t need them. Instead, there is something like parallel action, with Lena Seidelhofer’s (Katharina Thalbach) search for Christa. This feels so driven, and while it’s not the net tightening (those are other people), it still lends an air of inevitability to the film: they will meet and that will lead to something.

There are great scenes of love in this film. Werner and Ingrid (Silvia Reize) in an embrace as Christa walks in. The same for Christa and Hans (Peter Schneider) as Werner walks in. It feels so open and free, something very much echoed in the last interaction of the movie.

There’s a direct Breathless reference in here – oddly placed, in a way, that the moment in Breathless is dramatic but comic, and here it’s simply tragic. But maybe it’s just that Godardian influence still holding sway. If I get the chance later I’ll split screen it and drop the two in here next to one-another.

In the end, Christa Klages is so impressive because it’s not the thriller elements that keep it together, nor a ‘mother desperately seeking to reunite with daughter’ kind of momentum – rather because it’s a film about determination and various forms of love. And the conversations and interactions that arise from this are multifold. There’s Christa-Werner, Christa-Hans, Christa-Ingrid, even Christa-Lena. That’s the arc of it all, and though there is an important beat of prejudice the film seems more focused – and better for it – on a free segue from intimacy to intimacy. It’s kind of like Christa-Werner are moment before, Christa-Hans are first half, Christa-Ingrid are second half, and Christa-Lena will be moment after.

Smooth Talk (Chopra, 1985), Animals With The Tollkeeper (Di Jiacomo, 1998), and Macao (von Sternberg, 1952)

Joyce Chopra’s Smooth Talk from 1985 is so good, so unsettling. Was Laura Dern really in both this and Blue Velvet over those two years? Wow. Based on a famous Joyce Carol Oates’ short story, Smooth Talk rides this fantastic line of coming-of-age (I felt some of these parental-child arguments and relationships), sometimes reminded me of Baby Doll (especially a shot of Dern’s Connie sitting outside on a swing), and culminates in a scene that is so long (nearly 23 minutes!) and so expertly made.

There’s more than just the final scene to like of course, but my god, what a climax. Treat Williams nails Arnold Friend, dripping in menace and sex. It’s like there’s someone else inside his skin. When we first meet him in the film he feels like a silly villain, and his intro, pulling up in the car and playing a really dramatic air guitar, continues that line, but the changes over the course of the scene add up to much more. You can see his intro at 0:34 in the clip below.

How to handle such a long scene? I wonder how many days they shot for. It’s so well-blocked, and I wonder how much they figured out on the fly or in the moment. It feels pre-blocked and heavily rehearsed to me, but in the best ways.

This 23 minutes is too long to really map out, but nonetheless, here’s the clip. MAJOR, MAJOR SPOILERS here, so only watch if you’ve seen the full film…which you should!

Some things I love about this — Connie gets her first CU at 1:10, Arnold not until 3:30. That difference really places it firmly in Connie’s perspective at the outset. Of course, it’s her film, but this is like a short film within the film, so keeping us tight to her, and him either distanced and/or in her literal POV is a great decision.

This over-the-hip at 2:20 is so flirtatious, and apt for that point of the scene. We don’t get any overs from the midpoint on, and Chopra plays the scene with so much separation from there – another great mark of change. The use of the screen door is fantastic in that way. So much texture on it, too!

The midpoint of the scene is so apparent. Just freeze it at 10:09. That look she gives. Pretty tight eyeline, through the screen, change in emotion, no more hip thrust forward, the darkness of her interior opposite the high-key, sun-drenched exterior…it tells the entire story that’s to come of the second half of the scene.

13:18 – Arnold in his tightest CU of the scene, nose pressed against the screen. It’s a great image aesthetically, but it’s also so relevant to the dialogue – it’s just a screen, it’s not going to stop him. Such a good visual representation of that concept.

18:20, under the stairs, broke my heart. My god, what a moment! What dialogue, what a performance, what a shot (the wide 2)!

This is something like the blocking layout, using four basic locations: car, path (between car and house), screen door, deeper into house.

1. Connie at screen door, Arnold at car
2. Connie and Arnold at car
3. Connie and Arnold on path
4. Connie and Arnold at screen door
5. Connie deeper in house, Arnold at screen door
6. Connie and Arnold at screen door
7. Connie deeper in house, Arnold at screen door
8. Connie deeper in house, Arnold on path
9. Connie deepest in house, Arnold at screen door
10. Connie and Arnold at open screen door

In 1-4, Connie and Arnold flirt. The change at 10:09 comes at 4, and for 5-10 we’ve moved into threats and danger. Her positions make sense then. Open and vulnerable in 1-4, “safe” and closed thereafter. She moves into his world at the beginning and retreats to hers.

And of course, he does the opposite. He stays in his world at the outset (non-threatening) and then approaches hers for the end. It’s great that he never returns to the car after number 2 in the chart. That’s over. He’ll only go back when she comes with him. It would be too much of a retreat, of an abandonment of his strategy. It would take too much pressure off.

Similarly, bringing her right out into the open right away makes sense in context. She’s bored, interested. But then giving her a place to hide is great – but all hiding places within sight and earshot.

I love those three “deeper in house” positions she has. One comfortably on the couch (5), one against the wall, distraught (7 and 8), and one as hidden and childlike as possible (9).

What a film!

ANIMALS WITH THE TOLLKEEPER

This is a strange one, with an oddly uneven performance from Tim Roth. At times I thought of The Reflecting Skin. Other times, Ashes and Diamonds (do hanging white bedsheets ever not evoke that film?):

The film’s magical realism feels a bit tired in the second half, but there are absolutely beautiful moments in here. Like this sequence, which reminds of Spirit of the Beehive at times:

It’s all silhouettes, delicate textiles, and crumbling locations. I love the languid pace and breathing rhythms. I think this is when the film is at its strongest, though it can’t really always maintain narrative momentum this way.

MACAO

There should be a lot more to say about a Joseph von Sternberg film with Jane Russell and Robert Mitchum, but suffice to say that it ends with the quote, “You better start getting used to me fresh out of the shower.”

The film is ridiculous at times, feels very 1952. I love von Sternberg from The Last Command to The Shanghai Gesture. There’s some nice plotting in Macao, including Mitchum sort of playing against type (at least against plot-expectations), but it also feels like von Sternberg, with his incredible camera and moody set pieces squeezing into noir conventions.

I think Nicholas Ray replaced von Sternberg on this one – what a lineup of directors! But neither can push this film past passable, albeit fun, noir.

Mother Superior (Wolfszahn, 2022)

Marie Alice Wolfszahn’s Mother Superior is expertly moody and a great Gothic take. This is the kind of film I really like: where the production designer (also the director!) has a lot of fun, but never betrays the sensibilities of the film – here with everything from gorgeous locations, through test tubes and vials, analog televisions, and tape reels. It’s a period piece, not anachronistic in any way that I saw, but that seems to be as much out of time as of a specific time. Things in the film are tactile. And what locations! Sure, there’s the gorgeous crumbling mansion (love that peeling wall)–

–but even a short scene at a cafe, which really made me want to be an Austrian cafe, is atmospheric:

Parts of this film brought me to both The Eternal Daughter and Argento:

Here’s a closer look at a sequence I really liked, towards the end of the second act of the film. Sigrun (Isabella Händler), prowls around the mansion, investigating. Like much of the film, this sequence features a really awesome score (two credits there: July Skone and Stefan Voglsinger).

Sigrun enters a room in a WS and the camera pushes in after her. Cut to an insert on the table. I like this second shot a lot. The camera seems to wander, but we catch a glimpse of Sigrun in the background, and then her hand briefly enters frame right (last still below). It’s well-timed, spatially orienting, beautifully roaming (camera and character):

Cut to this low angle, then to a tighter single on Sigrun as she exits frame. We hang on the poster on the wall:

New location: we push in again after Sigrun into a new room. Cut to a table full of chemistry equipment, with Sigrun in the background. Then to another single behind her, again pushing. Cut to window sill for more investigation:

Wolfszahn and DP Gabriel Krajanek do so well to shoot Sigrun in the background of a lot of shots. I think they – understandably – love these foreground elements, but there’s also something overwhelming about it – pushing her to the back distance of the shot. Same for the camera pushing after Sigrun. On one hand, it’s just a way to get from room to room. On the other, there’s a nice restless energy in it all.

To this wide, catching Sigrun first in the foreground reflection and then in the background mirror. Rack to the foreground as something happens in that liquid. We exit the scene into the next with that beautiful (those antlers!) low angle:

The last shot is a really nice graphic match that just further connects the spaces. Wolfszahn doesn’t really shoot “plain” inserts, and I appreciate that. Everything in here – that first tight shot of the table, the poster – they serve the dual function of the protagonist’s investigation and nailing the objects. There’s something so fluid about that style of shooting.

I think that shooting “wandering” is harder than it looks. There’s, of course, the advantage that the space is super interesting, and that the props and design capture our attention. But there’s also this nice shot progression. At the beginning we go wide –> tight –> single –> poster; then after that we go wide –> detail/tighter –> single –> dropper. It’s basically the same structure and could be reworded as something like: space/wandering –> genre detail –> reaction –> information. It works well, so that we aren’t just wandering, we’re getting something, and in a pattern that feels satisfying. Then the last supernatural image breaks the pattern and promises more!

Je tu il elle (Akerman, 1974) and La Captive (Akerman, 2000)

These two from Chantal Akerman may be 26 years apart, but the themes – captivity and breaking free, being watched – are so present.

Je tu il elle just has that spirit to it. It’s the kind of low budget filmmaking I like. There’s a mood and an energy, limited locations, and a real insistence on holding on shots that matter. The OTS on the truck-driver (a very young Niels Arestrup) is so good and frightening –

– as much as the ending bed scene between Julie (Akerman) and her girlfriend (Claire Wauthion) is joyful.

Julie says so little diegetically. We get to know her far more by her internal monologue, but also through her change in attitude across the three acts. I like the structure of the three: alone, with man, with woman. The opening part is nearly science-fiction. I didn’t understand it at first, but when you get the sense of entrapment and display it’s so unnerving. The later shots in the scene where you can see vaguely outside do a lot.

This is a great film for first frame/last frame:

Claustrophobic room, dark, trapped, unused bed, closed to camera, unknown moments before –> open room, bright, free (and gone, seconds earlier), “used” bed, open to camera, known and happy moments before.

I love this beat, with Julie at her girlfriend’s door:

The moment comes right at the beginning of the clip. Classically, we should see her face, right? It’s so powerful this way, and the beat is long. What kind of a hesitation is that? Anticipating joy? Fear? It’s so tantalizing.

I left the clip a little longer, because I love the happy-sad interaction between the two of them right after. It’s a “leave – don’t leave” kind of thing. Same with the beautiful 2-shot at the door. Akerman can really frame a shot, and she uses silence so well.

La Captive

This one feels like Je tu il elle but with its wings spread. The film spans further and wider, but hits similarly confined, restless notes. Maybe that’s the best word I have for a lot of Akerman’s films – restless. A quiet restlessness. If I had clips I’d show Ariane (Sylvie Testud) singing on a balcony opposite Sophie Assante. It’s gorgeous and mesmerizing, seems to be some kind of an inspiration for Mulholland Drive, and has this strange way – which the entire film has – of making the world appear at once real and false. It’s like a show-within-the-film, which Simon (Stanislas Merhar) has no access to. Maybe that’s also key to this film: as much as he seems to want to love, he seems to have no access to real love or emotion.

I couldn’t help but think that Simon is such a little twerp. An intentional word choice. He just fits the image that I get when I hear it. But it’s perfect casting. He’s internal, a bit flat, a portrait of a certain kind of beauty, controlling, frightening at times. He seems like a really little boy, who learned about love and control without ever truly experiencing either.

There’s a moment at the climax when he walks out to a balcony at night. The top half of his body is against the dark sky and it just disappears, cutting him off at the torso. It’s great, and reminds of other alienated frames in the film–

Some of this film reminds me of Bertrand Blier – an air of doom, no matter what appears to be happening on-screen. That’s certainly true of a drive around dangerous curves towards the end. But its patient build feels true to the oeuvre, with menace and a longing that we don’t fully see under the surface.

Age of Panic (Triet, 2013) and Anatomy of a Fall (Triet, 2023)

Two great Justine Triet films, one decade apart. Anatomy of a Fall was an easy favorite from 2023. Between these two you can really see a filmmaker changing – maybe growing.

Age of Panic is awesome and it lives up to its title. It’s frantic, full of some kind of pulsing energy and anxiety. Where Anatomy of a Fall is pretty sleek, polished, and mature, Age of Panic seems like someone diving headfirst into the unknown.

I love the way in to Age of Panic. Screaming kids, ringing phones, outfit changes, characters whose relationships you don’t yet understand. I tend to like a film where the relationships are a little confusing at first. That’s definitely true here. It’s not really Kore-eda level, but it takes a little bit to figure out how Virgil (Virgil Vernier) fits in.

There’s great stuff in here – filming doc-style during the 2012 French election yields some amazing footage. I imagine much of it was played real. There’s a scary-funny moment within that crowd, with two young kids off to the side. You can find some real common themes between these two films: kids in some kind of peril related to their parents and marital strife. In Age of Panic the latter really subsumes the film. It’s constant and nerve-wracking. I really love Vincent Macaigne, and a lot of that is owed to him. His Vincent is unpredictable, dangerous, pathetic, and oddly confident. Those jangly-nerves are my favorite part of the film. It feels like Triet and DP Tom Harari really revel in chaos – people coming in and out of spaces, moving here and there, standing too close to one-another. No one sits still in this film to the extent that when Laetitia (Laetitia Dosch) is finally on her couch, not screaming, with a glass of wine, it feels like such a relief!

Having just shot a film with a kid in it, this feels close to home. Some of the scenes with the kids crying, screaming – they’re not faked that way. I can feel the stress of the director! It had to be children of people intimately involved in the production, and the credits say as much. But to have the two young girls in so much of the film, amidst so much heavy drama – that’s a real lift!

Compared to Age of Panic, Anatomy of a Fall seems downright subdued. That’s saying a lot for a film that starts with a remix of 50 Cent at high volume.

It’s odd, but Anatomy of a Fall somehow takes a lot of ingredients I don’t usually love and makes them totally hum. The court-room drama, the long flashback structured in an on-the-nose place…there’s others, but in Triet’s hands they all just come together. I think that’s at least partially due to a script that favors reflection over cross-examination, and a relationship between mother and son that’s both enigmatic and beautiful (as opposed to the typical home scenes of the courtroom drama – burning the midnight oil, finding the key to the trial!).

Sandra Hüller can do no wrong, and Milo Machado-Graner gives one of the best child performances of last year. He’s so thoughtful, gentle, and perspicacious beyond his years. The ending scene of the film is perfect.

Fremont (Jalali, 2023)

Babak Jalali’s Fremont will definitely remind of Jarmusch, but I also got some pretty distinct Wayne Wang vibes, I think from the real interest in compelling faces of extras.

There’s much to love about this film. The camera struck me. It’s very static for much of it, but there are these key moments where that changes. I tracked them with timecode: 3:55, 38:20, 50:05, 58:25, 1:08:40 — all of this in a roughly 90 minute film.

Before looking at them specifically, I like temporally charting them because it reveals a few things off the bat: 1) that as the film gets into its third act the camera moves more frequently, and 2) that there about 1/3 and 2/3 of the way in – neatly marking approximate act changes.

Maybe it’s obvious, but there are about to be a whole bunch of SPOILERS

This scene is at 3:55 in the film. Donya (Anaita Wali Zada) speaks with her neighbor Salim (Siddique Ahmed):

The cut at 10 seconds moves us to handheld (more on that below), and then the coverage of them plays out that way. Camerawork notwithstanding, it’s a really beautiful scene, with great dialogue. I like how the the scene plays out in profiles facing opposite frame sides. It makes the eye contact feel more meaningful.

Out at 2:08, and we’re back to totally static.

Here’s the second instance, this one at 38:20 of the film. Donya’s friend Joanna (Hilda Schmelling) sings and we push, far more dramatically than with Salim:

Similarly to all of these clips, save one, we start totally static and then at 0:35 we’re suddenly moving forward. It lightly shocked me when watching it. The first one with Salim, I felt it. This one, I saw.

When we come out at 2:04 we’re static again, and it’s like we’ve left a fantasy. What a beautiful performance! I love how long we take in the edit to get back to Donya. Her reaction feels all the more perfect because of her absence on-screen during this. It’s like we’ve forgotten about her, lost in this mesmerizing moment, and then when we return — “oh yeah, me too.”

The third moment, at 50:05:

This is probably my favorite scene of the film. It’s the true midpoint, I think – where things really shift for the character. So, if for no other reason, that push, and then the track, seem appropriate. Midpoints are change!

Talk about mesmerizing. This is so enthralling. I could watch and listen to this – the rhythm of the VO, the score (which made me think of Rebels of the Neon God). The effort taken both on-set and in post to keep that globe spinning so consistently forever. Getting impossibly close. Wow!

Before looking at the last two clips, there’s something to note about these first three. They all start / are motivated by characters other than the protagonist. By that I mean: clip one finds Salim in handheld before Donya; clip two pushes in on Joanna; clip three pushes to her boss and the globe first. It’s like all of these people around Donya have a momentum that she doesn’t (yet) have. And I think that’s the real purpose of this cinematographic strategy. Here, in clip three, we get the first camera movement on Donya that moves dramatically on an axis. Something’s afoot…

This is the fourth moment, here at 58:25. It’s yet another change for Donya. If in the previous one she’s thinking, in this one she’s doing:

Yet again, we move with a different character. This time with Suleyman (Timur Nusratty). It struck me that this feels a bit like (intentional) mistreatment of the character. And I think Donya feels that. Can’t you tell when she looks at you?

Maybe we can chart these first four camera movements according to both who and when:

3:55, Salim — Donya lost and tired — beginning of film

38:20, Joanna — Donya moved and reflective — moving into Act II

50:05, Ricky (Eddie Tang) — Donya thinking and calculating — midpoint

58:25, Suleyman — Donya angry and active — moving into Act III

The last clip occurs at 1:08:40:

Being in the car counts as a camera move. It’s like the film wants to be handheld again. We open with handheld, and here, in a way, close with it. This is, of course, the first of these clips where we begin with Donya. That’s totally logical. She’s moving. She’s doing something. She’s changing her narrative. She’s finally taken some of the control and agency that the supporting cast has occupied for the entirety of the film.

The Silences of the Palace (Tlati, 1994) and Pestonjee (Mehta, 1988)

Undoubtedly two of the best films I’ll see this year here. This blog post is full of low resolution images and clips. Sorry!

There’s something of Antonioni in the architecture of Moufida Tlati’s The Silences of the Palace.

And I felt a bit of The Spirit of the Beehive, maybe in the contained walls. Same for Chess of the Wind.

This film has such a hypnotic hold. The opening and closing songs are wonders. I haven’t seen such a powerful protest anthem on-screen outside of Casablanca. Hind Sabri so great as Alia, the ferocity of her ending song is real.

The camera in The Silences of the Palace is fantastic. I’m amazed at how often it’s able to just catch – snatch, really – someone up in close-up, effortlessly, and how it can roam without feeling meandering. That latter one is hard to do.

There’s a patience to the choreography, and Tlati and DP Youssef Ben Youssef compose and follow it so well. There are many examples. One not pictured here is an incredibly effective pan – maybe also a track – just after Khedija (Amel Hedhili) breaks down in front of her friends. That camera moves slowly as everyone in the kitchen works silently, pulling focus to faces on different planes of action.

I loved this one, a scene between Khedija and Sid’ Ali (Kamel Fazaa).

We start in a high angle of hands on feet. The foot comes up in a towel, and once dried, the hand continues its movement to a table, passing off a mirror and comb, which in turn brings us to Sid’ Ali’s face in profile CU:

We pan off of him (that empty space below) on a key line about Alia to find Khedija opposite him. She stands (third image below, and a good example of expertly holding those CUs), and the camera pans and tilts down on her look to find Sid’ Ali again, now gazing up at her:

Down to their hands, which bring us up to their faces in something like an embrace. Then to a semi-match cut to Alia in a bit of a reverie (makes me think of Resnais here — it’s as though Alia is feeling, because she certainly isn’t watching, what her mother is feeling):

The scene is slow and mesmerizing. It’s so close and that feels intimate, of course, but also dangerous. Sid’ Ali is always touching Khedija – whether with his feet, hands, or to her body – and so this feels unwanted in the way that the camera passes back and forth showing emptiness and absence. I love her standing move, forcing him to look up. Their hands together – is that erotic or too forceful? Probably different meanings for each character.

Pestonjee

Vijaya Mehta’s film is a masterpiece of male friendship, of past mistakes, and of assumptions. There’s so much depth in nearly every frame. This is another great performance from Naseeruddin Shah. He’s so watchable and always believable.

I love the varying styles of Pestonjee, from a very noirish elevator-

-to something along the lines of Otto Preminger-blocking (a clip of that below).

As a side note, I caught this in a nice resolution on Mubi, but for this blog could only find a terrible quality version on YouTube. Better than nothing…but catch this on Mubi!

This scene is between Shah’s Pirojshah, and the eponymous character, played by Anupam Kher. It’s an amazing scene – nearly a sequence – that shows off the character of the house, the chemistry of the two, and Mehta’s expert choreography.

We start on Pirojshah, sleeping, amidst a ghostly house. That mise-en-scène is great, considering this is a house that has had so much life, light, and depth throughout. Pesi enters and we hold on them in a medium 2-shot at the door:

1:11 is like their second meeting point, where the camera pushes into Pirojshah, and then pulls away from Pesi. It’s a nice push-pull feeling, an interesting way to reframe, and a way to really get what this means for both of them (you don’t have subtitles, but they’re arguing over what is ultimately a misunderstanding of sorts) — that for Pirojshah he is certain, and this is life and death –> the push for internal, claustrophobic reasons; for Pesi this is something that his friend can’t understand, though he hopes Pirojshah will loosen up –> the pull to get out of heads and back to conversation.

At 2:00 Pesi stands and Pirojshah follows, landing in the third 2-shot at 2:30. Now they’re in profile, and standing, at least for this brief beat–

Until their fourth confrontation/2-shot, which starts at about 2:55 as an OTS and becomes a truer 2-shot at 3:30 when Pirojshah turns away.

A pause for now to think of these four landing points-

1. At the door – distant, Pirojshah’s back to camera, medium-full shot
2. Seated, medium, overs, camera pushes and pulls
3. Standing, profile, medium
4. Standing, medium, Pirojshah turned away from Pesi

It’s a nice evolution, from a cold greeting, to something close to friendship, to classic argument (#3), to closed-offness.

Without going full-bore, you can continue this. 4:08 is the fifth 2-shot: tighter profile that turns into aggression and retreat; 5:35 is the sixth and final 2-shot: it starts as a different form of closed than #4, turns into a kind of acceptance as Pesi sits, is tighter than the others, and ends as departure.

What an arc in the 2-shots alone! The sequence uses the entire space, builds in dramatic blocks, and really ebbs and flows beautifully. You can even look at 1 and 6 together. Distant, with Pirojshah’s back and an arrival –> close, with Pirojshah open to camera and a departure.

Beautiful stuff this sequence, and this entire film!

Shadows In Paradise (Kaurismäki, 1986) and Fallen Leaves (Kaurismäki, 2023)

Kaurismäki is one of those directors where I feel I’ve seen more of his films than I actually have. Case-in-point, I’d never seen Shadows In Paradise before. This was such a funny double feature with Fallen Leaves. The two films could nearly be loose remakes of one-another. Supermarkets, meet-cutes, similar midpoints, disasters towards the ending…

Alongside Ariel (which similarly to Shadows ends with a ship departure) and The Match Factory Girl, these make up a quadrilogy.

All similarities be damned, though! I loved these films!

Shadows In Pardise has such beautiful frames:

And I was struck by this angle in a car. It’s hard to find new camera positions in such a small, constantly used, cinematic space, but this one felt fresh.

I always imagine Kaurismäki’s films to be more static and stoic than they actually are. Watching these films, made nearly 40 years apart, you can see the evolution in his style and how, actually, his earlier work is so much more dramatic and emotive. It’s like he took a lot of this and stripped it away to reach Fallen Leaves.

I love this sequence of Shadows In Paradise:

Tell me that camera move at 0:06 isn’t so romantic. And the insert that follows is perfect. I love an insert that isn’t necessarily narrative (ie we get the moment without that shot), but that really carries some of the emotional weight. This one does. For such an impassive character as Ilona (Kati Outinen), the shot is relief, release, a weight off, total surrender.

I think one of the reasons I like the high angle in the car so much (pictured above) is because, also, of how it fits into the scene. She gets her own single and it’s comfortable. Nikander’s (Matti Pellonpää) is the noirish frame – and he seems to be the one with more to lose (or more specially: the one who cares about what he has to lose). This scene also precedes his crime and a very Maltese Falcon-esque elevator scene, and I think the shot anticipates it. Funny enough: his “crime” isn’t one at all – it’s undoing a crime.

When she turns her head at 1:20 — this just feels so much like something Kaurismäki takes further and further throughout his career. I mean that it feels like the shot starts earlier than most editors would cut it. We get more time, more literal motion, we’re closer to “action.” This concept is all over Fallen Leaves.

Fallen Leaves

This will be on my list of best 2024 films. My biggest takeaway is what my last thought on Shadows In Paradise is about: so many shots seem like they’ve been placed in the edit just as or after Kaurismäki says “action”. Like there’s that pause, and then the movement happens. It feels taken to an extreme here. Like he’s finding spaces in-between. Like the characters are in a daze. I think these are what he’s after.

Here, he’s replaced the rock on the radio from Shadows with reports of the war in Ukraine. With the aforementioned technique, these two things seem somehow both at odds and united. At odds because the former – the pauses – push the film out of a certain kind of reality, while the war is very much a reality; and united because the former seems to be a result of the latter.

I like the focus on stuff, on excess. Meat on a supermarket conveyor belt, cement sludge at a construction site. There’s a repulsion to this. A repulsion that a lot of Kaurismäki characters share – to menial, cheap labor.

Like the departure on the ship, the ending of Fallen Leaves is also an escape of sorts. This one seems somehow more gleeful, even though it’s less narratively dramatic (a honeymoon on a ship, it is not). I wonder if all of the protagonists from Kaurismäki’s four “Proletariat films” have gone to the same place, and are having a beer together, quietly, without saying much.

Walking and Talking (Holofcener, 1996) and Please Give (Holofcener, 2010)

True to my 2023-blog-resolution, I caught two earlier Nicole Holofcener films, including her excellent first feature, Walking and Talking. So much of what I know of her work is already here, including the bad therapist – perfected in You Hurt My Feelings.

I think she is so good at short scenes that often act as transitions or interludes, but that say a lot. I loved this one in Walking and Talking. Amelia (Catherine Keener) drives. Andrew (Liev Schreiber) sleeps shotgun. Laura (Anne Heche) sleeps in the back:

This is all just the one setup. It’s the only setup you need. Amelia needs to take off her sweater to drive. She wakes Andrew up. He holds the wheel. She takes her sweater off. She takes the wheel back.

It’s so simple. You get the feeling that Holofcener, more than most writer/directors I think, keeps a notebook of all moments in her own life that have some cinematic resonance and just finds the right moment to put them on-screen. This scene works not only because many of us have done this before, but also because we’ve all been Amelia in this moment – the one who has to drive after a late night.

It also works because of what it’s between. Moment before: she and Andrew drunkenly swimming together in the lake. Moment after: returning home to a tragedy. There’s a lull to this scene, akin to something between heightened emotion. What a good director. You can’t just go directly from inebriated electricity to sorrow. You need the slowness of the day to get you there.

I loved these images (and in some way, wish the film ended on them). They seem to perfectly encapsulate what this film is about:

Here’s a scene from the first act of the film. Amelia and Andrew go shopping together. Holofcener’s sharp dialogue and precise characterizations are here, but again, I like the simple setup:

This is one of those easier said than done concepts: put the camera where the characters will land – i.e. frame for the main beat of the scene, which likely isn’t at the outset (and if it is, the drama of the scene is likely off). So Amelia and Andrew walk into that medium 2-shot, which holds for most of this.

Then he leaves and she follows. Nice little open-to-camera at 0:54. Same is true of his back and forth at the end of the scene.

No frills to the scene, but it’s so well-paced and acted, and keeps these two close – which they’ll play on for the entire film.

SOME SPOILERS BELOW…

Please Give

I prefer Walking and Talking of these two films, but man, is the dynamic between Alex (Oliver Platt) and Mary (Amanda Peet) good! It’s so well established in the dinner scene, so when something happens, we feel – as I think both characters sort of do – that it was inevitably going to happen.

I loved Kate (Keener) and Alex watching their daughter shop for makeup. What a beautiful moment of parenthood and coming-of-age.

Back to Alex-Mary: it’s not just their chemistry on-screen, it’s also the way that Holofcener stages the beginning of the affair. Mary’s reaction shot, and her hand on his back as they head away from camera is so telling. And the end of it: just so frank and blunt in bed, following their great dialogue about how both Mary and Kate are skinny. It’s like it begins with the air of moving inescapability and ends like a hard cut.

Holofcener does grief so well. I’m thinking of the cat in Walking and Talking and of course, the death in this one. She seems so aware of that simultaneous need to have other people near and also to be alone – both of which feel really true, even in their contradiction (maybe because of…).

Best Films of 2023

Is 2023 the year of the child actor and the 3 hour+ film? It sure feels like both. Young performers in Totem, Anatomy of a Fall, Alcarràs, even R.M.N., and others carried some emotionally heavy narratives. And when was the last year that I watched so many long movies? Films are stretching, but also shrinking. I watched a lot of sub-90 minute movies this year, too. There’s no more middle-class-runtime!

It’s fun to think of my two favorite really long ones of the year. Killers of the Flower Moon is dense and packed in its runtime, whereas The Delinquents takes breaks, so to speak, and is light on its feet. Both deserving of their length.

2023 was a strong return for the deadpan and/or absurdist comedy. Please Baby Please, The Delinquents, The African Desperate, El Conde…even You Hurt My Feelings and Rotting In The Sun could be on this list. Many of these are films that took aim at something – an institution, a person, an identity – and let loose, though always with the ability to laugh. That feels like a dissipation. Maybe 2019 was the apex of recent cinematic anger, and we’re seeing that tension turn into something different.

And so – is this the year where most of the films I liked seemed to also be those that were the most willing to wink, at least occasionally? Killers of the Flower Moon, Past Lives, Anatomy of a Fall, R.M.N., and Passages, perhaps, notwithstanding, everything else on my list, while thematically rich and very moving, seems to have a bit of a twinkle in the eye.

This was also a year of the chamber drama, revised and revisited. May December, Afire, Anatomy of a Fall, Passages, Jethica can all somehow fit that mold – minimal locations, few characters, dialogue-heavy. This same list of films all seemed to have toxic relationships on the brain. In fact, so did many others that I saw in 2023. I read that films about friendship are starting to become more popular than those about romantic attraction – could these films represent that shift?

So many images and moments stuck with me: a moment of eco-horror in Afire; moving briskly through time via a poem in The Delinquents; a red string in La Chimera; a heartbreaking cafe scene in Passages, the opening sequence of 1976; the first slow motion in Corsage.

It wasn’t just new films, of course. Last year I resolved to watch more by Naomi Kawase, Aleksey German, Mia Hansen-Løve, Wojcech Has, and Nouchka van Brakel – check, check, check, check, and check. But I also thought I’d see more from Xavier Dolan, Hong Sang-soo, Shyam Benegal, Goutam Ghose, Mani Kaul, Tengiz Abuladze, and Girish Kasaravalli. From all of those names, I saw exactly two movies: The Making of the Mahatma and The Plea

So those directors remain on my to-watch list in 2024. I’d also like to see some of Nicole Holofcener’s early films and more by Chantal Akerman. I’ve never seen anything by Moufida Tlati, Huang Shuqin, Suzana Amaral, and Vijaya Mehta, and I hope to change that this year.

But for now, back to 2023…

You won’t find the film Disco Boy on this list even though it’s really great. It would be a favorite of the year, but it was made by a friend, so I’m keeping it only to a big recommendation!

I missed, among so many others, Stonewalling, Will O’ The Wisp, Pacification, Poor Things, The Zone of Interest, Full Time, A Prince, Sick of Myself, Speak No Evil, and Dirty Difficult Dangerous.

Fallen Leaves is for me a 2024 film, as is How To Have Sex – very much looking forward to them both!

These are my Favorite Films of 2023

20 – 16, In No Particular Order

The Innocent (Garrel, 2022)

The first of many that say 2022, but are 2023 films for me. I loved the careful structure of Louis Garrel’s film. It’s a great setup, and a study in reusing images and concepts, but refocusing them each time.

Alcarràs (Simón, 2022)

One of the first films I saw in 2023 that I loved – Carla Simón can really block a scene with a lot of characters. Some of the moments in here are so tender and loving.

The African Desperate (Syms, 2022)

If this film consisted only of the first scene I’d probably still have it on this list. I laughed so hard during that MFA review. But also – great energy and hilarious “types”.

1976 / Chile ’76 (Martelli, 2022)

That opening scene is so, so good. This film is patient and operates like a slow storm.

El Conde (Larraín, 2023)

I love Pablo Larraín, and I loved the crazy concept behind El Conde. I have a script that, while wholly different, runs slightly parallel to some of the historical-genre ideas, so I’m also drawn to it that way. This film was surprisingly funny.

15 – 11, In No Particular Order

May December (Haynes, 2023)

So melodramatic, so precise. Hayne’s compositions are great here. I love the campiness of that ending. Is Natalie Portman’s (she’s so great) Elizabeth supposed to be a good actor? I think not, though I love her study of her subject.

Rotting In The Sun (Silva, 2023)

What a turn in this film! Man, Rotting In The Sun is graphic in a way that I haven’t seen in awhile. It’s also so funny, sometimes (intentionally) grating, and really biting.

Corsage (Kreutzer, 2022)

I love Vicky Krieps’ central performance, the use of slow motion, and the anachronistic approach. This film is also just stunning to look at.

You Hurt My Feelings (Holofcener, 2023)

Maybe one of two on this list most likely to deserve to be higher up in hindsight. Nicole Holofcener’s film is just so damn real, spot-on, relatable, etc etc. The ending is perfect. The concept of a child as a third wheel is perfect.

La Chimera (Rohrwacher, 2023)

The other one — I’ll never forget the way this film ends. It’s so magical in a way that only the great Alice Rohrwacher can do. But it’s not just that. The way we come into this film has this combination of real hidden anger and absolute pleasure.

10 – 6, In No Particular Order

Passages (Sachs, 2023)

A film that feels raw and bold. The three characters are so distinct and clear…and watchable. I imagine Rogowski’s Tomas rubs some viewers the wrong way, but his indecision – or maybe, better, his “all decisions” seems so correct to me.

Please Baby Please (Kramer, 2022)

This one surprised me so much, if, arrogantly, only because it snuck up on me. It has such a great blend of genres, amazingly spare world-building, and the best musical numbers of the year.

Barbie (Gerwig, 2023)

I suppose the second-best music numbers are here – also great. This was probably the most fun movie to watch of the year (PBP was also very fun). It’s like the opposite of the film above – huge worlds, different genres, colorful and overwhelming musical numbers. And it somehow works, which is maybe the biggest surprise

Past Lives (Song, 2023)

How do you write this film? One of those – ‘seems so simple, definitely isn’t simple,’ scripts. The dialogue is great and so well-played.

R.M.N. (Mungiu, 2022)

I love Mungiu’s films and this one is right up there with 4 Weeks and Beyond The Hills. It’s dense, and it has this throttling, propulsive energy that yields a pretty heart-stopping climax.

5 – 1, In No Particular Order

Anatomy of a Fall (Triet, 2023)

What a bunch of performances! There are so many things about this film that I normally wouldn’t like: courtroom drama (not to my taste, frequently), flashbacks that feel a bit on-the-nose, a certain (no spoiler) flashback style…yet this all works. I think it’s because it’s just so not melodramatic, and because the relationship between mother and son is fantastic.

Killers of the Flower Moon (Scorsese, 2023)

What a ride, what a master of his brand of cinema. How does a film prepare for this long and have this much hype and exceed it?

Afire (Petzold, 2023)

I really love the way Petzold handles the climate issues in this film. From the introduction of it, to the multiple ways its rendered, pretty gruesomely and beautifully at times – it’s all such a perfect build. Also, one of the best ways to skip time that I saw in a film this year.

Totem (Avilés, 2023)

Another incredible child performance. These ensemble moments are so good. How do you handle so much foreground and background, many of which are children? I love the way we jump in and out of the child’s POV, and how things often dance around the father before fully featuring him. That ending performance. Those final shots.

The Delinquents (Moreno, 2023)

If I used the word delightful then I would call this the most delightful film of the year. It’s just such a pleasure to watch. Scorsese’s had all of the cinematographic ideas in one film — Moreno’s seems to have all the humanistic ideas in one film. This one features the other great way to skip time.

I ALSO LOVED:

When Evil Lurks (Rugna, 2023)

Jethica (Ohs, 2022)

The Best Films I Saw For The First Time In 2023, Not Made In 2023 (named as opposed to “First Watches)

This was an odd year for me for film viewing in that I had two separate two month periods (one for film production, the other for family reasons) where I watched very few films. Usually this is a harder list to pare down, but this one fit my 20 favorites in pretty neatly. As is often the case, the top 6 here are more or less interchangeable. All out-and-out masterpieces.

But how do you really rank these? Could, on another day, either of the German films, Moonlighting, Things To Come or Suzaku be at the top of this list. Of course.

The count, by decade: two from the 1960s, five from the 1970s, six from the 1980s, four from the 1990s, one from the 2000s, two from the 2010s.

I think the 80s have been dominant for me in recent years, and that’s no different here.

The most memorable moments from these: the shooting in Eureka; the bar/meet-cute in Story Of A Three Day Pass; the grocery store in Moonlighting; a really horrific scene in Khrustalyov, My Car!; a drunken bar scene in Taking Off; that moment in Nasty Baby; the long, silent following in Vive L’Amour; the long walk up the hill in Wrong Move; reflections in windows in Alice In The Cities; wide shots in Christ Stopped At Eboli; camels meeting the train in Sonar Kella…so many indelible images!

20-19: The Wounded Man (Chéreau, 1983) / How To Be Loved (Has, 1963)

18-17: The Cool Lakes Of Death (van Brakel, 1982) / Eureka (Aoyama, 2000)

16-15: Life Is Sweet (Leigh, 1990) / Story Of A Three Day Pass (van Peebles, 1967)

14-13: Khrustalyov, My Car! (German, 1998) / The Trout (Losey, 1982)

12-11: Moonlighting (Skolimowski, 1982) / My Friend Ivan Lapshin (German, 1985)

10-9: Suzaku (Kawase, 1997) / Meantime (Leigh, 1983)

8-7: Nasty Baby (Silva, 2015) / Things To Come (Hansen-Løve, 2016)

6-5: Taking Off (Forman, 1971) / Vive L’Amour (Tsai, 1994)

4-3: Wrong Move (Wenders, 1975) / Alice In The Cities (Wenders, 1974)

2-1: Christ Stopped At Eboli (Rosi, 1979) / Sonar Kella (Ray, 1974)