More binge-watching!
In the Fade (Aus dem Nichts)
(Germany/France, 106 min.)
Written and directed by Fatih Akin
Starring: Diane Kruger
 |
| Magnolia Pictures |
Diane Kruger gives an exceptional performance as Katja, the
grieving mother on a quest for vengeance, justice, and peace in In the Fade. She elevates this
relatively run-of-the-mill procedural, which features some of the most
implausible courtroom testimony outside of prime time TV, and absolutely
deserves the Best Actress prize she picked up at Cannes earlier this year. It’s
a career performance and surprisingly the first the first role of Kruger’s
filmography to let her active in her native German. This latest film from Faith
Akin tackles racism and xenophobia in Germany in the age of Brexit and
tightly-guarded borders, and it pits Kruger’s Katja on a delicate journey akin
to that of the tortured souls in The Edge
of Heaven, another of the director’s works that deals with grief and loss
against a backdrop of migration and global change.
Katja experiences a deep and incomprehensible loss when her Turkish husband Nuri (Numan Acar) and son are killed in a bombing that targeted the family business. Katja is the lone eyewitness to the suspected bomber having run into her just minutes before the attack, yet the investigation puts more weight into probing Nuri’s past than it does the xenophobic motivations that likely sparked the bombing. Kruger infuses In the Fade with profound moral depth as Katja struggles to find closure throughout the proceedings. The challenging range of emotional shifts that Kruger handles dexterously is most impressive—and effectively moving—since it crafts a complicated woman who demands empathy even when her actions put her down a road of no return. In the Fade is Germany’s Oscar submission for Best Foreign Language Film, but it might find better traction with a campaign focused squarely on Kruger’s performance.
In the Fade opens in Canada January 19.
Despicable Me 3
(USA, 90
min.)
Dir. Kyle Balda, Pierre Coffin, Eric Guillon; Writ. Cinco
Paul, Ken Dario
Starring: Steve Carell, Kristen Wiig, Trey Parker, Jenny
Slate, Julie Andrews
I honestly do not understand the longevity of this
franchise. No parent could possible love his or her child enough to subject
themselves to another despicable Minions
movie if they’ve seen the one before. With that as a preamble, let me know say
this: if you thought the first few Despicable
movies were insufferable, you ain’t seen nothing yet! Despicable Me 3 is more annoying than the previous films combined,
since this one has not one but two Steve Carell voiced anti-heroes as Gru meets
his creatively named brother Dru, who is his superior in every way. (He’s even
more irritating!) Throw in Trey Parker’s exasperating villain Balthazar Bratt,
a former child star turned baddie with arrested development, a bad haircut, and
even crappier dance moves, and this round of Minions mayhem is enough to make
any person of sound mind reconsider ever having children.
These movies just aren’t funny on any level, and the amount
of pandering in the writing is an embarrassment to watch. Some movies targeted
for kids are successful when it comes to integrating jokes for parents, but the
Minions franchise struggles to muster
any jokes that are a) funny or b) relevant. It’s just a lot of dated pop
culture reference mashed into crude animation voiced by annoying characters.
Mudbound
(USA, 134 min.)
Dir. Dee Rees, Writ. Virgil Williams, Dee Rees
Starring: Carey Mulligan, Garrett Hedlund, Jason Clarke,
Jason Mitchell, Mary J. Blige, Rob Morgan, Jonathan Banks
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| Netflix |
I really, really want to like Mudbound more than I do. I appreciate the significance of this new
film by director Dee Rees (Pariah) in
that it gives a tale of racism in the American South using multiple points of
view from characters black, white, male, and female, and affords them all equal
weight, but Mudbound features the
same strengths and weaknesses as its source novel by Hillary Jordan. The adaption
by Rees and Virgil Williams replicates the choice to feature multiple narrators
and the different focal points of Mudbound
don’t have the same clarity on film as they do in the novel. The novel
resembles a poor man’s As I Lay Dying with
its carnival train of characters in a crumbling Southern dynasty, but the
sprawling and bloated narrative is difficult to follow even if one has read the
book. The fractured narrative doesn’t do its myriad of characters any justice
by flitting from one to the next. There is way too much going on in this movie,
so it’s hard to connect with any character or with the overall chorus.
Mudbound features
some truly exceptional performances, though, particularly Garrett Hedlund and
Jason Mitchell as a pair of young war veterans who experience the valour of
their sacrifice much differently upon returning home. The parallels and
contrasts of their narratives say a lot about the deeply entrenched racism of
America, while the damaged, soul-searching nature of their performances ask how
one can even make sense of such a futile system of racism after the atrocities
the soldiers combatted in Germany. An unexpected turn by Mary J. Blige also
impresses with its restraint and composure, while the music by Tamar-Kali and
the cinematography by Rachel Morrison add to the rich sense of place. There’s a
great film in here somewhere, if only Mudbound
were the sum of its parts.
Mudbound is now on Netflix.
