Undead

Nosferatu (2024) - Eggers Robert Eggers, known for his meticulous yet fruitless research to the subjects he depicts (fruitless because they are fictional stories and characters - The Northman, not historical characters), does it again with Nosferatu- a gothic vampire story told countless times in cinema history before, and therefore there's no meat left to peck on. So how does it fare up against all other Dracula iterations?

Eggers reinterprets unauthorized Murnau version of Bram Stoker's Dracula, Nosferatu (1922), with an Eastern European folklore twist that Stoker was inspired to write his book from. So there are slight differences in the foreboding story of the supernatural in the age of enlightenment, but the choices Eggers makes here are not particularly cinematic nor thrilling.

In this new Nosferatu, the undead, Count Orlok is neither a suave Victorian age shapeshifter, nor shriveled up, rodent like creature. He is more like a zombie who is resurrected by dreams of a little waif who burdens herself to save humanity from the plague.

I can't help but compare this new film with Werner Herzog's take on the same story, which is one of my favorites of all time. And Lily-Rose Depp, with all her conniptions and convulsions, is no Isabelle Adjani. In all aspects - cinematography, choice of locations, music, acting (even in intentionally stilted theatrical performances by Kinski, Ganz and Adjani), and periodic and cultural details, Herzog gets that 'ecstatic truth', that Eggers can only dream about bringing from his historical research to the screen. Even the sex and nudity can't liven up this dull, sodden version of the story.

Acknowledging the Past, Then Moving On

Poor Things (2023) - Lanthimos Visually and thematically audacious, Yorgos Lanthimos's fantastical steam punk period piece, Poor Things, plays out like a female version of a Terry Gilliam film, but good. It also shares a lot in common with my other favorite this year, Bertrand Bonello's time traveling period sci-fi, The Beast, as both films set in Victorian era. But whereas Bonello's film is based on Henry James's novella, Beast of the Jungle of 1903 which is very much a product of its time- the preoccupation with fate, predetermination and compounded trauma that would repeat itself over generations, Poor Things, based on a 1990 Scottish satrical novel by Alasdair Gray, Poor Things: Episodes from the Early Life of Archibald McCandless M.D., Scottish Public Health Officer, is a parodic look at its Victorian age and refreshingly forward looking in its main character's self determination.

Bella Baxter (Emma Stone) is a revived pregnant suicide victim by mad genius doctor Godwin Baxter (Willem Defoe), who swaps her fetus's brain with the dead woman's. Therefore, Bella has an unencumbered infant's mind that slowly will need to learn the way of things in life. Godwin assigns his good natured pupil McCandles (Ramy Youssef) to look after Baxter and soon the young man is smitten by Bella's beauty and her total lack of social ettiquettes. Fearing her being taken advantage by the rotten world outside the confines of his castle, Godwin makes McCandles Bella's betrothed. As soon as she grows and learn sexual pleasures, she is prayed on by shyster playboy Duncun Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo) and leaves the country in a sensual whirlwind trip across Europe and North Africa. There Bella learns that physical pleasure is not all there is to be in the world, but pain, pain of others and injustices also exist.

The heightened sense of Victorian imagination, in the hands of Lanthimos, the turn of the century Europe - From Lisbon and Athens to Paris and Alexandria are colorful and whimsical in that bizaare early Czech animation (ie. Karel Zeman) way. Bella learns the world's injustices and unfairness first-hand and determines her destiny every step of the way herself while keeping her always sunny and curious disposition. It might be a naive notion to think that our super complicated 21st century society is just a construct that the past doesn't hold any influence over our lives, that human beings start as a blank page and free to self determine the future. But it's a nice thought.

Madness at Sea

The Lighthouse (2019) - Eggers

From its mucky, grainy B&W academy ratio cinematography to off-the-wall acting by two of the most distinguished faces in Hollywood, Robert Eggers' The Lighthouse is one of the most original American films I've seen in quite a while. Eggers one-ups his great debut, The Witch, in terms of formalist filmmaking, originality and ambition.

OK. Two men cooped up to keep the lighthouse going, on an island (the rock as it is referred to) surrounded by stormy sea, for two hour running time, you'd think it would be an all formalist, all talk, My Dinner with André style snorefest. Not so. In this two-men stranded on an island set up, the elder is a bearded, flatulent sea man, Wake (Willem Dafoe), and the rookie is Winslow (Robert Pattinson), running away from his troubled lumberjack past. Wake soon exercises his stern authority over the young man. So Winslow is burdened with extreme physical, day-to-day chores - bringing up the coals in a wheelbarrow in a rocky, muddy hill, cleaning their cavernous cabin, maintaining the gears and wheels of the lighthouse. He also has to content with Wake's noisy bodily functions and general below-hygiene standards in close living proximity and also crippling loneliness.

But Eggers wastes no time plunging Wake and Winslow into cabin fever induced, lust deprived hallucinations and madness. The men's backstories figure less into the film as they devolve into the nights of binge drinking, ugliest shitfaced free-fall soon enough. There's gonna be a mermaid with fishy vagina. There's gonna be tentacles. There's gonna be a severed head filled with crabs. Seeing the giant revolving light on top of the lighthouse becomes the ultimate goal for Winslow, since it is forbidden to him - only Wake has the key to the entrance all to himself.

The Lighthouse is a crazy hallucinogenic trip that is extremely original. The two actor's physiognomy, Dafoe's troll-like, gangly body and posture and bushy beards (right out of Van Gogh's paintings) and Pattinson's bulging eyes and angular face, is very well used. There are many unforgettable imageries. The Lighthouse is a quite unique movie watching experience.

Pure Magic

The Florida Project (2017) - Baker

Sean Baker, a director of much praised iphone shot movie Tangerine, digs deeper into the flip side of American Dream with The Florida Project, starring kids and featuring the lives of kids on Route 192, under the shadow of Disney World. As with Tangerine, Baker uses mostly untrained non-actors to portray people on the skid and just have them run with the materials they were given. The result is stunning work of authenticity, brimming with humor, heartache and much humanism.

Moonie (Brooklynn Prince), a six year old girl living in the pink motel called Magic Castle with her young, tattooed irresponsible, daisy dukes wearing mom, Hally (Bria Vinaite). Moonie and her friend Scooty are always up to no good and wrecking havoc - spitting on neighbor's car from the balcony, starting fire in an abandoned house, panhandling tourist for ice cream money, etc., much to chagrin of the good-hearted motel manager Bobby (Willem Defoe). It doesn't really help that Hally is a real fuck-up. Always facing eviction for whatever violations against the motel policy and late for rent, she panhandles, steals, even prostitutes herself to make the rent.

The fake happiness of tourist subculture surrounding Disney World sharply contrasts with the pure joy and innocence of childhood captured by Baker. While kids are having fun, the adults in the film have to deal with depravity, submission, humiliation and consequences of being parents. Kids can have fights one day and make up next day as if nothing happened. Adult life is more complicated than that. With Hally, you couldn't picture a more stereotypical welfare mom. But she is also a loving mom, always trying to protect Moonie from the world and make the best out of ugliness of their surroundings.

But the film's about the kids being kids, always curious, always screaming and yelling, running across the various balconies and up and down the stairs of colorful motels, all named similar to Disney attractions - Future Land, Alibaba, Magic Castle and so on, and the nearby grassy swamp full of empty houses. It's beautifully captured verité style in mostly 35mm by Mexican DP Alexis Zabe (Silent Light, Post Tenebras Lux).

The performances by three kids – Brooklynn Prince, Valeria Cotto (Jancey) and Christopher Rivera (Scooty) are so natural and so untamed, it makes you wonder how on earth Baker ever managed to bring them out. Firebrand newcomer Vinaite is also great, easily topping Riley Keough's portrayal of white trash skank in American Honey (which will make a handsome double feature as Flipside of American Dream). But the range these kids have, especially Prince who seems to convey range of emotions on cue, is astounding.

There is so much joy and happiness of childhood in The Florida Project. For almost two hours running time, we spend our time invested with Moonie and her friends' (mis)adventures. As Hally digs herself a hole time and time again, and as the inevitable finally catches up with her and her daughter, we deeply feel for Moonie and her well-being. We know it's not a documentary because there is unmistakable face of Willem Dafoe trying to pass as a real person (and he does because he is a great actor), Caleb Landry Jones shows up for a moment too. We know it's a make-believe and that everything is going to be all right. But the final moment of the film, taking place in the real Magic Kingdom, shot on shaky iphone, really got me emotionally. It is, shall we say, pure magic.

The Florida Project plays as part of NYFF 2017 at Film Society of Lincoln Center on 10/1 and 10/3. Please visit FSLC website for tickets and more info.

The Life and Death of Marina Abramovic at The Park Ave Armory 12/14/13

What a visual feat! Robert Wilson's Life and Death of Marina Abramovic was an experience that I will not soon forget. Ever since I realized that I missed seeing Black Rider, a musical that was Wilson's collaboration with Tom Waits and his Three Penny Opera, I was determined to see this. The avant-garde theater director's staging of a biography of the famed performance artist Abramovic is a close collaboration of Wilson, Abramovic, Willem Defoe and singer Antony from Antony and the Johnsons.

Dafoe serves as an devilish MC, gyrating through the 67 year old artist's bio, illustrating her harsh childhood in a militarily decorated, strict communist household in former Yugoslavia. Mixing amazing Balkan music with exceptionally powerful and beautiful Antony's singing voice and striking lighting schemes, watching Life and Death is unlike anything I've seen before. Abramovic here is a subject and a cast of an ensemble but not a performance artist. As a whole, it is an Wilson's piece through and through, artistically speaking. The two hours and forty minutes with intermission in beautiful The Park Avenue Armory on a snowy night Manhattan, I definitely wanted it to go on a lot longer. Too bad that the beautiful snow fall earlier turned into a heavy rain as we got out of the theater and made a real mess on the street. We wanted to frolic in the snow taking the experience in. Instead, Nicole and I opted for the cigar bar nearby and puffed our night away.

End of Days, Again

(2011) - Ferrara

Al Gore was right. There is a hole in ozon layer and the world will end for everyone on earth at 4:44 (Eastern time I guess?). A couple, Cisco (Willem Defoe) and Skye (Shanyn Leigh) start the last day just like any other. Skye says shaving Cisco, "Why bother?" and he replies, "For you. You like it smooth." Throughout the day, they make love several times, she concentrates into her painting on a large canvas on the floor while changing in and out of several outfits, showing off her nubile body, he glues himself in front of many modern gadgets (giant TV screen which blares images of the end of times, news, faces of sages, skyping with friends and family) in their cavernous Lower Eastside loft space. It is pretty clear Ferrara is not really interested in the mechanics of the world's end or how to portray it effectively. And unlike von Trier's visceral, anxiety ridden apocalypse in Melancholia, Ferrara's is met with a quiet, resigned attitude. I mean what can you really do in that situation? The strength of the film belies in its melancholic mood, as the couple wait for Chinese food delivery and lets a Hmong delivery kid to use their computer so he can skype with his family and say the last good bye or when Cisco sneaks out to visit old junkie friends for one last score and some good conversation.

As much as I hate seeing bad art in films, unfettered new age-y sentimentality, cheapo special effects and bad acting (Ferrara, I don't really care if Leigh is your girlfriend, but you don't put someone as uninteresting as her against Dafoe and hope for the best), I didn't completely hate 4:44. It's an honest depiction of how normal people would react in the face of apocalypse.

Fear of Women

Antichrist (2009) - von Trier
Didn't hate it. But didn't love it either. Definitely worth seeing. Gorgeously photographed with the Red One camera and as expertly executed as any other von Trier film. From Breaking the Waves on, his films always felt one note for me and never came across as sincere. But with Antichrist(his depression might have attributed to this), I felt more of a weight than his others- good intentions gone bad, controlling and fear of nature/women, christian guilt and shame, role reversal, self-fulfilling deathwish... there are a lot to chew on. I guess one can go on and on about the details and pseudo-symbolism of the film and what they represent forever. But I won't go into that. Too much of it is already said about the movie. This film needs to be experienced, not read.

Herzogian view on nature made me laugh. Funny. Usually when I watch a movie, I don't really care who made the film. I have no interest in a director's personal life or his/her beliefs. Herzog and von Trier are only two that I am actually interested in what they have to say outside their films.

Excess. That is what I didn't like about the movie. von Trier could've gotten the messages across without squirm inducing, graphic self mutilation scenes, really. He could've done without the redundant hokey ending too.

Me and my friends had a long nice talk after the movie over heaps of mofongo. For some reason seeing that movie made us very ravenous. It was good to talk among men- total sausage-fest I know, but I don't think any sane woman would wanna see this film and talk rationally about it afterward.