Review of Barbie (2023)

 The Barbie Outfit

Review of Barbie

“Fuck the patriarchy” 

• Taylor Swift, extended version of ‘All Too Well’ 

““She’s everything. He’s just Ken”

• Tag line for Barbie Movie

“Peace in patriarchy is war against women”

• Maria Miles

  
  
  
  

Barbie has been a strange tabula rasa since its creation in 1959. It was based on a German doll sold as a gag-gift to mostly men in European tobacco shops. One can only imagine the role play ideas for the original crowd. The American redesign was crafted by an aerospace engineer who worked on American military missiles. He also had been the sixth husband of actress Zsa Zsa Gabor and he died by suicide… this isn’t covered in the film. The force behind Barbie’s creation was Ruth Handler, who named the doll, and her companion Ken, after her children. The sibling roots of their namesakes were also not covered in the film. Ruth’s forced resignation from the parent toy company, Mattel, was mentioned, but financial fraud is not something you want to dwell on… which brings us to the strange questions surrounding the storyline of a Barbie movie. What to talk about?

Ms. Gerwig & Mr. Baumbach are art house sensations. How do the creator of Lady Bird, a film showcasing the struggles of girls in 21st century America and the co-creators of Frances Ha, a movie showcasing a struggling woman artist, keep their credibility? They will be making what is essentially a product placement film for Mattel, “the leading toy company & owner of one of the strongest portfolios of children’s and family entertainment franchises in the world”. The boilerplate from Mattel’s website reads like fodder for corporate shills, rather than respected artists. And then there is the doll itself… yes Barbie has “evolved,”  eschewing the pre-civil rights, Mad Men world of her birth by embracing careers et al. But does any woman, aside from the mentally ill , want to be Barbie? Isn’t the name itself still a pejorative term for any female over the age of 14? How on earth can Ms. Gerwig create a film that won’t end in career suicide or corporate disaster? Talk about building tension! 

Well they did it… sort of. The film is a smash hit. Warner Brothers is making bank. Mattel’s girl is on everyone’s lips and audiences are stampeding, many in pink, to the theaters. There are some humorless cranks who are offended, but this only adds to cache. Ms. Gerwig and Mr. Baumbach worked very hard… and you feel it. That’s the problem. The sweat of pleasing the many interested parties produces an extremely clever film… but not a good one. 

Things begin very well. Barbie parodies the paradigm cinema moment of man’s achievement from Kubrick’s 2001. Instead of the bone morphing into a space station, Barbie the astronaut floats above the world,. As we enter Barbieland, the portrait of this pink plastic paradise is… pitch perfect. Margot Robbie is a superb incarnation of the “stereotypical ” Barbie, with her trademark blonde locks. Sharing the synthetic aryan look is Ryan Gosling as the paradigm Ken. Both these characters are individuals, but they exist in a world of types. In other words Barbieland is ruled by the Barbies, plural, with a cast of supporting Kens (plural). Gosling's Ken rival is an Asian “Ken”. They both exist to attract the attention of the Margo Robie . The weird and wonderful land feels as if the Wizard of Oz’s Emerald City was dropped on the beaches of Malibu. 

There is a strange conceit that gives this world the simulacrum of an actual child’s play area. All liquids are hard or invisible. Imagine a little girl giving Barbie a “pretend” drink and you witness what it is like for stereotype Barbie to sip coffee in the morning. Ken tries  to “surf” the ocean and is blocked by hard plastic water . The playfulness and slick recreations are marvelous. Sadly the tone of the film shifts and we enter a very convoluted drama that relies on Barbie having an existential crisis, interacting  with the “real world”and confronting, for the first time, the dreaded PATRIARCHY. 

Ken, played delightfully by Ryan Gosling,  is the foil in the story, but this never quite works because he is, by definition, a subservient dolt. One can feel the screenplay writers bending over backwards to give this professional idiot some standing. Are we really to believe that upon entering the real world Ken goes to a library to read about patriarchy? The gags regarding male arrogance and macho foolishness are hysterically funny, but in the end there is a narrative pull for Barbie to say that things will change in Barbieland in terms of Ken. She feels she has taken him for granted. Ken can stand tall. Ummmm…. No. I’m sure of few things in life but one might be: no one will ever buy a Ken doll without him being subservient to Barbie… The movie forces a very adult notion that fails to mesh with child’s play. It’s never a good thing when kids are forced to act as if they are adults. It doesn't work dramatically either. 

This film is strongest when it simply plays, rather than preaches. The tone instead resembles that of the  social satire of Citizen Ruth, a film poking fun at both sides of the abortion debate. It would seem more appropriate, given that subject matter is a doll designed for pre teen girls, if the film had the spirit of a lighthearted musical comedy, like Mamma Mia, or issue-less social satire, like the original Batman TV Series. In both cases fun is paramount while concerns about messaging take a back seat. Obviously this is a tall order given Barbie’s odd place in the social order . As I write this a news story broke about a sports commentator who was fired for using the term “Barbie” to describe another reporter. How could the writer/director avoid making our heroine more than a… Barbie doll. Strangely this also forces the issue of Ken’s status a professional flunky. In the world of Barbie… who cares? but the real world has real cultural baggage. And how to manage the baggage-handler?

Whereas Ken is a miscast delightful character, Will Ferrell, the CEO of Mattel in the “real world,” and his male Mattel minions, are simply a drag. Their role as clownish, corporate villains is muddled. Their cartoonishness belongs in Barbieland, rather than the “real world”. Kudos for the real Mattel executives for green-lighting the project. Certainly the filmmakers pushed the limit in directing jokes at the corporation. They are openly marked as chauvinistic with Barbie’s outfits being dictated by taking advantage of social changes, rather than championing women.  The real life suits are now laughing all the way to the bank, but had Barbie laid an egg, they might have lost their jobs. There’s some real drama. 

As for Gerwig and Baumbach, their creation might not be an artistic triumph, but has been genuine gold for the bottom line.  The blatant errors are there and go beyond the odd storyline and the portrayal of the corporation. Does this film need to be 2 hours long? That’s the same length as the the bio pic of Alan Turing, and he invented computers.  And what are we to make of Michael Cera as Allan? Mattel never really knew what to do with Ken’s brief sidekick and neither does Gerwig. Then there was an odd technical matter. This is a first rate spectacle with the fantasyland brimming with state-of-the-art props and special effects. There is a divine smoothness to the fakery - the houses, the ocean, the campfires. These are moving dioramas that are really captivating. I felt like a child pushing my nose against the glass in the Museum of Natural History.  I also wanted to jump in during the choreography of Ken’s ridiculous battle where weapons never hurt… and despite all this I felt the character’s faces to be under-lit  in many of the scenes. It is as if the basics were ignored in order to spend artistic energy on complicated social satire.

Perhaps there would have been more gold for everyone if the film stuck to Barbieland and eschewed reality and its never-ending source of conflict. This fantasy world already had its strange corner of intrigue:  the character, “Weird Barbie”, played by the brilliant comedic actress Kate McKinnon. She represented dolls that were mistreated by their guardians. Interestingly when Barbie is faced with thoughts of death, the other Barbies point her to “Weird Barbie”. It seems not all little girls have wholesome role-play fantasies with dolls. In some cases Barbie becomes a whipping post for anger and aggression.  It is interesting to note that McKinnon is often splayed on the floor, as if being nearly torn apart is “natural”. Once again there is no need for this film to plumb the depths of all social ills, but it is interesting that the filmmakers felt the need to go outside. Perhaps they were channeling the Wizard of Oz’s use of a separate plane of fantasy. The failure of Barbie is that the split between Barbieland and “the real world” is cloudy and confusing. There is no neat black and white vs. color delineation that showcases the clear line between the drudgery of real world cruelty and the joy of escapist fantasy. Would Barbie, while experiencing Los Angeles, ever want to click her heels three times and return to Barbieland? It’s a complicated question and that’s a problem. Why not simplify everything? There is enough drama “in house” to shape a story about Barbie facing her demons. The arc of the story, however, needs to be rooted in the anodyne innocence of playfulness, rather than the meanness of adults. 

I might be the wrong demographic to comment on this movie but I did find the most profound aspect of the film lay in the audience’s laughter. In my years of going to movie theaters I have never heard so many older women guffawing. This film touches something, despite what I perceive as a strangely muddled script. I never played with Barbie dolls and maybe to get the overall joke, you need to really live that experience. I felt this modern take on the meaning of Barbie fell short… too much stereotypical Barbie, not enough Weird Barbie… too much real world, not enough Barbieland…. Too much talk, not enough dancing…. Too much figuring out, not enough enjoying the moment.… but maybe I’m just another Ken, without the looks; or worse yet… an exploitative male Mattel executive. But in the end Gerwig’s work has grossed over a billion dollars. For that, everyone can thank… Barbie. 

Review of Licorice Pizza (2021)

 Hearing the Sirens

Review of Licorice Pizza

“And you climb up the mountains and you fall down the holes” 

• Song All The Way From Memphis, Mott The Hoople

“Everyone has the right to make an ass out of themselves. You just can't let the world judge you too much” 

• Maude, from Harold & Maude

“Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter”

• Mark Twain

Licorice Pizza, Paul Taylor Anderson’s latest feature, arrived in the midst of a seemingly never-ending pandemic. The talented director chooses optimism over despair and delivers a heart-felt paean to young lovers. This is a very personal film. It is set in the early 1970s when the writer/director came of age. Every artist struggles with presenting the passion of intimacy without losing an audience to the opaqueness of a private language. This is especially challenging for mature filmmakers who are past fretting about disapproving producers. Licorice Pizza is a qualified success. It shows Anderson’s strengths in working with actors and capturing the zeitgeist of youth, LA and the 1970s. Unfortunately it stumbles in an odd, meandering way. It is as if you asked a parent about their grown children and they gave a detailed description of the neighborhood where they grew up. It’s a great response that has nothing to do with the question.

At the heart of Anderson’s drama is a perfect couple. That’s the problem. Cooper Hoffman is magnificent as Gary. Alana Haim nails the part of Alana. They are magical together. Why aren’t they together? He is 15 and she is in her 20s. Certainly this would be a challenge, even more so in the the previous decade. Unfortunately this gap doesn’t play on screen. He seems older and she appears younger, undermining the perception of the impossibility of a romance. At one point Alana literally voices to her sister/confidante that she feels uncomfortable hanging out with Gary and his younger crowd. It is as if the writer/director needs to reinforce the central plot point.The words fail to convince. Without the impediment to true love the interactions become rehearsed, rather than felt. Gary, the supposed 15 year old, manages the adult tasks of forming businesses, hanging out in bars, managing clients, securing acting parts with the aplomb of a polished adult. The public, especially their crowd, would not frown upon their union. This isn’t the startling age gap exhibited by the patron saints of odd-ball romantic comedy, the 10 year old Harold and his elderly mentor, Maude from the eponymous Harold and Maude. But even given the supposed impossibility of being a couple, Anderson fails to reign-in the seduction of “cool” asides.  The central characters drift into a different film that tries to capture the wider world. 

The concise, unadorned moments in Licorice Pizza are superb. We see the young couple facing the trials of early adulthood without the noise of larger statements about the 70s entertainment industry. Gary goes on an audition and faces the smiling sociopaths who hire aspiring child actors. The glances between the casting director and the producer tell a million stories.  In another sequence Gary tries to have his agent take an interest in Alana. This is a sublime portrayal of the harshness of an industry where the callow, obsequious, success-hungry wannabes are played by indifferent, capricious seasoned pros.  At one moment the elderly agent seems as if she will take out a knife and cut Alana to bits, then comes a seamless pivot to laughter and compliments. No doubt being a child star can be exhilarating, as exhibited by the New York City showcase visit. However, even in this frolicking riot of fun the dark side is apparent.  The mature star turns on Gary for his prank. You can’t help thinking how it would have turned out had the handlers not been around to stop her physical assault. Furthermore this diva has the air of a grudge-holder. Will there be longterm consequences? Contrast these crisp show-business portraits with the overwrought introduction of Jon Peters and the sequences involving Sean Penn and Tom Waits. These figures would have been more appropriate to Boogie Nights.  Anderson’s sweeping portrait of the LA skin trade was a sprawling feast of decadence. Licorice Pizza is supposed to be an intimate love story… or wants to be. The asides cloud us getting to know Gary and Alana. The film becomes a disjointed soup of interesting moments that never coalesces. The audience yearns for the conciseness of Anderson’s debut feature, Hard 8. That gritty love story revolves around a young, down and out, couple on the fringes of the Las Vegas casinos. Their struggles stir passion. Licorice Pizza produces wry smiles. Despite the fine acting and directing, the final reunion of Gary and Alana gets a thumbs up, rather than a tear. Anderson’s other romantic comedy, Punch Drunk Love, has the same problem. The romance is lost to the pyrotechnics of a wild plot line which includes a manufacturer of toilet plungers squaring off against thugs sent by a phone sex operator. 

At the heart of Licorice Pizza is the confusion about the central storyline. Is this about the couple, or the era? At times the audience is left with the impression that this film starts where Tarantino left off in his panoramic sweep of 60s LA, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Anderson is a far superior director and even the mis-steps make for a fun trip. Unfortunately the director commits the same crime as the absent guardians of latchkey kids. The parents vanish and the children are left to fend for themselves. Gary and Alana’s mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters disappear and we are left with waterbeds, pinball machines, closeted politicians and flashy movie stars. It’s entertaining but distracting. Their final reunion becomes a simple beat, rather than a crescendo. The audience needed more quiet time. There is a brilliant, silent,  moment involving Gary, in a pique of jealousy, calling Alana at her house. She is dating a rival actor and our hero is heartbroken. They are both in their homes. Gary is babysitting his brother and Alana is surrounded by the constant din of her sisters. Nothing and everything happens. Gary is completely quiet and simply listens as the confused Alana hangs on the phone. It is a scene that outshines all the slick cameos and outlandish set-ups. Something real was at stake. Too often Anderson’s resorts to Disney-esque adventurism and the couple’s escapes lack an edge. A mirror example, that exhibits the much needed tension, is the seminal 70s feature, Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. The audience is absorbed in the believable money struggles facing an itinerant single mother and her young son. Homelessness and poverty hover at every turn, despite many funny moments. Contrast comic-book untouchability  of Gary and Alana. Even when he is apprehended by the police, one of the few genuinely harrowing moments, the danger evaporates in minutes without explanation. Alana arrives. All is good. The families are nowhere to be seen. The couple continues on their way, as if they were Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland in a 1940s Andy Hardy film. It’s catchy fun, rather than heartfelt emotion. 

Perhaps Licorice Pizza has more resonance but given the body of Anderson’s work, expectations are high. It seems his forte is the wide shot rather than the close up. His searing renderings of zealots, be they in business, religion or fashion, are potent to a fault. ( There Will Be Blood, The Master, Phantom Thread) The exacting expositions of the protagonists’ pathologies make an audience feel they’ve witnessed an autopsy rather than experiencing a life. Licorice Pizza has the opposite problem in erring on the side of frivolity. The balance is struck with the epic portraits of Los Angeles. There is an element of this genius at work in Licorice Pizza. Sadly Gary and Alana’s story seems a weaker version of the many individual sequences from his magnum opus, Magnolia. That film showcases a wide-ranging group of Los Angelenos facing various crisis’. The difference is that Anderson is more fully invested in their stories. The other slices of Licorice Pizza are leftovers from his penultimate achievement, Boogie Nights. Once again the antics of the sad denizens of the porno trade are more carefully delineated than the current offering.  That is not to say the film isn’t worth the time. 

Anderson is a wonderful filmmaker. His achievements are even more impressive in light of the onslaught of serialized action features which have taken over the fading feature film offerings. Licorice Pizza is a welcome entree when the top grossing films this week are The Matrix Resurrections and Spider-Man: No Way Home.  Anderson has something to say and is a superb craftsman. If only if he would resist the siren call of cool distraction. Even the title Licorice Pizza betrays a wandering eye. “Licorice Pizza” is 70s slang for vinyl records. It’s catchy but what does that have to do with the couple at the heart of the drama? Perhaps “Mood Ring” or “Wacky Pack” would have been more appropriate. If you’re not old enough, look up the definitions. Those quintessential 70s items capture the irreverent romantic un-romance of Gary and Alana. Unfortunately Anderson chose the nick-name for an LP. It is fitting. This careful, insightful writer/director lost track of his metaphorical children. It’s a great title, but not for this movie.  Anderson is careless but still manages to deliver a wonderful, nostalgic, reprieve from our current pandemic world. My reaction to the film is summed up by the rock group 10cc in their 1975 smash hit, I’m Not In Love. Take off your mask. Wipe off your hands with alcohol. Think about a more innocent time. Download the song, put in your earbuds… and listen. It’s a wonderful distraction. 

Review of The Green Knight (2021)

 

The Knight Shift

“And anyone who ever played a part, they wouldn’t turn around and hate it.”

• Lou Reed, Sweet Jane

“I was born into this life and it is a great honor to serve my country and the Queen.”

• Prince Harry, Letter of Resignation

The Green Knight is rooted in the medieval poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. What kind of producer would bet on a 13th century text as the basis for a feature film? Answer: someone who hires David Lowery as the writer/director. Lowery has a knack for giving new varnish to old stories. Bonnie and Clyde become quarreling high schoolers from an Everly Brothers’ song. A Ghost Story is a horror film remade as an Andy Warhol art movie. What will he do with a 800 year old tale of chivalric romance? Answer: the pomp and pageantry give way to existential questions. The knight in shining armor is a contemporary, disenfranchised, cellphone-bound, teenager. Behind the role-playing lurks self-doubt and skepticism. The monster becomes the question: what’s the point of slaying the dragon?

The dragon in this tale is the Green Knight, a Hulk-like figure who seems to embody the forest. His physicality is an amalgamation of old growth trees graphed onto a super-hero’s body. His opponent is the privileged screw-up, Gawain. The feckless teen is catapulted into stardom by his ambitious mother, the sister of the king. The mighty knights of the roundtable are too intimidated by the Green Monster so the callow Gawain accepts the challenge. The mother ensures the slight young man’s victory over this beast. The catch is that, after a year, the new knight must participate in a return match in a far off chapel.

The feckless rich kid is now a sanctioned hero replete with weapons, clothing and blessings of the church and high society. Old ways die hard and he fritters-away twelve months with drinking buddies and a beautiful lowly commoner. There is a wonderful scene in which she speaks all the words everyone wishes he would say. He certainly feels attachment but demurs for more established prospects. This is a tone-deaf careerist rather than a chivalric hero. His quest confirms our worst suspicions. Briefly into the journey he loses his horse, weapons and sacred tokens to a band of unimposing criminal scavengers. Losing his stallion is particularly noteworthy as the word “chivalry” is based on the French word for horse (cheval). These knights were inseparable from their animals. He is redeemed through set-piece encounters with various women who find him enthralling. They give him charms and tokens. A green belt for eternal protection and the sacred axe, which he needs for his encounter with the Green Knight. They come at a price but our transactional hero has the audacity to wonder, “What’s in it for me?” One of the princesses mercilessly chides him: Knights don’t ask the price of their services. He learns the art of accepting “gifts.” But therein lies the heart of Sir Gawain’s cardinal sin. He is a crass yuppie cognizant of “price” but oblivious to “value.” Every move is rooted in the calculus of advancement, not a code of chivalry. His passion is tempered by security. Boldness shows through at times, but it is the stuff of adrenaline, rather than blood. He encounters a majestic trail of giants lumbering across the mountains. He asks to ride on one of their shoulders. When the massive hand is outstretched Gawain flees in terror. No doubt mom would have approved: that looks too dangerous! Think of your prospects.

Lowery knows the timeless motifs of the ambitious mother and prodigal son. He also is aware that the supposed prudishness of the Middle Ages is a myth as fictitious as a real-life Green Knight. Noble women were strong, powerful and sexually confident. Knights were more akin to State-sanctioned marauders. The real code of chivalry was a device created by those in power to keep a check on ambitious men with weapons. (Historian Terry Jones, of Monty Python fame, has a wonderful series of videos on life in the Middle Ages). Lowery is a master of uncloaking the truth of a past that is ever-present. This is a fairy tale with the grit of our current world beset with Lermontov’s ambiguous “heroes.” Behind the magical-realism of sorceress’, giants, spells, witchcraft, knights, oaths, quests… is the darkness of sacrificing one’s integrity for mammon and standing. Only in this tale would the hero knight give away the token of his love’s affection to a seductress who happens to be his host’s wife. It is more The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills than The Legend of King Arthur. The denouement is equally unsettling. When it comes to winning the crown, he has Henry VIII’s family values. Perhaps “wins” is the wrong word. He deserves the crown and its never-ending parade of pain. The betrayed lover, fabricated bravery, stolen child and dead son are not the stuff of “happily ever after.” There is an inevitability to rebelling subjects and a burning castle. In the end he metaphorically joins fellow king Richard II on the ground talking of graves, worms and epitaphs… but does he?

Lowery puts a final twist on his twisted dream by borrowing from the most cynical of American writers, Ambrose Bierce. Like the Confederate Soldier in An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge, Gawain has a reprieve. Unlike the civil war counterpart his alternative life is the nightmare of actually being a king. At one point when the Green Knight raises his axe Gawain asks if this is “it”? Isn’t there more to the game of life? The Green Knight is befuddled. The embodiment of natural knowledge looks at the young man and embarrassingly admits… this is it. Our hero is, in the Buddhist sense, “truly in the moment.”. He puts away the protective charms. He bows his head and expects the blow. It is his first genuine act of bravery and maturity. He sees the broader picture: being king and not being king are… the same. The Green Knight salutes the “road to Damascus moment” by joking, “Now off with your head.” This is even worse than an actual blow. The elder Knight knows: you will always lose, but heroes fight anyway.

One could imagine the grammatical symbol for Chivalric Romance as an exclamation point, marking brave deeds and heroic triumphs. Lowery’s The Green Knight is the question mark at the end of “to be or not to be?” The performances are a perfect balance to the quirky sensibility of this unorthodox tale that frames an uncomfortable question. The actors are sexy, empathetic and precisely anti-heroic. The set and costuming are enthralling, exquisite without overspilling into Disney-like fantasy. The director’s mastery of the historical aspects of the period and mythology is exacting. The overall effect is to land in the uncanny valley of escapist fantasy. Lowery has the wherewithalto capture our imaginations. We fall into his dream. Strangely there is an unsettling quality in his looking glass. We expect uplifting dreams and torrid nightmares, but how to digest existential ambivalence in the context of a magical fantasy? Our knights in shinning armor aren’t supposed to wonder if the jousting match is covered by insurance. Their realizations can’t be the pointlessness of conventional heroism. We needed more of the Green Knight’s sagacity of acceptance. There is deep wisdom behind all the Hulk-theatrics that bend’s the heroic framework. It is interesting that in the original poem the Green Knight himself is a disguised relative. The entire “game” is revealed as a intra-familial life lesson. Lowery retains the spirit of the ancient scribes. That Zeitgeist is expressed by the cynical iconoclast, Mr. Bierce, in his Devil’s Dictionary: “Existence n. A transient, horrible, fantastic dream, wherein is nothing yet all things do seem: From which we’re wakened by a friendly nudge of our bedfellow Death, and cry: “Oh Fudge!”” Lowery’s quest might be disquieting for those expecting true horror or real fantasy. There’s the rub. The holy grail might be a beaten old terra-cotta mug, rather than a shining golden goblet.

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.