'A Hidden Life' Dares to Celebrate, Examine the Costs of One's Ethics
After exploring the experimental edges of narratively formless cinema with films like Song to Song and Knight of Cups, director Terrence Malick returns with his newest film: a meditation on morality that, both intimate and expansive, achieves wondrous results.
In this corporately competitive and politically combative era of 2019, it feels as if having personal ethics – compared to those untethered by having any self-imposed restrictions – is something of a weakness. If it's beliefs that hold you back from following wherever the ethically-compromised yardstick has been moved to, and if unethical practices then persist as a result, one must wonder: at what cost are those pesky little ethics truly worth?
It's a tragically philosophical question that has plagued countless men over time, and as a result, caused them to fall nameless to history over their actions (and inactions). It's also a meditation that director Terrence Malick beautifully ponders, celebrates, and examines in his wondrously magnificent new film, A Hidden Life, in theaters this Friday.
Those familiar with Malick will know what his films have in store: melancholic humans searching for life's answers in stories that range in vastness and ambition. At 2 hours and 53 minutes long, A Hidden Life ranks among his more ambitious works, and I'm happy to say that it's every bit as epic in its narrative and artistic scope.
What makes this meditation so transfixing is its setting and place in time: based on a true story of a German conscientious objector in WWII, A Hidden Life centers around the life of Franz Jägerstätter (August Diehl), a German villager and husband to Franziska (Valerie Pachner). It's a life that we see is full of infinite, simple beauties; they cut wheat in the most amazing golden fields, spin around vibrant green grass, and stare longingly into each other's eyes under the rich blue skies. Children soon form to show a happy family. But when the creeping subsiding of war slowly moves in like waves reaching higher tides, Franz is forced to assert an ethical stance that soon enough tears him apart from his family.
With a camera that gracefully glides through scenes, seeking and capturing spontaneous moments of Diehl and Pachner's quiet emoting and performing, Malick's distinguishable cinematography is on welcome display here. And assembled with its jump-cut editing, A Hidden Life feels like a film that's simultaneously unfurling in real-time as well as if remembered like a trace-memory, altogether an impressionistic tapestry of real feeling that cannot be imitated. Mixing this modernized look with its period-accurate era captures a timeless quality to the nature of ethics that gives it new life and resonance.
While Malick's latest experimental adventures (Song to Song, Knight of Cups) didn't tap into the cultural conversation for their understandably formless structures, A Hidden Life is bolstered by having a narrative center that organically moves the film forward, which is a welcomed element. Putting forward a meditation on such a universally important question as morality and inspiring people to ponder it is an ambitious, if not just plain admirable, task. The artistic achievement that is A Hidden Life is one that – like the devastatingly moving quote by George Eliot that the film ends with – should be seen and celebrated.
A HIDDEN LIFE (2019)
Starring August Diehl, Valerie Pachner, Matthias Schoenaerts
Directed by Terrence Malick
Written by Terrence Malick
Distributed by Fox Searchlight. 174 minutes.
Opening this Friday at ArcLight Hollywood and The Landmark.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJXmdY4lVR0
'Greener Grass' is Sitcom Humor Laced With Absurdity
For those who get their appetites filled by comedies of the ironic and insane variety, Greener Grass - the brainchild of Upright Citizen's Brigade comics Jocelyn DeBoer and Dawn Luebbe - is sure to satisfy. Greener Grass first premiered at this year's Sundance Film Festival and was picked up by IFC Midnight (the perfect distributor to serve up this comedy that's proudly self-spiked with gleefully bizarro corkscrews).
As its pastel blasted look would indicate, Greener Grass is like an 80s sitcom, if that sitcom was laced with trace amounts of psychedelics (think "Desperate Housewives" meets the demented stylings of "Tim and Eric"). With a never-ending stream of ever-increasing and more-ridiculous-than-the-last riffs, the comedy duo of DeBoer and Luebbe have found a rich space to both explore and explode. They tackle the hokey conventions and mannequin-normalcy of white, affluent middle-class suburbia.
Things kick off when Jill (DeBoer) gives up her baby to her best friend Lisa (Luebbe) in front of her un-athletic son at his youth soccer game. It sets the stage for what is possible in this world, a place where, at every moment, another social norm explodes. The most obvious example is that everyone wears braces, an injected awkwardness that their characters have no awareness. Things like this aren't a big deal for the women or their husbands, Dennis (Neil Casey) and Nick (Beck Bennett). The rest of Greener Grass has other absurd discoveries that the characters continue to find unsurprising. The murder of a yoga teacher, Nick's sudden taking to pool water, and getting pregnant with a soccer ball are just a few of the things the film has in store.
Greener Grass will likely be best enjoyed by those who seek comedy on the fringe and inflated past the limits of absurdity. A few of Greener Grass's performers are recognizable by self-professed comedy nerds: Bennett on SNL among them, as well as Janicza Bravo (who directed her own wild comedy, Lemon, starring husband Brett Gelman). Greener Grass and the comedic stylings of DeBoer and Luebbe create an amazing imagination space where – at just 95 minutes long – anything goes. And that's the most liberating part: you truly never know where it's going to go next. – Ryan Rojas
GREENER GRASS (2019)
Starring: Jocelyn DeBoer, Dawn Luebbe, Beck Bennett
Directed by: Jocelyn DeBoer, Dawn Luebbe
Written by: Jocelyn DeBoer, Dawn Luebbe
Distributor: IFC Films
Running time: 95 minutes
Playing: Opening 10/18 at the Nuart Theatre and On Demand
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyOvQfgQhKQ
'The Lighthouse': Take This Drunken Plunge Into Madness
Among the most visionary and daring films of 2019, director Robert Eggers' sensationally absurd sailor's tale, The Lighthouse, should be recognized as one of the great achievements. Eggers – who's known by arthouse fans for writing and directing 2015's Puritan-possession film The Witch – returns with another nightmarishly hypnotic unraveling into madness.
Photographed in 4:3 black and white film by The Witch cinematographer Jarin Blaschke, The Lighthouse tells the story of two lighthouse keepers stationed on a remote and mysterious island in 1890s New England. Newly hired hand Winslow (Robert Pattinson) is eager to do an honest pay's work, at first uninterested in any small talk with his boss, Thomas (Willem Dafoe). But as the craggy old Thomas rants on (the period piece dialects that Pattinson, and especially Dafoe show is humorous and astonishing), hints of oddness creep in. Winslow soon finds that he's questioning Thomas's sanity altogether. But as the stormy season grows closer and stronger, and as stranger occurrences set in (including seagulls and tall tales of mermaids), Winslow tries to keep everything – including a checkered past – together.
The teaming of Eggers storytelling along with the dedication from Pattinson and Dafoe – giving the most fascinating and utterly incredible on-screen performances this year – The Lighthouse is some of the most demented fun you'll have in a theater this year.
THE LIGHTHOUSE (2019)
Starring: Willem Dafoe, Robert Pattinson
Directed by: Robert Eggers
Written by: Robert Eggers, Max Eggers
Distributor: A24
Running time: 109 minutes
Playing: Opening 10/18 at ArcLight Hollywood and The Landmark
'Lucy in the Sky' Muddles a Transcendent Moment
LUCY IN THE SKY (2019)
Starring Natalie Portman, Jon Hamm, Zazie Beetz
Directed by Noah Hawley
Written by Noah Hawley, Elliott DiGuiseppi, Brian C. Brown
Distributed by Fox Searchlight. 124 minutes. Opening 10/4 at Arclight Cinemas and The Landmark.
Lucy in the Sky tells the story of an astronaut, Lucy Cola (Natalie Portman) who, after viewing planet Earth from up above, has a moment of transcendence in which her world is changed (you see it in her captivated, hypnotized stare). The film then explores the way that a person's life may change when they've had such a moment, only to be brought back and expected to go about their previous existence. It's a valid thought experiment to ponder: would you feel empowered to embark on anything knowing you were in control, or would you unravel?
In this case, it's the latter. The mental unraveling of Lucy is an interesting angle for this or any film to have, nihilism taking over. But the film doesn't quite communicate this in the cleanest way. Natalie Portman as Lucy Cola, a fiery, whip-smart Texan astronaut could have had more interesting or entertaining ways of living her life again, but instead she acts on confusingly base impulses like beginning an affair with a colleague (Jon Hamm), and ending up driving across state lines in a koo koo disguise to warn the woman he's now seeing (Zazie Beetz) of his untrustworthy ways. It's a storyline that, while apparently based on real events (the film is based on the true story), sacrifices an opportunity to sift through more poignant philosophical thoughts, and instead makes for an odd reading of feminism.
The overall visual language of Lucy in the Sky is also confusing – I'm curious why director Noah Hawley changed aspect ratio so much, as it makes for a distracting experience. But there's still an interesting thought that, once you acknowledge your unfathomably small place in the universe, what will you do next?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQP-L2pJzmk&t=3s
Horsing Around in the Quirky Comedy 'The Death of Dick Long'
THE DEATH OF DICK LONG (2019)
Starring Michael Abbott Jr., Virginia Newcomb, Andre Hyland
Directed by Daniel Scheinert
Written by Billy Chew
Distributed by A24. 100 minutes. Opening 9/27 at Arclight Hollywood and Alamo Drafthouse Cinema - Downtown LA.
The Death of Dick Long may have a fairly sophomoric joke right in its title. And yes, it might be set in a rural small-town Alabama community. And, well, there might be a solid amount of "butt rock" that soundtracks the entirety of the movie (yes, '90s bands including Nickelback are prominently featured). But much like how director Daniel Scheinert used the easily laughable power of a farting corpse to win over audiences in Swiss Army Man (the film he co-directed with Daniel Kwan as part of the creative team DANIELS, but here making his solo directorial debut), it's all there to disarm the audience into thinking that there isn't a higher, more incredibly skilled and smarter operating power controlling the whole charade; there certainly is.
It's not a spoiler for the audience to know that Dick Long (Daniel Scheinert), who ends band practice with redneck pals Zeke (Michael Abbott Jr.) and Earl (Andre Hyland) by sparking a joint before fatefully asking: "Y'all motherfuckers wanna get weird?," dies; it's right there in the title. But after a booze-fueled night in which Dick ends up mysteriously dead, his frightened friends are left to cover it up as best as their nincompoop selves can. All the while, Zeke's family – his wife Lydia (Virginia Newcomb) and daughter (Poppy Cunningham) – and local law enforcement (Janelle Cochrane and Sarah Baker) come ever closer to putting together the strange and coincidental pieces of this deadly disappearance.
This is essentially the main gag of the film: seeing Zeke and the never-not-vaping Earl, attempt to stay one step ahead of everyone before the whole thing is exposed. But these guys are not the sharpest tools in the shed, leading to comedic moments such as asking each other how the bloody backseat of a car was cleaned out in Pulp Fiction. The mix of jokes and real tension is expertly compiled, all leading up to the climactic reveal of what happened to Dick that fateful night (without over-hyping it and certainly without spoiling it, it's one of the most unbelievably amazing twists of any recent comedy). More surprising than this screwy reveal is the emotional impact that it brings, and this is when you realize the power of screenwriter Billy Chew's script, which successfully weaves together a hilarious premise, sharp story, and emotional honesty to engage the audience on all levels.
The fact that all of these differing and strange elements come together is ultimately attributed to the quirky mind of Daniel Scheinert, whose brand of silly-meets-sincere joke-making has come to be known (or should definitely come to be known) as a new and deserving style in comedy. While the whole event is a sort of screwball affair, Scheinert doesn't rely on the same shallow riff of redneck clichés, but lends his own insight as an Alabama native to celebrate Southern culture while still having fun with it (to me, Logan Lucky, did the same). Once the climactic reveal happens, it's a hilariously side-splitting moment, but you would be pressed to not feel an equal wave of somber sympathy at the same time. The Death of Dick Long is a wealth of wit, smarts, and unexpected heart. It's already the funniest film of this year and I can't wait to see it again.
This review originally ran on February 6, 2019, during the Sundance Film Festival.
#Hotgirlsummer: Thoughts on Paul Thomas Anderson's latest music video, 'Summer Girl'
There's a trend that's rippling through social media (and IRL) that I'm only vaguely aware of since writing this post: "hot girl summer." My immediate friend group isn't able to explain this phenomenon to me easily, and I've chosen to forego an online search, so I'm going to go ahead and extract the following: things with expiration dates give people a sense of peace. In this case, "hot girl summer" sounds like a fad in which people are allowed to act out or play up a more idealized version of ourselves. We're given the permission to "feel thyself," but we know it's only for this summer season. We'll make up for our sins in the autumn.
A rock band that doesn't indulge in commercially-supported movements of any kind, indie rockers and sisters-trio, HAIM, have coincidentally released a new single during this "hot girl summer," called "Summer Girl." Lead singer Danielle Haim stated in an Instagram post that lyrically, "Summer Girl" started as something she would say to her (then) cancer-stricken boyfriend to attempt to soothe him ("Let me be your summer girl"). Musically, it started as a loop in Garage Band, not-unknowingly echoing Lou Reed's "Walk on the Wild Side."
And now, we have a music video to accompany the single directed by recent frequent collaborator Paul Thomas Anderson. He captures the girls strutting down the sunny streets of LA (including trips through Canter's Deli and the New Beverly Cinema). As the sisters walk shoulder-to-shoulder, they strip away infinite layers of tops – thrift store sweaters only reveal more thrift store t-shirts underneath – a never-ending shedding of skin. It's important to note that they're also outpacing a meandering saxophone-tooting dude, who they ask in the song to "Walk beside me, not behind me." At the end of the video, they finally get down to the last article of clothing, strutting even more assertively than at any other point. This moment must be the hot girl summer I've heard of.
So, ok. HAIM asked the mopey saxophonist to walk beside them, to join these hot girls of summer. I'll attempt to do the same. I click on an article titled Hot Girl Summer, Explained. One line from the article explains the movement is "Just as much about posting hot photos as it is living your life with confidence." So, ok; confidence. That sounds positively empowering, and even more asexual then I previously assumed. So, did I initially give an unfair reading of what I thought "hot girl summer" was? Was I also following from behind, tooting a sad saxophone without fully understanding this of-the-moment, women-borne movement, instead of walking beside them? Buddha said that, just as a snake sheds its skin, we must shed our past over and over again. It's time for all of us – every one of us, a hot girl of the summer – to strip off the layers that hold us back, and to do so every season, without expiration, infinitely.
The Bright Light of Anton Yelchin Remembered in 'Love, Antosha'
Love, Antosha had its world premiere at the Sundance film festival, where the late actor's friends and parents shared this film with a welcoming and humbled audience. The documentary, produced by Like Crazy director Drake Doremus and directed by first-time filmmaker Garret Price, proved more than a simple biography. The film is a detailed and loving look at an artist whose curiosity and compassion for art and life was so pure. Here's what you need to know about the film.
The documentary, Love, Antosha, captures the life of the intellectual, spirited, and beloved artist, Anton Yelchin. Directed by Garett Price and produced by Drake Doremus, the film captures Yelchin’s life story and acclaimed film career that ended at the age of 27 after a freak auto-accident in 2016. Using home video footage, self-shot videos, interviews with friends and Hollywood talent alike – as well as his personal diaries – we are given a comprehensive look inside the mind of an artist who was creatively unbound and yet still internally conflicted.
Antony Yelchin appeared onscreen for most of his life, in a total of 69 film and television projects (most widely known as Chekov in J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek reboot). The film celebrates the creativity that Yelchin permeated throughout his life, where stars like Kristen Stewart, Chris Pine, John Cho, and Jennifer Lawrence offer remembrances through on-camera interviews. Whether it was devouring classic films, playing music in his band (The Hammerheads), or furthering his passion for photography, Yelchin was always learning, growing, and searching. But it’s this same anxious artistic drive to pursue his passions that also reveals his restlessness in other areas of his life. The film does not shy away from showing an artist conflicted and often occupied with complexities.
Love, Antosha reveals that Anton secretly battled the auto-immune disease cystic fibrosis (which was never publicly acknowledged), and bouts of breathing and coughing issues. A curious and self-aware person, the documentary portrays one heartbreaking moment when Yelchin researches the average age of life expectancy for people with his disease. The results show less than forty years old. The question may arise as to whether or not, on some intuitive level, the self-aware Anton knew that his life would be short-lived? And if this drove him to subconsciously consume as much art and experiences as he could in his young life.
Beyond his creative and artistic drives, one of the most genuine parts of the documentary is the relationship between his parents, Viktor and Irina Yelchin. Former Russian figure skaters fleeing Jewish persecution in Ukraine, the Yelchins immigrated to the US where they raised their only child, Anton aka Antosha. Whether it was hugging, dancing, or showering her with his affection, Love, Antosha demonstrates his purity of heart by the many handwritten notes that he gave her, all signed “Love, Antosha.”
Love, Antosha is a beautiful dedication of a great artist and missed human being who inspired so many. There’s no shortage of loving things that people have to say about him, remembering how much of an old soul and wise beyond his years he was. But the film also succeeds by not shying away from the other truths of his life. In revealing the insecurities and fears that drove him, it paints an honest picture of a young man’s journey to understand life. It’s in continuing to be curious and compassionate that, beyond just watching his films, Anton will always live on through us all.
LOVE, ANTOSHA (2019)
Starring Anton Yelchin
Directed by Garret Price
93 minutes. Opens this Friday at the Nuart Theatre.
This review originally ran on February 1, 2019, during the Sundance Film Festival
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzrFqZcosI0
'The Mountain' is a Psychological Summit
THE MOUNTAIN (2019)
Starring Tye Sheridan, Jeff Goldblum, Hannah Gross
Directed by Rick Alverson
Written by Rick Alverson, Dustin Guy Defa, Colm O'Leary
Distributed by Kino Lorber. 106 minutes. Opens this Friday at the Nuart Theatre.
With its grandly epic title alone, it's as if director Rick Alverson is announcing to audiences that The Mountain will be as equally challenging a feat, requiring active participation in order to keep up. And with its slowly unfolding and glacially moving pace, along with its serious, deliberate tone (mostly composed of silent internalizing), it certainly lives up to what could be that intention. While this summation could sound like a detractor, I don't think it's unfair, nor do I think it should even come across as a critique. Those who saw Alverson's previous film, 2015's Entertainment, should already be aware of the sort of perverse performative pleasure one might get in withholding and restricting the familiarity and easy accessibility that audiences are so expectant of with traditional narrative storytelling. The Mountain branches out from Entertainment's same sort of post-modern sensibility, but into a more dramatic and even more self-assured world, making for a larger and appreciated creative leap which mostly all holds together.
Credit the cast of The Mountain – working from a script co-written by Alverson, Dustin Guy, and Colm O'Leary – who commit to Alverson's avant-garde approach with this project. In this ambiguously '50s-set mid-west expanse, Andy (Tye Sheridan) works for his father, Frederick (Udo Kier), at the local skating rink. Andy longs to visit his mother, but it's his father who denies his son's desire as she is under psychiatric care at a state hospital. It's the offer of employment that Andy receives from Dr. Wallace Fiennes (Jeff Goldblum), Andy's mother's former physician, that gets him to join on a tour of hospitals, photographing the lobotomies that Dr. Wallace is to perform. What comprises The Mountain, along with momentary detours into abstract surrealism, is a series of pit stops through sterile hospital hallways and operating rooms, all populated with the vacantly staring faces of mental patients that gets Andy to question his own mental state, which is where the film explores the line between the accepted state of sanity and the insane.
It's these two states that come to life through the characters of Andy and Wally, both counter-balances who embody the opposing natures of man: Andy being stoic and observant countered with Wally's expressive and performative nature. Sheridan (who joins Alverson once again after a role in Entertainment) is tasked with holding the abstractly air-tight tone of the film together, and at only 22 years old, shows that he has the commanding presence to do so. Sheridan's withheld performance counters the eccentric yet poised performance of Jeff Goldblum's debonaire doctor, which is a continual point of entertainment in the film. There's a small wealth of other actors that fill out the rest of this world, including Hannah Gross (Mindhunter) as a transfixing young lobotomy patient who catches Andy's eye. And no review would be complete without the mention of Denis Lavant as Jack, Hannah's father and expressive philosophizer who, when his character is revealed in the film's third act, maniacally contorts and drools his way into embodying the film's very question of lunacy or not.
The Mountain is a challenging film – nearly Lynchian in its ambiguity at times – which will likely deter a large majority of viewers. But it's undeniable that Rick Alverson is realizing a vision of complex questions and ideas. If nothing else, audiences should be able to acknowledge the production elements that make this film so visually and sonically distinct: the cinematography (by Lorenzo Hagerman) feels like an old faded Polaroid photo come to life at any moment, and the score (by Robert Donne) is a sneakily arresting arrangement of musical cues and sounds that conjure the film's ranging emotional unrest. To the photography's end, notice how formally composed nearly every element in the film is, begging to be pointed out by the viewer as being a total construction and fabrication. Perhaps the film's entire philosophy is summed up when Andy asks Jack about a painting of a mountain hung up on Jack's home wall: Jack snarls and seethes back that it is not a mountain – that it is just a picture. Whether or not the film is aware that it directly acknowledges René Magritte's famous painting "The Treachery of Images" (in which the picture of a pipe is accompanied with the words: This is Not a Pipe), the film shows its hand at being just as disingenuous a production, imploding the entire question of the surrealist dilemma on display. It's sane people play-pretending as the doctor and the psychotic. Yes, that's Jeff Goldblum. It's all both real and fake, sane and insane and all at the same time. It's both a mountain and it's just a picture, whichever way you view it.
'The Mountain' made its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival, showed at this year's Sundance Film Festival, and was included in the Red Bull Music Festival Los Angeles as part of the Center Channel film program, originally posted on February 11, 2019.