8/10/15: Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Enter Here

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Adam Butcher, Alexander Conti, alpha males, Andre Chemetoff, Arnold Pinnock, Balmorhea, Bryan Murphy, bullies, Canadian films, cinema, co-writers, correctional officers, Dewshane Williams, Dog Pound, drama, emotional abuse, English-language debut, father-son relationships, film reviews, films, first-time actors, guard-prisoner relationships, hunger strike, independent films, indie dramas, inmates, Jane Wheeler, Jeff McEnery, Jeremie Delon, juvenile detention facility, juvenile offenders, K'Naan, Kim Chapiron, Lawrence Bayne, Lynne Adams, male friendships, Mateo Morales, mental abuse, Michael Morang, mother-son relationships, Movies, multiple writers, Nikkfurie, non-professional actors, pecking order, physical abuse, power dynamics, power struggles, prison films, prison rape, prison riot, rape, remakes, Scum, Shane Kippel, Sheitan, Slim Twig, suicide, Taylor Poulin, Trent McMullen, William Ellis, writer-director, youth in trouble

Humans are amazingly resilient animals. We can endure any number of extreme climates, fight back against overwhelming odds and turn veritable wastelands into virtual paradises. We can ponder questions both basic and metaphysical, learn to do just about anything we set our minds to and wrestle the world at large into submission by sheer force of our nearly boundless will. Humans can do all of this (and more) with surprisingly little: all we really need is air to breathe, water to drink, food to eat and a little something to keep the elements off of our heads.

While these biological necessities go without saying, humans also need something that’s a little harder to categorize, a little more difficult to study in a lab. We also need hope. Hope that bad situations can become better, hope that we can achieve our dreams by working hard, hope that we can not only survive, on a day-to-day basis, but find some measure of personal happiness and satisfaction. Humans need hope just as much as we need sustenance and oxygen: without either one, we’re just empty husks of decaying meat, carcasses too stubborn to know that we’re already dead.

There is no hope in French writer-director Kim Chapiron’s Dog Pound (2010), although that’s not really surprising: after all, there was precious little hope in his shocking debut, Sheitan (2006), either. As a filmmaker, Chapiron possesses an almost supernatural ability to submerge his characters (and his audience) into such unrelentingly dark, tragic and terrible situations that the very concept of hope is both elusive and rather laughable. We know that Chapiron’s characters are all doomed from the very first frame: that they often don’t recognize this futility makes their inevitable struggles even more sad. These characters aren’t waving their arms for rescue: they’re thrashing around, frantically, as their increasingly tired bodies drift further and further from the shore, closer to their ultimate ends than they are to any new beginnings.

Essentially a remake of the grim and unrelenting British prison film, Scum (1979), Chapiron’s English-language debut (the film is Canadian but set in Montana) concerns the Enola Vale Youth Correctional Facility and the various individuals who are imprisoned there, as well as the ones doing the imprisoning. We’re quickly introduced to three inmates who will become our entry-way into this particular world: 16-year-old Ecstasy dealer/born victim, Davis (Shane Kippel); 15-year-old repeat offender/car-jacker Angel (Mateo Morales) and 17-year-old hot-head/nominal protagonist, Butch (Adam Butcher).

After being thrown into the facility (Butch has been transferred to Enola Vale after laying a ferocious beat-down on an abusive guard at his previous facility), the trio are quickly brought up to speed by Superintendent Sands (Trent McMullen) and the boys’ immediate authority figure, CO Goodyear (Lawrence Bayne). The rules are easy: do everything you’re told, behave yourself and walk the straight and narrow. The boys who manage to do that become “trustees” and earn more responsibilities, perks and freedom, along with signifying black shirts. The ones who don’t follow the rules get orange jump suits and a one-way ticket to “Special Unit” or, in extreme cases, solitary confinement.

As with any prison film (or actual prison, for that matter), day-to-day life in Dog Pound revolves around a strictly observed pecking order: the alpha dog gets to call the shots and dispense the punishment in whatever way he sees fit. In this particular case, the alpha dog is one seriously scary bully by the name of Banks (first-time actor/former prisoner Taylor Poulin, in a genuinely frightening performance), a character who takes an immediate dislike to both Davis and Butch, albeit for different reasons.

In Davis, Banks and his cronies, Looney (comedian Jeff McEnery) and Eckersley (Bryan Murphy, another first-time actor), see the quintessential weak link, the eternal victim that’s as vital to any bully as oxygen is to those aforementioned humans. They steal his new boots, envy his short sentence, submit him to constant abuse and, in a particularly devastating moment, subject him to a particularly violent sexual assault. Davis is the naive lamb, the chosen sacrifice for those too hard and jaded to feel anything besides hatred and the need to dominant. He’s the face of every petty drug offender tossed into the correctional system, the minnows that feed the sharks.

With Butch, the bullies see something altogether different: a genuine threat to their established social order. In order to maintain his position at the top, Banks must bend Butch to his will, show the pugilistic teen that he may have been able to take out a CO but he’ll never stand against Banks and his minions. While destroying Davis is “pure entertainment” for Banks and his crew, taking Butch down is something much more important: it’s a matter of survival, plain and simple.

As Davis, Butch and, to a much lesser extent, Angel (Morales ends up with the least screen-time, overall, leaving his character rather under-developed) try to negotiate these increasingly choppy waters, CO Goodyear tries to reach the youths through a combination of “tough love” and an unyielding need to do the right thing, even when the right thing isn’t the most pleasant thing. He’s not a perfect man, by any stretch of the imagination: over-worked, under-paid, given to sporadic moments of anger and too thin-stretched to ever affect much change, Goodyear, at the very least, tries. That all of his goodwill becomes undone in one tragic, accidental moment is, unfortunately, to be expected: there is no hope for anyone at Enola Vale, whether they’re behind the bars or in front of them.

This, ultimately, is both the film’s source of strength and its ultimate weakness: since there is no hope for anyone, Dog Pound is an unflinching, full-throttle descent into a literal hell on earth. The camera doesn’t cut away, we get no reprieve from anything that has happened or is about to happen. Even when the characters find some tiny measures of individual happiness, such as when Davis regales the other boys with made-up stories about outrageous sexual dalliances and becomes, if only momentarily, the closest thing he’ll get to “respected,” there’s always the notion that more misery, tragedy and gloom lies just around the corner.

In one of the film’s most subtle, if icky, moments, Butch immobilizes a wandering cockroach by spitting on it until the crawling critter is stuck fast in a globular prison of phlegm and saliva. The insect twitches and moves, compulsively, doing its best to break free, to pull itself from its sticky bonds and scurry off into the safety of the nearest dark corner. By the morning, however, the cockroach is still in the exact same position, drowned in a tiny pool of Butch’s spit. Despite what it might have thought, the roach never had a chance: it was dead the minute Butch’s spit nailed it to the floor, whether it knew it or not. In Dog Pound, the differences between the youthful offenders and the dead roach are many but the similarities? Infinite.

Despite its constantly dreary subject matter, Dog Pound is beautifully made and exquisitely acted, no small feat considering the non-professional status of a good half-dozen of its cast members (many of whom, like Poulin, are actually youth offenders, themselves). Andre Chemetoff’s cinematography captures the inherent grit and claustrophobic quality of the facility perfectly, while the subtle, moody score (featuring the work of instrumental ensemble Balmorhea, among others) counters the often sudden, stunning violence to masterful effect. As with Sheitan, it’s obvious that Chapiron is a filmmaker in full command of every aspect of his craft.

For all of this, however, Dog Pound is still pretty difficult to recommend. The reason, of course, goes back to the point I’ve been hammering this whole time: there is absolutely no hope to be found here, in any way, shape or form. This isn’t to say that every – or even any – film needs to end happily: this is to say that Dog Pound makes a particular point of pounding each and every character so deep into the ground that there’s no possible outcome but the one we get. Each and every victory is false, any and all attempts at understanding or evolution are met with the harshest possible retributions. There is no need for comic relief here, no hope of any of the protagonists coming out on top of their individual struggles. If there is any kind of message to Dog Pound, it’s as basic, cynical and bleak as possible: if you end up in this situation, you are completely, totally and irreparably fucked.

As an example of “feel-bad cinema,” Dog Pound is nearly peerless: this is the kind of film destined to ruin any good mood, turn any optimist into a card-carrying misanthrope. While the world around us can be a harsh, grim place, the world inside Enola Vale is nothing but gray: a million little variations of the shade, infecting every single person that steps behind its walls.

It’s tempting to say that Dog Pound is the kind of film that could change anyone’s opinion about the correctional system (or, at the very least, the youth correctional system) but that just isn’t true: the guards don’t shoulder an inordinate amount of the blame here any more than the inmates do. This is not a tale of power-mad authority figures trying to beat their wards into submission, nor is it a story about hard-working correctional officers dealing with the soul-killing every-day business of keeping individuals locked away from society.

At its heart, Dog Pound is a story about average people making (and continuing to make) terrible decisions, the kind of decisions that can bring nothing but pain to all around them. This is a film about wasted youth, about squandered loyalty and altruistic intent blown to pieces about the terrible reality of the human condition. This is a tragedy, in every sense of the word. This is a hopeless film about hopeless people in a hopeless place, crafted by a singularly unique, uncompromising filmmaker. If you can stomach it, Dog Pound will rip your beating heart from your chest and smash it to smithereens on the floor. There is truth to be found here, some fractured beauty and hints at what could have been, under far different circumstances.

There’s a lot to find and appreciate in Kim Chapiron’s Dog Pound but hope? That, my friends, is one commodity that’s in perilously short supply.

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7/30/15: Easy Riders and the Wild Side

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'70s films, adults only, Any Mathieu, auteur theory, best friends, Blue Summer, Bo White, Chris Jordan, Chuck Vincent, cinema, coming of age, Davey Jones, dramas, Easy Rider, Eric Edwards, erotica, Film auteurs, film reviews, films, grindhouse, Harding Harrison, high school grads, hippies, hitchhikers, horny teenagers, Jacqueline Carol, Jeff Allen, Joann Sterling, Larry Lima, Lilly Bi Peep, Mark Ubell, Melissa Evers, Mike Ledis, Movies, non-professional actors, porn, random adventures, Richard Billay, road movie, Robert McLane, set in 1970s, sex comedies, Shana McGran, soft-core, Stephen Colwell, summer vacation, Sylvia Bernstein, vans, writer-director-editor

Chances are, whether you’ve actually seen the film or not, you’re at least familiar with Dennis Hopper’s iconic, counter-culture ode to the death of the idealistic ’60s, Easy Rider (1969). Crisscrossing the U.S. on their choppers, trying to make some sense of the whole mess, Hopper and Peter Fonda rode right off the screen into our collective consciences via their unforgettable (and, oftentimes, extremely random) encounters with various flower children, rednecks, authority figures, hip cats and square losers. Nearly 50 years after its release, Easy Rider still manages to capture the imagination of anyone who realizes that America’s best stories are still the ones collected on her back-roads: the ways in which we all act and interact, on a personal-level, will always say more about us than any casual examination of current politics and social mores ever could.

While I’m willing to wager that most folks have heard of Easy Rider, I’m just as willing to wager that almost no one recalls adult film auteur Chuck Vincent’s Blue Summer (1973). What does one have to do with the other? Well, to put it bluntly, Blue Summer is the soft-core, sex comedy “reimagining” of Easy Rider. Okay, okay: maybe not the “official” reimagining…there are no coy taglines connecting these spiritual cousins, nor is there even an undue focus on motorcycles (although one does figure prominently in the narrative). The film’s don’t share plot points, per se, and there are no clever, specific allusions to Wyatt, Billy or any of the various people they run into.

Despite the aforementioned, however, Blue Summer actually owes quite a debt to Easy Rider: like the “original,” Blue Summer is all about the assorted adventures that a pair of young men have on the road, adventures that lead them towards not only a greater understanding of the world at large, but also the worlds that exist within them. Throughout the course of the film, our young heroes will deal with “May-December romances,” free-loving hippies, Bible-thumpin’ traveling evangelists, casual sex, genuine love, small-town lunkheads, mysterious bikers and a quirky cult who freely believes “what’s yours is theirs.” Indeed, with more emphasis on the narrative elements and less focus on the simulated intercourse, Blue Summer would actually be a pretty decent bit of coming-of-age fluff. Ah, the ’70s…you crazy, gonzo, amazing little decade, you!

Our intrepid teenage heroes, Tracy (Davey Jones but not THAT Davey Jones) and Gene (Bo White) have decided to have one, last summer adventure before their lifelong friendship is tested when they both go off to far-flung universities. Loading their trusty van (the Meat Wagon) with enough cases of beer to get good, ol’ Bluto Blutarsky blasted, the duo decides to head out for scenic Stony Lake. The only things on the agenda? Why, drinking, driving, having fun, seeing the sights, keeping their minds off college and getting laid, obviously!

As Tracy and Gene travel the back-ways of America, they have a series of encounters that include a couple of thieving hitchhikers (Lilly Bi Peep, Joann Sterling), a stone-faced biker (Jeff Allen), a begging evangelist (Robert McLane), a hippy cultist and his free-loving acolytes (Larry Lima, Any Mathieu, Shana McGran), a middle-aged, married woman (Jacqueline Carol), a town-lush/nympho (Melissa Evers) and her group of redneck admirers and a mysterious no-named diver who seems to be the epitome of the ’70s “manic pixie girl” (Chris Jordan). Along the way, they go from silly, constantly giggling knuckleheads to…well, slightly less giggly, decidedly more grounded knuckleheads. The final shot/sentiment is a real corker: no much how much fun they’ve had, no matter how many different women they’ve “bedded,” the end of the trip signifies, for better or worse, the ends of their adolescent lives: from this point, they’re grownups…and nothing will ever be that awesome again.

Lest any gentle reader think I’m attempting to give writer/director/editor Vincent (who alternated between his real name and pseudonym Mark Ubell) more credit than even he probably felt he deserved, let’s be clear: Blue Summer is very much a soft-core, ’70s sex comedy, with all of the pluses and minuses that the descriptor carries. There’s plenty of nudity (although, as with most films like this, by and large of the female variety), simulated sex and non-professional acting (the rednecks, in particular, could only be called “actors” by an extremely loose application of the term), along with some appropriately ludicrous dialogue, line-delivery and general production issues (the lighting, in particular, is never great).

Now, however, to paraphrase the late, great Roger Ebert: let me get my other notebook. While Blue Summer is easily recognizable for what it is, it also has more heart, imagination and restraint than most of its peers. While there’s never much empty space between the assorted sex scenes, these “in-between” scenes are really where the film sets itself apart from the usual rabble. The subplot with the “mystical” biker never makes sense but does payoff in a nicely kickass (if pathetically sloppy) fight sequence, while the vignette involving the preacher features a really nice, subtle dig at the concept of passing the collection plate, especially where holy-rollers are involved.

The bit with the hitchhikers has a genuinely funny payoff, as does the one involving the cultists (the image of the snoozing hippies laying in the middle of the open field is a great punchline): there’s also some really nice points being made about the concept of sharing your earthly possessions with others (those who have the possessions do the “sharing,” while those without merely do the “suggesting”), as well as the concept of anonymous sex with strangers (“Miss No-Name” doesn’t feel obliged to introduce herself to Gene since “he won’t remember her name, anyway”…he doesn’t disagree, indicating that she’s probably right).

One of the film’s most surprising moments, however, comes after Tracy’s “nooner” with Margaret, the middle-aged, married woman. After having sex, she fixes him lunch in a manner that might best be described as ‘maternal.’ As Tracy eats, he goes on and on about how much he likes Margaret, rebuffing any and all attempts by her to trivialize their encounter. Just as Tracy seems to have convinced Margaret to overcome her reservations and meet with him again, however, her teenage son comes in from swimming, oblivious to what has just transpired between his mom and her young visitor. As Tracy watches the young man, who just so happens to be his age, the eagerness and intensity goes out of his face: both Margaret and Tracy look ashamed and he quickly takes his leave, never looking back.

It’s an intensely sad, mature moment in a film that certainly didn’t require it but benefits immensely from its inclusion, none the less. During moments like this, it’s easy to see Vincent as fighting a two-front war: on the one hand, he needs to deliver a soft-core porn flick, with all of the requisite trappings. On the other hand, he also wants to deliver something a little more substantial, something with enough blood flow to use more than one organ at a time. It’s a constant battle and one that’s not always won: the fact that Vincent fights it at all, however, gives him a leg up, in my book.

Ultimately, despite how fun and “innocent” Blue Summer actually is (all of the sex in the film is extremely positive: no one is ever forced, at any point, and both men and women seem to be having an equally good time), there’s no skirting the issue of its genetic makeup: this is a silly, ’70s sex comedy, full of simulated intercourse, full frontal female nudity and wacky antics, through and through. Deep down, however, it’s impossible to miss the film’s bigger, underlying themes: it might be a “dirty” movie but it’s not a stupid one. If you’re a fan of the sub-genre or just want to see what a “porn-lite” version of Easy Rider might look like, jump in the van, pop the top on a cold one and let Blue Summer take the wheel.

You know that old chestnut, “they just don’t make ’em like this anymore?” Well, they really don’t make ’em like this anymore. But they used to. If you think about it, that’s kind of amazing all by itself.

7/29/15 (Part Three): Uncle Herschell’s Dirty Movies

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1960's films, adults only, auteur theory, bachelor party, bad films, Blood Feast, Bonnie Clark, casual sex, cheating fiances, cinema, Dee Howard, Ed Wood, Film auteurs, film reviews, films, flashback narrative, flashbacks, Forman Shane, go-go dancers, Godfather of Gore, grindhouse, Herschell Gordon Lewis, houseboat, infidelity, James Brand, Jeanette Mills, lingerie salesman, lost films, Mark Hansen, Movies, non-professional actors, pseudonyms, set in 1960s, sexploitation films, Sharon Matt, soft-core, strippers, Suede Barstow, Swingers, terrible films, the 1960s, The Ecstacies of Women, The Wizard of Gore, Two Thousand Maniacs!, Victoria Bond, Vincene Wallace, Walter Camp, William Allen Castleman, William Vickers, writer-director-cinematographer, X-rated films

With some directors, you never know what you’re going to get from one production to the next: they might try out a few new techniques, opt to shoot in a completely different format, attempt a genre they’ve never tried before, move on from “popcorn movies” to “prestige films”…with some filmmakers, it’s all about shaking it up, constantly moving and evolving in order to prevent falling into a rut. The progression from the first film to the thirteenth? The difference between fish with legs and early Homo Sapiens. And then, of course, there’s Herschell Gordon Lewis.

Across a career that’s spanned over five decades, Lewis (the original “Godfather of Gore”) has been responsible for some of the most amateurish, inept and flat-out mind-boggling films to ever screen in actual theaters (grindhouses count, folks). Touching on everything from “nudie-cutie” movies and soft-core sexploitation flicks to outrageously splatterific horror films and impossibly wrong-headed treatises on social mores, Lewis has jumped genres with reckless abandon, even if he’s still most famous for his gore epics like Blood Feast (1963), Two Thousand Maniacs! (1964) and The Wizard of Gore (1970). Indeed, the only constant in his impressively broad career has been the excruciatingly bad quality of his films.

You see, for all of his passion, drive, inherent chutzpah and genuine innovations (in almost every way, shape and form, the world had never seen anything like Blood Feast, especially in the dawning of the ’60s), ol’ Herschell is a truly terrible filmmaker. To a one, his films are characterized by non-professional actors doing their best to maintain character, poverty-row sets, an inability to do anything with the camera but set it in one place and hit “record,” some of the worst sound recording in cinematic history, the appearance of lights and equipment in every other shot…you name it, Lewis has done it. As writer, director and cinematographer of his films, Lewis is a true auteur, albeit one more closely aligned with Ed Wood than, say, Orson Welles.

For all of this, however, one fact remains plainly evident: despite their endless shortcomings, Lewis’ films have another common denominator…they’re (usually) a tremendous amount of fun. As someone who grew up on his gore films (I’m not ashamed to admit that Two Thousand Maniacs! is one of the greatest horror films of all time, regardless of the quality), Lewis has been a go-to of mine for some years now. Despite this, however, I was woefully ignorant about his other films, particularly the soft-core adult films that were liberally sprinkled throughout his career. Of these films, a couple were considered “lost” to the world at large until they popped-up several years back. The Ecstacies of Women (1969) is one of those films. It is, of course, absolutely terrible.

In a nutshell, The Ecstacies of Women concerns Harry (Walter Camp) and the bachelor party thrown by his friends, Gene (William Vickers), Fred (James Brand) and Ted (Forman Shane). As the guys hang out at a strip-club and ogle the awkward dancers (there really is no other word to describe them), Harry entertains the others with “wild” stories about his numerous sexual conquests, all by way of “purging his system” for his upcoming nuptials.

The pattern is so simple that it’s basically a loop: the guys sit around, conversing in ways that could never be considered natural (everyone seems genuinely drunk, for one thing, which might explain a lot) before Harry puts his head back and seems to go into a coma. This, of course, is our cue that we’re about to move into the “adults only” portion of the program. If anyone out there thinks things get better from there, let me remove all doubt: they get much, much worse.

All-in-all, we get several different vignettes involving Harry and his random conquests. Harry picks up a woman (Jeanette Mills) in a bar, takes her back to his houseboat to “model lingerie” (he’s a traveling lingerie salesman, dontcha know) and proceeds to grope her into orgasm. Harry gets picked up by an aggressive health-freak on the beach (Vincene Wallace), takes her back to his houseboat and proceeds to grope her into orgasm. Harry gets picked up by an aggressive teenager (Sharon Matt) while parked at a stoplight, takes her back to his houseboat and proceeds to grope her to orgasm. Finally, we get the piece de resistance as Harry, Gene, Fred and Ted take a bunch of strippers back to the houseboat and proceed to grope them into orgasm. Harry decides to run away with Summer Frenzy (Bonnie Clark, who seems to be on heroin for the entirety of her performance, at least judging by her slurred speech, unfocused eyes and baffling “performance”), leaving his unlucky (very, very lucky?) future spouse in the lurch. The End.

Lest it seem from the above description that there’s an overwhelming sense of repetition to what we see, let me clarify it: the whole film is, essentially, the very same scene played out, multiple times, with slightly different people. Each of the “dream sequences” lasts for about 20 minutes (most of which are awkward dialogue scenes that don’t seem improvised so much as dropped from the sky, like bird shit) and features Harry dry-humping and pawing his nude conquests. For variety, Harry sometimes wears his tighty-whities during the “action,” while other scenes give us glorious shots of his pale, pimply ass. There’s never any sense of “realism” to the scenes, which mostly involve Harry fondling bare breasts until over-dubbed heavy breathing indicates a sprint to the finish-line.

There’s absolutely nothing sexy, titillating or, to be honest, particularly interesting about anything that happens. In fact, The Ecstacies of Women might be the single dullest film that I’ve ever had the misfortune to sit through, regardless of the “adults only” designation. As with all of Lewis’ films, the camera-work is as basic as it comes, the non-professional actors constantly flub their lines and talk over each other (one amazing scene features the guys trying their damnedest not to crack up as one “actor” manages to call everyone by the wrong name, several times) and the whole thing looks about as ugly as could be expected.

We could talk about the film’s representations of women, the sex-positive natures of the encounters (at the very least, everyone seems to be having fun, although I’m not quite sure how) or the ridiculously “groovy” catchphrases that must have made this hopelessly dated the week after it came out. We could put a little thought into it but, really: who the hell would we be kidding? The Ecstacies of Women is pure crap, through and through, the kind of oddity that no one could possibly take seriously. In certain ways, the film is absolutely critic-proof: who goes into a Herschell Gordon Lewis film (especially one of his skin flicks) expecting anything more than what’s been presented here?

While I can usually find at least something to recommend in a film (satisfying curiosity, if nothing else), I find myself at a complete loss here: unless you’re a Herschell Gordon Lewis completist (or Mark Hansen, as his pseudonym reads here) or the kind of person who prizes non-acting, tone-deaf dialogue and unattractive people pretending to have sex…well, friend…there’s just not much for ya here.

To quote Harry’s immortal final words: “Gang, goodbye. Goodbye, gang.” I couldn’t have said it better myself.

 

10/8/14 (Part One): The Loneliest Hunter of All

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31 Days of Halloween, art films, based on a book, Best of 2013, Birth, British films, cinema, co-writers, Daniel Landin, experimental film, film reviews, films, Jonathan Glazer, Movies, non-professional actors, Scarlet Johansson, Scarlett Johansson, sci-fi, sci-fi-horror, set in Scotland, Sexy Beast, Under the Skin, Walter Campbell, writer-director

Every great once in a while, a film comes along that completely blows my mind. I don’t necessarily mean this in the “what a great film” way but rather in the purer, more maddening “what the hell did I just watch” way. When I was younger, El Topo (1970), Holy Mountain (1973) and Even Dwarfs Started Small (1970) were three films, off the top of my head, that pretty much challenged everything I thought I knew about movies (and maybe even life, to a certain extent). More recently, Toad Road (2012) and A Field in England (2013) twisted my brain into a million little knots, although I’ll freely admit that neither film has one tenth the massed weirdness of one of Jodorowsky’s epics. To this short-list of mind-melting cinema, go ahead and add Jonathan Glazer’s amazing, eye-popping visual spectacle, Under the Skin (2013), a film which manages to split the difference between arthouse and grindhouse, coming up with something that feels dreamlike, impossibly convoluted and languid, yet startlingly alive.

Despite lacking a conventional linear narrative, Under the Skin never feels slight or half-baked, although offering a plot description becomes a bit problematic. Suffice to say that the film involves an unnamed woman, played by Scarlett Johansson, who drives around the Scottish countryside, picks up strange, unattached men (the unattached part, apparently, is quite important) and taking them back to her home. Once there, Johansson and the men undress, at which point the men appear to walk straight into some sort of all-consuming “blackness”: lather, rinse, repeat. As the film begins to take on some of the qualities of a phantasmagorical Groundhog Day (1993), other elements begin to drift to the forefront: a mysterious man on a motorcycle who appears to aid Johansson in her “job”…a strange, blue-lit “ocean” that appears to be of distinctly unearthly origin…a deformed “victim” who appears immune to whatever’s going on…throughout it all, the film relies on dialogue as little as possible, rendering the film closer to something like Kenneth Anger’s influential shorts rather than a more conventional narrative.

Under the Skin, unlike many films, is an almost purely cinematic experience: there is absolutely no hand-holding, telegraphing or easy answers to be found here. Indeed, I felt rather shell-shocked after the final credits rolled, since the entire film felt like some sort of barely remembered fever dream: it was like being rudely woken from an entrancing vision only to be unceremoniously dumped back into the real world. While other films may provoke the response “I wish it would never end,” Under the Skin practically demands it: the dreamlike aura and atmosphere is so addictive that re-entering reality feels like a severe comedown, regardless of one’s relative sobriety at the time. It’s no hyperbole to say that Under the Skin may have been the single biggest immersive experience I’ve had watching a film in recent memory.

Above all else, Glazer’s film is absolutely gorgeous, featuring some of the most stunning cinematography I’ve ever seen. Despite director of photography Daniel Landin’s relative lack of feature film experience (Under the Skin is only the fourth full-length film that he’s shot in a twenty-year career), I really don’t think anyone could have done a better job. From shots that explore darkness and shadow in impressive new ways to one astounding scene that looks to take place in a room-sized lightbox, virtually each and every shot in the film is a work of art. No lie: I’m more than happy to compare Under the Skin’s visuals to any other film out there, past or present, and I’m pretty confident that it would win each and every showdown. Under the Skin is just about the closest to a Kubrick film (in visual aesthetic) that I’ve ever seen, including any of Refn’s candy-colored daydreams.

Writer/director Glazer, whose short career (thus far) has only included three full-lengths and a slew of music videos, has such a firm grasp on the film that it becomes more than a little shocking to discover how much of it was, essentially, improvd. Apparently, Glazer would send Johannson out into the Scottish night and have her randomly “pick up” strangers: once the men took the bait, as it were, the production team would approach them with waivers, more specific direction, etc. In a way, this recalls the similar blurring of reality and fiction in the exceptional Toad Road, although Under the Skin is a much more dreamlike effort, all things considered. Even though none of the “victims” are really required to do much in the way of acting, it still strikes me as endlessly impressive that there was such an element of chance inherent to such a meticulously crafted piece of art: it’s akin to finding out that an amazing tattoo artist freehands everything, making the job as difficult as possible.

Full disclosure: I’ve never been the biggest Scarlett Johansson fan in the world. Truth be told, there have actually been very few films that I’ve really enjoyed her in, although I thought she was great in Don Jon (2013) and perfectly serviceable in Lost in Translation (2003). That being said, Johansson is absolutely pitch-perfect in Under the Skin, turning in a performance that is endlessly nuanced and as three-dimensional as a mysterious, unemotional, nearly mute character could possibly be. One of the most fascinating aspects of the movie is how completely unerotic and clinical the frequent nudity ends up being: despite her continued status as a modern “it girl,” Johansson manages to work wonders with her posture, stance and body language to craft a character that manages to seem almost utterly alien and strange. In the past, I’ve always had the dismayed sense that Johansson was a completely blank performer, no more capable of investing her characters with genuine life than she was with singing the songs of Tom Waits with any sense of passion. Here, Johansson’s inherent emptiness becomes but one facet of her unnamed character: she manages to off-set this blankness with some moments of genuine emotion. The scene where she has sex with one of the men she picks up is telling because it’s one of the few scenes where Johansson’s character displays any emotion aside from a sense of ennui: her panicky reaction works so well because it plays against everything that’s come before…watching the fine cracks spiderweb across the surface of Johansson’s frozen lake of a personality is one of the most sublime joys the film offers.

Truth be told, I still find myself a little off kilter after watching the film. While I genuinely enjoyed Glazer’s Sexy Beast (2000), there’s just no way I could have foretold that Under the Skin would be on the horizon, even almost 15 years later. There’s a genuine sense of grandeur and space that fills the entire film, a feeling that befits a work of art that has its head as far into outer space as it has its feet firmly planted on terra firma. Even a few days later, I’m hard-pressed to explain exactly what it was I saw: I have my suspicions, of course, my theories and even my doubts. At the end of the day, however, I just don’t know…and that’s a mighty awesome, invigorating problem to have. In a day and age where too many films shoot for the lowest common denominator and filmmakers seem to constantly “dumb down” their productions for less discerning audiences (hell, the Weinstein’s cut Snowpiercer’s (2013) running time because they didn’t think Western audiences would be able to patiently sit through the film), Under the Skin is that rare beast that does neither. Rather, Glazer’s film demands that audiences meet it on its own terms or not at all: I can only imagine how unbelievably frustrating Under the Skin would be to a passive, disengaged viewer.

At the end of the day, Under the Skin is many things: a mood piece; an art film; a sci-fi film; a horror movie; a romance; an allegory…it’s all of these and none of them, at the same time. While I don’t really know much the film, specifically, I do know that it really hit me hard and continues to be something that worms around my cerebral cortex. While there may come a day when I understand the film more completely (I have a nagging suspicion that I’ve missed some of the more important symbolism), I really hope that the day doesn’t come when I cease to be impressed by it. The world needs more films like Under the Skin: gorgeous, atmosphere, dense and uncompromising, the film is a true work of art. It may be a little premature to include this film on my list of all-time favorite movies (I’ll need to live with it a little longer and see it many more times before that can happen) but it’s no hyperbole to say that the film absolutely blew me away. Give Glazer another nine years and, I daresay, he might just come up with something that will set the film-world on its ear: I have no idea how he’ll top Under the Skin but I’m sure as hell excited to see him try.

6/3/14: A Boy’s Life

Tags

Afridi, Agha Jaan Anousha Baktiyar, Anousha Vasif Shinwari, Australian-Pakistani films, Baktiyar Ahmed Afridi Agha, Benjamin Gilmour, character dramas, cinema, collaborative film, coming of age, Darra Adam Khel, directorial debut, drama, education, father-son relationships, Fazal Bibi Pite, film reviews, films, foreign films, gun makers, guns, Hayat Khan Shinwari, improvised dialogue, Khaista Mir Hayat Afridi, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Movies, Niaz, Niaz Afridi, Niaz Khan Shinwari, non-professional actors, Pakistan, Pashto, Pashtun, Peshawar, rabab music, Sher Alam, Sher Alam Miskeen Ustad Baktiyar, Son of a Lion, Taliban, weapons manufacturers

I have this theory but it’s only a theory, mind you: I think that children around the world, regardless of race, class, ethnicity, or religion, all just really want to be kids. They don’t want to work…they don’t want to carry guns and fight in militias or gangs…they don’t want to be shot at or fear for their lives…they really just want the opportunity to run around, play, laugh and have fun. They want to dance and build forts, make up stupid games and catch bugs. Kids don’t want to grow up too fast: society wants them to grow up fast, in order to become a part of the machine. If it was up to the youth, in my opinion, they’d be just as happy enjoying those preciously short, responsibility-free days for as long as they could, forestalling that eventual slog into the all-too adult world of employment (gainful or not), endless war and continual strife. I could be wrong, of course, but I have a feeling I’m not.

Australian filmmaker Benjamin Gilmour’s extraordinary debut feature, Son of a Lion (2007), examines just what it means to be a child in one of the most severe spots in the world: the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in Pakistan. Set in the weapons-manufacturing town of Darra Adam Khel and filmed using all non-professional locals, who collaborated with Gilmour on the (mostly) improvised dialogue, Son of a Lion is a bracingly honest, unapologetic look into a way of life that many Westerners only visit through sensationalist new stories and “us vs them” politics. As we see, the location and way of life may be distinctly different from what many Westerners are used to but the underlying emotions and motivations are always the same: around the world, parents want a better life for their children than they had. When this desire for a better life collides with deeply held notions of tradition, faith, duty and familial responsibility,  the potential for drama is endless. Quit frankly, Son of a Lion is mighty impressive filmmaking.

We begin with our protagonist, 11-year-old Niaz Afridi (Niaz Khan Shinwari) and his stern, old-fashioned father, Sher Alam (Sher Alam Miskeen Ustad Baktiyar). Sher Alam is one of the numerous gun makers in the small town of Darra Adam Khel: in truth, the town’s entire industry appears to revolve around weapons and munitions manufacture. Everyone appears to be fully armed, at all times, and the air is thick with the gunfire and cordite, as testing-firing guns into the air appears to be a local pastime. Sher Alam is very proud of his work, a vocation that has been passed down from father to son over several generations. He fought with the muhajaden against the Russians and is a dedicated Muslim. More than anything, Sher Alam wants Niaz to follow in his footsteps. There’s just one issue: Niaz would rather be a kid.

When riding the bus one day (huge, multi-level contraptions that I found endlessly fascinating), Niaz happens to overhear a couple young boys complaining about their homework load. Ironically, Niaz is jealous: he’s one of the only kids in history that actually wants homework. More than anything, though, Niaz wants to go to school: he wants to learn and hang out with other kids. He’s tired of spending the entire day in his father’s shop, making guns, only to spend the rest of the time target practicing with them. He wants to listen to his beloved cassette tape, featuring the rebab music that his father abhors (along with things like TV, movies, books, etc) while enjoying the warm days. Basically, Niaz wants to act like an 11-year-old boy, not the successor to his father’s business.

Niaz isn’t the only one who wants to see him break away from his father and receive an education. Niaz’s friend, the goofy, good-natured, Agha Jaan (Agha Jaan Anousha Baktiyar), tells Niaz that he needs to “get a computer, not a pistol” and says that education is one of the cornerstones of the Islamic faith: “The Prophet said if you need to go as far as China to get knowledge, just go.” Niaz’s uncle, Baktiyar (Baktiyar Ahmed Afridi Agha) also encourages him to get an education, so that he can be like his cousin, Anousha (Anousha Vasif Shinwari). Baktiya and Anousha live in Peshawar, a much more Westernized city, where Niaz gets his first experience with a big-city dentist (not good) and the movies (life-changing). Turns out that you can take the boy out of the city but you can’t take the city out of the boy: upon returning, Niaz is even more intent on going to school, which causes his father to become even more of a stonewall. You see, Niaz’s mother died and Sher Alam will not, under any circumstances, let his only son “disappear”: he’s staying right there to keep the family business going. Throw in a powerful, local man (Hayat Khan Shinwari), his obnoxious bully of a son (Khaista Mir Hayat Afridi) and some terrible rumors about Niaz’s beloved uncle Baktiyar and you have all the ingredients for one powerhouse coming-of-age drama.

One of the most extraordinary and noteworthy things about Son of a Lion (and there are quite a few) is the completely non-judgmental, honest and realistic way in which everything and everyone are presented. This is not a Western film with a hidden agenda: there is no attempt whatsoever to label anyone whatsoever. Instead, Gilmour worked with the locals to ensure that their voices and stories were represented, not his. The people in the film are not “terrorists” or “suicide-bombers”: they are real, flesh-and-blood humans with families, histories, lives, loves and fears. One of the most intriguing parts of the film ends up being the scene where Sher Alam and a bunch of his friends hang out and shoot the shit. The conversation veers everywhere, from local politics to the global stage, and U.S. versus Middle East relations are (obviously) a big topic. Refreshingly enough, the men all express a variety of opinions, with Sher Alam coming off the most hard-line, while the others fall somewhere between bemusement and mild indifference. At one point, someone mentions that the only difference between a “terrorist” and a “patriot” is the support they receive from America. For these men, in this situation, that’s not some kind of value judgment: it’s just the facts of life.

Later on, the village men sit around and discuss Niaz’s “school issue” and the general consensus seems to be that, despite “tradition,” education is a good thing. An educated Pashtun nation can rise up and change the impression that Western countries seem to have of the Muslim world. The times are changing, they agree, and so must their people if they are to survive and flourish. As Sher Alam’s friend, Haji, notes: “We work from dawn to dusk and wake to hear about our terrorist activities…when do we have the time?” It’s all about perception and perspective, something that comes up again and again in the film.

Structurally, Son of a Lion isn’t much different from similar more “Westernized” versions of the same story: you have a feisty, smart kid trying to buck the restrictive traditions of an old-fashioned parent and find his/her own way in the world. As I said earlier, I’m pretty sure that this is a universal, eternal storyline: as long as there are children and parents, this struggle will play itself out. The issue becomes more complex in Son of a Lion because issues of cultural tradition and religion play a large part in events. There’s also, of course, the omnipresent subtext of global conflict: in this part of the world, the next bullet could come, literally, from anywhere. Despite this constant state of conflict, however, the people in Son of a Lion are just trying to live normal lives, the best they can. Although set exclusively in Pakistan, Son of a Lion is probably the single most “universal” film I’ve seen in ages.

Since the film utilizes strictly non-professional locals, there’s the notion that performances could come off as awkward or stagey: in reality, everything comes across as very natural and flowing. If anything, Son of a Lion often resembles a documentary (much of the film was shot using a hidden camera, so that Gilmour, in disguise, could record on the streets of Darra Adam Khel without being identified) with several truly lovely, cinematic moments (the aforementioned bus rides are quite magical, as is Niaz’s first visit to Peshawar. Niaz is a true find, so natural and charismatic that you instantly want more of him, although the entire cast is quite extraordinary. In particular, Sher Alam Miskeen Ustad Baktiyar gives a knockout performance as Niaz’s father, making the character completely multi-dimensional: he’s not set-up as just an opposition figure for Niaz to overcome. Sher Alam genuinely loves Niaz and that love makes certain scenes exceptionally poignant and painful. For a non-professional actor, Sher Alam does some of the most subtle, intuitive acting I’ve ever seen. If this ends up being his only film, it was a helluva way to go in/out.

Ultimately, Son of a Lion is a remarkable film, a piece of art that bears the distinct possibility of being able to bridge the gulf between Western and Muslim culture simply by virtue of pointing out our many similarities, rather than our differences. The film asks many difficult questions and never shies from the answers (in one particularly illuminating moment, it’s revealed that Sher Alam takes immense pride in making his weapons but gives no thought whatsoever to how they will be used…this attitude mirrors a similar one in Hayao Miyazaki’s The Wind Rises (2013) and points out the essential truth that the people actually making the weapons of war aren’t necessarily the ones using them).

Perhaps Son of a Lion is the perfect example of catching lightning in a bottle: a Western filmmaker who wanted to make an honest, non-judgmental film about another culture, in collaboration with these same people. In many ways, it’s the perfect synthesis of two worlds. If you’ve ever had a child…or know a child…or were a child (if your hand still isn’t up, you may have some explaining to do), then Son of a Lion is a must-see. In a world filled with disposable entertainment, Gilmour’s film is that treat that actually has something to say: here’s to hoping that more people listen.