Review of US (2019)

Review of the film, US

Black & White in Color

“in ours (society), some combination of greed, cynicism, obsequiousness and subordination, lack of curiosity and independence of mind, self-serving disregard for others, and who knows what else, as reflected quite vividly by income distributions and the contributions to society at the high end.”

Noam Chomsky on factors predicting success in U.S.’s “meritocracy”

A Mulatto slave called Sandy, about 35 years of age, his stature is rather low, inclining to corpulence, and his complexion light; he is a shoemaker by trade, in which he uses his left hand principally, can do coarse carpenters work, and is something of a horse jockey; he is greatly addicted to drink, and when drunk is insolent and disorderly, in his conversation he swears much, and his behaviour is artful and knavish… Whoever conveys the said slave to me in Albemarle, shall have 40 s. reward…

Thomas Jefferson, Virginia Gazette (Purdie & Dixon), 14 Sep. 1769

I got the shotgun… you got the briefcase…. It’s all a game though, right?

Omar to Bird’s Lawyer while testifying against Bird, The Wire

US is a seriously unserious serious movie. What would anyone expect from a progressive, mixed race, Manhattan private school entertainment superstar in an age of racism, nationalism and xenophobia. Jordan Peele cut his artistic teeth doing biting TV satire centered on American race relations. His break out was a feature called Get Out, a horror film masking a bold social statement. He continues this tradition with US, a searing discourse on the class system pretending to be a zombie apocalypse thriller. It is similar to Get Out in savaging white supremacy but goes further in exploring the power structure that exploits the vulnerable. The message has no border. The action takes place in the United States.

The film opens with a Reagan era event called “Hands Across America.” This strange spectacle asked people to donate $10 towards “charity” to reserve a place in line to, literally, hold hand across America. How did a chain of people physically joined from LA to NY help the disenfranchised? It didn’t. The costs outstripped any funds for the the indigent. It was an absurd, albeit, heartfelt attempt to help but it also showcased an army of metaphorical Marie Antoinettes. This duality is the fuel for Peele’s art. Hell is paved with good intentions as the US finale features underclass zombies clasping hands across the landscape. It is funny but make no mistake, Jordan Peele’s humor is born of being a soldier on the front lines of America’s schizophrenic relationship with “justice” and “goodness.” All men are created equal and some don’t count and others count as 3/5’s of a person. This isn’t Orwell’s 1984 but the United States Constitution. Peele’s childhood is a meditation on how the ruling class is still missing 2/5s of the equation. He lived in two distinct worlds. No doubt this gave him the stomach to abandon a fancy school and embark one of the most difficult careers imaginable — being a writer/performer/director.

Peele was born to a financially disadvantaged white single mother and an absent African American father. He grew up in an affluent, white Manhattan neighborhood and went on to attend one of the most expensive colleges in the country. He carries the credentials of elite whiteness but no doubt would have difficultly hailing a yellow cab in Midtown. Despite all the accolades and mainstream success, one can feel his heated passion for social justice. Not far from his childhood home lies Riverside Park. This waterfront greenery on the West Side is a major hub for “mole people”, the name for the homeless who live in the underground train tunnels. As a keen observer Peele was acutely aware of the alternate universe, populated disproportionally by people of color, that existed under the playground of his youth. This would set him apart from his caucasian friends on Park Ave who might never have given a thought to the denizens of the old 4th Avenue train line that lay, literally, below their feet. US is a paean to those lurking in the shadows. It asks the simple question running through Peele’s mind: “What makes me different from the people in the tunnels?” The answer is: US.

This feature shows a world where the class/racial divide is literal. The underground is a parallel universe inhabited by mirror beings who are destined to live out their lives as disenfranchised mole people in a ghetto of no opportunity. His social commentary matches the bleakness of real life data. In 2018 33% of black children lived in poor families compared to 10% of white children. Social mobility statistics overall are equally dire. Horatio Alger’s American Dream of rising out of poverty thru hard work is, statistically, TWICE as likely in Canada. Average wages have been flat-lining for decades despite disproportionate wealth growth for the top earners. Given the anger born of economic stagnation, Peele is clever to reprise the device of masking social criticism in a horror genre. The satirist John Stewart, when confronted by anger for his “unpatriotic” insights, would simply say “I’m a comedian in a comedy show.” One might image Peele using the same defense, “I’m a comedian making a horror film.”

Ironically Peele’s oeuvre is as American as apple pie. His entertainment empire has thrived because he has expanded, rather than reinvented, a uniquely American celebration of irreverence, gore and comedy. US follows Get Out in populating classic slasher movies with people of color. This is also true in his rebooting of the Twilight Zone franchise. These are updated versions of the original but, metaphorically, in color. There is no clamor about an African American replacing Rod Sterling as Peele has made a seamless transition. He has lived the material. One can sense the thousands of hours spent in front of the TV and at movie theaters during his childhood. The most terrifying moment in US is the arrival of the “twin” family on the driveway at the vacation home. Any middle aged American would immediately call to mind a melding of the silhouettes of the priest on the original The Exorcist poster or Norman from Psycho. This is not to take away from Peele’s enormous talent but rather to see him as part of the ascending generation of Americas entertainment dynamos. US is as familiar as Dr. Huxtable’s suburban home on The Cosby Show and as disquieting as Steven King’s prom night in Carrie.

US has two characters masterly played by Lupita Nyong’o. The rest of the cast are archetypes and foils. Nyong’o is being “her-selves” rather than completing a gag or representing an idea. She literally fills the screen by being the two dimensions of the same person. Her confrontation with herself is heartfelt. Her love and protection of her families feels genuine. The motivations for the rest of the cast seem bound by service to the plot. The concept of seeing yourself on the other side of “the road not taken” is a standard literary troupe. In the early 20th century Henry James’ short story The Jolly Corner explores a leisurely gentleman haunted by the specter of himself as a ruthless businessman. The story evokes Nyong’o’s struggle of defining the cost of success in the context of the American Dream. Was it “right” for her to abandon her doppelgänger in the hell of the underworld? Her new life is based in the cocoon of American middle class suburbia that gives no quarter to interlopers on the other side of the social justice divide. It is a tranquil enclave but woe to those who would disrupt the status quo. Her son’s expression at the end of the story says it all. He realizes that his mother is actually from… below. She is still his mother but that soccer mom smile masks a sociopathic gang banger. All the horrific attributes of being an uneducated, drug addled “zombie” lie just under the surface. Middle class legitimacy, despite the veneer of easy living, is actually a brutal zero sum game. Your American dream is built on others’ American nightmare. Peele does a good job of explaining the dichotomy but there are issues in his rendering of the story.

US is a wonderful period piece rather than a masterpiece. He is akin to the pre-scandal plagued Woody Allen of the the 1970s. That writer/performer/director captured the zeitgeist of the moment but his work is struggling with the test of time. Sleeper was viewed as the definitive comic statement about the anxieties of the ascent of computers. That film is now largely forgotten. Perhaps the shelf-life of US will face the same fate. Peele and Allen both have their roots in stand up and set-piece comedy which, unlike film, relies on a proscenium arch to contain the action. Allen’s early work and Peele’s two features suffer from a choppiness born of plots being shoe-horned mergers of self contained comic moments. These units are held together on a shaky plot points. The decision of Nyong’o to return to the scene of her rebirth stretches credibility, even within the confines of a gore/horror film. It is exposed as merely a device to set the stage for a myriad of revelatory moments and gory chase sequences. Three scenes that stand out are Nyongo lost in the mirror house, the original adult confrontation between Nyong’o other halves and the twinning dance sequence towards the finale. In these moments this work is far more than a teenage bloodbath. Unfortunately there was too much laborious exposition illustrating the tchotchke-filled lives of middle class black and white families. The overly complicated parable waxed and waned giving the dramatic impression of a top of the line sports car with an intermittently clogged fuel line. Despite the blemishes Peele has created something entertaining and important. The film begs the question: who are we? The answer is…. It’s complicated.

We are a country with aspirational founding documents with contradictory messages that gloss over our violent origins. We are created equal and less than human. Peele knows all of this and hold the awkward status of being BOTH the oppressed and the ruling class. US shows what is behind the smiling materialism. US knows that our houses sit on land taken by genocide and filled with shiny objects that are born of the blood of slave labor. Peele doesn’t point a wagging finger. He makes us laugh. But there is a caveat. One day someone from our world might get stuck in that ghetto and rise up….. beware. It will take more than the spectacle of joining hands to stem the rage. The scissors, the Zombie’s weapon of choice, cuts both ways. The jolly corner won’t be so… jolly. In Henry James’ story the meek man of leisure ends up tearing off two fingers from his tormenting doppelgänger. Everyone turns vicious when it comes to protecting life, liberty…. and the pursuit of property. I can see Peele riffing in a small comedy club: “What’s the difference between a beautiful, charming, sophisticated, educated, talented, entertaining millionaire and an ugly, rude, ignorant, sociopathic, killer…. (pause). NOTHING.” The joke is on US.

Review of the short film Tungrus & His Chicken from Hell (2019)

ON PURPOSELY KILLING A BELOVED PET IN HIS PRIME

REVIEW OF THE SHORT FILM TUNGRUS & HIS CHICKEN FROM HELL

What did I know, what did I know, of love’s austere and lonely offices?……..Those Winter Sundays, Robert Hayden

CLICK TO SEE RISHI CHANDNA’S TUNGRUS & HIS CHICKEN FROM HELL

A chicken mistakenly becomes a beloved apartment house pet. It is the stuff of children’s books and yet has the dystopian undercurrent of a cannibalistic snuff film. (spoiler alert) The affable patriarch kills and devours his charge. Rishi Chandna’s “Tungrus and His Chicken from Hell” is hilarious. This 12 and a half minute film is also devastating and profound. This chimera of good and evil leaves audiences wondering about the nature of both. This simple, Disney-like drama, pits the folk wisdom of a childhood on the farm against the realities of city life. The substance of the story is absurdly simple. How could this film be anything but a portrait of a monster? Ironically it is a paean the conundrum of cruelty being the vessel of kindness. In the spare concrete apartment a tight knit traditional family is put to a test of wills and a testament to love.

Chandna knows how to set a scene. The first moments of the film have seemingly incidental shots of a run down apartment block coupled with planes overhead approaching a nearby runway. By mainstream Western standards this setting is drab. In the context o Mumbai India, where many do not have running water, plumbing or electricity, this family is, relatively, well off. The affable patriarch purchases a chick and brings it home to the rest of the family, a wife, two sons and a daughter. The chicken is not the main entree. The overall reaction to the bird’s presence is the essence of the story. The title says a “chicken from hell”, but in fact he is a normal rooster. The hellish behavior is a result of being confined to a cell block apartment with 5 humans and two cats. The film is more precisely “Tungrus creates Hell for a Chicken.” Everyone gives their reaction to this unlikely guest. The father tells the story of buying the chick on a side street for his cats to “play with.” The expectation was a quick death at the hands of the felines. The cats, however, failed to discharge their duty and became the hunted. Everyone muses over this strange turn of fate. Ironically the father, the one who initially bought the bird as a disposable cat-toy, is most enamored. There are many sequences of him chased and being pursued by his erstwhile new family member. The others are both bemused and appalled. They note the rooster has integrated himself in the family by being playful and obstinate; going so far as to treat the matriarch as one of his hens. Despite the moments of levity everyone, aside of the father, is fed up with the crowing and droppings; not to mention the social awkwardness of explaining to the chicken’s presence to visitors. The uncomfortableness fails to erase the affection. All the children indicate they want the bird gone but not harmed. The mother gushes and said it would be very quiet around the house without him. She adds one of the elder son’s favorite food was chicken but he wouldn’t dream of eating this particular specimen. The father seems to be the most enthusiastic about the pet as there is a scene of him loving caressing the rooster. Then he casually explains, at about the 9 minute mark: “if not today, then tomorrow. We’ll have to slaughter him.” Is this dark humor? No he is deadly serious. He is not only going to kill him, he promises to eat him.

As the audience is swept up in the madcap chicken shenanigans and forgets the father brought the chick home as a sacrificial toy. Chandna cleverly integrates important clues as to the father’s dark choice. The patriarch has a village background. He is the only member of his family who lacks fluency in English. His dialogue is delivered with sub-titles sprinkled with the occasional English phrase. Although the children are clearly formally educated the father is an autodidact. One feels he has traveled far in his journey but never forgets the lessons of the rural village. He brought the chicken into his home. He is responsible for the chicken. The chicken was supposed to die. The chicken is causing problems. No one can afford to be sentimental. He is responsible for all the trouble and he will take care of the problem. No matter the cost. To an urban, educated person his decision seems cruel and heartless. In fact it is the opposite.

CLICK FOR THE STORY OF GIDEON THE PARROT

There are two other documentary stories that illustrate the fate of the more “civilized” decisions of either keeping the chicken or letting it “free.” This American Life tells the story of Veronica Chater who, as a teenager, bought a pet macaw parrot, Gideon. Ms. Chater is an author and, after receiving an MA, documented her difficult childhood in the book Waiting for the Apocalypse: A Memoir of Faith and Family. The radio story she tells takes place over two decades after she purchased the bird and concerns her own family. Parrots have a lifespan equivalent to humans so Gideon, now in his prime, is terrorizing Veronica’s family. Her sons do not succumb to death by macaw but unlike Tungrus’ story there is a real physical danger. The sons have been bitten and, judging by the interviews, are emotionally under siege. The parrot believes Veronica is her mate and, the mother readily admits the bird’s desire to kill her human children. The decision to choose the safety and well-being of her children might seem outrageous, until one hears the plight of Lucy.

CLICK FOR THE STORY OF LUCY THE CHIMPANZEE

Lucy was an unfortunate chimpanzee had the bad luck of having an encounter with those star children of the Enlightenment, Western Scientists. Lucy was born in captivity to a group of chimps that were circus performers. One might think that might be a cruel fate but nothing can compare to the horrors of a primate being raised as a human by a psychotherapist. This man of Science wanted to know what would happen if a chimp was raised as a human. He called Lucy his daughter. Once the doctor got his book Lucy was abandoned. After a harrowing journey it was decided to release her into the wild. Imagine, after a life being raised by a human parents in a city apartment, being released into in a jungle of human hunters and feral primates. One need not have an advanced degree to foretell the outcome.

Gideon and Lucy’s stories show the uneducated, simple man in Mumbai understood more than the doctor and credentialed author. Animals must be respected on their own terms. More importantly taking responsibility requires hard decisions. The last image in the film is the plastic barrel rocking back and forth. It is the vessel where where the beloved chicken is writhing after being decapitated by the butcher. Seeing that container going still is one of the grimmest moments I’ve seen on film… PERIOD. My gut tells me Tungrus is a monster. Then I thought of Lucy and Gideon. In this light the brutality is the better of the bad choices.

I have the opposite life experience than Tungrus but I concur with his heartbreaking decision. I was raised in the heart of a large city but now live on a farm. I have experienced having to put down an injured animal with a knife. (A sheep caught in a fence and hopelessly tangled and bleeding.) This led me to purchase a firearm. Many of my city friends don’t understand. Tungrus probably would. He understands dimensions of suffering in a way that many educated city-dwellers will never be able to comprehend. The choice of eating his pet adds to the seeming barbarity. His own family is horrified. I think that’s the point. In his mind he owed it to the bird. One might see it as having a relation to Christian traditions of metaphorical cannibalism as a cleansing ritual. In his mind he is simply eating crow. If you dare to see the film you might feel he’s still a horrible SOB. He wouldn’t disagree. It’s just the price one pays for being civilized.

PS — thanks to Erin for sending the original link to TUNGRUS & HIS CHICKEN FROM HELL

Roma (2018)

Review of the film Roma

Let us now praise famous women

“I can never remember whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve or whether it snowed for twelve days and twelve nights when I was six.”- Dylan Thomas, A Child’s Christmas in Wales

“Your mother and her prayers can’t help us”― Antonio, Bicycle Thieves

“there are always in gatherings such as this sadder thoughts that will recur to our minds: thoughts of the past, of youth, of changes, of absent faces that we miss here tonight. Our path through life is strewn with many such sad memories: and were we to brood upon them always we could not find the heart to go on bravely with our work among the living. We have all of us living duties and living affections which claim, and rightly claim, our strenuous endeavors” ― James Joyce, The Dead

Alfonso Cuaron brings us back home; specifically to his home. Roma, the eponymous neighborhood in Mexico City, comes to life during the turbulent 1970s. But this is not The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, in which a noble family is insulated from political upheaval. The domestic trauma stays domestic unlike Cuaron’s last feature, an outer space thriller entitled Gravity. Ironically Roma wrestles with another primordial force in nature, the matriarch. Being a innovative story-teller the director bring a new definition of that sacred office. As a master technician he can breath life into all parts of the universe. The craft behind the colorful, captivating dazzle of an exploding space station is equally deployed in making a mesmerizing tableau of the steady, black and white, diurnal rhythms of an upper-middle-class Mexican family.

The opening credit sequence, a floor being slowly scrubbed, is a powerful mirror image of the space-age special effects of the last project. The titles flow while the aged mud bricks are slowly bathed in mop water. This banal description belies the evoking of a prelapsarian innocence. The quietness hides the demands of a bold director putting an audience on notice: put away the endless chatter of the present! You are entering a quieter era, but don’t be fooled into thinking it is less dramatic. Romais the story of women’s ability to endure the barbarity of male privilege; but it is not a polemic. It is the tale of real suffering and hardship, yet it fosters a nostalgia for a bygone era. Cuaron celebrates the joy of the past without hiding the hardship. He is a master craftsman who meticulously frets over the details of each frame. Paradoxically that exacting work gives birth to a seemingly simple tapestry of the truth of yesterday. Strangely this informs those facing the difficulty of today.

The film takes place during Mexico’s dirty war against the left. This time period coincidences with women, within the same family, facing betrayal by their partners. The protagonist, Cleo, is a beloved domestic who has a front row view to the disintegration of her employer’s marriage. She is also struggling with a surprise pregnancy. Cuaron’s decision to place a lowly servant at the center of the drama is revolutionary. This unremarkable nanny/housekeeper is a surprising match for the captivating familiar paterfamilias archetypes. The standard trope is to have the king preside over his castle; Big Daddy pontificates in Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, the Prince rules in Visconti’s The Leopard, Don Corleoni terrorizes in Coppola’s The Godfather… Cuaron’s matriarch is playing a quieter, longer game while the men strut and squawk.

We first meet the head of the household, a physician, as he pulls his car into the narrow driveway. He rolls his vehicle over the same tiled floor we see in the opening credits. The focus of the sequence is on his arm fastidiously shifting gears as an extended cigarette smolders between his fingers and classical music blares from the radio. There is pomp as his absurdly large, shiny, American limousine-like car barely squeezes against the ancient stone walls. The chrome mirror is nearly severed as the smoke settles and the orchestra plays on. The king of this castle is an officious tyrant; not so much evil as ridiculous.

This knave, however, is a giant compared to Cleo’s paramour. We first meet him in a hotel room where he has just made love. He comes out of the bathroom delivering the only moment of nudity in the film. Men bearing their parts delivers a comedic touch and Cuaron plays it to the hilt. The doctor, in his flashy car, was a pompous ass but he fails to compete with the absurdity of a man, in the raw, showing off his martial arts “skills” by twirling a shower rod. Cleo hides her guffaws under the covers but our big little man is too much of a narcissist to understand she is laughing AT him. His cut body only amplifies his foolishness. If youtube had existed he would, no doubt, be featured in a number of cringeworthy videos. He goes on to join a right wing para-military group led by a TV personality who has pretensions of being… a superhero. He leads his army in calisthenics/yoga in a caped costume with a cowl. This is probably a nod to fellow Mexican director Inarritu’s Birdman, a wonderfully comic paean to the absurdity of stardom.

Cleo is the only person able to follow the ersatz shaman’s most difficult yoga pose. The army men stumble in place as she, rigidly, commands a perfect position while being completely ignored. The boyfriend finally stops pretending not to see her and reels-off violent invectives while denying parternity. He ads she is merely “a servant.” This comes from someone whose idea of showing his might consists of flashing martial arts moves in a mirror. His complete abdication of responsibility matches Cleo’s boss, the doctor, refusing any monetary support for his wife and four children. He has left them to pursue a young single woman. The physicians’s chef d’oeuvre, however, is emptying their former apartment of “his” furniture. Roma, however, revolves around women, rather than male boorishness.

Cuaron’s slowly crawling camera carefully uncovers the tribulations of Cleo and the titular matriarch of the house. Pain is the ink of this remarkable portrait and Cuaron uses it to delineate our heriones’ numerous journeys. One such outing is an amazing sequence in which the mother and nanny take their children to the movies. The heart of Mexico City bristled with the forgotten street energy before the ubiquitousness of chain stores and screen technology. Interestingly the family is heading to see the film Marooned. There is a small clip of an astronaut stranded in outer space, which is obviously the seed of Cuaron’s Gravity. Cleo anchors the scene as she rushes up the street in search of her wayward charges. They accidentally encounter their father on a date.

Cleo is the mainstay, once again, in another magnificent foray into the countryside. A rich friend has taken pity on the abandoned family and invited them for a getaway in his magical hacienda. Cuaron borrows a sequence from Malick’s magisterial biblical visual poem set in America’s rural heartland, Days of Heaven. A fire erupts in the sprawling forest. All the guests and their servants rush out and pitch a primordial battle against the rushing flames. There is the backdrop of class struggle as some dispossessed peasants are thought to have been behind the arson. The focus, however, is on Cleo and her boss and their emotional struggles. Despite the beauty and old world opulence, these two women desperately hold their own against awkward social constraints. Cleo is being introduced to men by supportive friends, despite being reluctant. Her counterpart fights off an advance from a fellow guest who sees an opportunity for a dalliance. Whereas Malick focused on the men’s burning passion, Cuaron sees through the smoke of objectification. He captures the point of view of the objects of desire.

There is a unforgettable moment when Cleo encounters a grotesque monument to subjugation that masquerades as a loving tribute. The Lords of this manor have a tradition of mounting the heads of all the dogs that have been a part of the family. They are exquisitely displayed, creating a fearsome uncanny-valley. One half expects these beloved canines to start wagging their tongues. Such is the fate of all who are given honorary membership in the family. Cuaron continiually illustrates the limits of this status. There is a scene in which Cleo is invited to watch TV with the parents and her charges. The children clutch her hand. They are genuinely more attached to her than their biological parents. The serenity of the group gathering is broken when the father directs Cleo to get him a beverage. The children object but the mother dutifully directs Cleo to her task,while quieting the children.The father knows that servants should expect the veneer of family, and nothing more. The most damning example of his cruel facade is exposed when Cleo is facing near death in the hospital. Rather than accompany the terrified woman, he gives Cleo’s female physician an excuse for being absent. The Doctor’s words are the metaphorical equivalent of the show of love for all those pets at his friend’s hacienda. Cleo is given the family script but, the male directors of this world, relegate her to being a prop. She is expected to do the heavy lifting, both physically and spiritually, but her reward is ending up as emotional taxidermy. Ditto for the Doctor’s wife, who, along with his children are metaphorically, forgotten trophies of a time gone by.

Cuaron endlessly points out the pomposity of male privilege and its mask of power. In reality the white flag of abandoment is flown every time trouble erupts. There is a recurring motif of an army band, made up of young cadets, who proudly march by the house in new uniforms. They are nowhere to be seen during civil unrest. The legions of thugs, made up of the same absurd fake ninjas who worship the fraudster TV superhero, are hired by the government execute the peaceful crowd. This spills over into the department store where Cleo is shopping for her crib. It is the GRANDMOTHER who comes to the rescue when the shots are fired and the water breaks. It is the MOTHER who comforts the children with strategic bromides until they are ready for the truth. She delivers the “Daddy is not coming home” speech with a masterful combination of restraint and compassion. This follows Cleo’s rescue of the children in the ocean despite not being able to swim. There is no basking in heroics. She is merely doing the right thing by pushing herself beyond what is humanly possible. This tour de force scene is a denouement of all the emotional turmoil and finally brings all, Cleo, mother and children, into that hug that binds for eternity. It is the antidote for the harrowing hospital birthing sequence. This showcases the best of male efficiency twinned with female compassion. It is a excruciating few minutes. It evokes the horror and pathos of E. Eugene Smith’s photo Tomoko Uemura in her bath, which portrays a mother cradling her poisoned daughter. It is a maelstrom of emotion and Cleo’s dignity and strength hold firm. Her power eclipses all the men, and most of the women. It is everlasting.

It is interesting to note that Cuaron is the son of a prominent international scientist yet Roma, is dedicated to Libo. Liboria “Libo” Rodríguez, a domestic servant of Mixtec heritage who was hired into his family’s household when he was a child. She became his beloved spiritual mother, despite having no standing in the conventional sense. The memories of her tenderness, however, are the cornerstone of Roma. There is a brief interlude where a child is playing cowboys and Indians and is “shot.” The boy goes to his nanny. She is toiling amidst of the never-ending laundry lines which adorn the roof. She patiently breaks away from her chores and carefully plays along. They lie down at opposite sides of the table-like outcropping. The top of their heads are touching as they pretend to be dead. This is one of the myriad of life-affirming moments so delicately drawn by this careful director.

Given Cleo’s status as a nanny/washerwoman it would be easy for class to be the center of the narrative. The feature length social commentary Beatrice at Dinnershowcases the cauldron of rage fomented by a spoiled upper class elite towards those in their service. Cuaron eschews being a polemicist. His inspiration is a subtler rendering of the upstairs downstairs divide brilliantly brought to life Renior’s masterpiece The Rules of the Game. Romatakes Renoir’s vision of class and station and places the unseen in plain view. This might sound ponderous, but the slow focus on the ordinary leads to a paradigm shift in experiencing family life.

Strangely the children are a peripatetic blur of agreeable narcissists who tumble in and out of scenes unmindful of the mothers’ emotional mayhem. That is as it should be. Possessing an innate obliviousness to the burdens of adulthood is what it means to be a child. The adult Cuaron, however, embraces the mature perspective. He vividly illuminates all the sturm und drang but glorifies the selfless angels, rather than the myriad of showy devils. The fancy cars and kung fu moves are no match for Cleo. Children might be repulsed by her fastidiously scrubbing dog-shit from the cobblestone driveway. In adulthood, however, these same children might reflect on her work ethic combined with her emotional generosity. Rather than wallow in bitterness wrought by cruelty, Romabasks in a glow of gentleness. Cuaron reminds us childhood’s journey ends with a realization that cleverness and winning acclaim can never hold a candle to the calmness of being in the moment. Youngsters are consumed by flash and spectacle but sleep in the cacoon of knowing “mommy is there.” The film’s slow pans reveal the warmth of a home sustained by nurturing women. Cuaron asks us, as adults, to reflect on those who were always there to, metaphorically and physically, hold our hands. Romais a thank you to the unsung and unfashionable heroes of our youth.

Perhaps, through Cuaron’s efforts, the world is taking note. Now, for the first time in the history Mexico’s Vogue magazine, a native beauty is being showcased on their cover. It is none other than Yalitza Aparicio, the actress who plays Cleo. This small gesture shows the power of Roma’s vision. After all these years Cuaron has helped us all see the beauty of Cleo; or the real-life Libo. The half a century old, deceivingly slow, black and white, meandering tour of an old Mexico City neighborhood has the power to change our contemporary world view. He is putting capes and cowls on the unseen army of strong women languishing in the shadows. They are suddenly highlighted; or more precisely the glasses dissappear and we realize Clark Kent’s real identity. 

These superhero matriarchs have grit that is lacking in the father’s ephemeral adrenaline rush. The power of Libo is embracing and eternal. The patriarchs tend to be fleeing and fleeting. In Roma, do as the women do. Boys will be… boys. Home is where mothers take care of business. A warm embrace is more powerful than an army of martial arts experts. Percy Shelley’s Ozymandiascaptures the folly of the those men who have the pretense of being the king of kings. The traveller reads the boasts carved into the stone ruins of a monument to the great leader. He then looks up to see the wreck and “lone and level sands” that “stretch far away.” Cuaron shows us Cleo is standing on the horizon in a plain dress. She is smiling with the sigh of someone who has seen it all before. You might miss her. You have to look closely. She holds no degrees or bank accounts. She is unable to pull strings or call-in favors. Don’t mistake her for being powerless or unwise. She never loses sight of what is important. Most critically, she can guide you home when you’re in the desert.

Cuaron, like all great artists, simply lifts the veil on what is always there. Cleo was in Damascus Syria 10,000 years ago, Mexico City in 1961 and probably within a few miles of where you are presently sitting. This film can be seen as an extension of the work of the biblical writer Sirach. I have adjusted the pronoun in the following excerpt of these holy passages. After all Romais the memorial for those ‘who have no memorial.’

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 women of mercy, whose righteous deeds have not been forgotten; their prosperity will remain with their descendants, and their inheritance to their children’s children. Their descendants stand by the covenants; their children also, for their sake. Their posterity will continue for ever, and their glory will not be blotted out. Their bodies were buried in peace and their name lives to all generations. People will declare their wisdom, and the congregation proclaims their praise. 

Book of Ecclesiasticus, 44: 9–15 (RSVCE)

Review of You Were Never Really Here (2018)

REVIEW OF YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE

IF I HAD A HAMMER

“The only thing power respects, is power”

- Malcolm X

“Our fathers have painfully lost their way”

― Donovan, from the song “Susan on the West Coast Waiting”

Lynne Ramsay did something extraordinary. She mixed all the ingredients of an obvious blockbuster and produced a bomb. This film is a thriller, starring one of the most prominent actors of our time, chockablock with all manner of lurid, audience-grabbing violent spectacle. The box-office for the American theatrical release strangely aped the title, You Were Never Never Really Here. Ironically the strength of her abilities as a filmmaker will see this contemporary commercial debacle evolve into a cult classic.

All expectations in this genre were abandoned. She twinned Norman Bates from Psycho with Travis Bickle from Taxi Driver and placed them in a Hieronymus Bosch diorama. It is a stark world which oscillates from abstract, dark, extreme close ups to exquisitely rendered tableaus. The threadbare storyline is informed by snippets of non-sequential flashbacks. The most extreme moments of violence are seen through the deadpan view of security cameras. Unfortunately the trailer promoted a commonplace action drama, riddle with gore and suggesting a taught storyline. The audience was sold a boxing match and witnessed a ballet.

The tension in the first twenty minutes of You Were Never Really Here is spawned by an uncomfortable feeling of witnessing bad things as a bystander. The claustrophobic close ups turn the audience member into a perplexed eyewitness rather than a passive viewer. What are we to make of the burning of the photograph of the child? Who is the distraught bearded protagonist? (Joaquin Phoenix as Joe). Why is he in this dingy hotel in the Mid West? When he dispatches a mugger in a dark alley it brings to mind the avengers from the 1970s, echoes of Dirty Harry & Deathwish, but with a more psychotic dimension. The root of his demons is revealed. We arrive in the daylight of New York. His solidly middle class elderly mother is the key to the mystery. This genuinely loving relationship is peppered with him secretly engaging in self-asphyxiation in moments of repose. According to opaque flashbacks this is his personal antidote to the terrifying domestic violence of his youth, which has corroded the man. He failed to protect his mother years ago, but he has certainly made up for the physical deficits of being a child. One images the father has been metaphorical killed many times over in acts of vigilantism or targeting “Charlie” during his stint in the military. His domestic world is a dichotomy of saccharine family tenderness and grim acts of violence and self destruction. Such a person must turn to a vocation that is based not on money or standing, but a compulsion to right a wrong. The focus of his professional life is to rescue the most vulnerable, exploited class in our society: young girls who have been sold into the sex trade.

Joe frees child hostages abducted by pedophile rings. Think of the premise of the films series Taken but with Scorsese’ unhinged taxi driver instead of Liam Nielsen’s button down, white collar CIA operative. This avenger is an amalgamation of brute force born of raw emotion, rather than a purveyor of sophisticated spy techniques. You give him a picture and an address and he will bash his way into getting your the children. His weapon of choice is a ball-peen hammer. This tool is designed to smash metal but it does a very good job of crushing skulls and breaking bones. His one true friend, a fixer lawyer whom he might have met in the service, makes the arrangements. The rest unfolds as a calculated set piece. Anything that gets in his way receives a physical blow or a verbal lashing. This grim routine is upended when a mission to free an angelic blond child triggers a political scandal. The powers that be, like our avenging angel, have zero tolerance for missteps. Joe and his world must be terminated. The bulk of You Were Never Really Here’s narrative is consumed by this particular battle between the evil, all powerful, ruling male elite and our troubled lone wolf righter of wrongs.

The genius of this film lies in Ramsay making you believe the unbelievable. This angry deranged vet takes on an army of police and yet the absurdity of the story is never an issue. The film works as the director’s artistry in pulling the plot along with just the right amount of obscure flashback, clever daring-do and counterintuitive staging. Whereas a lesser director would highlight the fight scene with accented choreography and special effects, Ramsay gives us the terror of a silent CVT camera. There isn’t time to consider realism. We are caught in Ramsay’s world which showcases Joe’s prison of righteousness. One of the compelling elements of his character is the knowledge that most people are soldiers and not generals. Typically in this genre the protagonist exacts unspeakable revenge on hapless bit players. Joe is all business and channels all emotion to the task at hand. Nowhere is this more clear than when he confronts the agents who have taken the life of the person closest to him. Rather than an extended scene of torture (think Hannibal Lector engaging in cannibalism) Joe divvies-out a pain-killer while asking for information. It ends with the two lying on the floor singing a duet of a pop song which is playing in the background on the radio. Such is the demise of the foot soldiers in the battle of good and evil. Personal vengeance is a luxury reserved for the ruling class.

As grim as the setting can be there are numerous moments of tenderness. Ramsay reinterprets the canonical death scene of the woman under water from Night of the Hunter in a moving sequence where Joe buries the person most dear to him. You Were Never Really Here is filled with numerous extreme close ups that linger, rendering it a re-action movie, rather than action drama. The denouement comes when our hero rediscovers his charge. Unfortunately his baby has, metaphorically, grown up.

Joe’s mission in avenging the innocent is to safeguard their goodness. He fails. He contemplates the path of all true believers in complete despair. He demands perfection in others and it would be a sin to hold himself to a different standard. His associates are judged harshly: the gun runner who is late for an appointment is knocked unconscious; the trusted liaison defies a direct order and allows his child to see Joe’s face and is therefore banished forever. So what can we expect when his beloved charge follows his path of brutality? It is HIS fault. He has accidentally spawned a spiritual progeny, rather than a saintly child. All is not lost however as this silent young girl tames the beast. They are extremely damaged and no doubt face a lifetime of emotional torture, but they are together. Two blood soaked innocents joined as father and daughter. Their past might be exorcised with the hard work of being a family. Sex slaves are liberated. Oppressors are vanished. Guardians prevail. In the end they might ask the question: were we ever really there? That suggests a happy ending.