Beasts of the Southern Wild
Benh Zeitlin's debut film arrives in London having charmed
audiences everywhere since its Sundance debut, and I can see why so many people
love it. In fact, for a while I was confident that I was going to love it too, before
it revealed just how little is going on beneath its gorgeous surface. The film
takes place in an impoverished region of the Louisiana Delta referred to only
as The Bathtub, and its central character is Hushpuppy, who is played by
instant star Quvenzhané Wallis (6 years-old at the time of shooting). Hushpuppy
lives with her father, a volatile drunk with a weak heart, and we are invited
to view the world from her perspective, as she reshapes the environment through
her own imagination. When Hurricane Katrina hits, Beasts of the Southern Wild
becomes a tale of defiance and survival, as Hushpuppy and her father try to
stay one step ahead of the mythical creatures she pictures roaming the
land. Zeitlin and his cinematographer Ben Richardson certainly conjure some
magical images in Beasts of the Southern Wild, from an early fireworks display
to a beautiful interlude at a brothel late on, but the film never knits these individually striking moments together in a satisfying way. The film's first
half is propelled forward by the spirit of its diminutive
protagonist and the devastating impact of Katrina, but as it progresses, the
narrative grows increasingly wayward, notably during a rushed detour at a
disaster relief centre and an attempt to blow up part of the levee. ("They
built a wall that cuts us off," Hushpuppy muses.) In Quvenzhané Wallis the director has a wonderful lead, an actress who is guileless and empathetic while also possessing a resolute toughness ("I'm the man!" she roars at her father's behest), and she certainly didn't require the overwritten voiceover that Zeitlin misguidedly saddles her with. Beasts of the Southern Wild is a film you may well fall head over heels for, but I felt that too much of it –
including many of the key emotional moments – felt forced by Zeitlin when they should have felt serendipitous and organic.
The Comedian
Despite its title, this is not a film about a comedian.
Sure, we see Ben (Edward Hogg) onstage at the start of his film, performing in
London pubs and comedy clubs to mixed results ("I'll tell you something
else that makes me sick. Being a bulimic," gives you an idea of his
quality), but the film's interest lies elsewhere. Bored with his deadening call
centre job and frustrated by the lack of progress he has made on the stand-up
circuit, Ben is a man stuck in a rut, and it is only when he meets young artist
Nathan (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett) that things start to look up. The pair begin a
relationship that seems promising, but Ben is afraid of commitment...or he has confused
feelings for his flatmate (Elisa Lasowski)...or he...well, what exactly is
Ben's problem? In lieu of a script, The Comedian was developed by director Tom
Shkolnik through improvisation workshops with the cast, and the result is a
film that features a number of scenes in which characters inarticulately
attempt to express their feelings, but it offers no real insight. Only the
charming Nathan Stewart-Jarrett brings a sense of life to his portrayal, and one of the few scenes that sparks with any kind of real emotion is one in which
Ben and Nathan are confronted by a group of homophobic teenage girls on a bus.
Beyond that, The Comedian is oblique and irritating, hampered by uninteresting
characters and Shkolnik's dull visual sense. Even though it runs for just over
70 minutes, the film drags interminably; a bad joke with no punchline worth
waiting for.
Keep the Lights On
For his fourth feature, Ira Sachs has drawn on his own past,
and the result is a film that is both his most ambitious and his most
accomplished to date. Keep the Lights On charts the many vicissitudes in the
relationship between Erik (Thure Lindhardt) and Paul (Zachary Booth), who meet
initially for sex before their physical attraction develops into love. That
love is sorely tested on numerous occasions in subsequent years, as Paul's
drug habit grows ever more serious and Erik resolves to stand by his man, even as
Paul threatens to pull him into the abyss with him. As they tell a story that
unfolds over the course of a decade, Sachs and his co-screenwriter Mauricio
Zacharias dip into the relationship every couple of years, showing how Erik and
Paul have progressed – or regressed – and underscoring the cyclical nature of
addiction. The two leads share a tangible chemistry that really drives the picture, and Lindhardt
is particularly impressive, with his open nature immediately winning our
sympathy as we see the emotional toll this destructive relationship is taking
on him. Shot with a vivid sense of intimacy by Thimios Bakatakis (of
Dogtooth and Attenberg fame, and impressing here with a different style), Keep
the Lights On feels raw and honest in its depiction of a long-term relationship
that's gradually falling apart. Sachs writes and directs with intelligence and
insight, finding a crucial balance between high and low points, compassion and
pain, while Arthur Russell's melancholy songs provide the perfect accompaniment. It's a
sincere and moving film that stands as a fine achievement for its
director, and hopefully a cathartic one.
The We and the I
Michel Gondry's new film largely takes place in a single
confined location, but that shouldn't be a problem for a man of his imagination
and ingenuity, right? The We and the I takes place on a bus in the Bronx, which
is carrying a group of students away from school on the last day of term. As is
traditional, a gang of teenage boys have commandeered the back seat, where they
spend the journey trading stories and jokes and bullying other students and
passengers. This is pretty much what the first half of the film consists of, as
Gondry's camera flits from one set of students to another, alighting on
conversations that reveal their cruelty, anxiety, desires and frustrations. The
non-professional cast all appear relaxed and authentic in their roles, but much
of the material is inevitably hit-and-miss and largely dependent on how funny
you find the often puerile humour of teenagers. In truth, I'm not sure if Gondry
really knows what he's trying to achieve here, and sometimes he seems to be simply throwing everything he can think of at the movie, including mobile phone clips and fantasy sequences
(shot in his trademark lo-fi style). But what The We and the I does do very
effectively is to show the pack mentality and braggadocio that teens use to
cover up their innate insecurities, and as more passengers leave the bus, those
underlying emotions are exposed in surprisingly interesting and affecting ways.
The We and the I feels like a slightly underdeveloped experiment from Gondry,
and the director is guilty of trying to pile a little too much content onto a
slight conceit, but it is an intermittently entertaining and touching film that
takes the director into some intriguing new areas.