Review of Nomadland

ENSLAVED BY THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS 

 “No one I’ve ever known in this world is more hostile than a pacifist on a rampage.” 

• Alan Watts

“For I felt rich, and I tried to make them see, that one is only poor, only if they choose to be.” 

- Dolly Parton, Coat of Many Colors

“I hold it to be the inalienable right of anybody to go to hell in his own way.” 

― Robert Frost

“The quality of owning freezes you forever in "I," and cuts you off forever from the “we.” ”

― John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

Chloe Zhao’s Nomadland is a portrait of American rural homelessness based on a non-fiction book by journalist Jessica Bruder. These are two people who come from elite backgrounds and have chosen to render the lives of the downtrodden, specifically the victims of the 2008 economic downturn. When tackling difficult material on poverty and class it bears mentioning the backgrounds of the artists. This is not to disparage their fine work but rather to inoculate against criticism that it is merely a simulacrum of social justice commentary. Perhaps the finest writing/photography of American dustbowl refugees, And Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, was created by two equally privileged artists who shared similarly elite educational backgrounds.  Zhao and Bruder might not be vulnerable to the same strife, but their work strikes a nerve for all the right reasons. The stock market booms and the US press is filled with stories Elon Musk launching his sports car into outer space and dreaming of colonizing Mars. Meanwhile, back on earth, more and more Americans are being forced into subsistence living. 

Hard-work and honesty are supposed to be the ticket to security in the autumn of life in the land of free and home of the brave. Instead we see dispossessed middle-aged and elderly wanderers roaming from job to job in broken-down RVs. The protagonist, Fern (Frances McDormand), maintains a fearsome stiff-upper-lip, while always being one flat tire or bad flu away from utter devastation.  The most terrifying aspect of Fern’s journey is the lack of complete economic or natural collapse in the creation of her Okie-like refugee status. She and her tribe work hard and play by the rules… to a fault. They are too sick, overwhelmed and desperate to mount any opposition to their inhumane treatment. Only once does Fern’s contempt for the ruling class show through. She, begrudgingly seeks help from her sister, a successful white collar worker with a comfortable house. Her brother-in-law, in the midst of a discussion about real-estate purchases, chides Fern for her peripatetic lifestyle. The answer is swift and silences the cordial conversation, “YOU THINK I HAD A CHOICE?!” 

Fern is referring to the costly care for her deceased husband combined with the closing of the town factory, where she and her spouse worked. The devastation was so great that the Federal Post Office, seeing the decline in  population, cancelled the zip code. Fern’s sister at one point tries to bolster her sibling’s standing by comparing her to the original American pioneers. There is a parallel, but not in the spirit of her sister’s compliment. Her life is closer to the cannibalism of the Donner party, rather than the “can-do” optimism of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie. Nomadland is scathing in its assessment of contemporary social safety-nets but it is more than a political polemic. This film is about the strange irony of American individualism. The battle for freedom becomes enslavement to a righteous cause.

Fern has little expectation of those in authority and she is seldom disappointed. The manager at the trailer park casually says there is no record of her reservation. After driving for days and facing the prospect of no place to stay, she faintly asks to check list of potential Amazon employees. The manager breezily discovers she does have a right to stay. There is no regard for her plight, merely clerical paperwork. Fern expects disinterest and is embarrassed by overt offers of charity. She encounters some of her former neighbors in a department store, a mother and her daughters. She is queried about her homelessness and dismisses an offer to stay in their garage. The scene also reveals Fern’s former role as a mentor. One of the children recites a Shakespeare passage she learned under her tutelage. Interestingly an encounter with another wayward youth inspires Fern, again, to reference the Bard. Despite not having any children Fern is a caring, parental figure. She even attempts healing within a family. When an adult son visits his father, who is working as a short order cook, she says, “your father makes a great burger.” The coded message is that the young man’s father, although facing difficult circumstances, means the best and has talent. The son is less convinced: “The burger’s okay.”. 

Fern’s heartfelt caring has its limits. A lesser filmmaker and storyteller would make Fern’s journey more palatable by introducing a “buddy” or companion. In the early moments a dog suddenly appears at her doorstep wearing a leash but having no guardian. Fern discovers from the trailer park manager the pet’s backstory. His guardian, an old man, had taken ill. His daughter had no ability or desire to tend for a dog. The manager and Fern agree it is a wonderful, sweet pet. It ends up being tied to the front porch of the office. This is a harbinger for the larger “potential” romance that never blossoms. Fern is courted by a good-looking, appropriately aged man who seems the platonic ideal of a companion. She even agrees to stay with his solidly middle class family for a Thanksgiving meal. But it ends with the inevitable French leave. Prior to her exit she chides her companion for abandoning his RV. In her eyes he is no longer is own man. Fern does not rely on the kindness of strangers, or friends. The moments after her departure Fern reenacts the touchstone of the romantic sublime by standing on a cliff and watching the frothing Pacific waves crash against immutable boulders. There is, however, some room for companionship.

Fern extends herself by “joining” a group that has a credo about living as independents. This invitation is extended by an elderly co-worker who had fought suicide, triggered by her impoverishment. The leader of this band of outcasts is a kindly patriarch who offers general advise on living with few resources. His carefully parsed wisdom comes from being an excellent listener. It is a mark of his trusting nature that he is only outsider with whom Fern shares her story. He reveals the journey started with the suicide of a beloved son. Suddenly the formidable man with the answers becomes another hurt soul searching for solace. Nomadland is filled with these unforeseen revelations.  

The woman with the pirate flag draped on her RV is not a stern scold, despite the initial encounters. She answers Fern’s pleas for help with a bitting lecture preparedness. This is followed by demands for work-in-kind. In reality she is a vulnerable, generous soul with strong convictions about the divinity of nature. She describes a transcendent moment in the wilderness when she encountered a flock of birds over the water. She knows why she is alive despite her terminal illness. She will live her death as she has lived her life: on her own terms.  Transience, however, is the price of transcendence.  After her passing she is memorialized with a wonderful bonfire. But how many end up in potter’s fields after being discovered alone in the wilderness? Although the gatherings are heartfelt there is a distinct lack of cohesiveness over the long haul. The bulk of life is spent in the in-between of travel and finding work. It echoes the refrain of the Woody Guthrie refugee hymn: so long, it’s been good to know you. Although the patriarch of the Nomads softens the finality by saying: see you down the road. 

Nomandland shares the credo of American-style independence with Into The Wild. A suburban-raised young man abandons civilization for the Alaskan wilderness. Determination is no match for lacking true indigenous knowledge of living off the land. His haunting death is echoed in the closing moments of this film in which Fern metaphorically goes off the ranch. In the opening sequences she secures a storage locker with her former home’s belongings. The closing is her realization there is no need for the locker. She will briefly return to her beloved shelter. But the trailer itself is merely a stepping-stone to the purple mountain majesty outside her fence. This is an American parable that rebukes the Pilgrim’s “city on a hill.” Fern is, literally, running for the hills. She has been brutalized by an inhuman system that made a mockery of her dedication to community and family. She spent a lifetime paying her dues and her reward is a wandering journey on the precipice. She is embittered, but accepting of her plight. 

One of the peculiar aspects of American poverty is a blindness about social stagnation. All strata of society share the pernicious belief that success is born of merit without regard for other factors. Those to who question this dogma are faced with unbridled hatred. Laura Ingalls Wilder’s daughter, a key creative force in the Little House on the Prairie books, prayed for the assassination of the President of her time, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In her mind he was a dictator who threatened the founding doctrine of American civilization: rewards are born of hard work. She felt his social programs were merely bribes to shore up his dictatorship. One might view Fern’s distain for her hosts coming from the same misguided belief. Their generosity morphs into a weapon that undermines her lifework of being proud and self reliant. Fern is a modern day Transcendentalist, the 19th American movement that wrote the book on self-reliance and spiritual communion with nature. The important distinction, however, is her searing mistrust of mankind. The Transcendentalists believed institutions were corrupt but people were essentially good. Fern sees the enemy in everyone, except her transient tribe. 

Zhoa’s film has some minor blemishes. David Strathairn seemed apart. It is as if Laurence Olivier suddenly joined the non-professional cast of the The Bicycle Thief. Francis McDormand manages to thread the needle of being a true thespian amongst those playing themselves. In addition the screenplay walks on eggshells in protecting the sanctity of the outcasts. There is a strange absence of behavior and actions that would draw frowns from a general audience. These are decent people… to a fault. There is no overt substance abuse, racism or criminality. It is as if, in order to safeguard sympathy for their plight, the writer and director chose to ignore traits that are abundant in the general population. There is an artistic price paid to avoid an American audience finding specious reasons to blame the victim. Fern’s milieu has a monk-like saintliness peppered by generosity, altruism and suffering. There are passing moments that depart from the grind of goodness, but they are crowded out by the hardship. The artistic choices are sometimes impediments to fully connecting with the characters. Perhaps the director might have included even more of the quiet moments of the characters bonding with landscape. Even the grimness of the factories are softened by the dawn light, which exposes the distant fields and mountains. It is not surprising Zhoa chooses as the denouement, the eternal escape in to the wild. The audience, however, is still huddled in the unkindness of civilization. As the number of Americans surge in adopting the wandering-nomad lifestyle, many municipalities are enacting laws that forbid parking. Life is becoming even more arduous for those least able to cope. There will be no rest for the oppressed.

Nomadland is the counter-argument to the bromide that the bounty of our country is open to everyone who applies themselves. Fern, a firm believer in the Puritan work ethic, is seen furtively looking over her shoulder while she defecates on an open field on a deserted highway. She is journeying between part-time gigs. The mood is often stark but there are those precious moments of repose. In one sequence she quietly drives a road in the wilderness following a lone grazing buffalo.The metaphorical great great great great granddaughter of the Europeans colonizers is reenacting the ghostly ritual of eons of indigenous peoples. The thundering herds are now diminished. The RV is a pale stand-in for the bare-back native American riders of yore. Fern is hunting in her own way. She has her small traditions complete with trinkets from the past. Only she knows their meaning. There is no one left. She shares a bond with “Ishi,” the last surviving member of the the indigenous Californias. He was found alone, starving and wandering in early part of the 20th century. An anthropologist gave him the moniker as it means “man” in the Yani language. The tribal tradition forbad him from speaking his own name unless he was introduced to the strangers by one of his own. Fern would understand his predicament. 

The new colonizer is a behemoth that knows how to divide and conquer via a veneer of liberty and choice. Fern owns her own RV and can travel “freely.” In the end she makes a choice of turning back to the land. Ishi, with a lifetimes worth of preparation, could not survive on his own. The hero of Into The Wild died of starvation in the middle of the woods in an abandoned bus.  The odds are not in Fern’s favor. Perhaps Nomadland is a preface to the new “trail of tears.” Maybe, when the time comes, Fern will stand alone in an empty field and paraphrase the Bard: when she shall die, take her and cut her into little stars, and she will make the face of heaven so fine that all the world will be in love with night and pay no worship to the garish sun. No one will hear her words but her journey might inspire us to consider the wisdom of Sirach. It begins by praising famous men, but has an important reminder:

And there are some who have no memorial,

    who have perished as though they had not lived;

they have become as though they had not been born,

    and so have their children after them.

But these were men of mercy,

    whose righteous deeds have not been forgotten;

their prosperity will remain with their descendants,

    and their inheritance to their children’s children

• Book of Sirach Chapter 44, Verses 9-11

Review of The Painted Bird (2020)

 Polished Depravity

“Three major evils - the evil of racism, the evil of poverty, and the evil of war. These are the 3 things I want to deal with today.”

― MLK, opening of speech at Butler Street YMCA, the year before his death

“Demand me nothing. What you know you know. From this time forth I never will speak word”

― Iago, when Othello asks him why he committed such evil acts

“Look down on me and you see a fool, look up at me and you see a god, look straight at me and you see yourself”

― Charles Manson

Note: This Essay Discusses Topics Readers Might Find Offensive & Is Illustrated With Photos Some Might Find Objectionable

Vaclav Marhoul’s The Painted Bird, is based on the semi-autobiographical book by Jerzy Kosinski. It explores the darkest corners of the human soul with the exacting eye of a fashion photographer. There is an off-putting beauty to the rich black and white images that illustrate the horrifying journey of Joska. This Jewish orphan wanders the World War II landscape of Eastern Europe. The Nazis are the least of his problems. The peasantry and the warring armies give him the same standing as a runaway slave in the antebellum South.  Within the first five minutes of the film our hero is set upon by a gang of antisemites. They take his beloved pet ferret and spear it to the ground while lighting it ablaze. This occurred after kicking-in the boy’s teeth. This type of unspeakable cruelty sets the stage for the next 2 3/4 hours. It is a gruesome journey but Marhoul manages the unthinkable. In unmasking our inhumanity he becomes tethered by polite artistic convention. This is the well-made-play of brutality. Sadly this undercuts the power of the narrative. Strangely, it might be just what Mr. Kosinski wanted in a film adaptation of his work. 

Marhoul is precise, to a fault. No one could ask for a more beautifully shot, wonderfully performed, and carefully crafted work. The setting is a paradise. The current back-to-the-land boosters would swoon at the series of exquisitely primitive villages. Any connoisseur of acting would marvel at the sensitivity and subtly of the performances. The black and white images glisten with the brilliance of a Sebastiao Salgado landscape portrait. Despite the shine, or maybe because of it, the narrative falls flat. Ironically Marhoul is guilty of being tepid. This is a story about the unpalatable but the director is mindful of the unwatchable. Artists always wrestle with boundaries that balance their vision with the needs of backers who finance the endeavor. This director threads the needle in favor of mainstream arthouse sensitivity. Pasolini’s Salo vividly shows us orphan children being forced to eat excrement after being raped. That film is still banned in many countries. Marhoul is in interested in “succes de scandale” over real scandal.  This creates a bizarre form of censorship. The homosexual attack on a child appears behind closed doors while the cuckold rips out his rival’s eyes in full view. The old women (Joska’s grandmother) is never fully naked, but there is an almost complete reveal of the young woman having sex with the goat.  Pubic hair is verboten yet the grisly torture of animals is highlighted. The results gives non-human deaths more resonance as they are unfiltered and genuine. We feel Joska’s pain when he mourns the poor bird. The boy’s discovery of his mentor evokes less passion, even as he clutches to the old man’s legs as he hangs from the barn rafter.  It is understandable because many of the humans are so inhumane. The kindly bird-man laughs as the little creature is cannibalized by a hungry flock. He purposely painted the wings with seed to start the horrific frenzy.  Another significant mentor, the Soviet sharp-shooter, showcases an equally bipolar sense of good and evil.

Villagers murder some of the sniper’s comrades, so he plans retribution. He executes three adults and a child. The youngest is the same age as Joska, who witnesses the entire spectacle. The mentor turns to his young charge and says, “Remember this: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”.  This goy, godless communist army officer quotes the Hebrew bible to the young Jewish orphan. Irony is spread throughout the film. Humanity rears its head in strange ways.  The Nazi SS soldier refuses to murder the young boy and lets him flee into the forest. The country shaman cures Joska of his fever in a bizarre ritual that could easily be mistaken for a barbaric execution. She shoos away the crows just as they pick away at his skull while he is buried up to his neck. What constitutes this odd group of rescuers/tormentors? The Painted Bird is their story, not Joska’s. They shape him and he takes them into the future. 

The film is divided into a series of chapters, each with a black card that names the next stranger who takes charge of the boy. It is the spiritual cousin to three film that feature orphans maneuvering deadly landscapes. Spielberg’s Empire of the Sun, about an English child stranded at the beginning of the second Sino-Japanese war. It has a similar plot, but the orphan is more clearly delineated. Unlike the mute Joska, he has more agency over his surroundings.  Isao Takahata’s Grave of The Fireflies follows the travails of a young brother and sister in war ravaged Japan during WW II. This film has a distinctly spiritual bend that suggests a triumph of goodness in the end.  Varda’s With Neither Shelter Nor Law is the most closely related to the Marhoul/Konsinski’s vision. It features a transient young woman 1990s France who is a silent foil.  Her self-imposed exile from middle class normalcy exposes the hard truths of a seemingly civil society. She doesn’t experience the hell of a war-torn country with ubiquitous anti-semitism. Nevertheless the innocent shows a general state of unkindness. She is scarred by the endless oppression. Joska shares this pain. The whimsical grandchild playing with animals in the woods morphs into a stone-faced adult capable of the cruelty exhibited by his mentors. There is always strange unanswered questions regarding the tormentors. What makes the grandmother austere? What makes the shaman heartless?  How could the miller be so barbaric? Why is the lover so cruel…. the villagers so demonic? Why are the families being slaughtered as they escape the train? Why is the soldier, a caring beloved mentor, so willing to murder a boy Joska’s age? Hate is ubiquitous. Joska has learned by Christian example and may better the instruction. In the closing moments of the film he he writes his name in the fog of the window. This hints that not all of his humanity has been snuffed out. Interestingly his action is triggered by seeing the father’s concentration camp tattoo. It certifies, in the boy’s mind, the father’s legitimacy. There are twinned by enduring the unspeakable.  Oddly the denouement falls flat. Instead of heartbreak there is, simply, relief. This stylized romp through a made-man hell-scape is coming to a, somewhat hopeful, climax. The end result is cold and unsatisfying. Perhaps this is due to a paradoxical flaw in Konsinski’s vision. He is at home with characters enacting carnage but never delves into why they picked-up the ax.  The former can be capivating, but the later is more interesting. 

The The Painted Bird is a strange coda to a whirlwind life. A impoverished Jewish child with a fake identity becomes an alter boy, army sharpshooter, truck driver, academic, member of the literati, Lothario, man-about-town… lonely suicide victim. But make no mistake Jasko’s spiritual father made his mark. The slick, multi-million dollar film is proof. It oddly dovetails with a life of dogged perseverance. After establishing himself as an academic in Poland he set his sights on America. He forged letters and was sponsored by a bogus educational foundation.  He married the daughter of a steel-magnate within a few years of his arrival. He landed real awards and accolades (Guggenheim Fellow, Award from American Academy of Arts and Letters…). This was a springboard to literary success, celebrity, scandal….. and premature death. Many feel his demise, a grisly suicide involving suffocation, was the result of direct criticism of the veracity of his work. In his defense he said The Painted Bird was not an autobiography:  “I felt then, as I do now, that fiction and autobiography are very different modes”. It is interesting to note that the author J. G. Ballard took the same artistic liberties with his semi-autographical book Empire of the Sun, but avoided being chastised as a fraud. The comparison between the two authors is interesting in another respect: Ballard used his work to conquer his demons. Konsinki’s childhood was a calling-card to polite society. Konsinki was more “wild and crazy guy” than the witness to one of humanities darkest chapters. This is not to discredit him or make light of the real horror he endured. Kosinski, born an outcast, felt drawn to being a friend of those in charge. It’s not that he didn’t suffer. It’s just that his was a battle for legitimacy. Whereas Pasonli was literally tortured and murdered for offending the ruling class with Salo, Kosinki wished to be the Enfant-terrible of those in power. In this light Marhoul’s film adaptation is very much in sync with the author’s wish to be… just controversial enough…. without slipping into the abyss of being a true radical. Perhaps Marhoul understood that behind the horror of Kosinski’s parable was a strange desire to remain in the realm of the temporal, which has no need of saints or martyrs.

Marhoul forgets the inspiration of Varda’s heroine, whose journey strikes the heart, not the gut. She abandoned the stable middle class life to be a self-made refugee. She meets the sad fate of freezing to death in a ditch. I can’t help watching it and thinking of Kosinski’s final breaths. Their strident individualism would not bend to the lull of conventional society. They chose to exit. Many nefarious zealots choose the mirror strategy: kill those who do not conform to their way. Marhoul’s Painted Bird is an exquisite rendering of this phenomena. Unfortunately by ignoring the motivations behind the evil angels of our nature we are left with mere action. Even Pasolini’s monstrous work has heart. Marhoul has polish.It is ironic that this story of depravity and inhumanity would be Kosinki’s ticket to rubbing elbows with respectable society. 

Someone told me a story of the author in his prime attending an evening bonfire party in the fashionable town of East Hampton New York. Kosinski watched and then disappeared to fetch something out of the truck of his car. It was a strange contraption that had a metal holder on one end with a rope on the other. He filled the container with hot charcoals. He swung the rope and sparks flew as he launched the container into the night sky. The crowd, filled with the literati, was wowed by this different sort of painted bird that brilliantly flashed through the darkness.  Kosinski impressed a certain, well-placed audience. Marhoul’s work is more burnish to the Kosinski’s dashing career. But it brings with it a disquieting sense of dread when you consider the author’s fate.

Perhaps J.G. Ballard took a better path in processing a childhood in hell. His books were banned and he generated controversy… and yet: He died in old age after raising a family and producing a vast body of dystopian fiction. Kosinski’s only managed three books before his suicide in midlife. He was a performance artist at heart. In the end Jasko’s spiritual father found a kind of success, but the demons never left. The world was always against Kosinski… even when it wasn’t.  The ghosts of The Painted Bird always remained. Knowing this; Marhoul’s horror doesn’t remain on the screen. It goes home with you.

Review of: I’m Thinking of Ending Things (2020)

 Review of I’m Thinking of Ending Things

The Over-Examined Life is Not Worth Pondering

“I wonder whether your madness isn't the worst kind. You act healthy, act it so well that everyone believes you--everyone except me, because I know how rotten you are.”

― Alma, from Bergman’s Persona

“I don’t care what you think unless it is about me.”

― Kurt Cobain

 

“All boyhood friends told me I’d fail. Spend my lifetime friendless or in jail. And all the girls at the school dance… would give me a second chance….” 

― I Won’t Look Back (song), The Dead Boys 

Charlie Kaufman’s I’m Thinking of Ending Things is predictably enigmatic. It was fun to follow the non-linear, M.C. Escher-esque, time sequences underpinning the love story in his Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. It was equally entertaining to see his tragic-comic artist fight the army of metaphorical windmills in Being John Malkovich. This track record of being funny, off-beat and artistically daring is the perfect sensibilty for a filmmaker wanting to translate Iain Reid’s quirky novel. Reid’s protagonist, a latter-day Walter Mitty obsessed with Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Oklahoma!, is cut from the same cloth as many of Kaufman’s anti-heroes. Unfortunately Kaufman became seduced by the foibles of Reid’s creation. The protagonist creates a world that is only accessible through his own mind. Kaufman film is for Kaufman, not a general audience.

I’m Thinking of Ending Things is composed of a horror film preceded by a twenty minutes comedic short. The opening features a new girlfriend (Jessie Buckley) meeting the boyfriend’s parents in a remote location. This opening segment possesses a masterful use of the young woman’s internal monologue. It is witty and unsparingly honest. She says what dare not be said: I am going along with the travesty of this relationship because, because…. I don’t know. The boyfriend (Jesse Piemons) interrupts her caustic internal banter at just the right moments to certify that there is no hope of a future. If only Kaufman had held firm to this wry back and forth featuring Jessie. This film could have been an interesting social touch-stone in the vein of Woody Allen’s Annie Hall. A charismatic contemporary figure manages the odd paths of American romance. Sadly it turns to the funny/horror genre in the vein of Get Out, without Jordan Peele’s command of comedy. The creepiness rises exponentially as the focus shifts from Jessie to Jesse, whose character goes by “Jake”.

This Jake is not the Jason of slasher lore. Ironically his childhood home and parents would seem the perfect ingredients to produce a psychopathic misfit. The older couple have a histrionic quality that takes them out of the real world. Toni Collette and David Thewlis play their parts beautifully but fail to match the wit and lightheartedness of initial road trip sequence. They, purposefully, overstep their oddness. Their reactions and facial expressions exhibit people primed to be inappropriate. Whereas the Jesse and Jessie have a quirky believability, the mom and dad are pure gothic caricature. The house is as over-the-top as the other-worldly couple. There are scratches on the door to the basement, which Jessie is warned never to enter. Even the family dog is off-kilter. All dogs shake, but no dogs shakes uncontrollably for, what seems like, a full minute. The stylization feeds the narrative in that this is a film about Jake. The Jessie-centric drive sequence becomes a disjointed preface. Unfortunately Jesse Piemons dissolves into the same psychosis as his parents — he tackles the role beautifully but Kaufman undercuts him by making his pathology as unpalatable as his mother and father. Behind the shape-shifting, time-bending pyrotechnics are a very uninspired creepy mavericks. The denouement arrives when Jake returns to his high school after the young couple leaves the farmhouse in a blizzard. Throughout the first two segments there are a strange series of non-sequiturs involving an elderly janitor at a high school. He turns out to be the key to this cinematic roman-a-clef.

Spoiler alert, he is everyone; or more specifically: all the people we have seen are embodiments of his projections from an un-lived life. That charming love-interest is a mirage of what might have been. That visit to the ice cream stand is peopled with former crushes. One wonders about their fate. Did Jake’s infatuation go beyond ephemeral day-dreaming? Did bad things occur in the real world? All those empty milk shake containers in the garbage at the entrance to the high school hint at something more sinister. Another disturbing clue: the forbidden basement’s secret turns out to be a washing machine filled with the janitor’s clothes. Is he washing blood stains after a night of ravishing the innocents? Is Jake a misogynistic incel lunatic bent on retribution? What is it, in Jake, that we are celebrating? The eeriness undercuts all the triumphalism of the final scene. Are we supposed to join with the audience of made-up creations in the high school gym and cheer on this ambiguous anti-hero? Is it enough to have a vivid imagination?

We can be very thankful for one of Jake’s dreams: the recreation of the eerie dance sequence from the 1955 film version of Oklahoma. This is the spiritual highlight of I’m Thinking of Ending Things. Kaufman steps away from the word-driven, proscenium-arch motif that weighs down much of the film. Even the initial journey to the parents has an endless claustrophobic feel. The close-ups are occasionally positioned outside of the vehicle as if to break up the monotony. It doesn’t. The dialogue is strong, but film is a visual medium. The dance sequence’s blast of color and movement rescues the audience from the claustrophobic car, the barn filled with dead animals and the gothic farm-house. Kaufman’s visual idealization of romance is breathtaking but no amount of choreography can mask this solipsistic loner. Jake’s actions speak louder than his imaginings. He abandons his love in a parking lot during a blizzard. He chases the bad-guy janitor, who is an incarnation of himself. The romance is secondary to his wanting to play the part of the hero. But it is important to note: he is rescuing HIMSELF. Dogs chasing their tales would seem a shallow foundation for a feature film… but Kaufman thinks otherwise. Perhaps he thought the hollow center could be masked by a veneer of cultural references.

Literary and pop-culture allusions dominant even the most mundane snippits of dialogue. The girlfriend, credited as “the young woman”, goes by Lucy. This revelation coincides with an in-depth discussion of the poet Wordsworth, who happens to have a series of poems about unrequited love called, Lucy. Jake’s character might be named for Hemingway’s protagonist in The Sun Also Rises. That Jake is literally castrated which metaphorically reflects Jake’s inability with the ladies. This is just the names of the central characters. It is as if Kaufman believes movie audiences are akin to people who obsess about the NY Times Sunday crossword puzzle. Unfortunately being clever is distinct from being captivating. One might spend years pondering the meaning of the red raincoat in Nicolas Roeg’s literary horror classic Don’t Look Now. Kaufman’s adaptation of Ian Reid’s novel fails to spark the interest in unraveling the mystery. It is the difference between homework and heartfelt discovery.

What is Kaufman yammering-on about? The real stuff might be found in re-watching the classic Oklahoma! . Behind the triumphant celebration song, with the refrain “WE’RE DOING FINE!!!”, lies a tale of coercion, attempted murder, spite, jealously, suicide, class-warfare… all saddled in a Native American territory at the cusp of statehood. Did I mention the evil foreigner from the Middle East? Rodgers and Hammerstein know how to make the unsettling story literally… sing. Kaufman performed a yeoman’s effort in unpacking the brimstone & treacle of America’s heartland. Sadly he carries the same fatal flaw as Jake. He lives in his head. He might want to fastidiously unpack the minutia of a deranged weirdo. A general audience, however, prefers the elan of exciting, unambiguous villains. Stephen King’s blood spattered prom night in Carrie is more entertaining than the intellectual pomposity of Jake’s graduation. No one wants to spend time with the real-life Ed Gein, the depraved human taxidermist who was the basis for the character Hannibal Lector. But people wouldn’t mind having dinner with the character played by Anthony Hopkins… as long as the spoon is long enough. No one, including the figments of his imagination, wants to be near Jake. (maybe with the exception of his mother — but that only proves my point regarding his abhorrence) Let’s hope Kaufman’s next project has less matter, more art… fewer ideas and more people. Sometimes thinking too much can get in the way of living, or making art, or making love…. Just ask Jake.

Review of Leave No Trace (2020)

 Review of Leave No Trace

Our Father, Who Art in Hell

“After all, I have just one father. I want to make peace with him”

― Marvin Gaye’s words to a friend before returning to live with the elder Mr. Gaye, who eventually shot him dead.

 

“And now and then an ample tear trilled down her delicate cheek” 

― King Lear, Act 4 Scene 3, description of Cordelia hearing of her father’s troubles, despite being banished by him. 

Do those who rebel against the world have obligations to their beloved? This is the question posed by Debra Granik in Leave No Trace. It is a seemingly straightforward narrative about a cruel world, an idealistic father and a loving daughter. In fact the story is akin to a Russian nesting doll with each reveal challenging previous assumptions. True love meshes with hideous cruelty. Unbounded freedom morphs into a narcissistic prison. The unkind world is peopled with good souls. Everyone gets what they want, yet this is a tragedy. 

The father and young daughter, Will and Thomasin, might be mistaken for a suburban family of highly skilled campers enjoying a weekend in the woods. In fact these are a pair of covert radicals eschewing  all modern creature comforts and minimizing contact with the outside. The father, due to  mental illness born of battle a tour of duty in the an army war zone, sees the world as “us and them.” Thomasin is hostage to him and his, uncompromising, dogma.  There are constant camouflage drills,  amongst other routines, to shield her from outsiders. It brings to mind the dystopian action-film Hannah, in which a hunted spy/assassin trains his tween daughter into being the ultimate fighting machine.  That might sound cruel, but at least he’s preparing her to fight the system. Will has no capacity to lay groundwork for his daughter’s future. He lives looking over his shoulder with occasional respites between watches. The future is measured in hours. Conversations with his daughter about school, dating, vocation… are a luxury that are simply out of reach on this battlefield. The pressing everyday questions are: what will we eat? And where will we sleep? Which brings forth a larger query: what kind of monster would torture his young daughter with this lifestyle? The startling dualism of the film is that Granik is able to make him more than empathetic. Despite it all Thomasin is an educated, curious, wonderful person. The qualities might have emerged sui generis but her father appears to be a mentor. What about the mother?

One of the innovative aspects of this film is Granik’s parsimonious distribution of the backstory. There is an odd opaqueness that haunts the central figures. What happened when Will went to war? How did they end up in the woods? How did the mother pass? What was the progression of  Will’s descent into madness? A lesser filmmaker would have given over the story to filling in the exposition. Granik’s whispers blurry answers. It’s a brilliant choice as it bring the audience into the mindset of Will. Everything is in the moment and plays out accordingly. The inevitable conflicts with the outside world are authentic as Will’s trauma feels akin to massive illustrations of the contumely of everyday American life. We do not flee to the woods but, given the state of affairs, many have had the fantasy. 

Perhaps one of Will’s most endearing qualities is the strict adherence to being polite and seemingly cooperative. We feel his anguish as his world is crushed by the endless absurd demands of living conventionally. The social worker admits that Thomasin is far ahead academically but points out that school is more than socializing. Then the audience witnesses Will’s humiliation by being put through a battery of psych tests that evoke the worst excesses of modern institutional interaction. In Will’s mind socialization, being a good soldier, is at the root of his troubles. Will is not going to be a team player. He will not listen to phone trees, stand in line at the Motor Vehicles, haggle about a deliveries, take surveys, argue with insurance companies, banks, mortgage companies, landlords, school teachers, social workers, cops, government officials, friends, neighbors, strangers… He rejects all tenants of living as a connected American adult. Granik’s interesting take on Will’s obstinacy is to give the evil system a strange grace. This isn’t a malevolent One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest bureaucracy.  The psych evaluation might be an intrusive demand from a heartless system , but the person administering it clearly cares about his charge. He is gentle and probably risks his own standing by bending the rules and giving Will a pass. This motif, the world is filled with compassionate people willing to help DESPITE the system, ironically plays throughout the film.

A man at war with everyone and everything encounters saints wanting to give him the benefit of the doubt. Every step of the way each “helper” tries to lessen his load by giving him, by conventional standards, the keys to the kingdom.  He is allowed to raise his daughter. He is given a job. He is given a home. He is courted by the locals. Yet he refuses all the benevolent coercion. He wants to be left alone; not literally, he needs his daughter. There’s the rub. It is not sanctioned to raise a teenage girl in complete isolation while foraging for supplies; not to mention involving her in other illegal activity. The father’s income is greatly supplemented by his illegal sale of his VA distributed medications. Once again the genius is Granik’s ability to have the audience cast a sympathetic eye on his struggle. 

Perhaps we are cheering an uber-patriot who trumpets the very American “city on a hill” myth. Maybe we are siding with a mafioso who lives by his own code. Many of our heroes are outlaws who don’t wait on line.… they form their own.  But then comes the challenge of Thomasin’ s journey. She is the opposite of the loner strongman, but equally compelling. She is the daughter of our dreams.  In Will’s case his mental illness amplifies the common parental struggle of “letting go.” His battles, in his mind, will ALWAYS be hers. Thomasin, fortunately,  has reached the age where she develops an unvarnished world-view. Sadly that means accepting hard truths about Will. Granik threads the needle in making everyone seem sympathetic when it would have been far easier to demonize. 

Is more anger in order? Given the world Granik’s paints, the answer is, absolutely not. The film is consistent in being believably realistically, unrealistic. This is not the world we live in. This is illustrated by an online review from a young woman who was raised by a homeless, mentally ill, father. 

I think it's absolutely wrong to attempt to manipulate the audience into emotionally enabling this man, and people like him, to continue inflicting his pain on others.  - Charity Ava, online Amazon customer review of Leave No Trace.

The point is well taken. Ms. Ava’s pain is real but their is another side to the “emotionally enabling” accusation. Leave No Trace is a prose-poem about a father and daughter, rather than a heartfelt look at social justice issues. This doesn’t excuse the criticism but it’s important to appreciate the unorthodox motif. Granki’s artistry shows her to be not only a keen writer but a director who makes careful choices. Surely someone with this degree of sensitivity would acknowledge the omissions are purposeful in order not to cloud the narrative. Some of the unrealistic portrayals failed to convince. Despite brilliant casting, strong storytelling there is a odd “do-gooderness” about the supporting cast. Our two protagonists encounter uniformly supportive people; even amongst those charged with correcting “wrongs.” It is as if they live in Mayberry North Carolina instead of the darker edges of the Pacific Northwest. Misogyny and objectification are other taboos. Thomasin is an extraordinarily beautiful teenage girl and yet there is never any challenges with her navigating the plethora of strange people. At first glance it might seem de rigueur to explore this unfortunate aspect of  every girl’s journey. In hind-sight, however,this hot button issue might have consumed the narrative. Granki gives us an idealization of how beautiful young women should be respectfully viewed in the world. It might offend some as a poor choice that downplays women’s struggles. It should, however, be understood as an artistic decision by someone who has done a great deal of reflection on how to present this narrative.

This is a solid film made by a steady hand. A blemish in the artistry is a lack of levity. A little treacle is needed to counter Will’s brimstone. We could have used more scenes such as Will viewing the church dance performance; or Thomasin viewing the man taking selfies on the train. The title is also somewhat foreboding, but cleverly chosen.  “Leave No Trace” has the ring of a classic mystery or horror film. In a sense one might see this family saga in that light. The expression actually comes from an ecological ethos formed in the 50s that is rooted in setting a mindset to preserve our vanishing wilderness. It is incumbent on the visitor to avoiding marring the scenery with their detritus. Once again Granik does the opposite and delivers a film that makes the unpleasant human debris the center attraction. In relation to the unconscionable brutality that surrounds us this seemingly self-inflicted pain might seem trivial. Can this story rise to the sense of outrage one experiences in viewing the news? No. But films without overt blows can make it harder to forget. Perhaps we do ourselves a disservice when we amplify the horror to assuage our collective pain. The film Hannah, has slick fighting choreography and an innovative device of having a young girl playing Rambo’s part. But it is all a blur compared to Thomasin and Will’s struggles. Thomasin leaving behind two beloved small plastic horse statuettes in the refuge, as not to offend her Dad. The father hiding while in the thrall of a war-flashback; hiding his pain from others so he can preserve his job and stay with his daughter. In the end she knows he means well; he knows the moment has arrived. The next time someone bitterly disappoints I will try to recall Thomasin gently saying, “I know you would stay if you could.” All those small moments with these two broken people leave a an impression infinitely stronger than any of Hannah’s drop kicks. Thanks Granik for recognizing Thomasin and Will’s strengths, and Hannah and Rambo’s weakness. Action/adventure is for easy villains and callow heroes. This film is a bridge to the strengthening stillness of a walk in the forest during trouble times. This film shows us that the quietness is found inside, not out. You might not leave a trace, but you will be affected by the journey.

Review of A Ghost Story (2020)

Review of A Ghost Story

Giving Up The Ghost

“I must rejoice beyond the bounds of time...though the world may shudder at my joy, and in its coarseness know not what I mean”

― Jan van Ruysbroeck (Christian Mystic)

“Yeah when I get to heaven, I'm gonna take that wristwatch off my arm. What are you gonna do with time after you’ve bought the farm?”

― John Prine, When I get to Heaven

We understand life as a linear narrative driven by the passage of time. But what if death involved seeing our story as an open panorama? What if you could experience any moment in any order? This is what David Lowery presents in A Ghost Story. It is a horror movie; or more precisely: it is a horror movie? Lowery is nothing if not subversive. What else can you say about a director who places his central character under a bedsheet for a vast majority of the film. That’s right Casey Affleck, the talented actor, is completely obscured by the cheapest homemade Halloween costume imaginable: a white cotton covering with two cut-outs for eyes. It is an amazing performance, even though his expressions are completely opaque. I checked and Casey himself was under wraps for most of the performance.Yes, it mattered. I can’t explain why. What do you expect from a “horror film” that borrows more from Andy Warhol’s deadpan rather than George Romero’s gore, Wes Craven’s slashing or Stephen King’s creepiness.    

Lowery is interested in “to be AND not to be”. This is a reflecting on action movie. Rather than stalking, molesting, entertaining or cajoling, this poor soul watches and contemplates. Casper the friendly ghost is now the soul-mate of Melville’s Bartleby the Scrivener. Please repeat in a soft monotone: “I would prefer not to be funny”. Nicholson’s character in The Shinning now puts down his ax and plaintively watches his family… for months. No work and no play makes Jack a very pensive boy. Suspended animation rules the day. The few deadly moments are presented as after-events with muted sound. Adding to the seeming blandness comes the bare storyline. The “action” centers around a single location, a drab house, which contains a secret. The wife, prior to the husband’s death, places a note in the crack in a wall. The ghost spends his time trying to retrieve that small piece of paper. The phrase “spends his time” has a radically different meaning in the context of the afterlife. Whereas the living are harnessed to the clock, the afterlife is, literally, eternal. Looking for the contents of the note takes places over… DECADES. Once again this endeavor, from the point of view of the temporal, is absurd. When seen from the infinite, however, it is sublime. The stillness is captivating. 

Thematically the film is akin to Richard McGuire’s graphic novel Here, which illustrates the goings-on in a specific location for a millennia. Each two page spread signals a time shift in an identical location. Lowery, however, is more narrowly focused on the self-realization of his protagonist. Our hero rejects the light-filled portal and roams under his mortuary sheet mantle. He decides to stay in the metaphorical foyer of the present world. He now has the comfort of physically experiencing his familiar surroundings, but without the agency to meaningfully participate in the drama. Think of Emily’s return to earth in Thornton Wilder’s Our Town. Lowery’s ghost discovers the same disappointment as Wilder’s Emily going back as a spectator to her own twelfth birthday party. Being dead amongst the living is as much fun as being alive in a sea of corpses. 

“Living in the moment” is an ideal philosophy when faced with the conundrum of being happy in a ruthlessly uncertain world. The Gospel of Matthew ask us to consider the lilies of the field “that toil not.” Be in a playful excursion, rather than lost in the drudgery of the treadmill. In this mindset the incidental, rather than the momentous, becomes extraordinary. Sadly our heroes paradigm shift occurs in the afterlife. Our ghost fixates on what the living would consider obscure passing moments; a small embrace, an empty room suddenly filled with his girlfriend devouring food to drown her sorry, the never-ending quest to dig out the mysterious note…. A living being might focus on hallowed moments such as births, graduations, promotions, holiday dinners, romantic first encounters…. But from the eternal balcony, life is made of less showy stuff. If one of these specters kept a photo album it might be filled with images of empty rooms or people meandering at insignificant moments.  It is endless, forgetful movements which take center stage. Even the revelation, or lack of discovery, of the contents of the note, expose the larger force of life/death at work. In the end the ghost reads the note and that triggers…. A disappearance. What does this mean?

Lowery carefully avoids weighing in on greater meaning. This is a sketch of a foyer, rather than a depiction of heaven or hell or Hades or the larger circle of life. This film is not a book of revelations or even a book of the dead. He eschews heroism for the quotidian. Our “hero” is an everyman confronting the everyday. Our contemporary way of life has little time for reflection. In this context an “average Joe” is suddenly cast into the waiting room of life. He chooses to metaphorically stare at the ceiling. The door to the rest of the journey is before him, yet he stays in the never-ending dead-end loop of what has gone before. This brings to mind the Beatles lyric in Nowhere Man: “doesn’t have a point of view, knows not where he’s going to. Isn’t he a bit like you and me.” The unfortunate punishment for those who refuse to move on… the exponential growth of feelings of displacement. Angry ghosts are broken people who ignore root causes and lash out at those in front of them. Poltergeists are road-rage drivers, not supernatural incarnations of evil. 

Strangely our protagonist actually encounters another ghost who is less angry, but equally confused. She is adorned in a fancier sheet, suggesting an older woman. They discuss things telepathically. She is a character out of Samuel Beckett’s existential masterpiece, Waiting for Godot. Our hero asks her what she is doing. She is waiting for something, but can’t remember the details. The moment of release for both ghosts come out of the ether or more precisely as part of the ether. Their sheets collapse and they are gone. What was in the note? What was it that triggered their decision to start the journey elsewhere? These are questions for the living. Logical meaning is reserved for temporal space, reality is opaque. There is a wonderful moment where a character, billed as “the prognosticator”, gives an absurd, albeit accurate, prediction. He gives a pompous monologue to a crowded party. Everyone is going to die and everything is meaningless. Our hero ghost weighs in with the counter argument. He blows the house’s fuse. The party falls into spooky darkness. 

The ability to come out of the darkness and be in the moment is not for everyone. To fully understand life’s meaning, or lack thereof, is reserved for those who choose to overcome the shadow of distraction. Like many truths it is unpalatable to most people. A Ghost Story’s box office was minuscule. Then again, so was the budget. It is unfortunate, however, this small gem failed to catch on in the same manner as other low budget horror films such as The Blair Witch Project. Then again this could never be a movie for a general audience. Thornton Wilder puts it best in his answer to Emily’s question in Our Town:

EMILY: "Does anyone ever realize life while they live it...every, every minute?"

STAGE MANAGER: "No. Saints and poets maybe...they do some.” 

Lowery knows “that undiscovered country” is all too familiar. It turns out that “conscience does make cowards of us all”, even after death.  In the end A Ghost Story is a real horror movie. You need not fear darkness. Be scared of not seeing the light. Just ask the man under the sheet. He’s closer than you think.