Downer Double Feature: The Salt of the Earth & Ex Machina

My last weekend as a Milwaukee resident meant a Saturday afternoon at the Downer Theatre for a double feature. First I saw the documentary The Salt of the Earth by one of my favorite German new wave filmmakers, Wim Wenders (Paris, Texas; Tokyo-Ga, Wings of Desire) along with co-director Juliano Ribeiro Salgado (the son of the documentary’s subject). Like Werner Herzog, Wenders inserts himself into the documentary to give it his signature, but still be completely devoted to the subject. The film was about Brazilian photographer Sebastiao Salgado. Prior to learning about this documentary I didn’t know about this photographers work, which is a real shame because it’s the sort of thing I really enjoy. His photos reminded me of the documentaries of Godfrey Reggio with the Koyannisqatsi trilogy and Ron Fricke with Baraka and Samsara. Salgado really focuses on the plight of the human condition, those in impoverished areas, those suffering from starvation and from war. The black and white photography is so stark and painful, but beautiful it’s hard to put into words.

Salgado was a classically trained economist of the Marxist bent in the late 60s, but as fate would have it his wife bought him a camera and he never looked back. It’s this direct line from leftist politics to photos of humans affected by poverty and from post-colonial wars that make his photos so meaningful. The documentary itself is slow and quiet lingering on photos and on the life of the man behind the lens. The film never delves too deep into the social issues presented, but is content to focus on the aesthetics and the meaning, rather than the damning implications it has of modern society. So then when the documentary shifts focus about two-thirds the way through it’s very welcome that it becomes more hopeful and about change, rather than the sorrow that is shown in the early portion.

Salgado had a shift in his career towards nature photography around the time his wife began a foundation that replanted much of the lost rain forest near his childhood farm. They literally brought the rain forest back to a barren over farmed area of Brazil. It was because of this he decided to photograph landscapes and animals, a colossal shift from his previous works but it seems so natural after the fact. I won’t discuss the film itself much more, suffice to say if you enjoy black and white cinematography and a good biographical documentary you’ll come away from this very pleased.  I’ll just leave you with some more photos of Salgado’s and move on to my next movie.

Next up was Ex Machina, and it’s very easy to proclaim this my favorite movie of the year so far. It’s from the writer of 28 Days Later, Alex Garland, and you can definitely feel that film’s influence. He also wrote the screenplay for Never Let Me Go, which his similar themes and is a spiritual companion to this film. There have been plenty of movies about artificial intelligence, but few have treated their audience with such intelligence as this. That’s not to say the film gets too bogged down in technical jargon and hard science, but rather it focuses on the deep philosophical implications that eventual artificial intelligence brings. Spoiler: it was very, very encouraging to see a film about robots that don’t have them be the bad guys. We don’t have to fear technology. Humans are far worse. The humans in this film are incredibly well acted by Oscar Isaac and Domhnall Gleeson (both in the upcoming Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens). These two have been in some of my favorite films recently and I can’t see them in things enough. I expect with their appearance in what will be the biggest movie of the year their star power will only skyrocket. Which makes seeing them in this smaller sci-fi film on the cusp of that super stardom seem like being part of some exclusive club.  You should join that club too and see this movie ASAP.

I’ve really been enjoying films with spare casts, just a handful, or even just one or two characters for the entire film. This film has essentially four characters, three of which have major screen time. That third major player is the robot Ava, played by relatively unknown Swedish actress Alicia Vikander. This movie is about the characters through and through. The visuals are stunning, the cinematography lingering on the beautiful Norwegian landscapes where it was filmed, and unnerving soundtrack providing the mood.  This is so great to see when compared to effects driven sci-fi films, which I’ll be seeing plenty of in the coming months, not to knock those films, I’m sure I’ll love some of them, but just no where near as much as my love for this film. I really think this could be as big as Blade Runner when it comes to classic sci-fi status. It’s methodical and you can’t look away, even in the quieter moments. It’s so well polished and clean. I can’t recommend this film highly enough.

The movie’s design aesthetic seems like a more realistic version of Spike Jonze’s Her, which was one of my favorite films of 2013. The design elements alone would’ve pushed this towards the top of my list. But the story and characters made this the best film of the year so far.  Isaac plays an obsessive asshole libertarian tech billionaire (and professional alcoholic) that seems to be an amalgamation of all the current Silicon Valley luminaries. Gleeson plays an unwitting coder who works for the billionaire and is chosen to test the secret AI. There are 8 “session” with Ava in which he must determine if she has consciousness. The interviews and conversations are simply riveting, as are the sit downs he has with Isaac’s characters afterwards. I can’t say too much more about the plot, as there are several deserving twists with amazing payoff that I can’t divulge. Try going into this film knowing as little as possible and just lean back and let it cascade over you. I guarantee you will love this film. Go, watch, now.

While We’re Young / It Follows

With 2015’s Box Office finally picking up with mainstream films attracting large audiences I took refuge in some smaller films (though they opened 10th and 8th respectively on Friday) before the summer blockbuster season properly opens on May 1 with Avengers: Age of Ultron. Friday night I caught Noah Baumbach’s latest film While We’re Young and then the new horror hit It Follows on Saturday. Pretty great filmgoing weekend if you ask me. Let’s consider those two in turn.

Noah Baumbach has been very consistent in giving us quality films with similar themes. Having become a darling of the indie circuit in 2005 with The Squid and The Whale and following it up with Margot at the Wedding, Greenburg, and Frances Ha he gives us another gem which we’ve come to expect each time out. The more serious spiritual cousin of Wes Anderson in terms of filmmaking Baumbach is able to show us real existential crises with relatable characters just trying to make it through life being content with their choices. Everyone, no matter their exterior, has uncertainty with aging. Everyone, as a line Ben Stiller delivers at the end of the film, is just pretending to be an adult. No one really knows how this is supposed to work, we just do our best each day with what we’re given. Ben Stiller is a veteran of these sort of films and is matched up with the younger and very much in demand Adam Driver. Driver plays a more driven version of his Girls character. In fact it seems like this film could occupy the same universe as that HBO series.  The characters live in New York, the younger couple in Brooklyn, which always seems like a foreign place to me. The lifestyles are so different that while these people are my peers I feel like I have very little in common with them. I watch Girls almost as an anthropology lesson for how these people live than an actual half hour comedy show.  Luckily the characters here are more relatable, this is due in large part to swift humor delivered by Stiller, Driver, Watts and Seyfried. With Driver coming into his own and soon to be a major star with his role in Star Wars: The Force Awakens coming and the others being established actors that are able to bridge comedy and drama effortlessly the funny moments give us real laughs and the heartfelt moments achieve what the director intends.

The trailer for the film shows us the main thrust of the film that involves the age gap between the characters and the older generation learning from the carefree creativity of the younger one while still accepting their desire to settle down. This is kept from being preachy with poignant and sharp dialogue. But what really surprised me was the secondary plot (which at more than a few times becomes primary) that is about the nature of documentary filmmaking. Stiller and Driver’s characters are documentarians and Stiller’s father in law in the film is a preeminent documentary filmmaker who receives a lifetime achievement award by films end. There are real discussion about what documentary is and the best way to go about it. This, of course, was right on point for me with name dropping of famous old filmmakers and their theories about what film should be. This is more than just lipservice. It seems Baumbach had a lot to get off his chest, not just with pointing the lens inward about aging, but also about film itself. Films about filmmaking are some of my favorites, and while it is radically different I couldn’t help but think about Fellini’s 8 1/2 while watching this.

I won’t go too much more into what makes While We’re Young a quality offering, but to say that it’s a safe bet that if you like indie films in general you will end up loving this movie. It checks off all the boxes that you expect and then delivers something unexpected that gives fans of film history that extra something. Even if you just like sharp dialogue and wry humor this is for you. Check it out.

While we’ve come to expect a certain level of excellence from Baumbach in his films, then it was even more rewarding to watch David Robert Mitchell’s sophomore offering It Follows (and what an amazingly suggestive title that is). This neo-classical horror film gives you the scares you want while also making you really think. It is a not so veiled parable about the anxiety of intimacy and sex at a young age as well as the uncertain danger of sexually transmitted diseases. If you say to yourself that those are too deep of subjects to tackle in what should be a fun horror movie then you’ve been missing quite a bit of subtext in the scary movies you’ve watched. Horror films are some of the most open in terms of showing us one thing while really being about something else underneath. Mitchell thankfully gives us a horror film that is full of the tropes and cliches of scary movies without being trite and without winking at the audience to get us to buy in. The tone of the film is incredibly consistent throughout with great acting from the lead Maika Monroe. The basic premise of the film is that there is something that can be passed along from a haunted person to another by having intercourse. Then a figure that no one else but the haunted can see slowly following behind to kill them. The figure took the embodiment of what appears to be sexually assaulted or sexual predators, but also at times looks like the characters friends and family. These offer some truly frightening moments, though if you are looking for jump in your seat horror you might need a more mainstream offering.

Mitchell is so confident in his camerawork with terrific 360 degree pans and tracking shots that the quieter moments with straight on photography and shots that linger are all the more powerful. The cinematography makes the characters more sympathetic and the scares real. This is a throwback to the horror of Carpenter and Romero, but is even more thought provoking to me as it makes the audience really ponder things with an honest exploration of sex. This is minimalist horror with a beautiful widescreen visual imagery. The characters rarely do something too stupid that makes the audience angry with them as is too often the case in contemporary horror films which I’ve come to hate. Horror films are so hard to get right that when we have one like this that doesn’t have other comedic elements and is a true throwback it is very special indeed.

The film’s internal logic is dreamlike in nature. The director has admitted that the film’s premise stems from dreams in his childhood about someone following him. We never know what causes the ‘It’, we never know why it follows, or how to defeat it. We never really resolve things in dreams and while final resolutions are rare in horror films because the director wants to leave you with a sense of dread as you leave the theater, resolutions are even more meaningless in a film like this. With a budget of $2 million and this getting critical accolades and having grossed $10 million already I think it’s pretty certain we’ll get a follow up to It Follows. And that’s not a bad thing. While many horror sequels have been real stinkers there are some series that continue to be rewarding. This is open ended and moody enough for another young filmmaker to take the reins and inject their own ideas.

The final thing to mention about the film is its terrific soundtrack. Synthesizers and variations on classic horror music themes from the late 70’s and 80’s are abound here with a score by Disasterpiece. This is a direct connection to how music is used in Drive and The Guest. In fact watching It Follows as a double feature with The Guest would be extra rewarding as it shares the same main actress. The score gives the cues for the scary bits, but also gives you time to contemplate and really is what sets the mood for the film. Without this score I don’t think the film works on the same level.  It also helps with what is one of my favorite parts about the movie: the fact that you can’t really pin down when the movie exists. The cars are a bit older, there aren’t any cell phones, but the clothing is contemporary and a character uses a unique e-reader device. The film is set in the suburbs of Detroit and does take time to comment on what it means to live in that economically depressed part of the country and what suburb and city means to horror. If you like horror at all I think you’ll love this. If you have been hugely disappointed by the modern state of horror with torture porn and ideas being beaten to death then this will be even more rewarding for you. Run out and see this ASAP.

Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem – Divorce Israeli Style

Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem is not easy to watch, but it is ultimately rewarding. It’s frustrating and heartbreaking and maddening. It’s hard for western viewers to understand the Jewish idea of divorce or a Gett. The husband has complete control. He decides whether to grant a divorce, no exceptions. The religious court can coerce him by placing him in jail for transgressions or monetary penalties to entice him to issue the Gett. However, courts by men usually serve the interests of men. The wife, Viviane, goes through absolute hell to obtain her divorce. The husband is one of the most evil beings I’ve ever encountered in cinema, though it’s never revealed what exactly drives this, simply that the pair is incredibly incompatible. Reasons are given about his devout faith and introverted personality but this alone could not explain such a rift. Only after I saw the film did I realize this was the third in a lose trilogy about Viviane, directed by the actress who plays here Ronit Elkabetz. The other two are To Take a Wife (2004) and 7 Days (2008). Obviously seeing these will shine a light on their troubled past, but I don’t think it’s necessary to enjoy this new film. If you are looking for sharp, thoughtful dialogue, and emotionally genuine performances then this movie will check every box. Just be prepared to be exhausted and challenged by the filmmaking and the topic.

The parallel that was inescapable was me was the obvious connection to Carl Theodor Dreyer’s 1928 film The Passion of Jean of Arc. This is one of my favorite films from the silent era because it is so different from the others. The Danish filmmaker used extreme closeups and no makeup on his star with a stark background to create something jarring to filmgoers at the time. It was not done before and rarely done since. Gett uses the obvious thematic parallels between its title character and Jeanne d’Arc and takes it to the next level by using the same visual cues and style that Dreyer did. This is pretty damn genius to me. The truly frustrating storyline which extends over 5 years and exists only in the courtroom and the waiting room would be enough to carry this unique film. The whitewashed walls and the black suits of the men and bland conservative clothing of Viviane would be served equally well in black and white. In fact it would be the more stylish choice, but by avoiding this artistic route allows more realism and grit to propel the story forward. And as much as the dialogue and visual style reminiscent of one of my favorite films would be enough to make this an amazing movie it is the editing that pushes this into the territory of greatness. (And it may be the best reviewed movie of the year comfortably sitting at 100% on Rotten Tomatoes). It is the smart and confident editing that makes this great.

The editing, especially during the sharp and deliberate dialogue is amazing. It is no coincidence that it reminds you of another film about Jeanne d’Arc, Robert Bresson’s similarly named The Trial of Joan of Arc from 1962. While we are so used to shot-reverse shot during dialogue to see only a small overlap of someone else’s speech when the camera switches focus to a new subject Gett ignores that convention entirely. We linger on a subject after they stop speaking while one of the judges or advocates speaks perhaps never cutting to that new subject. The screen composition obscures those who speak at times and there are no new edits to a better camera position. It at times evokes realism as an objecitve observer and at other times internal thought processes and biases of the characters position in the courtroom as well as the moral position they take in their arguments. Maybe I’m gushing over this too much, but it is so smartly edited that it takes what could easily be a boring courtroom drama and creates real palpable tension.

My ignorance of Israeli culture might not allow me to appreciate the more nuanced thematic elements, but the more obvious ones are still very enjoyable. It is apparent to everyone, whether they admit it or not, that Viviane is not the only one on trial, everyone who steps in that courtroom, from the judges and advocates, to the witnesses and the husband are being scrutinized by the system and each other. The system itself is put on trial. All of this could be too heavy for some, and the lack of any soundtrack save for three short instances would not help with the frustration the story presents. But for those who want a real thinker and to be amazed by the deftness of the editing and screen composition will be handsomely rewarded. Simplicity can be complex sometimes, and perhaps no more so than in Gett. This won’t be in many theaters, I caught it at the Downer during the second week of its run there and it could be finished this week, but when it comes out on iTunes or Netflix it will be well worth your two hours of viewing time.

Merchants of Doubt Shows How the Lie is Sold

Another weekend, another great moviegoing experience seeing a documentary in Milwaukee. Last weekend I had a debaucherous bachelor party to attend which caused me to not see a movie. I know, for shame. But I’ve made up for it by checking out Merchants of Doubt from Food, Inc. director Robert Kenner. This might not be so much of a movie review as my thoughts on the subjects presented. Sorry for the rant. This film, while it does tend to preach to the choir, can be really enlightening for those on the fence of the climate ‘debate’. I put debate in quotes because that’s what this film does, it exposes how there shouldn’t be a debate, or at least not in the way it is occurring now. The two sides of the debate are using very different tactics and players. The skeptics side is employing the techniques of Big Tobacco by employing public relations experts with tenuous science backgrounds to play to existing biases and convictions to sew doubt on climate change. This is of course driven by big corporate salaries, but the film delves deeper than that, not accepting money as the sole driving force behind deception on critical issues. Searching for answers it arrives at the  anti-communism from the early 50s to anti-regulation libertarianism today as ideologic backers that allow these skeptic PR experts to align themselves with corporate interests. Merchants of Doubt looks generally into the tobacco, chemical, and energy industries and the causes they support and the legislation they seek to kill. Cancers and global climate change be damned.

The film examines the tobacco debate that extended from the early 50s until the early 00s in some cases. How we went from thinking of cigarettes as part of daily life to them now being almost completely regulated and universally seen as cancer sticks. It shows how Big Tobacco knew of the risks very early on, but unwilling to see profits dwindle hid the science and obscured the results for decades. Eventually the public triumphed and everyone is aware of the risks, the appropriate parties punished with massive fines levied, and advertising cigarettes being so limited as to be virtually nonexistent. Any way you see this it is a victory for the public with less smoking related cancers projected for the future. Kenner examines things even further by showing how the chemical industry was benefited by fire retardant requirements in furniture that were pushed through by groups backed by Big Tobacco and Chemical companies that instead of making them create a self extinguishing cigarette when home fires caused by cigarettes were on the rise in the 70s they placed the blame at the ‘fuel’, the furniture. Except the chemicals, up to two pounds of them per couch, were found to be very harmful and to not prevent fires from spreading. Too much money would be lost from changing the cigarette, and too much money could be gained from adding fire retardants to all our furniture. So public relation experts convinced the fire fighting community to switch their attacks from cigarettes to furniture makers. Misdirection at its finest. Which is why it’s so funny when the director interviews magicians and shows them doing their tricks to juxtapose a fun magic show with something very real and very harmful to everyone in their daily lives.

Kenner then lays out how the same exact tactics are being used by energy companies to deny climate change. Now full disclosure: I was very skeptical about global warming in my youth. It was clear the planet was warming due to the greenhouse effect to me then, but I didn’t accept that humans could be the main driver of this. It didn’t make sense. It’s not a natural thing to think how humans could change a planet on this scale. But while I feel strong in my opinions I am willing to change them should evidence direct me to. And in the early 2000s the science became clearer to me and the data undeniable. The great thing about science is that it’s true whether you believe it or not. So to me there is no climate debate about whether it is occurring, and even if it was caused primarily by humans. The only debate that remains is what to do. Scientists, real actual scientists trained in climatology, are not in disagreement. The documentary shows that the players that debate scientists on TV and raise doubts in congressional hearings are given large amounts of money by companies that profit from holding off legislation designed to curb carbon emissions. These players are ideological. Now politics are all fun and good, but this is not a political debate. Science tells us what is happening, and now it is a moral decision about whether we want future generations to enjoy the planet as we have or that we need to squeeze every dollar out of it now and leave these future generations to solve problems they did not create. It is all about framing the question.

Now then this is where some skeptics would find this documentary very objectionable. While it shows how the deceptions occurs and should make everyone sufficiently angry about being lied to, it is also a not so veiled call to join the environmental movement. But I don’t think the film would have been as potent if it just focused on the dour and didn’t offer any solutions. Finding problems is easy, saying what can be done about them is hard. These are hard questions and making personal attacks on the opposition is not serving either side. Once we can accept climate change is truly occurring and we as humans play a large role in it, then the debate can happen about what is the best thing to be done. Until then the ‘debate’ that occurs is designed to simply delay action while Exxon and others make all the money they can. It is even shown how they benefit from receding ice in arctic Russia that allows them to explore for oil and gas in regions that previously were unreachable. The debate needs to be on how this benefits the public, but the public relation psuedo pundits have duped a large swath of people into believing their interests are aligned with Big Energy. This is done easily because people generally don’t like being told how their lives have been lived so far is bad for the planet. But we didn’t know better, now we do. Now change is necessary.

If you enjoyed Food, Inc. and An Inconvenient Truth you’ll like this documentary a lot. I am not a fan of Michael Moore’s brand of propaganda filmmaking, Kenner can veer close to that at times but theres is an important difference. Moore’s issues are political and economic, Kenner’s are scientific and moral. So maybe it’s preaching to the choir, but I don’t consider myself a member of the choir. I just think I followed the data to the only conclusion it leads to. Science is a great tool, politics is too. We just have to know when to use which one. Politics in regards to global climate change will benefit interests with money behind them, science will benefit the planet and the actual humans who live on it. Denier, supporter, liberal, conservative, or in between, this movie is well worth seeing.