movies

Storyville, Blue Bag Life (2022), BBC 4, BBCiPlayer, writer-director Lisa Selby and co-director Rebecca Lloyd-Evans, Alex Fry, Josie Cole.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001lspj/storyville-blue-bag-life

Blue Bag Life won the audience award at the 2022 London International Film Festival. As any artist or writer knows, “Who are you?” or “What are you?” can mean different things. We are all different people. Lisa Selby’s passion is filmmaking. She turned the camera on herself and documented her fractured life. Not everything made the cut, but there’s a raw honesty that’s appealing.

‘Disconnection is the only mothering I’ve ever known.’

‘At Primary School my nicknames were “Disease” and “Witch”. I was sure Helen gave me up because of some disease I had…I thought maybe she didn’t want to be called ‘Mum’ cause I was too dirty.’

Helen is Lisa’s mother. She left her when she was ten. Ran away with her lover and her dad brought Lisa up, a single parent. Usually, that’s the kind of thing men are good at.

Helen had six months to live when Lisa tracked her down to a filthy council house in London, where she stayed with her current—and much younger lover—her mother was unrepentant. In her fake furs, including a natty hat, with a can of Special Brew in one hand and a cigarette in the other, she explained it wasn’t really her fault. After Lisa’s birth, she had been sectioned in a psychiatric ward, which made her incapable of being a proper person, never mind a mother. Her love for drugs was stronger than her maternal instinct. She favoured opiates with a smattering of hallucinogenics. 

There was always a fag in her mouth, as there was in Lisa’s. Lisa met Elliot, her boyfriend, after attending an AA meeting. A self-proclaimed alcoholic, Elliot had also been addicted to heroin, like her mum.

‘Heroin was Helen’s favourite. Heroin was Elliot’s favourite.’

We know where this is going. ‘I was drawn to the dark things in life. But this was a different kind of dark,’ admits Lisa.

 ‘I’ve just found out that my mum is in a hospice. She has cancer. They won’t give her chemotherapy because she’s a heroin addict. I don’t know why. I don’t know why I’m filming this. It just makes me feel less alone.’

Who are you? What are you? You decide. If life was only that simple, it could be scripted and the chaos of fucked-up lives reigned in?

https://amzn.to/48khBJ5

Memories of Murder (2003), Channel 4, Film 4,  Director Bong Joon-ho, Screenplay by Bong Joon-ho, Shim Sung-bo.

https://www.channel4.com/programmes/memories-of-murder/on-demand/73142-001

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memories_of_Murder

Most of my writing is in Scottish Noir. In other words, if you’re waiting for a happy ending, watch The Waltons. Memories of Murder is South Korean Noir, directed and written by Bong Joon-ho. Largely based on investigation into the unsolved rapes and murders of young women that took place in Hwaseong in the late 1980s.

In October 1986, a woman’s body is found under a drain next to a field in the opening scenes. Song Kang-ho as Park Doo-man, the lead detective in the rural province, notes that her hands are bound and her panties have gagged her. Another body similarly gagged, raped, and murdered is in the field nearby. He’s no expert. But even he notes how slipshod and haphazard forensics are in documenting and decoding the murders.

 Park Doo-man experience has been with petty crimes and criminals. His success rate so far he claims is down to his ability to look someone in the eye and know if they’re innocent or guilty. He and his partner have developed a good cop and bad cop routine in dealing with such crimes and criminals. Kim Roi-ha as Cho Yong-koo, Park’s partner comes late to the interview room and starts beating a submission of guilt out of the perpetrator.

When Jeon Mi-seon as Kwok Seol-yung, Park Doo-man’s girlfriend and then wife gives Park Doo-man a tipoff that a scarred, mentally-handicapped boy, Baek Kwang-ho, used to follow the victim around town because she was so pretty, the lead detective arrests him and they have their killer. After serving him noodles and then beating him up, Baek Kwang-ho agrees that he is the killer and he signs a confession.

Seo Tae-yoon, a detective from Seoul with more professional training in crime scene analysis, has been brought in to assist them. While the local detectives are celebrating and open-and-shut case and how they intend it to stay closed, Seo Tae-yoon points out the obvious difficulty of a lad with webbed fingers being unable to tie complex knots that bound the victims. He suggests they release him and not make a fool of themselves. But it’s too much to ask of our incompetent heroes.

Seo Tae-yoon proves correct, of course. He also makes another grim prediction. There’s another body out there they’ve yet to find. The rapist-murderer strikes on rainy nights, which has already happened. And he targets young women wearing red. A siren song played on the local radio station also signalled the disappearance of the young woman.

It’s cops against the killer and a race against time. And when they inadvertently, together and apart, stakeout the gypsum mine where much of the activity is located, they spot a man masturbating and give chase.

Nothing as simple as beating a confession out of a suspect works as well as it did in the good old days. Well worth watching.  

https://amzn.to/48khBJ5

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Frances Ha (2012) written by Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwick, directed by Noah Baumbach.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_Ha

Frances Ha is truly uplifting. I leave black-and-white-American movies to the likes of Woody Allen telling me some faux-funny thing I’ve no interest in hearing or seeing. Greta Gerwig as Frances Halladay as Frances Ha carries all before her as a 27-year-old dancer struggling to survive in New York and pursue her dream.

She just wants to dance, although she’s not closed the door to romance. Her real love is with her friend and flatmate Sophie Levee (Mickey Sumner). The get each other. Not in a lesbian—sexual—way. But in a loving way.

‘It’s that thing when you’re with someone, and you love them and they know it, and they love you and you know it… but it’s a party… and you’re both talking to other people, and you’re laughing and shining… and you look across the room and catch each other’s eyes… but – but not because you’re possessive or it’s precisely sexual… but because… that is your person in this life.’

But Sophie lays a bomb on Francis. She’s moving out of their shared apartment. She’s found somewhere cheaper and better, if not cheaper, certainly better. Everyone in New York is screwing everyone else over what they can afford and where they can live (a bit like London and most capital cities).

Sophie’s also got a boyfriend. A serious boyfriend. Not just a jerk (well kinda a jerk) that they can both laugh about. She might even be going to live in Tokyo. She is going to live in Tokyo.

Francis Ha, ‘I’m so embarrassed. I’m not a real person yet,’ has got to get on and grow up. Only she doesn’t. She remains the same innocent. And it’s truly wonderful. You’ve just got to love her the way she is.

https://amzn.to/48khBJ5

Women Talking (2022) Screenplay and directed by Sarah Polley. Based on the Canadian 2018 novel of the same name by Miriam Toews.

Watch Women Talking | Prime Video (amazon.co.uk)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_Talking_(film)

‘Women Talking’ is a deceptively simple title. Margaret Attwood suggested comparisons with A Handmaid’s Tale. The near-future is already here. Events that occurred between 2005 and 2009 in a remote Mennonite colony in Bolivia inspired the novel. In their close-knit religious community, it was discovered that eight men had been raping the women after rendering them unconscious with cow anaesthetic. The past is never really past either. The film adaptation Americanises them and brings the religious community to a modern American hayloft.  It had me thinking of Twelve Angry Men.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve_Angry_Men

Here we have 12 angry women. They have good reason to be angry. Cow tranquilliser have drugged children as young as four and incestuous victims, raped and shamed. Evil spirits were blamed for the abuse, but in reality, it was not only the rapists who were guilty but also the other men and boys who knew about it and let it happen. Who helped nurture the hatred of women as being less than beasts, not only by refusing them education but also blaming them for spreading anger and lies, while they spoke their truth. In a faith-based community (comparison can be made with the Catholic Church here), when there is no truth, there can be no faith worthy of the word.

Women that have been exploited and ignored are a mainstay of most societies. Here the stakes are higher. For these women have no recognised modern skills. Their identity is tied to caring roles and being a wife and mother.  

The women in the hay loft represent the women and children not in the hay loft. The women’s jury decision is seen as binding on the others.

 Scarface Janz (Frances McDormand) opts out. The enormity of the decision is too much for her. She preaches forgiveness and men know best. Ironically, Frances McDormand as producer would have played a key role in making sure Women Talking was made. Without her backing and cameo role it is unlikely the film would have went into production.

The eleven Women Talking in a hayloft are complimented by Ben Whishaw as August the scribe, and in his subservient role, an honorary woman. The complement of twelve disciples is fixed again. August adds a secondary story line. He’s in love with the Christ-like figure of Rooney Mara as Ona who embodies a translucent beauty. Ona, who embodies a translucent beauty, could also be regarded as a Virgin Mary figure, even though she is technically still a virgin but pregnant.

Perhaps I’m reading too much into it—as sometimes happens in better films—strength in unity and unity in strength. Where does forgiveness begin and end? What about natural justice? Their options are to do nothing (Scarface Janz suggests the reinforcement of the status-quo). Stay and fight as many initially want to do, but what of their pacificism, their duty to scripture? Would they then become the oppressor of men, in the same way women have been suppressed? Leave—it seems like 12 Angry Men—will come to the right decision, in the same way 11 Angry Women (and honorary woman). Worth watching.

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Petite Maman, Film 4, written and directed by Céline Sciamma

Petite Maman, Film 4, written and directed by Céline Sciamma.

https://www.channel4.com/programmes/petite-maman/on-demand/74620-001

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petite_Maman

Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady blindsided me. It was one of those films where you hold your breath because it’s pretty much perfect. I hoped Petite Maman would be a similar experience. It wasn’t.

Petite Maman aligns with the film’s theme. It involves a young girl exploring her mother’s past and forming connections across different generations. Time bends as it does in Back to the Future, when Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox. Marty) goes from 1985 to 1955. Inadvertently, he becomes involved in a situation where his mother, Lorraine Baines (Lea Thompson)—Marty’s mother in both the present (1985) and the past (1955)—develops a crush on him during his time travel to the 1950s.

Here eight-year-old Nelly (Joséphine Sanz) meets her mother Marion (Gabrielle Sanz), who is also eight-years-old, building a den in the woods. I guess there are some great philosophical questions I missed. Using ‘little’ may suggest both the girl’s age and the endearing nature of the mother-daughter relationship portrayed in the movie, or it may not. Disappointing.

Notes.

  1. “Water Lilies” (2007): Céline Sciamma’s debut feature explores the nuances of female adolescence, focusing on the relationships between three teenage girls. Critically acclaimed for its authenticity and portrayal of teenage emotions.
  2. “Tomboy” (2011): This film tells the story of a young girl named Laure who, during a summer vacation, assumes a different gender identity. “Tomboy” received praise for its sensitivity and nuanced approach to gender identity issues.
  3. “Girlhood” (2014): A coming-of-age drama centered around Marieme, a teenager from a tough neighbourhood in Paris. “Girlhood” was lauded for its exploration of identity, friendship, and societal expectations.
  4. “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” (2019): Set in the 18th century, this historical romance follows the relationship between a painter and her subject. Widely acclaimed, it won the Best Screenplay award at the Cannes Film Festival and was praised for its cinematography and emotional depth.

Critical Reception and Awards:

  • “Water Lilies,” “Tomboy,” and “Girlhood” established Sciamma as a skilled director with a keen understanding of the intricacies of adolescence.
  • “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” received widespread acclaim, earning Sciamma the Best Screenplay award at Cannes and a César Award for Best Cinematography.

Nomadland (2020), Channel 4, Film 4, written, produced, edited and directed by Chloé Zhao. Based on the 2017 nonfiction book Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century by Jessica Bruder.

https://www.channel4.com/programmes/nomadland

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomadland

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/dec/02/nomadland-living-in-cars-working-amazon

‘I’m not homeless, I’m houseless,’ Fern (Frances McDormand) corrects a young girl she’d tutored after a chance meeting in a superstore, who’d heard she was homeless. In other words, Fern had gone from being one of us to one of them. A person to be feared and derided.

‘I want to work,’ Fern tells a job advisor. She lists all the things she can do and has done. The job advisor remains sceptical. Fern is old.

Cannot afford to stop working, or retire, but cannot afford to pay rent. Nomads are presented in a positive way. It’s the journey that matters and living hand-to-mouth is the price they have to pay. Fern’s sisters says much the same thing when Fern has to ask her for her a loan to get her van out of a garage after it has done too many journeys and broken down.

Who does the shitty and worst paid jobs when everyone else has gone home? People like Fern. Jeff Bezos, one of the richest men in the world, makes use of transient labour. An estimate of one-in-four RV and those who live in cars help make him wealthier. They actively recruit such workers. They are the Joads of modern America, as in John Steinbeck’s classic novel The Grapes of Wrath, without the wrath. Used up and spat out again by middle- class Americans.   

There was a real hatred for the Okies and the mobile poor in Depression-era America. States with larger urban areas and high housing costs, such as California, Washington, Oregon, Hawaii, and New York, have been reported to have relatively higher numbers of people living not only in RVs but mostly cars. Their presence, as with the Okies, has been criminalised.  

Fern goes to a show and sits in Camper Van or a house on wheels. She makes brumming noises like a kid. The average cost of a new single-wide manufactured home can range from around $50,000 to $100,000 or more, while double-wide homes or larger models can cost upwards of $100,000. The Okies had to sell their mules at a carrion price that had once helped them plough a field. Those living in cars or camper vans are as likely to buy a mule as being able to pay for those creature comforts.   

The selling point here is Frances McDormand. Without her helping raise the money to make the film, there is no film. Without her as the main character, there is no film. But with or without McDormand an increasing number of Americans are being criminalised for being poor and homeless. I don’t expect the moron’s moron Trump to win the next election, but if he does, shit flows downhill. There’s an in-film joke in a scene about different-sized containers and taking care of your own shit in cars and RVs. My worry would be closer to home. But my kinship and compassion would increase for people like me. The nomads, immigrants, outcasts and Okies of our modern world, when state-sanctioned hatred grows exponentially into a black hole that swallows us all and benefits only the super wealthy. We’ve already lost the propaganda war to the super-rich like the Koch brother’s shrink-tank tactics and sponsors of Trump’s hatred and lies. We’re already on that road. Nomadland is a feel-good stopping-off point.