Reviews

Let's start by noting the aspects of this film which are worthy of positive comment: clearly a disciple of Béla Tarr's approach to camera movement, director, Hu Bo, takes his time to glide alongside his characters using highly-mobile digital shots to capture kinetic sequences, which, at their best, offer immersion and engagement. The camera not cutting forces the viewer to keep looking. There is no respite, you are visually pulled into Bo's world and forced to bear witness to what it has to offer.

The highly saturated colour-palette also serves to aid in establishing the mood. Scenes are replete with pastel greys and washed-out blues. The absence of colour also becomes a notable feature as characters' shadows are often used to foreground scenes. As well as adding to the film's melancholy ambience, there is a certain intrigue created in such use of hue and framing. The film's acting is also a strong point. The main characters are all committed to their roles and convincingly exude vulnerability, loneliness and suffering.

The issue with the film, however, is its lack of narrative nuance or any form of emotional balance. It is highly unlikely that, in viewing a day in the life of a small group of individuals, we would bear witness to: 2 suicides, one accidental murder, a death via natural causes, a shooting, a vicious baseball bat attack, the kidnapping of a young girl and the mauling of a little dog. Yet, in this 4-hour misery-fest, the audience is treated to just that alongside various verbal eviscerations and expressions of toxic indifference to any form of human suffering. The film is clearly the product of an individual who was in a severely depressive state, as such, it lacks emotional range,only having the capacity to represent numbness and antipathy.

Yet the state of mind of the individual who served as the singular director, writer and editor of the film is not the only factor that places limitations on this piece. This being his first feature film, it appears that Bo had not yet developed the discipline to even attempt to stray outside of his own background in order to attempt to represent something of the world that did not pertain to his own direct experience. Just for the sake of attempting to represent something realistic about human society more generally, the film would have benefited from some sort of inclusion of the reasons why most people don't choose to jump out of windows or bash people over the head with baseball bats. A parent showing a glimmer of affection for their child, for example, a couple who had anything like requited romantic feelings, or perhaps just one person giving another person a hug once in a while would have provided at least something of a counterbalance to the anger and hatred on display. But there are no such moments (besides a grandparent making the questionable decision to take his granddaughter on a one-way trip without her parents' knowledge that is). This is because the film has no interest in what makes people want to live, its only focus is on why one would wish they hadn't been fated to exist in the first place.

In its self-limited immaturity, the film is reminiscent of Paul Thomas Anderson's "Magnolia": a film which was, essentially, a big, unrestrained exhibition of inner-turmoil: an indulgent, unfiltered distillation of intense subjectivity. However, while Anderson's film represented a childish crusade of redemption, Bo's film is a choral bleating of hopelessness.

The above may seem rather insensitive bearing in mind Bo's tragic suicide after the making of the film, but I feel that subjecting oneself to the entire run-time of the movie entitles one to at least provide their own honest reflections. So allow me to conclude that this is a film which possesses intriguing technique and shows the director had promise had he wished to live in order to realise it. However, its narrative and tone is far too stuck in its own head to provide a meaningful statement on a world beyond the psychological narrowness of its creator and is, thus, a fundamentally limited and mawkishly mournful effort. It is probably worth noting, however, that if you are going into this film because you want to see what unmitigated depression looks like in cinematic form, you will be fully satisfied.

The Whale (2022) - Darren Aronofsky: A Review

There was a time when Aronofsky looked to be one of the most promising directors in American cinema. His pulsating black-and-white low-budget "Pi" was remarkable in its intensity, pacing and chaotic energy. Then came the modern classic "Requiem for a Dream" in which Aronofsky somehow injected even more chaos and drama, this time coupled with stellar performances by Jennifer Connelly and Ellen Burnstyn, alongside a hypnotic, pulverising soundtrack and a general atmosphere of unrelenting anguish to unsettle the nerves of the most sanguine viewer. Since then the director has mostly floundered; yes, there have been bright sparks from time-to-time: "The Wrestler" was a worthy character study of a flawed individual, brought to life wonderfully by Mickey Rourke, while "Black Swan" provided a similar canvass for Natalie Portman to give what is quite possibly a career-best performance but at no point has the director fully capitalised on the genius that seemed inherent within his film-making almost a quarter of a century ago now.

Ironically, as the director has grown older, his films seem to have become more adolescent. In 2017 we got the utterly ridiculous "Mother!" and now, finally moving onto the subject of this review, we are presented with the only slightly less ridiculous "The Whale": a film about a morbidly obese man who is on the point of a fatal heart attack. Based on the play by Samuel D Hunter, this film almost certainly has nothing to say, but that doesn't stop it from indulgently pontificating on religion, sexuality, grief and the importance of family. Allow me to observe here that when a dramatist has no particular insight on any topic, it is a common trick for him to distract the viewer from noticing this by spreading his themes as widely as possible. One should be under no illusion that any profundity is occurring in this film and there are a number of clues to suggest this.

Firstly, none of the characters' motivations are properly thought out. We have a central character, Charlie (played by Brendan Fraser), who is homosexual (the importance of this will become apparent later) and apparently suicidal . He has developed a co-dependent friendship with the fiercely protective Liz (Hong Chau). Liz is depicted as finding value in the dependence that Charlie has on her, so much so that she attempts to prevent her friend from reconnecting with his daughter lest her role in his life be usurped. Yet, so desperate is she to maintain his friendship that she continues to feed him fried chicken and brings him highly-unhealthy snacks, all the while being acutely aware of how close this food is to killing him. It is worth noting here that Liz is also a nurse, something which might lead one to believe that her instinct would be to avoid perpetuating life-shortening habits vis-a-vis her closest friends.

Then there is Charlie's daughter, Ellie, from whom he has been estranged for almost a decade. He calls her after he realises the perilousness of his health and she comes to visit him immediately. She is standoffish and hostile but it is made clear to her that there will be a financial and possibly an educational advantage in associating with him. At times it seems as if she is motivated purely by self-interest, at other times she appears driven by motiveless malignity and then, less plausibly perhaps, she appears to be doing acts of great kindness in a roundabout and easily misinterpreted fashion. By the end of the film, all three of these interpretations could easily be true and it comes across as if neither the writer nor the director decided what Ellie's motivations actually were. You could call this artistic ambiguity, I call it a lack of interest in character development. After all, if a character is not particularly defined in any substantial way then they can behave as the writer wishes them to in order to serve the preconceived plot. The character of Ellie does this as does the character of Liz as does, most importantly, the character of Charlie himself.

Taking a closer look at Charlie we see a kind, gentle almost childlike individual. He is suffering from grief, hence his extreme comfort eating, but, as an English teacher by profession, he is still capable of being moved by beautiful, honest writing. This in and of itself appears to possess the whiff of something fay but I shall just about allow it to pass. The main issue with Charlie's characterisation is that he is far too kind, gentle and caring to ever be capable of the emotional and physical abandonment of which his character is purportedly responsible. All of the invective and hostility that Charlie receives at the hands of his estranged family in the film is utterly justified by Charlie's past actions and yet Fraser's angelic performance provides not even a scintilla of evidence of the callousness he has previously been responsible for. At one point in the film, his ex-wife says that she is aware that Charlie was only using her to have a child. The audience is unsure whether to interpret this as bitterness or honesty and, once again, I don't think either the writer or director cared to decide themselves in which category the comment belonged. However, its truth would make perfect sense since Charlie is very clearly represented as being gay in the film, right from the very first scene in fact. Yet how could such a kind, genuine man who is so powerfully moved by honesty be capable of such cynical deception? It does not fit with the character that is being projected in any conceivable way.

Focusing on the character of Charlie takes me back to my observations regarding the adolescent nature of Aronofsky's more recent cinematic fare. Too much of this film includes "fat jokes", including the film's title itself. Oh, of course, this can easily be denied: it's a reference to "Moby Dick", it's a reference to the Biblical story of Noah (there's another Aronofsky association by the way). It is also, naturally, a reference to the protagonist's size. There is also too much prurient fascination with the physical degradation associated with being morbidly obese. Virtually nothing is left to the audience's imagination in terms of Charlie's impaired physicality. This doesn't stop with his outward appearance but continues to the unfortunate condition of the protagonist's heart, something which is monitored and tracked in anxiety-inducing detail throughout the film.

The film is, quite simply, in poor taste and severely lacking in artistic merit in terms of its writing, its exposition of its themes and its characterisation; however, it would be extremely disingenuous of me to claim that I found no merit in the film at all. The acting is impeccable throughout. Give Aronofsky his due, like Stanley Kubrick, he excels in eliciting powerful, tortured performances from his cast. Fraser has rightly received many plaudits for his performance, the humanity he is able to exude is heart-warming and, at times, deeply moving but he is also ably supported by Sadie Sink, Ty Simpkins, Samantha Morton and, especially, Hong Chau as his erstwhile yet viperishly domineering side-kick. Bearing in mind that the characterisations are so poorly thought out, it is even more impressive that the actors are able to deliver such impressive work. They succeed by playing scenes as much as by playing characters, the actors being malleable and flexible enough to fully deliver to the scenes' requirements without ever appearing false in their performances.

The soundtrack is also beautiful and hauntingly atmospheric. If there is so much that is tasteless in the writing and presentation of the film, the music is the exact opposite. Rob Simonsen's tones elevate the film and provide it with an otherwise unearned dignity and grace. And then there are the visual flourishes of which Aronofsky is always immensely capable. The film's use of light in key scenes and the way in which Aronofsky is able to visually invigorate what is essentially a one-set film is commendable and adds value to the experience.

Due to the power of individual scenes, you may well leave this film quite moved by what you've watched but, if you are critical by nature and you are inclined to do the maths, you will be hard-pressed not to realise that this film does not add up. Like a number of Aronofsky's recent efforts, it's a film whose main goal is to grab you by the jugular and, in its insistence on achieving this, it is far more trivial than it had any need to be.

An investigation is being conducted into a possible affair between American playboy Frank Flannagan (Gary Cooper) and the wife of an international businessman (Lise Bourdin). The man responsible for this investigation is Claude Chevasse (Maurice Chevalier), a private investigator who is operating at the behest of a particularly nervous client named Monsieur X (John McGiver). Claude's report all but confirms his client's worst fears about his wife's infidelity. In response, Monsieur X resolves to shoot Flannagan at the earliest opportunity.

Fortunately for Flannagan, Claude's daughter, Ariane (Audrey Hepburn), overhears Monsieur X's plans. Thus she resolves to prevent the murder from coming to pass. Her intervention proves to be successful but now she herself has become acquainted with Flannagan. Despite knowing just how terrible his reputation is, Ariane ends up being drawn into a romance of her own with the shameless, ageing bachellor. If her father were to find out about this, he would surely disapprove. Therefore, to avoid discovery, Ariane conducts her affair with Flannagan only in the afternoons. Both lovers profess to prefer short romances and, ostensibly, neither has any intention of actually falling in love. But affairs of the heart are rarely so clear cut, and this affair proves to be no exception.

In many ways, Love in the Afternoon ought to be regarded as a misfire of a movie. It begins with an overly-extended, twee narration, which immediately seems out-of-step with the seediness of the affair-centred subject matter. These jarring tonal shifts continue to occur throughout the film and often lead to bizarrely surreal scenes, such as a gypsy band playing violins in a sauna, a scene which was clearly intended to be off-beat comedy but just comes across as quirkily fatuous cinematic window-dressing.

There is also the fact that characters who are initially introduced with the aura of relevance disappear and then re-emerge almost at random. Alongside this, the logic of characters' actions constantly operates on shaky ground. For example, when Monsieur X resolves to shoot Flannagan, it is unfathomable as to why Claude would not attempt to alert the authorities. When Ariane does alert the authorities, she does so in the most unconvincing of manners, all just so she is compelled to visit Flannagan herself in order that the plot can allow for their improbable initial meeting. On top of this, Claude is represented as being a savvy, accomplished investigator, yet he never comes close to finding out about his daughter's affair until the moment Flannagan literally walks into his office. This is simply evidence of a clunky plot struggling in key moments to cohere.

Then there is the proverbial elephant in the room; namely,the bleary-eyed, saggy-faced, balding Gary Cooper playing the romantic lead opposite the pristinely beautiful Audrey Hepburn. If the description of Cooper seems overly harsh here, it is only because the contrast between he and Hepburn is so unflattering. I challenge anyone to find a film in which Hepburn looked more pure, innocent, enchanting and luminous than she does in this film. I also challenge anyone to find a film made before this movie's release in which Cooper looks even slightly as haggard as he does in this. Billy Wilder, the film's director, is quoted as saying that, after Cooper was cast for the role, he aged overnight. This is not fortuitous for the film as it means that the audience is going to need a lot of convincing that someone as stunning and charming as Hepburn would fall for someone who is not only a superficial philanderer but a physically washed up superficial philanderer to boot.

And yet, all of the above notwithstanding, the film somehow enchants. This is partly because of the dreamlike atmosphere created by the constant use of diegetic music. This is evidenced in Ariane's regular playing of the cello (she is a music student) Flannagan's seemingly omnipresent gypsy band, both Ariane and Claude's penchant for regular whistling and even an extended scene in which the introduction to Tristan und Isolde is playing. Then there is the heart-warming and highly convincing relationship that exists between Ariane and her father. Hepburn and Chevalier play off each other wonderfully and have a genuine father-daughter rapport. In spite of looking a little worse for wear, it should also be noted that Cooper's performance in this film is well-observed and, although he undoubtedly behaves badly, his Flannagan still possesses a certain winning charm.

The true centrepiece of this film, however, has to be Hepburn. Not only does she imbue the film with her natural beauty, she exudes a naivety, vulnerability and consistency in her performance which elevates what should be a hodge-podge of a film into something of an immersive, romantic tale of redemption. Hepburn is utterly convincing as a young woman who has fallen in love at first sight and the final scene, in which it seems that she has lost the object of her affection forever, would belong in the annals of Casablanca-esque romantic remembrance if the film as a whole had possessed anything like the quality of Hepburn's acting.

There are a number of examples one could cite of excellent performances in questionable films, but rarely is the innate quality of a film so thoroughly elevated by the performance of one of its central actors. This film, I contend, is an instance of this. Love in the Afternoon only succeeds in being mildly amusing but it becomes devastatingly romantic simply because Hepburn is so convincing as the embodiment of a feminine romantic ideal. She is the male redeemer, the constant lover, the one who can see a man's deeper capacity for goodness despite the clear flaws existing on the exterior. She is a fantasy, perhaps even a somewhat misogynistic fantasy, but, in Hepburn's portrayal, she is fantasy made flesh. She performs her role with such yearning intensity that one can not help but be enthralled by the sheer depth of her capacity for romance. That is quite an asset for an otherwise uneven film to possess.

Karen Wright (Audrey Hepburn) and Martha Dobie (Shirley MacLaine) are two teachers who operate a private boarding school. After expending a fair degree of both effort and money getting the school afloat, Karen thinks it may be the right time to leave the school in Martha's capable hands as she considers the prospect of marriage to long-time beau Dr Joe Cardin (James Garner). There are, however, multiple tensions simmering beneath the surface. Karen and Martha have more than a professional relationship; they have been friends since college and the idea of parting from Karen, even temporarily, seems to cause Martha a significant degree of distress. These feelings spill over one night when Martha verbally attacks Karen for what she perceives as potential abandonment. As this is going on, a particularly precocious and vindictive child, Mary, (played by Karen Balkin) overhears the teachers arguing and subsequently concocts an incendiary story which places the two women in the setting of a romantic relationship.

Mary initially tells her lies to her grandmother, played by Fay Bainter, the content of which are so salacious that she can not countenance the idea that they could be invented by a child. Mary's statements are also supported, under psychological duress, by a trusted classmate, Rosalie, (Veronica Cartwright) and further bolstered by Martha's own aunt (played by Miriam Hopkins) who talks of Martha's "jealous" and "unnatural" attachment to Karen. From this point forth, the rumours spread through the school like a wildfire and engulf everything Karen and Martha have worked so hard to establish. Each and every child is removed from their studies and the two women face social and financial ruin. Where they will turn next, it is difficult to discern.

Based on Lillian Hellman's, at the time, controversial 1934 play, The Children's Hour was described by the playwright as being less about homosexuality and more about "the power of a lie". It is worth noting, however, that the first cinematic adaptation of this film, These Three (1936), which replaced the rumour of a lesbian relationship with the allegation of a heterosexual menage-a-trois, had nothing of the resonance of this 1961 remake. It is also worth bearing in mind that The Children's Hour is now essentially regarded as the first major Hollywood production which focused on the concept of homosexuality in anything other than an oblique fashion. In this way, it has genuine historical relevance as one of the first LGBTQ+ films that Hollywood ever released. But, is it any good? I would argue, yes, although it is not a film without flaws.

Let's start with the positives. Despite certain critical reactions, it is fair to say that the film does possess a fair amount of courage when one bears in mind the censorship restrictions of the period. In fact, what provides the film with its power is that it is willing to show the extent to which the lie that is told actually represents a truth. Martha does love Karen, and that love is of a romantic nature. An early scene in the film provides a strong hint of this as it shows Karen and Martha in what initially appears to be a state of domestic bliss. They are both drying dishes and discussing when they will be able to get Martha's aunt out of the house so that it will be just the two of them (plus a fair few unruly children). They then go on to discuss how much money they have made for the month and what they will do with their profits. In a tender and slightly flirtatious exchange, Martha says to Karen "You need some new clothes." To which Karen replies, "So do you." "I'm strictly a blouse and skirt sort of girl." Martha says, "You're 5th Avenue, you need to be kept up." Martha then goes on to reminisce about the first time she ever saw Karen, she ends on this reflection: "I remember thinking, what a pretty girl...". It's these moments which show the film at its boldest. They establish the clearly palpable rapport that exists between Karen and Martha as characters and Hepburn and MacLaine as actors. They also show how nourishing a romantic relationship between the two could have been.

The most obvious strength the film possesses is, of course, its lead actors. Both Hepburn and MacLaine are among the greatest to step in-front of a camera and they both give measured and affecting performances. Hepburn shows grace and compassion in a role which is, at times unhelpfully, ambiguous. She possesses an innate sense of decency and propriety in her enunciation, poise and demeanour. It is this propriety which, at least to an extent, seems to prevent her from appreciating or even acknowledging the true nature of the feelings her friend has for her until they are explicitly spelt out. It also prevents the audience from establishing whether those feelings are in any way reciprocated. Yet there are clues to pick up on. For example, Karen is initially hesitant to get married to her partner and eventually decides to do so because of her desire to have a baby, the one (and possibly only) advantage a male partner would possess over a partner of the same sex. Also, when the rumours begin, Karen suggests that she and Martha move to another city together to start again. It's also worth bearing in mind that at no point in the film is Karen's attachment to Martha in any way shaken, even after she has good reason to believe that Martha does in fact have strong romantic affections for her.

There is absolutely no ambiguity, on the other hand, with Martha, who elicits deep pathos as a woman who is genuinely conflicted about her sexuality, not because she is unsure whether she is gay, she clearly is, but because she is sure that her feelings are utterly toxic and immoral. Here it should be stated that, ultimately, this is MacLaine's film, her performance is what provides the movie with its intensity and tragedy. Martha is a good woman: hard-working, loyal, dependable, and, basically, honest. She also happens to be gay and in love with Karen. The fact that her capacity for love and the inherent nature of her sexuality is what demonises her in the eyes of her community is devastating to watch and this leads Martha down a horrific path of self-condemnation and self-hatred. The film shows this, MacLaine's performance shows this, powerfully, uncompromisingly. So the film is not quite as pusillanimous as many reviewers at the time accused it of being.

Yet, when the film was released, it wasn't the 1930s any more. The '60s had arrived and would presage a revolution in social mores and attitudes. The film was in no way reflective of this and instead transposed a post-Victorian sensibility onto a world which had just witnessed the rock-and-roll revolution and the release of the contraceptive pill. The extreme hysteria over an alleged relationship between two attractive, pleasant, well-adjusted women no longer seemed credible. Certainly, homophobic attitudes existed in the '60s, they still exist today, but the way in which Karen and Martha are treated after the town hears the accusations and the speed of the disintegration of their reputation and social standing would have been more fitting if the teachers had been accused of abusing the children, it certainly did not seem proportionate as a response to the idea of them possibly having romantic affection for each other.

The film's sense of datedness in its own time and it's relative timidity are further demonstrated in the fact that the accusations are constantly and literally whispered from one character to another, indicating that the statements are too horrific to be heard by the audience's delicate ears. In this way, the tone of the film suffers from the still powerful code of censorship which existed in Hollywood in the early '60s. On a related note, it is worth asking why theatre audiences were deemed ready to process this material as originally conceived in the '30s and cinema audiences could not be exposed to it until almost 30 years later. In many ways, the consequences of this delay meant that this film was doomed to be released too late to have a truly meaningful contemporary impact.

Nonetheless, I believe that, with hindsight, cinema is a better place with this film in existence. As previously stated, very few in Hollywood were making films that were even beginning to seriously address homosexuality. In this way, I think the film deserves its recognition as a pioneering effort. We should not forget that it shows the suffering that good people endure when society treats them as monsters purely because of their sexual orientation. Whether this was the intended message of the film or not is debatable, but it is surely the aspect that resonates most deeply when it is watched today.