The deadline for voting looms! This week’s catch-up features
some films long overdue for review:
National Gallery
(France/USA/UK, 180 min.)
Written and directed by Frederick Wiseman
To call National
Gallery a showcase of the paintings within the gallery almost feels like
too essentialist a qualifier, since Wiseman creates the Gallery itself as a
living, breathing entity. Static shots observe the hustle bustle of Londoners
and tourists as they take in some great masterworks, but much of the film
trains its eye on the blood vessels of the Gallery, the curators, as they share
their passion with the masses and educate them about art. National Gallery benefits greatly from having some curators who are
master storytellers, for their flare for narration and the bravado of their own
observations illuminates some foundational dynamics of the art on the
walls and of the gallery’s role in bringing art to the public. (One of the
female curators delivers two or three lessons and each one is delightfully engaging.)
Even better, though, are the shots of the Gallery’s vital organs pumping
invisibly behind the skin of paintings and frames. National Gallery illuminates the art and science of art
restoration, as well as philosophical confrontations within the Gallery as
tensions of old-school ideology and contemporary pragmatism debate how best to ensure the Gallery’s survival.
Wiseman’s argument never really comes to fruition as National Gallery increasingly likens
itself to the experience of observing a painting within the ambient sound of
the gallery and engaging in a quick game of sense making, though, so the film’s
over-length almost feels gratuitous as it creates a life cycle of breathing
art. There’s so much beautiful art to take in and savour—both on the walls of
the gallery and in the frames of the film—that National Gallery proves exhausting. Like all good museums and
galleries, however, a repeat trip to the Gallery
probably yields great rewards.
Rating: ★★★½ (out of ★★★★★)
Rating: ★★★½ (out of ★★★★★)
National Gallery screens in Ottawa at The ByTowne Dec. 17-18.
And voting duties even included two rentals this week. Shame
on me for waiting so long to see these films!
Ida
(Poland/Denmark/France, 82 min.)
Dir. Pawel Pawlikowski, Writ. Pawel Pawlikowski, Rebecca
Lenkiewicz
Starring: Agata Trezbuchowska, Agata Kulesza
Ida, Poland’s
Oscar contender for Best Foreign Language Film (and arguably the frontrunner in
the category), is so beguiling and masterful that it’s literally the kind of
film that one watches twice in a row. At a brisk 75 minutes plus credits,
back-to-back screenings of Ida pose a hearty
double-shot for cinephiles. This quietly devastating film by Pawel Pawlikowski (My Summer of Love, The Woman in the Fifth), like National
Gallery, demands an active viewer eager to sample and taste the elements of
the film frame like a deep gulp of red wine that one swishes around one’s mouth
to savour all the notes and fullness of its body.
The exquisite deep focus black-and-white cinematography by Ryszard
Lenczewski and Lukasz Zal uses Academy ratio in its most dynamic form as
negative space blurs with the subdued and restrained lead performance by Agata
Trezbuchowska as Anna, a young woman ready to take her vows to become a nun, and
one becomes a silent observer to the devastating effects of war as Anna masks
herself in her surroundings. The star of Ida
could easily be a banister or a windshield since Trezbuchowska's performance is so mute, but the engaging compositions
situate the onlooker as someone unsure of her position in the world and searching
for place and meaning. As Anna learns of her secret past from a long lost
relative (Agata Kulesza), Ida takes
the viewer on an art-house road trip back to one of history’s darkest chapters—and
the atmospheric cinematography ensures that Ida’s
history is horrifically dark—and then brings the heroine up through the light
in a quietly unsettling turn of events.
Trezbuchowska is quietly compelling, but Kulesza is a
ferocious fury of pain and anger as she channels enough pent-up bitterness,
regret, and rage for them both. The film almost suffers whenever Pawilkowski
opts to focus on the younger Agata’s disconnection to her world, but the quiet, mysterious presence of Anna enshrouds the viewer much like the shadows
within the film cloak everything in a ghastly darkness. Ida is dense and beautiful in the coldest of ways, but it’s impossible not to
be affected by this film, and one wants to confront the many impressions of Ida again and again.
Rating: ★★★★ (out of ★★★★★)
Ida is now available on home video.
Calvary
(Ireland/UK, 100 min.)
Written and directed by John Michael McDonough
Starring: Brendan Gleeson, Kelly Reilly, Chris O’Dowd, Aiden
Gillen, Dylan Moran, -Josée Croze
 |
| Courtesy of eOne Films. |
What kind of man accepts death in good faith? Father James (Brendan
Gleeson) finds himself in an existential and moral crisis after one of his
parishioners confesses that he aims to kill the priest within one week. Father
James, shaken by the boldness of the man’s confession, seems to look at the
death as a kind of penance, or dutiful suffering, that he owes to the cloth. His
commitment to the church also leads him to question whether he would be
compromising his oath to protect the secrets of the faithful should he go to
the police and share the information given to him within the sacred walls of
the booth, so Calvary builds a complicated morality play as Father James becomes a willing victim in order to uphold the sacredness of his vocation.
The priest, guided by faith, visits the various townspeople of his small churchgoing seaside town as Calvary builds a methodical and darkly amusing murder mystery as Father James’s suspicions reveal small town prejudices and reveal fissures in the church’s hold on faith. Gleeson offers a compelling performance while the black comedy of the script by John Michael McDonough devises a frank, but fair exploration of the contemporary church. The unwavering strength of Father James ultimately reaffirms the church’s foundational philosophy, though, so this dark and funny test of faith is one of the more provocative tales of faith on film of late.
The priest, guided by faith, visits the various townspeople of his small churchgoing seaside town as Calvary builds a methodical and darkly amusing murder mystery as Father James’s suspicions reveal small town prejudices and reveal fissures in the church’s hold on faith. Gleeson offers a compelling performance while the black comedy of the script by John Michael McDonough devises a frank, but fair exploration of the contemporary church. The unwavering strength of Father James ultimately reaffirms the church’s foundational philosophy, though, so this dark and funny test of faith is one of the more provocative tales of faith on film of late.
Rating: ★★★½ (out of ★★★★★)
Calvary is now available on home video.
Screener follies are coming to an end as the deadline for
voting looms. The Tale of Princess Kaguya
is up next and, hopefully, A Most Violent
Year! I'll been lacking in Can Con lately, though, so I'll hope to remedy that with Heartbeat before moving on to all the Year in Review lists starting next week!