Review: Bacurau

Image courtesy of Kino Lorber.

Juliano Dornelles and Kleber Mendonca Filho's "Bacurau" was one of two fierce movies about inequality to debut at last year's Cannes Film Festival - the other, naturally, was Bong Joon Ho's Oscar-dominating "Parasite." Equally bloody - but less acerbically funny - the picture, set slightly in the future, starts off depicting the lives of a small, forgotten Brazilian village and culminates in a gory genre-driven finale.

As the film opens, the village of Bacurau - an area so small that it doesn't show up on all maps - is holding a ceremony to honor the death of one of its most beloved citizens. The villagers march down the street in a small parade, of sorts, led by a guitar-strumming village elder.

At the same time, something odd is taking place around the village. There's a man known as Lunga (Silvero Pereira) who is wanted by the police, although the villagers don't seem to be too concerned about this - in fact, when we finally meet him, it appears they consider him some sort of folk hero. More menacingly, a group of white people - mostly Americans, but led by a German (Udo Kier) and including an Aussie - are camped out at a nearby house, where they are planning some sort of action.

The villagers of Bacurau start to notice drones flying above their homes, and during a bike ride, two men discover a family slaughtered on their farm. Shortly thereafter, the two men meet their own tragic fate. Meanwhile, cell phone service in the village is down and other people - including a young boy - wind up dead.

If you don't want the film to be spoiled, read no further. Still there? Well, it turns out that the village is under attack. The group of white people, whom we see toting guns early in the film, are a group of hunters who are on an expedition to hunt people - in this case, lower class people who they assume won't be missed. During a meeting, they brag about their kills, and after murdering a couple fleeing the village in a car, two of the hunters celebrate by having sex in a field.

Incorporating themes of colonialism, political corruption and the concept of a society in which the rich play games with the lives of the poor - one that's currently playing out in real time in our own country - "Bacurau" quickly transitions from a political drama into a bloody action movie.

The final 30 minutes of the film are fairly brutal, although the blood splattered sequences contained within are more of a cathartic than disturbing nature. "Bacurau" is a strange, always watchable movie with a rhythm that changes throughout as well as a great sense of place and some strong visuals. If there's any fault, it's that the villains are somewhat one-note, although Kier chews the scenery in every moment he appears onscreen. Sonia Braga is also great as a no-nonsense village elder.

The film comes at a pertinent moment in time. In the film, the villagers realize that no one is coming to rescue them and decide to come together as a community to stop the encroaching oppressors who have come to play violent games with their lives. It's a genre movie about solidarity, which feels urgent at a moment when the powerful are playing games with the lives of everyday people amid a global threat. In other words, "Bacurau" is good stuff.

Review: The Wild Goose Lake

Image courtesy of Film Movement.

Diao Yi'nan's neon-lit noir "The Wild Goose Lake" is the type of film you can admire and enjoy, even if you don't quite understand how all of the pieces fit. It's stylish, well acted, prone to sudden acts of shocking violence and somewhat labyrinthine in terms of story.

The picture vacillates between gorgeously lit - and occasionally languid - scenes of dialogue and frenetic scenes of pursuit, gunplay and gory violence. As the film opens, Zenong Zhou (Ge Hu), a criminal on the lam, meets with Liu Aiai (Gwei Lunmei), a mysterious woman who was once a "bathing beauty" -  in other words, a prostitute, but one who typically carried out her business in the water - to set up plans for him to meet with his wife, Shujun Yang (Regina Wan), who doesn't seem to find the concept of a reunion with her significant other that appealing.

The trouble for Zenong all started during a meetup between two groups of motorcycle thieves - one led by Zenong and another led by a violent guy named Cat's Eye. A fight breaks out - a prosthetic leg is yanked off, a man is shot, others brawl and become bloodied in the process. As the two groups flee, Cat's Eye sets up a trap that leads to a gruesome death for one of Zenong's lieutenants, and Cat's Eye attempts to kill Zenong. While fleeing, Zenong mistakes a police officer for one of Cat's Eye's men and kills him. From then on, he's a wanted man on all fronts.

During the course of its proceedings, it's occasionally difficult to determine the relationships between some of the various characters, and why some remain faithful or betray others - or even exactly how they do so. There were times when I didn't quite understand why a character's action was taking place, but this is the type of picture where you just have to go with the flow, and follow the dreamy picture's own offbeat logic.

It may not always work, but "The Wild Goose Lake" remains compelling throughout, mostly due to the meticulous visuals in nearly every scene. There's some stunning camerawork and breathlessly gorgeous imagery - a motorcycle chase at night, neon-lit hotel rooms and streets and a bizarre shootout involving a man in a tree and some animals at a zoo. The film also features one of the most unusual - but memorable - death sequences, which involves an umbrella.

I haven't seen Yi'nan's other films, although I'm likely to seek out "Black Coal, Thin Ice," which also earned some rave reviews upon release six years ago. Despite "The Wild Goose Lake" being a little uneven, it's well worth seeing, and is a good showcase for its director's talents. I have no doubt he'll go on to do great things.

Review: Wendy

Image courtesy of Searchlight.

"Wendy" was obviously a labor of love for Benh Zeitlin, the director who blew audiences away - including me - eight years ago with his incredible debut "Beasts of the Southern Wild." The picture's flaws make it obvious that this was a movie that was long gestating in the imagination of its creator. There are certainly elements to recommend, however, the film feels like the equivalent of someone else telling you their dream, and it not registering in the way it might have had you dreamed it yourself.

Based on the story of Peter Pan (at least, to an extent), the film opens with young Wendy (Devin France) and her two brothers dreaming of escaping on a train that travels through their tiny town, where their mother operates a diner, in the same way that another boy fled the scene a few years before.

Once they do so, they meet Peter (Yashua Mack), a dreadlocked young man who claims that he never ages, and several of his pals, who whisk away Wendy and her brothers - Douglas (Gage Naquin) and surlier James (Gavin Naquin), two actual twins - to a mostly abandoned island that is complete with volcanic bursts of gas from the earth and a munificent creature known as Mother that lives in the water and appears to provide for the children, although we never learn many details about that.

Also on the island are a group of older individuals - mostly men - who were once Lost Boys themselves, but grew old quickly due to their inability to believe. An incident that appears to be a tragedy - we later learn otherwise - results in James losing his ability to believe and, in the process, losing a hand. I'll give you three guesses who he quickly grows up to be.

There are some breathtaking moments in "Wendy," mostly due to the swooping camera movements and lively score - and there's a lovely concept explored in the film's final moments that might have resulted in a better movie had it taken precedence throughout the picture, rather than being tacked on at the end.

Unfortunately, other less successful elements overshadow these bright spots. "Wendy" often feels a little aimless - it has a similar visual and narrative style to "Beasts of the Southern Wild," but that film used it to much greater effect. Secondly, I try not to rag on the performances of children too much, but in this case, there are several scenes that probably could have used a few more takes.

Also, while I love Terrence Malick films (certainly everything up through "The Tree of Life"), I can understand while people might get a little tired of the whispery dialogue and tracking shots that have accompanied his latest pictures. Now, imagine that times five, and you'll get a sense of how often there are scenes in "Wendy" of young kids running, jumping screaming and whooping - often in close up. Much of the film's running time seems devoted to this.

Zeitlin is obviously a filmmaker of prodigious talents. "Beasts" testifies to that, and at the time made him one of the most exciting voices among the new crop of American filmmakers. Much like Richard Kelly - whose first film was the mesmerizing "Donnie Darko," but whose second was the ambitious but very messy "Southland Tales" - Zeitlin's sophomore film feels like one made with passion, but less with purpose. It's not a bad movie - but considering the talent involved, it could have been much better and more focused.

Review: The Way Back

Image courtesy of Warner Bros.

Gavin O'Connor's "The Way Back" follows some of the very typical formulaic turns you might expect in an underdog sports story - but it's surprisingly more than that, fueled by a strong leading performance by Ben Affleck and a secondary story about grief that often overshadows the picture's sports element.

Affleck, who in recent years has received more attention for his directorial work than his appearances in front of the camera, gives his best performance in years as Jack Cunningham, a former high school basketball star who hasn't done much in his life after those glory days - other than work the occasional construction job, screw up his marriage and drink himself into oblivion every night, whether at home, where he keeps a refrigerator well-stocked with beer, or at a local dive bar.

Jack hasn't become an alcoholic for the sake of it. There's a tragedy lurking beneath the surface that's pretty easy to spot before it's actually addressed - but when it is, you'll be surprised how it's not used for melodramatic purposes, but rather to flesh out Jack's troubled character.

Jack's saving grace is getting called - somewhat out of the blue - by the Catholic school where he played high school ball to come coach the school's struggling team. In fact, the team is so bad that it hasn't won a championship since Jack himself played during the mid-1990s.

There are a few elements that are slightly askew in the picture: the team's turnaround seems to miraculously happen quickly as soon as Jack shows up to coach them, and the team's players are somewhat nebulous. Regarding the first issue, the picture insinuates that the talent was there all along, but perhaps not the discipline, so the quick turnaround of the team's fortunes threatens its believability.

Regarding the second issue, the players mostly exist to serve the purpose of Jack's story, with the exception of soft-spoken point guard Brandon (Brandon Wilson), who Jack gets to know while driving him home from practice. The young man's father never attends his games, and while Jack wants Brandon to be the team's captain, he tries to teach him assertiveness. There's also a team flirt and another guy with attitude who gets cut from the team, but later apologizes and comes back. In other words, the players mostly exist as figures, rather than characters.

However, "The Way Back" focuses more of its attention on Jack's troubles, and finds a good amount of success in delivering an intriguing and often moving film around them. And yes, the actual sports sequences - which tend to be the main draw for these types of films - are actually pretty exciting. There's a sense of urgency and realism to them that make them compelling, rather than the overdramatized types of scenes that often accompany sports pictures.

All in all, "The Way Back" is a pleasant - although its subject matter often isn't - surprise. It features the best performance in some time by its lead actor, tackles weighty subject matter but isn't bleak or without hope, includes some genuinely exciting sports sequences and is inspiring without working too hard for it.

Review: The Invisible Man

Image courtesy of Universal Pictures.

Leigh Whannell's "The Invisible Man" is being called a horror movie for the #MeToo moment, and that's certainly an apt description. Merely utilizing the name of H.G. Wells' classic novel, the picture tells the story of an abused woman who lives in fear of her gaslighting, physically abusive and controlling husband - who's hardly seen but the fear he spreads is ever-present - and makes a run for it, only to find that he might still be tormenting her.

It should be mentioned now that Adrian, the abusive husband, is also a scientist who works with "optics" - that's about all of the scientific description we get as to how he made himself invisible - and has developed a means of making a body suit that he wears completely invisible. As the film opens, Cecilia (Elisabeth Moss in a grueling physical performance) has managed to sneak away, packing a small bag and fleeing with her sister, who drops her off at the house of a friend, James (Aldis Hodge) - a cop with a teenage daughter - where she'll stay.

But shortly thereafter, Cecilia gets the surprising news that Adrian has committed suicide, and has left her $5 million, but only on the condition that she is not arrested for any crimes or found to be mentally unstable. This, of course, is the catch, which we soon find out after learning that Adrian has managed to render himself invisible and tortures Cecilia both physically and psychologically, forcing her to question if she's actually experiencing what she thinks she is undergoing.

Like a typical abuser, Adrian's reach is far beyond the walls of the home in which Cecilia feels trapped. He's with her every minute - at least in her head - and he gaslights her to believe she's crazy for recognizing his abusive behavior as such. Not only that, but he's also a talented manipulator who manages to get everyone else to think Cecilia is losing her mind, and that her theories about him still being alive are ridiculous.

As the #MeToo movement began to build in recent years, so many stories came out about women who had suffered various forms of abuse from powerful men - from the psychological to the physical, from sexual harassment to sexual assault - and one common denominator was that many of them were afraid to come forward because they were afraid their stories wouldn't be believed. This is one element that makes "The Invisible Man" pretty powerful for a genre movie and - considering that Harvey Weinstein's case popped back up in the news in recent weeks - timely.

The film is not without its flaws, mostly in the common sense department. For instance, no matter how evil Adrian is - and no matter how possessive - he goes to great lengths to torment Cecilia, from faking his own death and giving away his money to killing a number of people. Despite being a sinister bastard, he's a wealthy and well respected scientist - at least, that's what we're told - so his motivation, other than being possessive of those around him is, perhaps, a little underdeveloped. Also, when Cecilia returns to his house to investigate weeks after his death, his dog is still in the house - no one thought to remove it?

The film is tense, well-shot, visually moody and driven by Moss's committed performance. It's a tough role, and often difficult to watch. Cecilia, who is established early on as an abused woman, is seen being thrown across the room, punched, dragged by her hair and other forms of abuse throughout the picture's two-hour running time. Yes, her abuser is invisible, giving it more of a genre feel to it than a realistic movie about abuse, but still it's often tough to take.

But Whannell and company deserve credit for doing something interesting - and relevant - with the material, rather than just rebooting yet another well-known property. There's certainly enough of that at the multiplex these days, so I'm glad to say "The Invisible Man" takes a unique approach to the material and is, so far, the only horror movie this year - and there have been many already - to really stick the landing.

Review: Portrait Of A Lady On Fire

Image courtesy of Neon.

Celine Sciamma's heralded "Portrait of a Lady on Fire" is a gorgeous period romance that lives up to the hype accompanying the picture since its debut at the Cannes Film Festival last year. Sciamma's films typically tell stories that immerse themselves in the lives of young women - her previous work includes the sexual awakening tale "Water Lillies" and the lovely coming of age story "Girlhood" - and her latest is no different.

Set somewhere on the coast of Brittany in the 1770s, the picture tells the story of Marianne (Noemie Merlant), an artist-for-hire whom we first meet as she teaches a class some years after the film's main story takes place. As she poses for her class full of girls, who are drawing her, one student pulls out an old painting, which shares the film's title, and Marianne is obviously upset at seeing this reminder of the past.

The story jumps back some years as Marianne arrives in the scenic coastal town in which she has been hired. She is told she is to paint the portrait of a young woman named Heloise (Adele Haenel), who previously gave other portraitists trouble because she refused to allow her face to be painted. The reason for doing so is that her mother (Valeria Golino) has married her off to an Italian man, whom she doesn't want to marry, and the painting is to arrive at her new home before she does. Therefore, if she delays the painting's arrival, she deduces that she can delay the marriage itself.

Upon arrival, Marianne is introduced as a young woman who will accompany Heloise on her walks along the coast - her mother doesn't want her to go alone after it appears that Heloise's sister committed suicide by jumping off a cliff. Heloise doesn't know that Marianne is a painter, and Marianne attempts to study Heloise's face on their walks, so that she can return to her room at night and paint her portrait from memory.

Although Heloise comes off as distant at first, she and Marianne form a bond that leads to a friendship, which leads to, well, more than just that. "Portrait of a Lady on Fire" is fairly frank with its sex scenes, but its love story unfolds more in a classical sense. There's a lovely scene in which the two young women - accompanied by housemaid Sophie (Luana Bajrami) - read aloud the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, and Sophie is outraged to learn that Orpheus looked back, therefore losing his love forever, after being told not to. We later learn that this particular myth wasn't chosen by the filmmakers at random.

There's a haunting and gorgeous sequence in which the women attend a gathering on the beach at night around a bonfire, and the three leads take part in what could best be described as a sing-a-long. The sequence is only a prelude, however, to the three beautifully melancholic scenes that culminate the film - one referring back to the Orphic myth, while another involves the viewing of a painting in a gallery and the third a scene at an opera house, where the "Summer" section from Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons" evokes great emotion from one of the characters.

This is a lovely and powerful film. All three of the leads are terrific, especially Merlant, and the photography - and accompanying gorgeous scenery - is often breathtaking. Much like "Call Me By Your Name," Sciamma's film is a love story that the viewer recognizes from the start will eventually end. But also much like that previous picture, "Portrait of a Lady on Fire" isn't a tragedy, but rather a tale in which two people who love each other learn something about themselves and life in the process, and come away better people from the experience, even if their future is no longer shared. It's a real stunner.