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| November |
Notes from the screener pile are back! I am way, way, way
behind on movies this year, particularly anything that came out between March
and June since work was like a forest fire this year. The screener pile is thankfully
stacking up with goodies and oddities—a fun mix of the typical Oscary prestige
and left field contenders to help get back on track. I’ll still try to review
in full when possible, but in the spirit of catching up, some notes from the
screener pile:
(Estonia/Poland/Netherlands, 115 min.)
Written and directed by Rainer Sarnet
Starring: Rea Lest, Jörgen Liik, Arvo Kukumägi, Katariina
Unt, Taavi Eelmaa, Dieter Laser
When it comes to cinéma,
the Estonians sure make some freaky shit. The Baltic-Nordic nation’s November is the flat-out weirdest submission
in the Oscar race for Best Foreign Language Film this year. This film by Rainer
Sarnet is a hypnotic nightmare bathed in
austere, yet stunningly beautiful black-and-white cinematography by Mart Taniel
and eerie religious folklore. In other words: it's flat-out nuts.
November is a working class fable with a fantastical dash of gothic horror as Sarnet crafts a muddy tale about the peasants living alongside their farm animals while the wealthy landowners sit high in their castle and let the help run amok. Liina (Rea Lest) longs for fellow farmhand Hans (Jörgen Liik), but Hans lusts for the wealthy baroness (Jette Loona Hermanis) who lounges out of sight all day long. The peasants take turns making packs with the devil—a spooky hobo of a creature who could easily be the old Estonian ancestor of the guy behind Winky’s dumpster in Mulholland Dr. They sell their souls for instant gratification and these deals come back to haunt and terrorize them, since the peasants have nothing of value. Enter a milky white goat that does for November what Black Philip did for The Witch and some peculiar helpers called kratt, which are creatures made of wood, metal, and bones possessed by the souls of dead peasants, and November turns the pages of a grotesquely engaging fare. Art house fans are bound to live deliciously with this demanding but rewarding horror show that's like Michael Haneke meets David Lynch, while cinephiles eager for the strange and unusual should lick their lips in zany thanksgiving.
November is a working class fable with a fantastical dash of gothic horror as Sarnet crafts a muddy tale about the peasants living alongside their farm animals while the wealthy landowners sit high in their castle and let the help run amok. Liina (Rea Lest) longs for fellow farmhand Hans (Jörgen Liik), but Hans lusts for the wealthy baroness (Jette Loona Hermanis) who lounges out of sight all day long. The peasants take turns making packs with the devil—a spooky hobo of a creature who could easily be the old Estonian ancestor of the guy behind Winky’s dumpster in Mulholland Dr. They sell their souls for instant gratification and these deals come back to haunt and terrorize them, since the peasants have nothing of value. Enter a milky white goat that does for November what Black Philip did for The Witch and some peculiar helpers called kratt, which are creatures made of wood, metal, and bones possessed by the souls of dead peasants, and November turns the pages of a grotesquely engaging fare. Art house fans are bound to live deliciously with this demanding but rewarding horror show that's like Michael Haneke meets David Lynch, while cinephiles eager for the strange and unusual should lick their lips in zany thanksgiving.
Okja
(South Korea/USA, 120 min.)
Dir. Bong Joon-ho, Writ. Bong Joon-ho, Jon Ronson
Starring: Seo-Hyun Ahn, Jake Gyllenhaal, Tilda Swinton, Paul
Dano, Giancarlo Esposito
They say you can’t put lipstick on a pig, but Bong Joon-ho
tries his darnedest with Okja. This
crazy mess of a movie lumbers with a sci-fi tale of animal rights and
environmental awareness as a little girl tries to save her beloved genetically
engineered super-pig from becoming super-bacon. Joon-ho’s direction is all over
the map here as Okja struggles to reconcile
a whack of plots, characters, genres, and tones. It’s an odd Frankenstein’s monster
of a movie where one can never really be sure if the humour is intentional,
largely due to an inconsistent cast that ranges from an enjoyably scene-chewing
Tilda Swinton to an unwatchably over-the-top Jake Gyllenhaal. (It’s the worst
performance of his career.) Okja, however, is a beautiful and impressive CGI
creation. The story aims to awe us with its titular beast, so at least Okja delivers when it comes to the pig.
Okja is available
on Netflix
Split
(USA/Japan, 117)
Written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan
Starring: James McAvoy, James McAvoy, James McAvoy, James
McAvoy, James McAvoy, James McAvoy, James McAvoy, James McAvoy, James McAvoy, James
McAvoy, James McAvoy, James McAvoy, James McAvoy, James McAvoy, James McAvoy, James
McAvoy, James McAvoy, James McAvoy, James McAvoy, James McAvoy, James McAvoy, James
McAvoy, James McAvoy, James McAvoy, James McAvoy, James McAvoy, Anya
Taylor-Joy, Hayley Lu Richardson, Betty Buckley
Split is M. Night
Shyamalan’s best film in fifteen years, but in no way is that statement a
compliment. Split confirms (again) that
The Sixth Sense was a fluke and that
Shyamalan is one of the worst directors working today. The film features James
McAvoy playing a man with multiple personality disorder who has 23 characters
competing inside his head. All 23 of these performances, surprisingly, are
terrible as McAvoy keeps falling into a trap of defining the characters by
one-note quirks. The gimmick makes for a scant two-dozen stock characters with
McAvoy hamming it up for the back row. There’s nothing natural to the shifts in
character in this self-aware performance, but far more damaging is Split’s outdated conflation of mental
illness with deviance as McAvoy’s character(s) put young women in peril to feed
the beast. Everything about this film’s depiction of mental illness is just
wrong.
Give McAvoy nine of the Razzie nominations and the tenth can go to Jake Gyllenhaal. What a contender.
Stay tuned for more notes and soon to be updated predictions!
