Future is Bright, The White Old Man Says

One Battle After Another (2025) - Anderson In a frenetic, unrelenting pace, Paul Thomas Anderson's One Battle After Another begins with the French 75, an armed and well organized Leftist group penetrating an immigration detention center and freeing immigrants near a dusty southern Californian border. Bob (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a resident bomb maker of the group, who is romantically involved with Perfidia (Teyana Taylor), an outspoken member of the group. They are seen taking advantage of a tense cat-and-mouse situation with the Feds for a lustful quickie at a pit stop. During many such activities - targeting detention centers, government facilities and bank jobs, French 75 is pursued by Col. Lockjaw (Sean Penn), a strong army man who has ambitions to climb up to the big boys club one day. His relentless pursuit pays off, and most of the members of the group are either dead, apprehended or went into hiding. This is the mid 2000s.

Fast forward to present-ish. Bob is a paranoid dad of Willa/Charlene (Chase Infiniti), a 17-year old high schooler. The two have been living in a remote cabin. For Bob, now a middle aged fugitive, after years of living in shadows looking over his shoulder, has become a couch potato with drugs and alcohol, as his strict regimen slackened.

In Lockjaw's pursuit of joining the elite white supremacist cabal named the Christmas Adventurer's Club(!), he has to prove that he is the purist Aryan stock, and has no dealings with any inferior race. So he tracks down Willa who might be the love-child of his and Perfidia's to eliminate any evidence of his impurity. So begins the Searchers like adventure of fumbling, middle aged Bob, with the help of a zen-like local karate instructor, Sensei Sergio St. Carlos (Benicio Del Toro).

One Battle After Another is a fantasy, based on Thomas Pynchon's Vineland, which was published in 1990 in the throes of the Bush Sr. regime. If anything, it shows that nothing much has changed- the kidnapping and deportation of the undocumented and overarching racism of the country. I say fantasy because as much as I wish that there is a well connected and well equipped underground network of leftist resistance going on in the age of tiktok, but there isn't. I'm sure it's a fantasy cooked up by right-wing conspiracy nuts also.

Narratively speaking, you can't not fall for One Battle After Another. With how it is put together: from how it was shot in Vistavision, accentuating the vista of American Southwest and heart pounding car chase sequences, aided by Jonny Greenwood's marvelous score, to to its stellar cast- DiCaprio has never been better as a burnt out radical, Sean Penn literally eschews his namesake comic book villain role with relish, Del Toro's hilariously deadpan but grounded zen master and the newcomer Infiniti with her clear eyed, whip smart Gen Z stand-in. The film is a great fun as it unfolds in satisfying ways - bad guys get their comeuppances, dad and daughter reunite, and a young black woman's empowerment fulfilled.

Anderson deals with the contemporary world for the first time since Punch Drunk Love and shows that the world is still in the grips of the old white men ways - the gungho military homophobic dickheads, sexual stereotypes that propelled the whole narrative, fumbling at proper pronouns and the white supremacy deep state. But relishing in showing it which is meant to be comic relief, the scenes tend to be super awkward and downright Tarantino-foot-fetish creepy - the camera gliding over Perfidia's butt over and over, Lockjaw's huge boner, and an uninspired gay joke. And it shows Anderson's awkward middle aged white man side when it comes to dealing with race.

But you gotta admit, it is refreshing to see a mainstream American film hell bent on showing the resistance side of things that tells you the kids are all right, even if it's from an old white man.

Therapy

Jimmy P.:Psychotherapy of a Plains Indian (2013) - Desplechin

Jimmy P is an odd movie. Even though it lets us know that it's a true story and takes place in the U.S. 1948, it wears its cultural, racial, political contexts very thinly- not actively ignores their importance but rather, it is seemingly uninterested in them. What's left is two leisurely hours of Jimmy Picard (Hulking, understated Benicio Del Toro), a somewhat shellshocked WWII veteran Indian from Montana and Georges (always great Mathieu Amalric), an enthusiastic anthropologist/therapist of an unknown European origin. They meet in Topeka, Kansas, where the veteran hospital is located. It is slowly revealed that Jimmy has some repressed sexual issues with women and suffering from a guilty conscience of abandoning many women in his life. Georges also has a bit of a back story and seems to have a complicated love relationship with a sophisticated married lady friend (Gina McKee). But it's mostly about Jimmy and Georges talking. As the title suggests, it's a psychotherapy session of a Plains Indian so his constant headache and seeing blinding bursts of white spots would go away. But its literal presentation is never clinical nor fairytale like. The performances, nuanced and subtle, make the characters and interactions human. Jimmy P is not a gripping drama and you never quite get too close enough to the characters, but there is a sense of peace and tranquility to the film that I really dig. Great directors don't need to have their signature 'style' or whatever. They can tackle any subject and should be able to produce something that is completely different from one another. Desplechin surprises me in that respect. And I respect that.

Surf Noir

Inherent Vice (2014) - Anderson

P. T. Anderson faithfully adapts Thomas Pynchon's most accessible novel, the zaniest surf noir, Inherent Vice. It is also the first time he's worked with a large ensemble cast since Boogie Nights. The result is often hilarious, a laborious snapshot of the end of the groovy 60s.

The film centers around Larry 'Doc' Sportello (Joaquin Phoenix), a dope smoking Private Eye, as he helplessly gets mired into what seems to be an unsolvable case. It all begins with the visit from his ex-girl friend Shasta Fay Hapworth (Katherine Waterston) whom he still carries the torch for. She tells him that her new fling, a billionaire construction tycoon Mickey Wolfmann (Eric Roberts), who inexplicably hangs out with Aryan Brotherhood, is about to get kidnapped by his wife and her body building 'spiritual coach' boyfriend and put into a looney bin. But even before Doc has a time to react, Mickey and Shasta go missing.

With the clue "Beware of The Golden Fang!", left by remorseful lesbian masseuse who put him in the hole in the first place, Doc leisurely seeks out people who might have a hand in the disappearance. Is The Golden Fang a rock band? A front for money laundering association of dentists? Is it a schooner? Trained killer dogs with golden teeth perhaps? He digs deeper and deeper into the labyrinthine conspiracies while jotting down (un)helpful words and phrases- "Paranoia Alert!", "Spanish?" on his small notepads along the way.

Doc's biggest obstacle in solving anything, other than his pot fizzled brain and constant paranoia, is famed, hippie hating Lt. detective Christian 'Bigfoot' Bjornsen (Josh Brolin). As far as Doc and his mellow friends are concerned, the civil rights chomping Bigfoot is in cahoots with the environmentally irresponsible, now missing billionaire. To make the case even more complicated, the feds are involved and Doc enlists the help of his one-time girlfriend now a deputy DA Penny Kimball (Reese Witherspoon). But everybody has his/her own angle on this and everybody preys on Doc.

Dialog, with few exceptions throughout his filmography, hasn't been Anderson's strong suit (nor has he seemed to care). Here Anderson strictly sticks by Pynchon's snappy prose line by line with more than 30 speaking parts. The only big difference from the book is its narration by Sortilège (Joanna Newsom), or Leej, as Doc calls her. She is Doc's spiritual hippie gal pal who has that special touch. The whole time, I was thinking of Newsome as young and hippie version of Thelma Ritter from noir classic Pick Up on South Street. Her nasal, soft voice somehow works in a typical masculine world of Anderson and gives the film its lightness.

There is no shortage on noir references, or should I say noir archetypes here - you can find lineage all the way from The Big Sleep to The Long Goodbye to The Big Lebowski. The concoction of Pynchon's wacky characters with typical long takes that Anderson prefers, provides the actors plenty of room to shine. Its chaotic pace gives way to long monologues and long takes that last up to 5-7 minutes, the flow of the film matches with Pynchon's prose well also.

Phoenix, with messy hairdo and mutton chops, again, is brilliant in another bravura performance as doped up hippie PI. Brolin is a pure comic gold here as Doc's nemesis and also secret confidant. Other outstanding notables are Martin Short as a drug addled Dr. Blatnoyd who goes wild in the funniest scene in the film and Owen Wilson provides perhaps the most poignant moments as a confused sax player in a surfer band who got finagled to be a double/triple agent by various antisubersive groups.

As the drug infused haze/smog lifts from the City of Sinners (with their inherent vices), what's left is Doc and his dignity as the last vestiges of innocence and goodness in the flower child generation. As Leej says, "Doc may not be a do gooder but he's done good." I'd be lying if I like Inherent Vice more than The Master or There Will Be Blood. But it is an enjoyable romp. It definitely solidifies P. T. Anderson as a great chronicler of American psyche though out the decades.

Inherent Vice is the Centerpiece selection at this year's NYFF.  It opens limited on 12/12 in NY and LA, then sees the general release in 1/9/15.