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Roma (2018)
Not a Day Goes By Not Thinking About ROMA
Everyday that goes by after seeing Roma, something else comes back to me about the film. It's in the back of my mind, I see it's themes and message reoccur in real life situations or just remember a singular moment of technical brilliance in a film that is as much 100% technical brilliance as it is 100% performance brilliance.
Firstly I'll pick out the obvious amazing feats of ROMA, cinematography, amazing, acting, endearing, tender and heartfelt and so believable. The production design is so good you'd be forgiven for thinking that this film was made in 1970 and forgotten about for 40 or so years. The finer details and attention to detail applied here. Everything is exactly how it was and you, the camera, the silent on looker of this time and place.
The intimacy of the story is first of all rare for a film to be that confident to show such a story but also extremely impressive at its universal appeal. With this Roma does what the best of film as an art form can do, it can bring us together, it shows humans not as sperate beings, living separate lives, doing separate things but how what we all do, what happens around us, all affects everyone else's lives. While we may think we're living our own life but there's millions of others, other issues and they all weave in and out of each other. The most true thing to real life and yet the hardest thing to protray in film and Roma does it flawlessly.
It is as much as a place and time as it is about humanity, as it is about a family, as it about domestic workers, as it about class divides, as it is about masculinity. These are all themes delt with everyday in our lives, in other media but what Roma does with this, how it takes difficult concepts and makes them flesh and blends them together into a beautiful human drama, with mostly none, new or unheard of actors, acting so true to real life your swept up in that atmosphere of it all.
The fact Roma even got financed is a great feat. A black and white, slow paced film about a middle class in polictally instable Mexico in the 1970s would seem like it'd never be made. And it's here. Here in a time of self centered, social media crazed frenzies it allows us to take a step back and think about us as people as human beings with relationships and feelings.
Now I wasn't raised in Mexico, I never had anyone like Cloe bring me up, it's not that standard in the UK middle class in the 21st century, I found something in Roma, yes the universal message but also the protrayal of family, of the fights between siblings and stories my parents would tell me. If someone else was to watch Roma they'd probably get a completely different and yet 100% personal moment for them. Even down to the little detail of the youngest boy saying "when I was older", the acute attention to how kids think and talk in a true representation of the utter genius of this incredible film.
This is an incredibly important film and I hope is passed down and considered highly throughout the decades by its ability to defy any accessible barriers, everyone can get something completely personal from Roma and for me that's the true power of cinema.
The Smell of Us (2014)
Not really Kids II
Larry Clark, as many have said before, is a divisive filmmaker and doesn't make art to please people, he has never done, he makes it to show what someone else wouldn't.
Which a reasonably respectable goal I would have thought. Now when that includes the interesting and "self destructive" life's of skateboarders in Paris this ethos I believe works well. It's a subject probably fairly niche (I don't know I'm not sure how big skating is in Pairs) but either way he's bringing something "new" to the table.
I was also surprised at how well incorporated the themes of social media and attitudes to filming sex and the care in protraying youth views of sex and sexual situations (not something Clark is unfamiliar with you alright we'll give him it anyway).
Where I feel it falls short is mainly routed in its lack of character development or any form of change. It's fine to have a "no real plot", "stuff happens" film but even the most void of plot movies have some over arching idea to hold it together and push the characters, even a little, through their lives. It's easy to criticise this and for someone to say "well that's the point" and it's like yeah but you need something more. Just a little.... Please Larry. Otherwise all the nicely shot scenes and interesting themes will be for nothing and whatever message you're trying to portray will be lost.
The obvious comparison is Larry's own film "Kids" which has little structure but has one over arching idea of AIDS to tie it together and made it engaging. Or Marfa Girl had the threat of the border control guy and the threat of being found out doing dodgy stuff I dunno.
Larry Clark has all the skills and interest to do something genuinely powerful. He can show all the "realism" he wants, all the hardcore sex, but without anything to truly make us care, beyond it being "real", then I find it hard to believe people will take it on as well as Larry would hope.
Marfa Girl (2012)
Larry.... why not?
Eh. Kinda interesting. Some good writing. Some good scenes. Some interesting. Some not so interesting. Classic Larry Clark themes done well.
It's clear this movie basically does what it wants - which is fine by me. But y'know, that doesn't always makes for the best film or sometimes it does. The acting in places is very naturalistic, in others forced but overall it creates a good feel for the town and it's people. I guess this is what it was going for so well done.
I don't think this has the lasting impression KEN PARK had on me but it has graphic sex, teenagers talking about sex, skateboarding, smoking weed. Who am I to complain? Clark, at this point, just makes art and I just watched it. It feels stupid even rating it or writing this review.
Well done LC keep up the good work.
Stag Do (2017)
If you get the chance, watch this.
I saw this short at a local short film festival and was already excited when on the program it was the only film with a warning of the violence in it.
Didn't disappoint, grabbing from the start then pulling you back to the set up to the start. It's funny, we enjoy the characters, we feel like we know them and are part of the group and 'stag do' until it's too late.
This is where the film changes tone from a comedy to a nightmare, we suddenly can't turn back, can't go back. From there the last minutes play out making the situation worse and worse before it ends. It holds you there not knowing weather you should laugh or cry or never go outside again.
The performances are generally good and it's well made but most of all it's a joy to watch and doesn't need a deeper meaning other for entertainment to be good.
This is what independent short films should be like, that's my opinion but in a world of down beat serious drama shorts it's nice to see something like 'Stag Do' and though I don't know how many people will ever see this if you do it's 10 minutes you won't regret.
Elephant (2003)
Powerful at all teenagers should watch
I knew very little about this film before watching but now having seen Elephant I am extremely glad (and slightly overwhelmed).
The film has a style and rhythm that flows beautifully with the long, slow moving shots with mostly improvised dialogue. The choice to use a 4:3 aspect ratio and Gus Van Sant's beloved 16mm film, is clever and is nice to do with how it looks etc. but it is also perfect for the feel of a compact school hallway and the slow pace of everyday school life.
The acting is all round very convincing, pretty impressive as some times actors will be talking for a good five minutes with no cuts away and most of it improvised and this is all before you get to what is really great about Elephant. The interlocking stories are very clever and interesting, the final sequence is amazingly down beat and manages to capture the horror, but never glorify, a school shooting. But the camera is truly the master of the film.
The camera lingers like a character, we follow characters in long beautiful tracking shots never missing anything, we see how everything is the same, we learn about the environment, the people, the school before having it all ripped away. I could write on and on about Elephant about balance of style and substance being perfect etc. but in the end it is a deeply sad film with very important issues that it doesn't rub in your face.
One the best movies of the 2000s and if anything very important for any teenager to see.
9/10