THE TESTAMENT OF ANN LEE

The Testament Of Ann Lee certainly passes the look test. It’s what some might call visually stunning but it kind of lacks in the typical substance that one might expect from a biopic. Now…I don’t think director Mona Fastvold was trying to make a typical biopic so perhaps this criticism doesn’t concern her. As flawed as this movie is, I find it interesting (interesting can be a good thing). It's part biopic, part dance/performance piece and part musical.
In my personal opinion, this is the perfect response to Greta Gerwig’s Barbie. Both movies exist on some kind of a feminist spectrum, but Ann Lee is able to do so without all the surface-level “girl power”/“men are dumb simple creatures” messaging that the Barbie does. Another big similarity between the two films is that both movies are centered around female characters that have no interest in sex or romance. Ann Lee preached heavily about celibacy and Gerwig’s Barbie rebelled against the idea of the title character being the romantic interest of Ken. 

A big difference between the two films is The Testament Of Ann Lee doesn’t really think about men in comparison to Barbie. One could argue that Barbie accidentally centers the male characters at certain points. Think about it - Ryan Gosling's performance as Ken is just as synonymous with the Barbie movie as Margot Robbie. Amanda Seyfried completely carries this Ann Lee biopic. There are male co-stars but none are as memorable or as important as her. I appreciate that approach. Barbie tries to provoke and lightly troll a particular type of male at times ("film bros", misogynists, women-haters, loudmouths, jerks, etc). Ann Lee doesn't really concern itself with men. There’s nothing more silly and pointless than putting in a lot of effort to troll a group of people that already can't stand you or don't care what you do. We've reached a point where changing the gender or the race of a character in a story is done mostly now to annoying and poke at people rather than to make a genuine piece of art. There's nothing worse than grown adults like Ben Shapiro or Matt Walsh crying over updated iterations of things like The Little Mermaid or Harry Potter using female, trans or Black actors. But at the same time, I can't stand people who can only approach art from the standpoint of just bothering or annoying someone. How old are we??

The Testament Of Ann Lee certainly shows the evil that men do while still making women the center of the story. It should also be noted that the different religious sects that the movie focuses on are all based in the belief that the second coming of Christ will be a woman.

I don’t have a "fragile male ego" either. If you think men are big dumb children - fine. Just stand ten toes down on your opinion. Don't dip your toes in and out. Don’t pander to septum nose ring twitter and instagram moms that lie about their life being hard when it isn’t if you only half-heartedly feel that way. It’s phony and disingenuous.

Barbie / The Testament Of Ann Lee

I don't think any of this was intentional but even the moment where we are introduced to Ann Lee's husband is right out of the scene in Barbie where Ken first tries to dance with her...

Barbie / The Testament Of Ann Lee

To Be Clear - I enjoyed Barbie overall but a big portion of that movie plays out like it was made for people that like to mindlessly retweet and reshare lighthearted surface-level “men are dumb” posts all while adoring their husbands and wearing “boy mom” shirts. Hating men and/or thinking they’re trash is perfectly fine I guess. Just be genuine about it. I respect folks that claim to dislike men as long as they really live that life. If it’s just your online persona or something you like to profess only when you’re around other women, then you’re just corny and pandering for nothing.

 

The Passion Of Joan Of Arc / The Testament Of Ann Lee

If I had to compare Ann Lee to something else - I’d say it’s very "Robert Eggers-coded". Eggers is a heavily influenced director himself and he hasn’t done or created anything new in cinema, but I don’t know if there would be a lane for this movie to exist right now without semi-recent stuff like The Witch or The Northman.
And, similar to Eggers' films, Ann Lee has some light Dreyer imagery. While they aren’t identical in any way, the funeral scenes at the end of both films are kind of similar to me (minus the resurrection in Ordet). 

Ordet / The Testament Of Ann Lee

A big flaw with this movie is the weird run time and all the history that is skipped over. This is a highly speculative retelling of the life of Ann Lee - an influential figure in the evangelical movement during the mid-late 1700s. The film starts at her birth and ends with her death which was brought on from complications of a physical attack. In between, we follow her religious journey from joining the Quakers to branching off to the Shaking Quakers to forming her own religious sect; The Shakers. There’s a lot of religious and world history to cover in her story. I wouldn’t have been mad if this was a mini-series or a show on a streaming service for the story to flesh out more (the movie also has voiceover narration that feels like it was tacked on after the fact in order to make it easier to follow).

You should never expect a biopic to capture and address everything, but this movie has the time to drag out elements that aren’t all that necessary while speeding through entire periods of Ann Lee’s life that are incredibly important (her various times in jail, the loss of all her children, her travels outside of just New England, etc). The Testament Of Ann Lee has a runtime of 2 hours and 17 minutes which is such an odd length for a movie. I’ve been saying this since the start of this blog but a biopic needs to be an 85 minute film focused on a specific isolated period of time or it needs to be a minimum of three hours if we’re going to cover someone’s entire life like this movie does. The same core team behind this movie was also behind the almost four hour Brutalist. I wonder why Ann Lee wasn’t fleshed out the same way The Brutalist was. I would have loved to see this movie take the same approach as Peter Watkin's Edvard Munch.

I don’t really like this movie but I'm glad that it exists because it can’t be digested or critiqued by simple-minded disingenuous folks like Ben Shapiro or Matt Walsh. Male and male-centered critics that want to preemptively tear apart a movie for having feminist ideals or not making men the centerpiece can’t really process something like The Testament Of Ann Lee because it doesn’t have an evil central male character to represent all men. Again - this movie is very flawed to me but I'm glad it exists.

LOVING (TIFF 2016)

The best thing about Loving - Jeff Nichols' biopic about "Loving vs the State Of Virginia" (the case that changed the Supreme Court's ruling on interracial marriage) - is that it didn't get all "Mississippi Burning" on the audience. The story is set in 1960's Virginia so there's obviously plenty of racial intolerance, sneers, tension & slurs directed at our protagonists, but Loving is more about the (realistic) relationship/romance between Richard & Mildred Loving and less about burning crosses and ignorant sweaty racist supporting characters. In fact, the bulk of the racism is controlled within one character for the most part (the racist town sheriff).

It's easy to get caught up in the racism & legal red tape concerning the marriage between Richard & Mildred Loving but seldom do we hear about their love for each other. Sure, they're one of the earliest (legal) symbols for interracial unions but they're also actual human beings who went through hell for each other and brought three children in to this world.
I know this sounds corny & cliche but this image (recreated in the film) really does speak volumes...

Loving succeeds in my eyes because of its subtlety. Jeff Nichols takes his time and isn't afraid of showing boring & banal moments like extended scenes of Richard Loving (Joel Edgerton) fixing random things around the house, Mildred Loving sitting on the couch looking at her children as they play, and plenty of light physical affection without any dialogue (that's key). Jeff Nichols didn't try to romanticize his protagonists either. Richard Loving, although brave and with conviction, is a typical father of that era - he's grumpy, frowns a lot and seems to work more than anything else. And even though Jeff Nichols is heavily influenced by Terrence Malick, he doesn't make Mildred, "the mother", out to be this unrealistic/paper thin angel like Malick does with a lot of his mother characters.

I have to admit that before I saw this film I always wondered if Richard & Mildred were happy together. Like...did they like each other's company? I guess they had to in order to go through what hey did in order to be together (Richard commuted from DC to Richmond Virginia every day in order to work because he and his family weren't allowed to live south of DC at the time). This film shows all of that for the most part.
Sure Loving has its share of sappy moments and the score does dictate how you're supposed to feel from time to time (something I hate) but do you really expect a movie like this to not have stuff like that? What's most important is that Loving isn't drowned in snappiness & melodrama.

Loving is a special movie for me not only because I'm in an interracial relationship with the women of my dreams (no seriously when I saw my fiancée for the first time I did a double take), but Jeff Nichols is a director that I've wanted to like so badly for so long but I just couldn't. I recognize his talent and I honestly can't even argue that he is one of the best American filmmakers working today (he's not on my personal list, but still...). But for me, on a personal level, his films have flaws, holes or other elements that force me to nitpick (besides Shotgun Stories I haven't been able to get in to his other movies like other people). Jeff Nichols is post-Malick in that he's obviously influenced by the films of Terrence Malick & borrows a few things in terms of style, but Nichols is still his own filmmaker and tells the kinds of stories that Terrence Malick wouldn't necessarily tell. Loving is the first movie of his where I've had little to no criticisms. Sure I would have liked for the movie to be even longer so we could get more in to the legality behind the ACLU's involvement in the case (and I already mentioned my annoyance with the heavily dictating score) but that's my own personal preference. No one besides me really wants to sit through scenes of boring court cases (Nick Kroll does a great job as Richard & Mildred's lawyer and leaves behind any & all remnants of the comedic persona he's known for). So any criticism I have about this movie can be easily shot down.

This is a (true) story concerning race that needed to be told on a major platform (for those that don't remember, there was a movie in the mid-90's with Timothy Hutton & Lela Rochon that Mildred Loving herself wanted nothing to do with).
And while Jeff Nichols & Michael Shannon (who does make a brief appearance) will probably always be synonymous with one another, I like the idea of he & Joel Edgerton becoming regular collaborators (Edgerton stood out the most to me in Nichols' Midnight Special).

It's easy to call Loving "Oscar bait" based off the trailer (and it will more than likely get some kind of major recognition/nomination from the Academy or the Golden Globes) but I assure you Loving has depth and is more than a movie made to win awards.

TWO BY KIAROSTAMI: CLOSE UP & TASTE OF CHERRY (CRITERION BLOG-A-THON)

Cinema lovers are sick people - Francois Truffaut

In the late 1980's the Ahankhah's (an Iranian family made up of Husband; Abolfazl, Wife; Mehrdad and their two sons; Monoochehr & Mahrokh) became acquainted with famous Iranian filmmaker; Mohsen Makhmalbaf. At one point the family invited the filmmaker in to their home because they believed he wanted to use it (and them) in his next project. The only problem is that the person they thought was Mohsen Makhmalbaf was in fact some guy (Hossain Sabzian) pretending to be the famous filmmaker. A few days earlier Sabzian happened to be sitting next to Mehrdad Ahankhah on the bus and he introduced himself as the famous Iranian filmmaker (who Mehrdad happened to be a fan of) and just went with it.

I have vivid memories from when I was a child of my father doing shit like this to amuse me & my mom (although he didn't take it nearly as far as Sabzian did). When I was nine years old we went to visit my grandmother in Queens like we usually did once a month or so. While we were on the subway a lady noticed my father was wearing an NBC hat and asked if he worked for the television studio in New York. Without hesitation my father replied yes and went on to explain his (made up) position at NBC. The only thing is my dad was really a social worker for a corporation in Northampton, Massachusetts. This didn't surprise me too much because at that point I already knew my father was the same person who told my mother he knew Arthur Ashe personally as a way to impress her back before they dated. A lot of people tell lies & tall tales for various reasons. However Sabzian's reasons for lying go a lot deeper than simple self-amusement...

Somewhere in between William Greive's groundbreaking yet convoluted Symbiopsychotaxiplasm (1969), Orson Welles' F for Fake (1973), Colour Me Kubrick (2005) & Henri-Georges Cluzot's Inferno (2009) lies the "docufiction"; Close Up - Abbas Kiarostami's uncategorizeable film based on the true story of a lonely cinema lover and the family he briefly took advantage of. Hossain Sabzian is a living breathing example of Truffaut's famous quote at the start of this piece yet at the same time Kiarostami makes us feel sorry for him in a way. From his sad/insecure mannerisms right down to the holes in his socks; Hossain Sabzian is a pitiful guy. A pitiful guy with an appreciation for good movies. Part of me thinks Kiarostami knew audiences who watched this film would be somewhat sympathetic towards Hossain's situation as we can kind of identify with him. Lets be clear - Abbas Kiarostami is one of the most important filmmakers in world cinema but he ain't Steven Spielberg. His films aren't the kinds of films that play at major theaters. The average movie-goer doesn't just happen upon his work like; "hey you wanna see a movie tonight? Abbas Kiarostami's new movie is playing at the multiplex downtown". Most people who watch his films are cinephiles who have a little bit of Hossain Sabzian in them. Take me for example - Not only do I have in my possession (well...at my grandmother's house) a small trash can that once belonged to Martin Scorsese (seriously tho, I do) but I have saved print screens of all the email correspondents between myself & Claire Denis and I will probably NEVER throw away the shitty disposable phone I used to speak to her on a few years back as it's now an important artifact in my life (I was fortunate enough to do a brief interview with Denis in 2013). I have other similar stories from other cinephile buddies of mine but I wont go in to those. Truffaut is righgt. We are sick people. Hossain Sabzian just took it to another level. Even now as write this, Close-Up brings up so many other cinematic moments in my obsessive movie brain. 

The shot of Hossain Sabzian sitting behind bars is like something out of a Bresson film...

the final freeze frame shot at the end is reminiscent of everything from the obvious 400 Blows to Chameleon Street...

While films like Room 237 & The The Father Of My Children make me proud to be a cinephile, Close Up makes me a little embarrassed to love films the way i do. When Sabzian was eventually arrested and tried in court for impersonating the filmmaker, he makes a statement along the lines of how he lived his life according to Makhmalbaf's film The Cyclist and how it had such a huge impact on his life. This was his defense to a certain extent. Like...He seriously came to a court of law with that. What a romantic yet crazy/disconnected thing only a dedicated cinema lover would think to say when facing serious charges. Although Sabzian deceived a family, he still admits that what he did was wrong and is a stand-up guy in court. He doesn't deflect or try to avoid blame and doesn't even resist arrest. I think that's why people (myself included) find some redeemable qualities about him. He's clearly a lonely guy. In court the only person who comes to his defense is his mother.

The Cyclist (1987)

Perhaps to get a better understanding of Sabzian (and this film) one must get an understanding of Makhmalbaf's The Cyclist - The story of an Afghan refugee who tries to raise money to pay for surgery for his dying wife by riding a bicycle nonstop for a week as people bet on whether or not he can complete the task. This film goes a little deeper as it's apparently based on something Makhmalbaf actually witnessed as child. It's also believed by many film critics that The Cyclist is a metaphor about the immigration system in Iran.

Was Abbas Kiarostami fascinated by the fact that someone so much in love with film would try something like this? Or to take it a step further - was Kiarostami fascinated by a fellow Iranian that much in love with Iranian cinema given its sometimes limited resources that he felt the need to base a film on this man? Was he intrigued because Mohsen Makhmalbaf is a friend/acquaintance? I'm not entirely sure but I'm glad he made this film (which may have never of happened had Kiarostami not picked up the magazine that reported the story). What makes Close Up so unique is that it's a film made up of reenactmented moments using the actual people involved playing themselves (Sabzian, the Ahankhah's, the journalist who reported the story, and even Mohsen Makhmalbaf). The court scenes are particularly confusing because it really looks like authentic grainy footage. This isn't the first film in history to do this. I'm immediately reminded of Muhammad Ali playing himself in the pre-Michael Mann biopic - The Muhammad Ali Story. But Close Up is definitely one of the best films of its kind (Tony Buba's Lightning Over Braddock, which we'll be getting in to early next year, is an earlier genre-less film that may have influenced the style of Close-Up in some way). 

It's pretty brave of the "cast" to come back and relive/reenact such an embarrassing moment. Its already been established how embarrassing this event was for Sabzian (i mean seriously, how far was he going to take this charade until he got caught) but on the other side you have an entire family duped in to believing they were going to take part in a film directed by their favorite director when they could have just sought out a picture of the real person. Its also brave to star in a film alongside someone who came in to your home and tried to take advantage of you (although peace was made between both parties in real life, I can't image how awkward and tense it must have been on set).

The biggest mind-fuck about Close Up is that Hossain Sabzian got everything he wanted and more. When he was pretending to be this famous filmmaker he had plans to make a film about the family and that's partially what Close Up ended up becoming. He got what he pretended to set out to do which I'm sure deep down inside was a dream of his. Not only that, but Sabzian got to work with two of Iran's most important filmmakers (one of which is the man he pretended to be). I'm not trying to compare a guy like Hossain Sabzian to Mark David Chapman. Their crimes are nowhere near the same. But at the same time there is some similarity - they both got recognition and fame after doing something wrong (which is an understatement in Chapman's case). No matter how sad & pitiful Sabzian may be, what he did was wrong yet at the end of the day he was more than rewarded in return. There's a scene in the film where Abbas Kiarostami visits Sabzian in prison and asks what he can do for him and Sabzian requests Kiarostami make a film about his struggle. Well...he definitely got that. And not just any movie. Many people consider Close Up to be Kiarostami's best film. He's in the history books of cinema now. Mark David Chapman shoots John Lennon and there's been movies & songs made about him. Chapman wanted to be famous and he got it. Did Sabzian want fame? Did he play everyone including Kiarostami? Did he pull a pre-Banksy/Exit Through The Giftshop on everyone? Eh, probably not. He doesn't come off that clever of a person (although he did manage to get away with pretending to be someone for a little while without anyone noticing). Plus, Kiarostami approached him not the other way around. (we learn that years after Close Up was made, courtesy of a mini documentary that's part of the special features on the Criterion disc, Sabzian is still pretty much the same sad pitiful person and hasn't moved on with his life).

I am still very surprised that I managed to make that film. When I actually look back on that film, I really feel that I was not the director but instead just a member of the audience. Because the film made itself, to a large extent. The characters involved were very real, I wasn't directing the actors so much as being directed by them. So it was a very particular film. One of the very worrying aspects of the film is exactly what Geoff has asked about. I asked Makhmalbaf, the director, to come and meet Sabzian on his release from prison. Sabzian had no idea what was going to happen on that day and who he was going to meet. That moment is very real, when Sabzian meets his idol [and Sabzian bursts into tears]. They got on the motorcycle and we followed them in the car without Sabzian's knowledge that we were filming. - Abbas Kiarostami

Mohsen Makhmalbaf & Hossain Sabzian ride to the Ahankhah's home to appaologize and make peace towards the end of the film. This scene also serves as an obvious tip of the hat to Makhmalbaf's The Cyclist

Mohsen Makhmalbaf: Do you prefer being Makhmalbaf or Sabzian?

Hossain Sabzian: I'm tired of being me

The moment where Sabzian meets Mohsen Makhmalbaf, who plays the role of peacemaker between the Ahankhah family and Sabzian, is, in my opinion, one of the most humbling moments in modern film. The impostor breaks down in the presence of the man he pretended to be but is given comfort instead of shame & ridicule. The difference between Sabzian's story and that of Alan Conway (the man who got away with impersonating Stanley Kubrick who, like Sabzian, looked nothing the filmmaker he was pretending to be) is that Conway did what he did for attention and to feel important for the sake of feeling important. Although his execution is fucking creepy, this was about being an artist for Sabzian. He, a poor "insignificant" everyman of the Iranian lower class (much like the main character in The Cyclist), wanted the experience of being in the shoes of an important cultural figure in a land where art & culture are sometimes limited & censored. That's the beauty of film scenes like in Iran. They go through so much heartache & restriction during the filmmaking process yet still manage to produce beautiful pieces of art (sometimes restrictions help in a roundabout way).
Close Up is told in a kind of cut-up style. The chronology of events in the film jumps around quite a bit. I hate getting on Tarantino so often but does anyone besides me get pissed every time he's credited as this innovator/inventor of non-linear storytelling? Obviously more people are going to identify with Pulp Fiction & Reservoir Dogs than they will with Close Up bit it still bugs me (Abbas Kiarostami has some interesting comments about Tarantino on the special features of the Taste Of Cherry DVD). Additionally, so many mockumentaries, which has now become an over saturated genre in both film & TV, are mislabeled as original and/or thought provoking simply because they make us question if something is real or not when they clearly obviously aren't real. But Close-Up genuinely makes you question if what you are watching is real or a reenactment. This isn't anything on the level of Stan Brahkage or Maya Deren but in terms of storytelling it's pretty experimental and unique especially for a feature length film.

One could say the experimental style in Close-Up rubbed off on the final moments of one of Kiarostami's most know films; Taste Of Cherry...

For years I avoided The Taste Of Cherry because it seemed like one of those art house movies that you not only had to see but you also had to love it and couldn’t question its greatness. I was also under the impression that this movie was given special treatment by cinephiles because it was made under all the harsh scrutiny & religiously-based rules set by the Iranian film industry. Kiarostami faced problems in Iran during & after the production of Taste Of Cherry. Apparently he not only had to cut out certain scenes that depicted the country as poor but he could only edit the film at night when the editing equipment was available. When he won the Palme D'or at Cannes he got in to more trouble in his home country for kissing Juliette Binoche on the cheek after she presented him with the award (13 years later they would go on to make Certified Copy together). Because Juliette Binoche isn’t his wife it caused a stir in his home country. Taste Of Cherry wasn't the first time Kiarostami faced some type censorship and/or stoppage, and it certainly wouldn't be the last (in 2002 he was denied a visa to come to Cannes because of all the post-9/11 nonsense). 

It felt like I was hearing more about Kiarostami's censorship and other controversies surrounding him than I was hearing about his actual films. I mean...were they actually any good, or was he just getting sympathy due to all the hardships he faced? Keep in mind I was young at the time I thought all this. I was a Kiarostami novice up until 2006. Knowing what I know now, I have an even greater respect for Iranian cinema and any other movie scene that creates such great films under harsh restrictions.

Most people I knew who had seen Taste Of Cherry either shrugged their shoulders at it or labeled it as boring. But curiosity finally got the best of me so I blind bought the (criterion) DVD and it turned out to be one of my greatest cinematic discoveries of the last 10 years. I know Taste Of Cherry is kind of like "Kiarostami 101" but it’s still a great film. Even though I fell in love with it on the first viewing and still watch it on a fairly regular basis, I can’t exactly argue that it isn’t boring. It’s quite boring. A good portion of this film takes place inside a car, as do a lot of Kiarostami's films...

Top Row: Certified Copy & Like Someone In Love
Middle: The Wind Will Carry Us & Taste Of Cherry
Bottom: Ten & ABC Africa

...But it’s a good kind of boring. There's constant dialogue, interesting conversations and beautiful cinematography. 

The story is pretty simple - a middle-aged man is driving through a small town in Iran looking for some assistance in committing a potential suicide. There’s an aire of mystery to the film as we're not given any back story about the main character; "Badii" (Homayon Ershadi) or why he wants to die. This aspect of the story didn’t sit too well with some people, most notably the late great Roger Ebert -

If we're to feel sympathy for Badii, wouldn't it help to know more about him? To know, in fact, anything at all about him?

Ebert does have a point. What if Badii was a shitty person not worthy of our sympathy or any kind of redemption? For those hypothetical reasons Kiarostami had this to say...

In “Taste of Cherry” I have tried to keep a distance between my spectator and the protagonist. I didn’t want spectators emotionally involved in this film. In this film, I tell you very little about Mr. Badii, I tell you very little about what his life is about, why he wanted to commit suicide, what his story is I didn’t want the spectators to get engaged in those aspects of his life. For that purpose I had to keep Mr. Badii away from the audience. So he is a distant actor in a way…I was very concerned, and am always concerned, about my spectators. I do not want to take them hostage. I do not want to take their emotions hostage. It is very easy for a filmmaker to control the emotions of spectators but I do not like that. I do not want to see my audience as innocent children whose emotions are easily manipulable.

the three passengers Badii picks up in the film...

In the film, Badii drives around looking for someone to bury his body in a hole he dug near a tree out in the dessert after/if he decides to go through with killing himself. In return for helping, Badii promises to leave behind a nice sum of money for whoever buries him. After a few failed attempts he finally picks someone up who agrees to do it. I'm almost embarrassed to admit but I've seen this film many times and only recently (courtesy of John Cribb's pink smoke review of Like Someone In Love) did it dawn on me that at the start of the film it comes off like Badii is "cruising" as opposed to looking for someone to help him commit suicide (this also probably didn’t sit too well with the "powers that be" back in Iran).

On the issue of Badii wanting to end his life, Passenger #3 makes an assumption that his depression has to do with some kind of debt or family troubles. Generally speaking, that’s usually the reason someone in a film wants to commit suicide (either that or over a woman). What Kiarostami is essentially trying to say (or challenge us on) by not giving up much info on the main character and his decision to kill himself is; why concern ourselves with the "why"? There are already a million movies that do that. Why dwell on the past? If anything, Taste Of Cherry is about the importance of the now, the importance of life and the future. Yes, the future. Although it’s pulled off in a very dark and almost backwards way, Taste Of Cherry is partially about the importance (or dare I say, celebration) of life. Or at the very least it’s an intellectual anti-suicide film. I'm not even sure if this was even Kiarostami's goal but that's what I took from it. Think about it - everyone Badii picks up off the side of the road (each a different ethnicity; Kurdish, Afghan & Azeri) tries to talk him out of killing himself in their own way. The soldier he picks up first absolutely refuses to do it and eventually runs off scared. The second passenger (a man studying to be a priest) talks to him about the immorality of suicide and tries his best to talk him out of going through with the act as well. Even the third and final passenger, who does agree to help him, gives Badii some advice to try and change his mindset and outlook on life...

I'll tell you something that happened to me. It was just after I got married. We had all kinds of troubles. I was so fed up with it that I decided to end it all. One morning, before dawn I put a rope in my car. My mind was made up, I wanted to kill myself. I set off for Mianeh...I reached the mulberry tree plantations. I stopped there. It was still dark. I threw the rope over a tree but it didn't catch hold. I tried once, twice but to no avail. So then I climbed the tree and tied the rope on tight. Then I felt something soft under my hand. Mulberries - Deliciously sweet mulberries. I ate one. It was succulent. Then a second and third. Suddenly, I noticed that the sun was rising over the mountaintop. What sun, what scenery, what greenery! All of a sudden, I heard children heading off to school. They stopped to look at me. They asked me to shake the tree. The mulberries fell and they ate. I felt happy. Then I gathered some mulberries to take them home. My wife was still sleeping. When she woke up, she ate mulberries as well. And she enjoyed them too. I had left to kill myself and I came back with mulberries. A mulberry saved my life.

Every man on earth has problems in his life. That's the way it is. There are so many people on earth. There isn't one family without problems. I don't know your problem otherwise I could explain better.

The world isn't the way you see it. You have to change your outlook and change the world. Be optimistic. Look at things positively. You're in your prime!

Although a somewhat simplistic story, it’s still uplifting. Taste Of Cherry mixes religion (the film opens with a title card that reads “In The Name Of God”) with spirituality. If anything the Iranian film industry should make Abbas Kiarostami's Iranian films as accessible as possible. His work does its small part to break all the ridiculous stereotypes many westerners have towards Muslims in this post 9/11 world we live in. Taste Of Cherry is very much a Muslim film yet I still felt a connection to it without being Muslim.

Kiaorstami's views on religion are more spiritually-based which explains a lot in Taste Of Cherry (especially the ending)

In my view, religion is to believe in all the things that are invisible

Taste Of Cherry actually has two endings - One is an open & ambiguous ending, while the other is an ambiguous ending to the whole movie watching experience that may leave you going; "huh?".
At the end of the movie we see Badii in the grave he dug for himself on his back looking up at the sky as it starts to rain. Before we see if he dies, the screen goes black momentarily and we're left to decide if he goes through with the suicide or not. In true art house fashion the director leaves the ending up to us to decide what happens. He leaves it up to us to believe in our own (invisible) interpretation. Going back to my statement about the film being a possible celebration of life - there are so many signs that lead me to believe Badii lives in the end; Every character in the film tries to talk him out of ending his life. Even the background characters one might think serve no purpose play an important role in helping Badii chose life.

There's a scene in Taste Of Cherry that’s been embedded in my mind since the first time I saw it - After the first passenger runs off, Badii’s car runs off the side of the road and he gets stuck. Suddenly a group of workers close by gather around to push his car out. This may seem like an insignificant scene to some but I found it touching. The instant willingness of these strangers to help dig this car outta kinda seemed like some sign. As if something was trying to show our depressed main character that even though life can be shitty sometimes, there are still kind people out there willing to help and lift you up. In this case even strangers (one of 'em is even smiling while he's lifting the front of the car as if he's glad to help). Also, the grave Badii lays in is next to a tree. Yes it’s extremely cliché but in cinema "the tree" does pretty much represent life (especially in art house). Just refer back to the story Passenger #3 told Badii. It was a tree that stopped him from ending his life. A tree provided the berries for him to eat, the tree provided him with the view to see the sun rise and it was a tree that made the little children happy. In the end Badii lies in an open grave and it starts to rain. It goes without saying but, when something is planted underground it needs rain to grow and rise above the ground. So at the end of the day no matter how dark or heavy the film may be, I think all signs point to life.

ending #1

The second ending is what the film is most known for and kind of split audiences in half. At the end of David Lynch's long & intense trip through Inland Empire we see the cast behind the closing credits dancing & celebrating and blowing kisses at one another reminiscent to the end of a play or the end of a Saturday Night Live episode where the cast & crew come out to thank everyone. After an intense film like Inland Empire an ending like that serves as kind of a breath of fresh air and assurance that everything is ok. This is the same case with the final moments of Taste Of Cherry where we see b-role footage of Kiarostami directing behind the scenes with the cast & crew. Although Taste Of Cherry is heavy and subtly intense in its own way, this second ending serves as a way of saying "it's just a movie". It’s almost like you're under hypnosis while watching Taste Of Cherry and then the hypnotherapist suddenly snaps their fingers or uses the trigger word and we're out of the trance. It’s the general consensus among most people (who've seen this) that the ending is supposed convey the message that "nothing matters" but that's a pretty simplistic view if you ask me. Unlike most art house filmmakers who avoid answering questions directly, Abbas Kiarostiami had this to say about the films ending...

ending #2

I understand the difficulty you have comprehending the last scene of this movie. I sympathize with you. But this has been deliberate on my part...I was afraid that if I ended the movie where Mr. Badie laid down on his grave the spectator would be left with a great deal of sadness. Even though I didn’t think the scene was really that sad, I was afraid that it would come out as such. For that reason I decided to have the next episode where we have the camera running as Mr. Badie was walking around. I wanted to remind spectators that this was really a film and that they shouldn’t think about this as a reality. They should not become involved emotionally. This is much like some of our grandmothers who told us stories, some with happy and some with sad endings. But they always at the end would have a Persian saying which went like this "but after all it is just a story!" The very last episode reminds me of the continuation of life, that life goes on, and here the audience is confronted with the reality they had hoped that Mr. Badie would be alive and there he is a part of nature and nature still continues and life goes on even without Mr. Badie. And if one could really think about being or not being present in life, or if one thinks about it in terms of the real implication of such presence, one might not in fact engage in committing suicide at all. The person committing suicide might think that s/he is taking revenge from the society, nature, life, powers to be, and so on. But s/he doesn’t realize that after a suicide life still goes on and things stay the way they are. I could interpret this in a different way. If my audience is as creative as I imagine them to be, they can take this in a variety of interpretations and I can sit here and every time make a different interpretation of it, as every time one can creatively reinterpret the reality.

On one hand that sounds like artsy babble but what stands out to me is the phrase "life goes on". Say my interpretation is wrong and Badii really does kill himself in the end. According to the views of the filmmaker (which I'm sure come from a spiritual place) life will still go. He will be buried in the ground and now become part of the earth.

Taste Of Cherry was my introduction in to the world of Abbas Kiarostami so it has some sentimental value. It carries the spirit of Bergman's Wild Strawberries - both films are contemplative road movies about life, and, in my opinion, it had a subconscious influence on quite a few road movies that came after it like; I Travel Because I Have To, I Come Back Because I Love You (the film's co-director, Karim Ainouz, confirmed Taste Of Cherry's influence on him at a Q&A a couple of years back at Anthology film archives where I also came to discover that he studied architecture just like Taste Of Cherry star Homayon Ershadi. For those that don't know, Architecture is the field I work in. Perhaps my spiritual connection to this film has to do with the subconscious (professional) connection I have with the film's star...

Make sure to check out all the other entries in the Criterion blog-a-thon over at Criterion Blues...

MY EDITORIAL ON STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON FOR CUTPRINTFILM

Check out my latest editorial on F. Gary Gray's Straight Outta Compton for Cutprintfilm or read the text below. Enjoy...

It’s the opening weekend for F. Gary Gray’s Straight Outta Compton, and I have a lot of mixed feelings swirling around in my head after watching it. I’m reading all these in-depth reviews written by critics with little-to-no basic knowledge of hip-hop culture and that bothers me. Don’t get me wrong – anyone should be able to write about and have an opinion on any movie. But to a guy like me (a film critic with an extensive knowledge of hip-hop history) it’s a little strange reading a review written by a guy who probably never owned an actual NWA album or truly knows the impact that hip-hop’s first true “super group” had on not only west coast rap music, but hip-hop culture as a whole (whether you’re a fan or not this fact is undeniable). I also envision quite a few critics watching this with ironic smirks on their faces, as the subject matter in Straight Outta Compton is so far removed from anything they know that it comes off more like a really long SNL sketch instead of an actual movie. So how can these critics truly understand and appreciate a movie like this? I know there’s more that goes into critiquing a musical than just knowledge of the particular music scene at hand, but it still counts for something and makes for a better understanding. I also need to accept the fact that not all hip-hop films are made for people like me but rather casual viewers who don’t have all the nerdy inside knowledge that I do.


But at the same time, Straight Outta Compton isn’t a movie I really want to defend that much or go to bat for too hard, plus it’s doing just fine at the box office so it doesn’t need my defense. I’m a hip-hop nerd but I’ve never been a die-hard NWA fan. I certainly recognize and respect their iconic status and the artistry that went into their overall sound, but I also believe they’re heavily responsible for certain negative stereotypes that still plague some rappers today.

Straight Outta Compton chronicles the history of legendary rap group NWA along with the solo careers of Dr. Dre, Ice Cube and Eazy-E (NWA members MC Ren and DJ Yella kind of play the background for the most part). Straight Outta Compton is energetic, Oshea Jackson Jr. does a fine job portraying his father Ice Cube (not since Geraldine Chaplin played her grandmother in Chaplin have I seen an actor portray a direct family member so well in a movie), Jason Mitchell shines as Eazy-E, Paul Giamatti does his best Paul Giamatti impression, and F. Gary Gray tips his hat to the next generation of rap music that came after NWA (Straight Outta Compton makes it a point to show a young Warren G and Snoop Doggy Dog as key background players).

The representation of west coast hip-hop in Straight Outta Compton is very important, as most prominent hip-hop films focus on legendary east coast/NYC figures like Nas (Time Is Illmatic), Grandmaster Flash (Wild Style), Rock Steady Crew (Style Wars), A Tribe Called Quest (Beats, Rhymes and Life) and The Notorious B.I.G. (Notorious). It’s cool that audiences are getting a light history lesson on the west coast hip-hop scene whether they realize it or not. I only hope people go home and google other west coast legends like Arabian Prince, Egyptian Lover, Joe Cooley, DJ Quik and Aladdin after watching this.

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again – I’m glad hip-hop on the big screen has finally started to push forward and move beyond subjects like Tupac and The Notorious B.I.G. (although the history of NWA does tie in to Tupac as Death Row records, Tupac’s former record label, kind of came about from NWA’s demise). Straight Outta Compton whets the appetite of a guy like me. Having watched it I now want films about Public Enemy, Wu-Tang, De La Soul and more. These things all seem a little more attainable now thanks to Straight Outta Compton, Time Is Illmatic, Beats Rhymes and Life and even Top Five (say what you want but Chris Rock really went out of his way to incorporate classic hip-hop into the fabric of that movie). And I’d be remiss not to mention my friend Mtume Gant’s short film S.P.I.T. as an even more ambitious example of good hip-hop on the big screen due to the fact that it takes a more abstract stance on the subject.

On a side note - I always found it strange that Penelope Spheris never tried to make a hip-hop chapter in her Decline Of The Western Civilization series. West coast hip-hop was just as prevalent in Los Angeles during the time she was documenting all those other LA-based music scenes. I’m not saying she would have made a great film or anything like that but it would have certainly been ahead of its time...

It’s also nice to see F. Gary Gray in the spotlight again, this being his first film in six years. His presence in the movie industry has always been hard to pin down. Although his work chronicles Los Angeles, he’s never mentioned alongside other LA-based filmmakers like Tarantino, PT Anderson and Robert Altman. He’s a prominent black filmmaker yet he’s never been grouped in with the likes of Spike Lee, John Singleton, Ernest Dickerson, Robert Townsend, Bill Duke or The Hudlin Brothers. He’s always had to make his own path. Given Gray’s filmography and preexisting relationships with Dr. Dre, Ice Cube and Paul Giamatti, I honestly can’t think of anyone else that could’ve pull off something like Straight Outta Compton.

It takes a lot for me to give Straight Outta Compton any credit as I wasn’t expecting much. I had no immediate plans to see this until I was tapped to write an editorial for CutPrintFilm. I just didn’t think the story of NWA could fit the mold of a studio film. I still don’t think this was a completely successful movie but I was pleasantly surprised at how entertained I was. I’m also glad this clocked in at almost 2-1/2 hours. NWA’s story is too layered for a 105 minute movie (although I will say a lot of the content in this movie can be attained by a quick Wikipedia search and watching the Dr. Dre episode of VH1’s behind the music).

I absolutely prejudged this movie before seeing it and quite honestly a few of my prejudgments were on point. With Ice Cube and Dr. Dre acting as producers, I knew Straight Outta Compton would make them out to be way more awesome than they really are. Again – Dre and Cube are legends but at no point in the 147 minutes of the movie did F. Gary Gray address Ice Cube’s anti-Korean and Black separatist lyrics (he touches on Ice Cube’s anti-Semitic lyrics in one quick scene but that’s about it). And of course we don’t see Dr. Dre’s assault on Dee Barnes. But for some reason the movie had no problem showing Eazy-E as the shady guy he sometimes was.

I’m a little surprised at some of the historical inaccuracies and omissions in this movie given how close Ice Cube and Dr. Dre worked with F. Gary Gray. For example – there’s a scene in the first act where NWA is harassed outside of their studio for no reason. This encounter inspires them to write the famous song “Fuck The Police”. In reality, NWA wrote that song after they were stopped by the police for shooting off paintball guns at innocent bystanders on the street. And I know MC Ren isn’t as popular as some of the other members in NWA but you’d think someone might want to address the fact that he was one of the music artists to go platinum off an EP!
(the film also places the beating of Eazy-E, which ultimately led to the release of Dr. Dre from his ruthless records contract, ALL on Suge Knight as if Dr. Dre had nothing to do with it)

My insecurity does kick in and I get a little weary of large audiences watching a movie like this and getting the wrong idea about rap music and young black men as a whole. Rap music always gets a negative wrap so the last thing we need is to rehash the violent, misogynistic and negative content associated with NWA (I don’t care if I lose cool points for saying that). However, their legacy is based around a lot of positive aspects too (from the song “Express Yourself” to the influence they had on Kendrick Lamar).

At the end of the day Straight Outta Compton was entertaining. There’s no disputing that. But know that this is a movie about NWA, one of the most controversial rap groups of all time, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise to learn that there are some scenes that objectify women — in fact, there isn’t much of a female presence at all besides tour groupies, Eazy-E’s wife and Dr. Dre’s mother. But that was part of their image. I don’t condone any of the negativity associated with NWA but if their legacy bothers you in any way – and there’s certainly nothing wrong with that – stay home.

TIFF '14 HIGHLIGHT #5: TIMBUKTU

There's a very disorienting quality about the cinema of Abderahmene Sissako. His work is soothing on some level. I imagine the average movie-goer unfamiliar with his films would refer to him as boring, but I turn to his work to relax & chill out in the same way some people turn to a Brian Eno album to calm their nerves (a few years ago, his 2002 film Waiting For Happiness was my go-to "night movie" to fall asleep too).

But after I'm finished watching one of his films it always hits me way later on how depressing some of his content is.
Sure Bamako (2006) is a beautiful work of art with rich colors, amazing music and lots of great scenic shots, but that movie ends with a guy blowing his brains out (poverty & oppression are also the two underlying themes in that film). On the surface, Waiting For Happiness (2002) is a nice semi-lighthearted film about the day-to-day lives of various residents living in a close-knit African village, yet even that movie ends on a sad note (one of the main character's father figure/legal guardian passes away unexpectedly and he's left alone to fend for himself).
Timbuktu is no exception. There's tons of spirituality & love in Abderahmene Sissako's latest film but it does end on an incredibly sad note. In fact, this might be his saddest ending to date.
This is mostly what intrigues me about his movies. They provide a sense of comfort but they also convey the pain & oppression that's sometimes associated with certain parts of Africa.
It's no mystery that a large chunk of the continent of Africa has been used up & exploited by other parts of the world unlike anywhere else. A lot of the countries in Africa that have a small film scene also have an even bigger history of struggle & oppression so naturally that's going to rub off in their movies (how many prominent comedies or truly lighthearted modern films can you name that have come from Africa in recent years?)
Although it's understandable why so many prominent films from Africa are rooted in sadness, this causes outsiders to have a base/borderline misunderstanding of the continent's beautiful history. I've never stepped foot anywhere near Africa but I know it's filled with an endless amount of beauty that doesn't always make it to the big screen (it really bothers the hell out of me that the most recent successful, noteworthy and/or mainstream films with ties to Africa are Tsotsi, District 9 & Captain Philips).

But this is where Abderahmene comes in. He doesn't try to sugarcoat the bad qualities that have moved in on certain parts of Africa, but he also balances everything out by exploring the importance of music, the positive/spiritual side of religion and all the beautiful features & languages of his characters.

The news surrounding the true story that loosely inspired Timbuktu is just one example of how little the world can care about Africa at times. A few years back, a militant religious group (“Ansar Dine”) staged a coup on a region of Timbuktu and implemented strict rules on the residents like a curfew and no music of any kind. This militant group also forced their religious views on everyone and made it mandatory for the women to stay covered, pretty much from head to toe (gloves included) at all times. When these rules were broken, punishments ranging from public whippings to executions were carried out. News of this coup finally broke world news when an unmarried couple that were caught/accused of fornication were stoned to death in public (there’s a pretty harsh scene in Timbuktu that reenacts this moment).
The reason none of this was considered major news (mostly amongst American-based news publications) is because this all happened around the same time a new iteration of the iPhone was released (late spring/early summer of 2012), so naturally that's going to take priority over news coming out of Africa...

Abderahmene Sissako’s work acts as both “entertainment” (in that they are fictitious movies I watch in the comfort of my home or in a theater for enjoyment) as well as a form of education in that I always learn something new about west Africa whenever I watch his stuff. Besides learning about all the different shades of colors & languages in his films, I find myself googling & Wikipedia-ing after I watch something he's directed. His films almost come off as fiction/loose documentary hybrids (Timbuktu isn’t the first time his work has directly referenced a real news story).
Timbuktu might be Sissako's most straightforward plot yet. There is a certain amount of artsiness to it all (there's a mysterious witch lady character in the movie who roams around the village laughing & spouting random lines of dialogue) but it's still easier for general audiences to follow when compared to his other movies.

When a dispute between a farmer and a fisherman escalates to a homicide, the religious militia that has taken over their village takes it upon themselves to play judge, jury & executioner in the matter. The film also focuses on the other residents of Timbuktu and how their lives are drastically changed by the stern rules set in place by their new authority. 

As I said at the beginning of this review, Timbuktu has an equal amount of peacefulness & spirituality as it does negativity & scenes that are pretty hard to stomach. 

This film falls right in line with the rest of his work as he continues to show strong/"rebellious" female characters, positive father figures and the power of music. Like most films directed by Abderahmene Sissako, this one took a little time to grow on me because there’s quite a bit to process. I'm trying my best not generalize/sound ignorant, but a lot of prominent art house films coming out of Africa are pretty depressing on a realistic level and sometimes tough to watch. 

If you’re familiar with modern African cinema and/or French-Afro cinema, then you probably know what to expect and will more than likely appreciate this film. Personally, I would prefer that Waiting For Happiness be an introduction for Sissako novices, but Timbuktu would be my second choice.. This was a minor hit at Cannes this year (his films seem to be getting more & more popular with each release) so I'm hoping for a nice run at some of the American art house theaters soon.

A TOUCH OF SIN

If you were to watch a montage of only the violent parts from A Touch Of Sin you might think it was something along the lines of Death Wish or Taxi Driver. In the opening moments of the film, one of the four main characters rapidly shoots a gang of hatchet-wielding thugs without blinking an eye as if he were Bernard Goetz. Later on in the film, another one of the main characters is pushed over the edge, like Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver, and goes on a shooting spree where almost no one in his path is spared. But A Touch Of Sin is hardly just a shoot 'em up style movie. It's an anthology film about corruption, greed, exploitation, and the misuse of power within modern day China. Director Jia Zhangke just uses the type of violence found in a Takeshi Kitano film as a way to get our attention. Like The Battle Of Algiers, Z & Carlos before it, A Touch Of Sin is another layered socio-political story with plenty of bloodshed (I also wouldn't be surprised if Haneke's 71 Fragments Of Chronology Of Chance was a major influence on this given the similar subject matter, tone & structure of both films). 

I admit that I slept on A Touch Of Sin last year. On paper it didn't look that appealing - A "message movie" where various characters are all in some way connected to one another? I hate to come off like a snob but that really sounded like something I'd already seen a million times in the 90's alone. I also read a few reviews that compared A Touch Of Sin to the work of Tarantino (an instant turnoff for me these days). But I should have known that any modern Asian movie with a touch of violence is automatically going to draw some comparison to Tarantino in the same way that anything "weird" or "strange" is going to get compared to David Lynch. Step your game up movie critics!

This turned out to be one of the best movies of last year that I didn't end up seeing until this year (along with Thomas Vinterberg's The Hunt).

A Touch Of Sin is broken up in to four separate stories...

In the first story we follow "Dahai" - A miner who’s grown beyond frustrated with his employers exploiting him & his fellow co-workers. After taking a beating that leaves him in the hospital, courtesy of the people he works for, Dahai decides to take vengeance with a shotgun...
The second story focuses on "Zhou" - a mysterious migrant worker/vigilante who has a fascination with guns & violence.
Story #3 follows "Xiao Yu" - a receptionist at a massage parlor/bathhouse who’s beaten and almost raped until she finally defends herself.
The final story is about a teenager, "Xioa Hui", who quits his job at a sweatshop in order to work in a hotel (which is really a front for an upscale brothel) but he ultimately succumbs to the pressure of having to support his mother & siblings.

Clockwise from top left: Stories Dahai, Zhou, Xiao Yu & Xiao Hui

The four stories that make up A Touch Of Sin are somewhat connected, but it’s not what you think. The characters don’t step out of one story and cross paths with a character from another story like in Pulp Fiction, Happiness or Magnolia. Instead, Jia Zhangke makes spiritual connections between his characters. In the first story, there's a seemingly random scene of a man whipping a horse repeatedly on the side of a road which is mirrored later on in the third story where another man repeatedly beats a woman with a wad of cash over & over in the same manner. Both scenes eventually end in explosive violence. In the fourth story, we see the young protagonist take the train from one town to another in order to find a new job, while in the previous story; one of the supporting characters boards another train on the same railway that eventually has a derailment. And as I said earlier, the main characters in the first & second stories (who are the only two main characters to share minor screen time together) go on shooting sprees for various reasons. Social media & the sex industry are also recurring elements throughout the film and all four main characters are a part of the Chinese working class.

Some of the murders in A Touch Of Sin may seem random & senseless at first but it all serves a purpose at the end of the day. For a moment I found myself questioning why Jia Zhangke makes violence the final outcome for all of his characters. I understand there are cases where people feel that their backs are against the wall and have no more options, but resorting to randomly shooting (and stabbing) people seemed a bit over the top. Did he just not know how to write a good script and in order to make up for it he just threw in random moments of violence?

After the recent news of the retired Florida cop shooting a man in a movie theater over an argument about texting, I immediately thought about my love for the scene in Bobcat Goldthwait's God Bless America where the two main vigilantes shoot up a movie theater because the audience was acting unruly, and I felt a little guilty for enjoying that. Violence in film has become a mirror to what’s going on in real life now more than ever and it's honestly turning me off. But then I quickly realized that's just it - A Touch Of Sin is in fact a mirror of what’s going in the world and it needed to be made. I eventually came to discover that all four stories are based on true events ripped from the headlines of various Chinese news reports. With the exception of our mysterious central figure from the second story, all of our main characters have truly reached their boiling point and see no other choice but to resort to violence (or suicide in the case of one of them). If two men are forcing you to have sex when you don't want too, like in the case of the third story, and no one is around to help, you really have no choice but to take matters in to your own hands. If you're just a teenager (which is essentially still just a kid) faced with the pressure of supporting not only yourself, but your demanding mother back home, and you make very little money to begin with, you're eventually going to lose hope like the teenage protagonist in the fourth story.

the have-nots in A Touch Of Sin

Jia Zhangke steers clear of the Dardenne Brothers approach in exploring the poor and/or working class by not making all the characters out to be perfect, angelic do-gooders who just get shit on (we'll actually be getting in to the Dardenne brothers next month). These are real people who make poor choices, are dislikeable and sometimes do dishonest things. Dahai, although 100% on point with his frustration of being exploited, is very stubborn & somewhat unpleasant, while Xiao Yu is having an affair with a man knowing that he's married. But at the end of the day we still sympathize with these people. This is something I wish Ryan Coogler did more with Oscar Grant in Fruitvale Station. True, we saw an imperfect side to him, but overall, Grant's portrayal still felt a little a too perfect to the point where it taints the atrocity that actually happened to him.

Parts of this film are a tad bit film schoolish and some people might find certain scenes to be random for the sake of being random, but it’s the overall picture Jia Zhangke paints that makes A Touch Of Sin so great. It’s a violent, heartbreaking & complex story. There's multiple scenes that'll have you either choked up, enraged or both (the scene of Xiao Hui getting chewed out by his mother over the phone for not earning enough money is enough to make you wanna cry).
One might think A Touch Of Sin is just a reflection of Chinese society (and it is for the most part) but given the world's relationship with China (the products we all use in our daily lives that come from over there), to the ridiculous amount of gun violence plaguing America these days, this is a film anyone from any culture could appreciate.
Money, power, greed, materialism & corruption were all huge themes in cinema last year (spilling over in to this year) with films like The Wolf Of Wall Street, Pain & Gain, Spring Breakers & American Hustle. A Touch Of Sin fits right in with those films but what also sets it apart is that Zhangke actually shines a light on and gives a voice to the exploited & less fortunate. While the aforementioned films only focused on the exploiters & hustlers, A Touch Of Sin actually focuses on the have-nots. If anything, this is the ant-Wolf Of Wall Street. There's a quick scene towards the end of Scorsese's latest film were agent Denham (the FBI agent who busts Jordan Belfort) rides the subway and we get a glimpse of all the every day, working class and/or poor people who are either director or indirectly affected by those abusive people in power that Belfort essentially represents. I found this to be mildly insulting because in a 3+ hour film, we only got about 20-30 seconds of light shed on the struggling people of America while the rest of the film was dedicated to the crazy antics of these glutenous rich people who abuse their power. Jia Zhangke does the opposite and gives the powerless people a voice.

THE ELEPHANT MAN: DAVID LYNCH'S TRANSITION FROM MIDNIGHT MADNESS TO MAINSTREAM SUCCESS

The Elephant Man is tough to place among the other movies in David Lynch's filmography because even though it’s really good, it doesn’t really feature his trademark quirky surreal/neo-noir style as prominently as his other work. Over the years there's been some odd choices in directors to make films outside of their comfort zone (most notably David Cronenberg's offer to direct Ferris Bueller's Day Off). This isn't the strangest example but at the time it was a bit strange for David Lynch to be making this. Before The Elephant Man went in to production, the higher-ups at Paramount must have been asking themselves what the hell they were doing putting out a biopic on John Merrick Directed by an experimental, up & coming director (Lynch) produced by (comedian) Mel Brooks. Say what you want about movie studios but this was actually a case of "mainstream cinema" taking a gamble on a young progressive director. You have to remember that in 1980 David Lynch wasn’t the Twin Peaks creating, pop culture oddity that we know now. At that point he was a new director responsible for a handful of experimental shorts and one feature-length film that was embraced more by the cultish midnight movie crowd. And Mel Brooks' career speaks for itself. Dramatic biopics weren't exactly his thing which is why he downplayed his involvement in the film until after it was complete.

I guess If you absolutely had to categorize David Lynch at that point in his career he'd be considered a horror director...? Obviously we aren’t talking about the traditional horror directors of the time like Carpenter or Hopper but Eraserhead (one of my favorite films) and The Grandmother (one of my favorite Lynch shorts) haunt my dreams more than Michael Meyers or Leatherface. I get the idea of hiring a “horror director” to do a movie like The Elephant Man as it involves startling scenes and extensive make-up that would transform someone in to an “oddity” but that’s a touchy subject because it poses the question: Is John Merrick a "oddity"? Of course he's not. To quote John Hurt in The Elephant Man: "He's a human being!” But when you associate him with the baby from Eraserhead and use the term; "horror" in the advertisements, you're not only asking for trouble but you're obviously giving off the wrong impression of what the movie is going to be. Every once in a while I come across reviews that make comparisons between Elephant Man & Todd Browning's Freaks and although there are a few legitimate comparisons between both films it still bothers me to associate the term "freak" with John Merrick...

David Lynch, 1980

At first glance one would think the only thing The Elephant Man has in common with Lynch's other work is the black & white cinematography and its use of make-up & prosthetics. But the more you watch the more you may come to realize that from the film's surreal opening sequence (which also has some seriously disturbing sexual undertones), to all the surreal "interlude" shots of factories, pipes & industrial noises (all key elements in the world of David Lynch), The Elephant Man is just as much a David Lynch film as Blue Velvet or Lost Highway. Actually, the dream sequences from The Elephant Man went on to influence parts of Blue Velvet (specifically Jeffery Beaumont's first dream after witnessing Frank Booth for the first time).

overlapping imagery & experimentation in The Elephant Man...

In The Elephant Man we follow the final days of John Merrick (John Hurt) through the eyes of Dr. Frederick Treves (Anthony Hopkins) form an abused circus sideshow freak to a medical anomaly. After seeing Merrick ("The Elephant Man") at a circus, Treves takes it upon himself to try and help Merrick by looking after and studying him. The film's most interesting angle is Dr. Treves' early treatment of John Merrick. Although his intentions are good, he's no different than Merrick's previous owner who paraded him around as a sideshow attraction. Only Instead of the circus, Treves parades him around and shows him off to the medical/scientific community almost as a found object instead of a person. After a reality check from one of his nurses, Treves’ treatment of Merrick changes.

The Elephant Man isn’t exactly a horror movie but it certainly has its share of startling and/or shocking moments. For the first quarter of the film Lynch intentionally keeps Hurt/Merrick under wraps or in the shadows. We only get quick glimpses of his deformities or see the terrified facial expressions of those who look at him for the first time...

The Elephant Man went on to compete against Raging Bull at the academy awards which is probably the only time two filmmakers like David Lynch & Martin Scorsese would draw so many parallels between one another. Obviously The Elephant Man & Raging Bull don't have the same spiritual connection as stuff like Blue Velvet & Something Wild or Lost Highway & Crash (1996) but both films are artistic, black & white biopics (both featuring crucial scenes shot similarly in slow motion) that represent high points in both filmmakers' careers released in the same year.

Lynch's history as an academy award nominated director is quite similar to Scorsese's. Prior to The Departed & Hugo, much fuss was made about the number of times Scorsese had been nominated yet never won but Lynch was only one winless nomination behind Scorsese for quite some time.

Raging Bull

I know this may seem like an odd choice for my first official Lynch review but this is one of those films that grew on me the older I got (it's also technically the first David Lynch movie I saw). The Elephant Man is proof that David Lynch can straight up direct a film without relying on his surreal quirkiness. And that’s not too say I don’t love Lynch's quirky style. Eraserhead & Blue Velvet are two of my all time favorite films, I think Mulholland Drive is one of the five best films of the last decade, and his last film inspired the name of this very site. But the surreal randomness in his work can sometimes work against him and distract viewers who may not necessarily like that kind stuff. No matter how great a film Mulholland Drive is, people get way too caught up in how weird and strangely humorous it can be at times to realize that not only is it a tragic story on multiple levels (broken dreams & a failed relationship) but its inspired by real events. Same goes for Twin Peaks - sure it’s odd and has humor (although the movie prequel is damn near completely the opposite of that) but it’s also a story about incest & sexual abuse. 

The Elephant Man isn’t a fluke/one-time occurrence either. The Straight Story, a film that even some Lynch fans forget exists, is another example of his ability to tell a straightforward story without imposing his style all over the film when it isn’t needed. The Straight Story wasn’t even stylized like The Elephant Man. With the exception of Harry Dean Stanton's presence and a re-occurring shot we commonly see in all of Lynch's work (a first person perspective shot of a road at night) you'd have no idea it was directed by Lynch. 

As a David Lynch fan who sees beyond all the dark quirkiness hes known for, I find myself openly praising his work less & less due to the large majority of so-called David Lynch fans who cant hold a conversation about his work beyond how "TOTALLY WEIRD" it is. I just don't wanna be grouped in with people like that. I'm not so pigheaded that I don't see his main appeal is how odd his films are, but he brings a little more to the table than dancing midgets and log ladies. I am more a fan of the Lost Highway/Mulholland Drive David Lynch but the over-analysis of those films by bloggers & critics has gotten to the point where I role my eyes at most new reviews & write-ups of those films.

The Elephant Man wouldn't be my #1 suggestion as an introduction to the world of David Lynch but it should be seen at some point on life.