Craftsmanship

Ferrari (2023) - Mann Rubber, metal and mayhem ensue in Michael Mann's biopic Ferrari. Gone is his digital experimentation (Miami Vice, Public Enemies and Black Hat), but the testosterone level remains high and stoic manliness remains. Plus, it has Penelope Cruz chewing up every scene she is in as Laura Ferrari.

After almost comical monochrome footage of old car racing with Adam Driver's face grafted on them with old timey music and everything, the film settles on 1957 and silver haired Enzo Ferrari (Driver) is seen gently sneaking out of the idyllic villa he shares with his mistress Lina (Shailene Woodley) and their young son. Unbeknownst his fiery wife Laura (Cruz), who shares the ownership of the company, Enzo has been living a double life.

In Moderna, a quaint small town that hosts powerhouse custom sports car companies like Ferrari and its rival Maserati, where the local priest preaches in car metaphors, the times are changing. These local prides are having financial difficulties. For Enzo, it's all about craftsmanship and racing. But the company's finance in red, unless he and Laura goes on partnering with bigger companies, like Ford or Fiat, and mass produce, the company will go out of business.

Having lost his son to illness, the Ferraris' marriage has gone cold. Mann, based on the late Troy Kennedy Martin's script, presents both funny and revealing moments with Enzo and Laura visiting the grave of their son separately, back-to-back, to mourn the dead alone. Enzo talks to his dead son. Laura smiles in silence. But being a former racecar driver himself, Enzo's focus is always on racing and forming a winning team in the future races. After losing one of his drivers in a terrifying accident during a test run, he gives a chance to a young gun, Portago (Gabriel Leone). Enzo, addressed as commendatore by the locals, is seen as cold, uncaring man who only cares about winning.

Back then, racecar drivers are as popular as movie stars, every boy wants to be them and every girl wants to date them. Portago and many of Ferrari drivers are followed everywhere by adoring fans and paparazzi and subject of gossipy magazines. It's the danger where a millisecond decision-making can mean life or gruesome death that enthralls the spectators. It may also have to do with custom made, curvy, phallic shaped, sleek red cars they drive. Enzo instructs everyone to write a letter to the loved ones and leave them in their hotel room before every race, as it is customary to the profession.

Adam Driver, whose physiognomy could go either appropriate or not depending on the project, is convincing as a man in his late 50s, if he doesn't remind you too much of his old man skit from SNL. Driver portrays Ferrari's swagger and arrogance naturally and amiably. But it's Penelope Cruz who steals the show whenever she's on screen. Her Laura is a gun wielding firebrand who doesn't back down from anyone and anything. There is a great scene where Laura agrees to hand over her part of the ownership of the company, in order for Enzo to negotiate the possible partnership with bigger companies. Under one condition, she says. She wants her handgun back, which she'd fired on him before for his infidelity. After a brief tense moment, they smile at each other and proceed to tear each other's clothes off. It's that Laura he married long ago and Cruz embodies her with gusto. Shailene Woodley plays Lina with earnest. She is the proto-feminist type who doesn't want to stay behind the doors as a mistress forever. It's her soft feature that contrasts Cruz's angles. Patrick Dempsey shows up as Piero, a seasoned silver fox of the Ferrari team, who ends up winning the race.

The horrifying accident scene in the beginning presages what's to come as the Ferrari team prepares for the grueling, more than a thousand miles open road race, Mille Miglia, that encompasses Rome, Bologna, Florence, Parma and others. The route goes through densely populated cities, snaking roads up in the mountains and small rural towns alike with thousands of spectators on the side of the road. Stakes are very high, so is the danger. Mann, with his team of drivers, along with stunt coordinators, provides spectacular experience and unapologetically graphic mayhem.

Compared with his foray into digital technology over the years, Ferrari feels much more sumptuous. With production design and period costumes - men in dark suits and glasses, it resembles Godfather - especially with the opera and church scenes. But it's the racing scenes that are pure Mann - with tight close-ups and shaky camera; the speed and tension presented on screen are palpable. It's all about craftsmanship, on both counts - the filmmaker and the subject he portrays.

Step on Me

Silence (2016) - Scorsese Silence, Martin Scorsese's passion project of 25 years, based on Shusaku Endo's book, despite its 161 minute run time, it's immensely more watchable and compelling than say, The Irishman. Silence tells two Portuguese Jesuit priests, Rodrigues (Andrew Garfield) and Garupe (Adam Driver), after hearing their mentor, Father Ferreira renounced his faith after being totured, to go to Japan to verify it. 16th century Japan is still a closed and hostile country to foreigners and many Christian missionaries and their followers are persecuted. The two are smuggled in to a small island inhabited by peasants. They found out that by their predecessors, Christianity took roots within some populations, but because of relentless persecutions by the grand inquisitor Inoue (Issei Ogata) and people ratting out the converts for silver rewards, all the Christians hide their faith.

Rodrigues and Garupe become the defacto priests for the townspeople and their gospel spills out to neighboring villages in secret. But they witness terrible fate of their followers as Inoue's officials capture them and torture them to death - drowning, beheading, etc. Eventually, Rodrigues gets caught too and goes through grueling imprisonment and witness terrible things being befallen on his followers. Only his apostate will save them. All he has to do is step on a Christian iconography laid out in front of him.

Garfield is good. So is Driver (but underused) and Liam Neeson who plays Ferreira who denounced his faith and living as a scholar with a Japanese wife and family, who writes a book denigrating Christianity. But the real stars in Silence are four Japanese actors - Ogata, Tadanobu Asano as an interpreter for the inquistor, Shin'ya Tsukamoto (director of Tetsuo the Iron Man) as the peasant devotee Mokichi and Kosuke Kabozuka as wild-eyed peasant, Kichijiro who denounce his Christian faith many times for survival.

Rodrigues, in order to save some peasants being tortured to death in his name and urging of Ferreira, denounces Christianity by stepping on Jesus. He does so, after hearing God's voice. "It's ok to step on me."

The crux of the story is that Rodrigues never lost his faith and died a Christian. That early Christianity in hostile places, they endured by staying silent. All the time his prayers have gone unanswered, he finally understood god's silence. Silence is a somber film full of stellar performances. It's too bad Rodrigues realized that after all the death. With Rodrigo Prieto's crisp wide ratio photography, it reminds me of Scorsese's Kundun, in terms of theme and scale. I just wish he does more of these films instead of gangster flicks.

Master Puppet and Barnacles

Annette (2021) - Carax It is hard for me to write this review of Annette, a new film from Leos Carax, because he is the director of my favorite film of all time - Les amants du Pont-Neuf. I've been following Carax's tumultuous filmmaking career and was very glad that he came roaring back with much praised Holy Motors, a vibrant vignettes he made over a long period of time (because of lack of financing) with his muse Denis Lavant (as his alter ego Alex). The expectations were high after the success of Holy Motors. The boy genius seemed to be back. Annette, a big budgeted musical, co-written and arranged by musical group Sparks, starring Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard, is quite possibly the worst thing I've seen this year, if not in any years. It's not because of its ludicrous premise - a singing baby of the title namesake is played by a CG puppet or Driver's overacting, it's because doesn't contain an ounce of Carax's often bold and brilliant signature cinematic moments that take your breath away.

Carax begin Annette with self-reference, just like in Holy Motors. He is the creator, starting his project in the beginning either on stage or in a control booth of an audio studio. His daughter, Nastya, a doppelganger for her mom, Katherina Golubeva, stands by his side, looking on in the cast, singing. The first song "So May We Start," spills out of the studio as the actors continue to sing on what seems to be the Santa Monica Blvd. Annette tells a relationship between a cynical standup comic Henry McHenry (Driver) and an opera singer Ann Defrasnoux (Cotillard). They soon have a daughter Annette, played mostly by what seems to be baby made out of wood with wooden joint and disproportionately large head, like in Manga drawings. While Ann's career is going well, Henry's dark humor and aggressive antics are getting no fans anymore. He is getting jealous of his famous wife and neglecting his daddy duties. All the while, the tabloid press is hounding the family's every move.

In order to save their marriage, the couple takes a boat trip in the sea with baby Annette in tow. During a storm, in a fit of rage, Henry throws Ann overboard. Alone and washed out, Henry has to make an income for baby Annette. He notices that Annette sings to a certain tune. Now he has an idea for touring with a singing baby with the help of the orchestra conductor (Simon Helberg), who was secretly in love with Ann. Ludicrous. I know.

It was fun to do a guesswork in Holy Motors as how much of it is self referential - Carax's tumultous relationship with Juliette Binoche and monumental failure of Pont-Neuf, because his life was so grand, and operatic and most of all, so romantic. The fundamental flaw of Annette, in my opinion, is it's not based on a lovestory but everything else - career, professional jealousy, parenthood, tabloids and financial security which by comparison, seem ugly and opposite of fantasy and in turn, cinema. No matter how much or loud they sing "We Love Each Other So Much," in Annette, all we see is them falling out of love, not in love.

Love is gone. Cynicism has taken over, therefore, nothing is believable and nothing matters. Everything else is a joke. Once that rare filmmaker who could capture being in love like no other became a cynic and the magic is gone. Driver is no Lavant. He is an ogre of a cynical kind. He belongs in a comedy. Cotillard with her barnacle shoulders, belongs to "Something to Tide You Over" episode in Creepshow.

I did like the on deck of the boat during sea storm scene where buckets of waters are thrown over the actors in rear projection storm. But that can't save Annette from its turgid, uninspiring premise. The spark is gone.

Norwegian Pop Band

Paterson (2016) - Jarmusch




Paterson could be alternately called "As I was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw the Glimpse of Beauty" or the Japanese minimalism inspired "A-ha!" Contemplation on interpreting and creating art has been Jarmusch's MO for a long time. He just applied it to existing genre conventions as in Western (Dead Man), Samurai flick (Ghost Dog), Hitman (Limits of Control) and Vampire (Only Lovers Left Alive). In Paterson, he strips things down to a bare minimum. It's about a bus driver named Paterson (Adam Driver) living in Paterson, NJ. The town happens to be the birth place of such poets as Williams Carlos Williams and Allen Ginsberg.

Paterson leads an unremarkable day to day life. He writes poetry in his little notebook before and after his shifts. He eavesdrops his passengers sometimes, loves his quirky, exotic wife Laura (luminous Golshifteh Farahani) who dreams of owning a cupcake business and country music stardom, takes their pet bulldog Marvin for evening walks, stopping in at a local bar for a beer. He observes small coincidences in his surroundings and experiences little dramas here and there - the bus breaks down, a fight at the bar, Marvin tearing at his notebook, meeting Japanese tourist/fellow poetry lover (Masatoshi Nagase). But in general, Paterson is appropriately quiet and gentle. Inspiration doesn't have to come from something high and grand. Your everyday surroundings, however mundane, can give you that, Paterson seems to say. It's a lovely movie.

Spike Lee Still Got it

BlackKklansman (2018) - Lee

Spike Lee has a reason to be smiling. BlackKkansman is his best film since Malcolm X. It's both entertaining and pointy about the Trump's racist administration. Well timed for anniversary of white nationalist march in Charlottesville where activist Heather Heyer was killed, Lee doesn't shy away from linking the past and the present this unsubtly and directly, like no other major American filmmaker.

Adam Driver, playing Flip Zimmerman, a non-practicing Jewish detective in Colorado, proves himself that he's a solid actor here. Lee even pushes the idea of solidarity, a smack in the back of the head that we are all in this together, by making Zimmerman/Jews think about how extremely racist the view of the white nationalists against anyone other than Anglo Americans really is.