Romanian Rhapsody

Bacalaureat/Graduation (2016) - Mungiu

If nothing else, Romanian New Wave has shown that it excels at acute observations on ordinary people navigating through a chronically depressed, highly bureaucratic country- a society strewn with broken promises of capitalism after the collapse of communism. Christian Mungiu, once again, sharply yet subtly illustrates one such case with Bacalaureat. Romeo (Adrian Titieni), a medical doctor, sees his life unraveling before his eyes - having an affair with one of his patients (a single mom school employee) put a strain on his marriage (been sleeping on the couch for a year and a half), his frail old mother has fainting spells due to brain aneurism, so naturally, he puts all his hope on his pretty daughter Eliza getting a good education. Since Romania is so helpless, he is pushing hard for Eliza to go to England to get educated. In order to get a scholarship to go to overseas, she needs to ace Bacalaureat exam, a series of tests at the end of the High School year. But on the way to school one day, Eliza gets sexually assaulted by an escaped convict in a broad daylight. Visibly shaken and disturbed, she doesn't do well on the test next day. Considering all the circumstances, Romeo decides to ask for help of his police chief friend, not only for arresting the attacker of his daughter, but to 'fix' Eliza's test scores. The cop suggests a man in some higher level position in government, who needs a liver transplant. Can Romeo do anything about moving him up on the list of people in waiting ?

This doing favor in return thing and pulling strings in the system get entangled and awkward really quickly. Magda, the long suffering wife, thinks it goes against everything they taught their daughter but doesn't do anything about it since he has been always the doer/decider. To complicate matters even more, her biker boyfriend in town, Eliza also has second thoughts about going to England.

Romeo puts it grimly about the state of the country: he tells Eliza that he and mom decided to stay because they were hopeful but nothing had changed since then. That they tried but failed to move a mountain. That there is no future for the younger generation. And that she deserves better. He even tries (in vain) to revenge his daughter by following one of the suspects. He cries over the dog he ran over with his car. He tries to do right by the women in his life but life keeps throwing curve balls at him.

Bacalaureat draws Romeo's dilemma as a father, as a man, as a Romanian really well. It's an amazingly scripted film that contains all the nuances of the sticky human existence.

Masks We Wear: Why Toni Erdman is the Best Film of the Year

Toni Erdmann (2016) - Ade

Hollywood would have made a terrible film out of the premise of Toni Erdmann- starring the late Robin Williams and Kate Mara perhaps as goofy clownish father trying to teach his uptight, humorless grownup daughter to not take life too seriously and enjoy the moment or something. He would die and there would be a funeral and it would be a tearjerker and Mara does something goofy and... the end. It would've been a comedy that is best described by its tagline, "It's the 'Take Your Father to Work' Day!"

Toni Erdmann, even with its 2 1/2hrs running time, like the practical joke prone father character's favorite word choice, "spontaneously", is full of surprises that makes you laugh at every turn. Winfried (Peter Simonischeck) and Ines (Sandra Hüller) are very real and their interaction funny and touching. But it's not daddy nostalgia type movie. It's the first film I've seen that takes the father daughter relationship between two adults: one person putting on a ridiculous persona to mirror another playing the role of icy queen in the corporate world. That's why birthday scene works so well. But Ines's unraveling, or loosening up a little comes in even earlier in another ridiculous scene involving a naughty pastries. Even in its most riotous moments, involving, ehm, Whitney Houston song, it's not nostalgia but making an ass out of yourself/letting your hair down once in a while. It goes the same way with the prolonged ending- grown ups don't change drastically. Letting your hair down once is not going to change your life. In this sense, Erdmann doesn't have a happy ending. Ade doesn't end her film in Where the Wild Things Are style. She is too smart and mature for that. But it's not a sad movie either. We live out lives hoping that we are making some kind of impact on people you expect the same from others on you. That is what we hope for anyway. Toni Erdmann deserves all the accolades. It's amazingly acted, best written film I've seen this year.

Youth and Optimism Through Female Gaze

American Honey (2016) - Arnold

A modern day Wizard of Oz but Dorothy here is played with gusto by newcomer Sasha Lane. Her Star is a tough as a nail firecracker with a good head on her shoulders and a heart of gold. American Honey tell the rowdy group of traveling kids selling magazine subscriptions door to door. Only recognizable actors (I use the term loosely here) are Shia Labeouf and Riley Keough. But even they disappear into their respective roles as a slightly sexy older kid who show Star the ropes and young creepy, scary matriarch of the gang. The setting here is American south-midwest, but it isn't much different than Arnold's previous film Fish Tank, in terms of its theme- on the verge of womanhood, a girl from a poor family journeying through self-discovery. The hope Arnold portrays in those two films has less to do with its setting but with youth. This is what separates Arnold from other filmmakers. American Honey is being compared with Larry Clark's Kids. Yes there are plenty of graphic sex and violence. But whereas Clark's film unabashedly, proudly comes across as nothing but exploitation, Arnold's film shows real compassion toward its characters while not losing sight on the youthful passion. Arnold acknowledges physical, almost feral attractions that exist among people (even in adults in Red Road) but understands that she doesn't have to exploit it by showing boobies every other scene. For this reason, I think this film can be a great counterpart example to so-called 'male gaze' films by all these 'macho' directors.

Charging tirelessly through almost 3 hour running time, Arnold and co achieves something truly special here. It's a director's film through and through, not in any artificial David Fincher way. She even knows how to perfectly use actors like Labeouf who fits the role like a glove. She deserves every best director awards this year period.

Los Angeles Eats Itself

The Neon Demon (2016) - Refn

Once again, in David Lynch's absence, NWR carries the torch, delving more and more into flashy, neon-colored abstraction. If Lynch is a true artist creating certain mood with set design and texture (I'm grossly simplifying his artistry, forgive me), Refn is all about the use of lights. Still abiding by a thin narrative, he creates gothic fantasy/nightmare filled with the notion of beauty, fragile innocence and narcissism. The Neon Demon can easily be dubbed as Los Angeles Eats Itself, literally.

The paper thin story revolves around Jesse (Elle Fanning), a beautiful High School dropout from bumfuck nowhere in LA. Living out of a skeeziest motel, run by a menacing, predatory man (Keanu Reeves at his sleaziest- Refn's genius in casting), our wide-eyed ingenue is at first a bunny in a wolf's den. She befriends a pretty makeup artist Ruby (Jena Malone) who introduces her to LA modeling scene. Jesse knows she can make money off of her looks. Her natural beauty soon finds her fame and causes her meteoric rise and in doing so accumulates number of enemies. Soon her success gets to her head.

Refn has grown as a visual artist. His use of shapes, namely triangles in this film, is pastiche of 70s psychedelia or 80s rudimentary video games than actual symbols with meaning. They trigger a certain uneasy mood. Some of the images here are really striking and unforgettable yet again, devoid of any meaning. One might argue that all these are empty symbols and skin deep but so does the subject Refn portrays. Just like Lynch's Mulholland Dr., the parodying LA is not the main draw here. It is certainly imbued in its view, but artistically it's much more. The Neon Demon is very much like a Dario Argento film in his haydays. You have to enjoy it for its aesthetics and mood. Let it wash over you and you will be richly rewarded.