Materialists (Celine Song, 2025)

Surface tension

Celine Song's Materialists on the surface is about the business of matchmaking-- an industry on the rise with the difficulty of online dating and of life in general (New York in particular); prices are not mentioned but looking at the clothes the characters wear and the milieu they inhabit you can probably figure it's in the five to six figure range for an annual service.

So the movie looks good and the cast looks handsome and the conversation in the trailer sufficiently sparkled (not Billy Wilder league much less Ernst Lubitsch divine but bubbles popped)-- is the actual experience worth it?

The Royal Tenenbaums (Wes Anderson, 2001)

(In tribute to Gene Hackman, 1930 - 2025)

Kin dread

Wes Anderson’s The Royal Tenenbaums is richly layered as a wedding cake-- level after level of confectionery subtly sweetened and deftly whipped follow one after another, with baroque curlicues of icing ornamenting the edges. Not to everyone’s taste and I don’t quite like it as much as his previous Rushmore-- you felt as if you could actually have known the people in that movie. But for those who enjoy lightly sugared nonsense leavened with tart wit (as opposed to the thick syrup that passes for romantic comedy nowadays) and imagination, this is a feast.

Anora (Sean Baker, 2024)

For better or for worse

Sean Baker's Golden Palm-winning film Anora is arguably the most enjoyable of the year, by turns funny, sexy, profane. 

But a great film? Well let me tell you.

Brooklyn (John Crowley)

A borough'd life

John Crowley's Brooklyn is a beautifully gauzy dream of a movie where all the folks are helpful and friendly once you get to know them, Coney Island all bright sunshine blue waters and clean sand, and the worst problem a young girl named Eilis (Saoirse Ronan) need suffer is a bad case of homesickness for the green green grass of Enniscorthy, Ireland. As for Ireland--

And so on and so on and so forth. The film (capably directed by Crowley out of a script Nick Hornby adapted from a novel by Colm Toibin) is layered nostalgia that as carefully as it can treads a line between sentiment and understatement, realism and stylized idealism, observational comedy and high drama. Is that really what Coney Island circa 1952 was like? Not quite; you only have to look at Abrashkin, Engel and Orkin's The Little Fugitive--released only a year later--to learn just what a raucous littered lively place the seaside resort really was (and still is in a grittier urban-ruin sort of way, with a better-than-even chance of being mugged at night). You wonder though: would that be what a young woman fresh from Ireland might imagine Coney Island to be like? Well--maybe; maybe we're supposed to be seeing the place through Eilis' dewy eyes--

A Most Violent Year (J.C. Chandor, 2014)

Year of living dangerously

Got to hand it to Mr. Chandor: he doesn't do anything the same way twice, from the ensemble thriller Margin Call (set during the '08 financial crisis) to the Robert Redford chamber piece All is Lost to this (released in DVD/Bluray last April), his biggest most daring production yet--daring in that it has the effrontery to invite comparison with Francis Coppola's Godfather films.  

Vacation (The Sequel)

End of summer blues: posting an old 2011 piece on New York. Part one is here; the sequel is as follows:

My forays into New York aren't always about eating, and aren't always about film; sometimes I just want to re-visit locations that for me define the city, or at least define some of the most memorable ways man has put stone and steel to use. 

Take Grand Central Terminal, shown below:

The soaring ceiling, once looked overgrown with dark moss, is now a bright green, thanks to an extensive restoration job; the at one time dull-brass stars are now gleaming constellations (a little hi-tech help from LED bulbs)--you think of gold coins glittering from the bottom of an upturned aquarium. The brass four-faced clock perched atop the center ticketing booth, the sunlight streaming down from barred cathedral windows--this Church to the Railway Gods with its unceasing buzz (it houses forty-four platforms connected to sixty-seven tracks, the largest train station in the world) is a drama few filmmakers can resist shooting (it's one of the most common images of the city on film). Not everyone has managed to justify their use of it, though; some of the most memorable include Terry Gilliam's The Fisher King (which magically transformed Grand Central into a grand ballroom full of waltzing commuters) and maybe Brian De Palma's Carlito's Way (which turned the terminal's escalators and tunnels into playground setting for a deadly game of tag).

Sometimes I feel like something quieter:

The Cloisters in upper Manhattan seem like another world--you step out of the subway station, see a playground across the street, climb stone steps, find yourself in Fort Tryon Park. You take winding paths past flower beds and giant trees (surrounding rocky fort battlements with breathtaking views) to the highest elevation in the island, and finally to a monastic castle in part assembled from pieces of actual castles and monasteries, brought to the country stone by ancient stone. 

The museum has an extensive collection of Medieval art and crafts including intricate silver and gold pieces (a gold-plated salt cellar, an early silver-and-rock-crystal fork with an uncomfortable resemblance to a dagger); it has a garden planted and laid out exactly as in a monastery, with plenty of herbs and medicinal plants (monks were a practical people who expected long periods of isolation, if not outright siege); it has beautiful examples of stained glass (including grisaille and bright-colored windows, some of which contain unforgettably vivid shades of deep yellow); and playing cards, oblong shaped and intricately drawn and colored (reminding me of Tarot cards--and why not? One's fate or fortune, decided by a draw from the pack).

Some of the most memorable sights uptown aren't found inside The Cloisters, but here:

A view of the Hudson River and George Washington Bridge from Fort Tryon Park. I doubt if all the vegetation or forest is native to the area, but you do get some sense of what the island must have looked like before the settlers took over.

And sometimes the fascination doesn't involve an entire castle or river or park; sometimes it can be a detail as small as a subway sign--

--complete with Braille dots and mounted for some reason on cork. Possibly one of the oldest in the city? Possibly.

Calling Katz Deli an institution doesn't help, does it? Even if Katz is a repository of New York Jewish foodcraft and artifacts, it's hardly a museum--not when people throng inside actively interacting with and consuming said artifacts.


I've tried other delis; love the fatty tenderness of New York pastrami, the richness of their chopped liver. It's just that Katz's hand-slices the pastrami (meaning the meat is just that much thicker yet oh-so-tender, and the outside crust of peppercorns crumbles and falls between the slices), and the chopped liver has...something (Liver? Boiled egg? Schmaltz, or rendered chicken fat? A combination of the three?)...mixed into it that makes it that much sweeter. A varied plate of pickles, a bottle of Dr. Brown's Celery Tonic (the vegetable-y soda offsets the taste of deli flesh), a slice of cheesecake (thick and creamy and faintly flavored of vanilla) and yes, I can die a happy, happy man. 

And, yes, sometimes it isn't bad to spend a little money. We called M. Wells Diner, one of the hottest new restaurants in New York for a reservation.

"Ten o'clock?"

"It's the only one available."

"In the evening?"

"We'll call you back if anyone cancels."

In retrospect, I suppose we were lucky to get a reservation that same day. I remember listening to one man--he'd just finished dinner and was talking to the hostess--make a reservation for four in October. 

At around 9.30 we took the 7 train, stepped out at Hunter's Point, looked around--and we were there. An old building offered steak and seafood, all shuttered up, and right beside it was this tiny diner car, all gleaming stainless steel. Pushed in the diner doors and were told we were too early. 

So we sat outside, and waited. And waited. Ordered a lemonade, sipped it. Waited some more. Ten on the dot we stepped back inside, and no, the table still wasn't ready, so we waited at the entrance. 

Mind you, that's just the time aspect, which felt infinite; I haven't even begun mentioning space, which was anything but. The diner was tiny, about the size of a sardine can if you took out all the sardines. The booths were jammed with customers, the counter seats stuffed with customers; the only appreciable free space was behind the counter, and with all the waiters and cooks and hot appliances bubbling and hissing and running about I doubt if our presence would be appreciated there either. I wondered stupidly: why don't they move into the building next door if  they were so crowded? Knock out a wall, connect the two spaces, voila! Instant gratification. Wouldn't be the same, I suppose. A critic suggested the whole thing was 'performance art,' and I wouldn't be surprised; all that's missing is a gang of young actors hanging in a unisex restroom, lighting it up and talking about their next gig... 

We were finally seated, some half an hour later--and here I might as well present a bit of history and philosophy: M. Wells is the brainchild of Sarah Obraitis and her husband Hugue Dufour, formerly of the famed Au Pied de Cochon, in Montreal. Dufour cooks and decorates his little eatery according to the principles of what you might call 'casual minimalist.' Just click on his website above: all you get is a photo featuring their name, their hours, phone number, address, email address, and not much more.

Note that they're open for brunch, but not weekends; according to one article, they don't have the facilities to serve the 200 diners weekend service would involve. Ballsy statement, assuming two hundred people would want to come on a weekend to what looks like an industrial neighborhood, all shut warehouses and not much else beyond the Long Island Expressway roaring nearby.  That said, with this much crowd sitting and waiting to sit, you tend to believe them.

The menu was divided into small plates, big plates; we ordered four small, three big. The tomato tart was fresh tomatoes on nutty cheese on crackling crust--a perfect little pizza, only tastier. The Russian breakfast was blinis--crepelike pancakes--with caviar, creme fraiche, smoked sturgeon, simple and fresh. The lobster roll was chunks of lobster  in a perfectly toasted roll (the textures--chew of lobster, creaminess of brown butter (with a hit of tarragon), crispness of bread--played like a light melody on the tongue). The escargot and bone marrow with shallots and red wine puree, served on half of a shank bone, was a spectacle to both eye and mouth: toothsome mollusks in the richest meat butter in the world, substance and style in every bite. 

Big plates were exactly as advertised, really big food served in what I can only describe as ceramic tubs. This included roasted mackerel with fried gnocchi and ratatouille--not the little fish they stuff into cans; we had a huge slab of smoky fish draped into and barely fitting the little bathtub with firm, flaky flesh, the texture nicely offset by crisped gnocchi, the flavor by earthy vegetables. 

The saddle of lamb with tahini and pomegranate molasses (what on earth is a 'saddle?' The pelvis?) is amazing--each slice has a different texture and flavor, from dark, smoky crust to sweet and juicy pink to tender chewy translucent tendon. It's like the roast transforms with every tap of the knife, the trick performed against a backdrop of slightly bitter tahini (say the main ingredient aloud, and the cavern opens into a subterranean wonderland) and tangy-sweet molasses (for contrast, and Middle Eastern flair).

Then there's the BibiM Wells, their version of the classic Korean bibimbap. The bibimbap I ate in Jeonju was Korean comfort food, sliced-and-diced vegetables and shredded beef over broth-flavored rice, with a fried egg on top for richness. This version was a seafood bounty: razor clams, scallops, gravlax, accompanied by julienned vegetables and fried yam chips that I kept mistaking for crisped bacon (I was thinking all the while that it was an odd if welcome touch, the addition of pork to the dish), all over fluffy steamed rice. Instead of fried egg for richness, foie gras; to tie it all together is the mildly spicy sweetness of a maple chili sauce.

"How is it?" the waitress asked.

"This shouldn't work," I said. "Gravlax, clams, scallops and foie gras? It's crazy. It should never work. But it does."

The waitress didn't seem pleased. Maybe I was babbling; maybe I came across as thoroughly pissed. I meant well.

I suggested dessert, but everyone was stuffed; they wouldn't hear of it. I pointed out that the blueberry pie behind us, doing a good imitation of a manhole-sized disc of cracked asphalt, was constantly shrinking as waitress after waitress hacked off hunks for customers. C. replied that all he wanted was to get up and walk a little or he would burst, literally. I suggested the maple pie, or how about the Paris-Brest, "a kind of funnel cake?"  Everyone groaned in protest.

"Do waitresses get paid a lot?" La. asked.

"No, but add the tips and it's a decent wage. Why?"

"Because I'd like to work here someday."

Postscript: according to recent articles, M. Wells Diner will be closing down at the end of this month. Two thoughts come to my mind with the new: first, we were lucky to actually eat there, and second: that guy who made reservations for four in October--what's he going to do now?


8.21.11

Vacation (New York, 2011)

End of summer blues: a reposting of an old something I wrote about New York, back in 2011

So I took a week off and drove to New York. 

Wasn't my first time this year; I'd already gone for a weekend to help introduce a pair off films in a small Filipino film festival--

And on my way to said festival stepped out of the Times Square subway station smack dab in the middle of the above rally. Syrian Americans demonstrating--peacefully but loudly--for support of pro-democracy forces. One of the ladies were kind enough to let me pose holding a posterboard (of Bashir Al-Assad, and one of the civilians killed by bombings).

"New York? How expensive!" Sure, unless you do things a little different--like booking a hotel out in Flushing, Queens which, aside from being safe at two in the morning (step out of the subway and you'll swear you're in Hong Kong, Kowloon side) has some of the best Chinese food this side of, well, Hong Kong. 

Like the hand-pulled noodles in Golden Mall (41-28 Main Street, look carefully, it's easy to miss)--basically a building basement where the landlords have subdivided the floor space into tiny cubbyholes, and proprietors have set up folding tables and stools for people to sit. 

You walk up (not even sure which stall I ended up in; there was a lot of spillover business it was that crowded); you point out what you want (I could speak some Mandarin, but this was beyond my meager vocabulary); you crouch balancing precariously on a folding stool meant for a six-year-old. I should know; I kept casting a wary eye on one seven-year-old having trouble with his seat.

Then your order comes and it's worth the time and bother and cramped sauna conditions. The soup comes in what can basically be described as a wash basin; the noodles had been pulled just minutes ago (you have to twist and stretch your neck above the counter to catch a glimpse, but it's quite a show--a blob of dough flattened, stretched, magically divided by a few swift hand movements into guitar strings); the chunks of lamb meat are fat and tender and tendon-y. 

And the broth--thick, dark, deeply flavored by meat and green onion and god only knows what mysterious spices and herbs and essences go into this elixir (Is that anise I detect? Marrow distilled from shank bones, the richest, meatiest butter in the world?). Basically a little over five dollars for a bowl; worth it, if you don't count the bother of sharing your table with a half dozen other total strangers, and having to move out of the way every five minutes so delivery men shoving hand carts can whiz past you.

That's not the only cheap eats around. Not far from the corner of  Kissena Avenue and Main Street is a Vietnamese restaurant that serves excellent pho (broth, noodles, beef shank and tendons, some innards, and--love this part--the freshest cilantro, basil leaves, lime wedges and bean sprout toppings available). Outside this place--wouldn't know if they are affiliated or not--is a sidewalk grill that serves grilled tripe, stomach, cheeks, what have you on skewers.

In the city I always go to a sidewalk stand across the Toys 'R Us store in Times Square. Order the beef kebab, and specify medium rare; they will ask if you want the kebab salted (say 'yes,' otherwise it's too bland). They will ask if you want it on a hotdog bun--that's okay by me, who cares? It's in my opinion the best piece of grilled meat in the city, tender, smoky, hot; when you bite, the blood gushes out and soaks the hotdog bun, the kind of leftover treat a carnivore dreams of in his wettest fantasies.

We'd gone into Kebab Cafe (2512 Steinway Ave in Queens) years ago, sometime in 2007, if I remember right, a tiny nook that could sit twenty if everyone dieted a month and used plenty of Vaseline, decorated all over with mosaics and tiny lamps and drawings and photos and posters and other bric-a-brac. Ali the owner had been particularly taken with A., and called him "my man!" We'd always meant to come back, but never had the chance.

We returned this month; Ali took one look at us, one look at A. and said "A., my man!" C. asked: "you remember, after all those years?" Ali said: "how could I forget?" I whispered to Lu. "He's got quite a memory."

Had us seated; asked us what we wanted to drink (we asked for the pomegranate soda--basically soda water with pomegranate syrup, not too sweet--while A. asked for a Coke); told us he'll take care of the food. Started  the falafel mix, the baba ganoush, the hummus; formed the falafel balls with a pair of spoons, dropped them in hot oil. "I remember coming here years ago, because of that show by Bourdain," I said. Ali replied "Jamie Oliver visited too." "Oliver? Really? You're doing well, then." "Yes, but of course you people are much more important to me." Lu. leaned over to me and whispered "And he's still the flatterer."

I got up. "Where are you going?" "There's an ATM machine next door, right?" "Sit down, don't worry about that." Ali ordered. I sat down. He asked if C. wanted to learn how to cook; had him fan out slices of pear on a plate, then serve it to us: basically a mixed dish of baba ganoush, hummus and fava beans in lemon juice, with the sliced pear for picking up the thick dip and cleansing the palate.

Ali may have remembered A. but it was C. who asked all the (occasionally tactless) questions. At one point C. made an off-the-cuff remark about Egyptian culture, how primitive it must have been. I pointed out that Alexander the Great was inspired by Egyptian knowledge, that Imhotep possibly performed the first instance of brain surgery, that he was one of the first to use honey as a disinfectant because it was hygroscopic. Ali declared that "honey is an excellent preservative, and Imhotep is a genius for using it--but he is nothing compared to my man, Lapu-lapu!" He laid a plate of the fresh fried falafel before us, decorated with deep-fried bok choy.

When C. asked who Lapu-lapu was, Ali explained: "He was a Filipino who killed Ferdinand Magellan, the man who organized the first expedition to circle the world. The Europeans call him Magellan's killer but to Asians he's a freedom fighter, a hero." He put a plate of lamb cheeks before us, cracked an egg over it, and mixed it up with a spoon. It was terrific--rich and chewy and meaty all at the same time. 

He even had a moment for La. "Oh, she's texting. Most guys don't care; they text out in the open. But girls like to text under the table, as if it were a secret. She likes to keep secrets." 

Ali served us our final plate: fried cauliflower with pomegranate, the cauliflower coated with thick carmelized fruit sauce. We got up. "Next time I need to teach A. how to cook, it's his turn when you come back. And he should eat more--he's too skinny." Ali had lined up A., C., and even La. against the doorway leading to the bathroom, and marked their height. He said: "A., you better eat--I don't want to have you come back here shorter than when you came last."

It was--I don't know, extraordinarily leisurely and relaxed and, well, affectionate--old friends meeting again, almost. No; better--like spending an afternoon with an eccentric but dear, rarely seen uncle, who served us in his living room, stretching his arm out of his little kitchen to lay the dishes on the table. One of the best meals we ever had.

(Next: Vacation the Sequel)

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (Matt Reeves, 2014); The Immigrant (James Gray, 2013); Night Zero (premiere episode of 'The Strain,' Guillermo del Toro, 2014)

(WARNING:  plot twists and story of the two movies, one TV show--and in one case an entire franchise--discussed in detail)

Aping The Planet of the Apes 

Matt Reeves' Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is arguably better than its predecessor, the remake of the third sequel to the original adaptation of the Pierre Boulle novel. Where the latter traces the nascent development of human-level intelligence in apes, this--the sequel and remake of the fourth sequel to the original adaptation (pay attention!)--has the full-grown Caesar (an impressively motion-captured Andy Serkis) struggling to lead his band of brothers into an Arcadian paradise. Apes at this point are capable of serious log cabin construction (their spiky spiraling structure could stand proudly beside some of the cruder motte-and-baileys seen in the Game of Thrones series); the words "Ape not kill ape" are scrawled prominently on a teacher's neolithic Smartboard. All that's missing, really, is some seriously decadent vegan cooking to transform this into a particularly esoteric episode on glamping from The Travel Channel.

Then the humans come in. Tense moments follow. Hope for the future is offered--and quickly dashed to the ground, resulting in large-scale digitally rendered, fairly engaging action sequences. The movie ends on the same image it began, with camera tight on Caesar's ominously pensive face--nice little touch, there.

Interesting--where Caesar in the original comes to the realization that apes are no better than humans, here he does a bit of syntactic sidestepping. "You are no ape," he declares, dropping his foe (and himself) down a long slippery slope involving precise etymologies (untermensch, anyone?).

Might add that the apes have not improved their tactics much since the last picture. Where previously they launched a full-on frontal attack against heavily armed troops on a suspension bridge (it's all right, they've got plot armor), here they launch a full-on frontal attack on a fortified city, and only when an armored car is commandeered (by an ape on horseback--see aforementioned story trope) do they actually make any headway. Some of the apes happen to be gorillas; couldn't they have taught their fellow anthropoids an alternate method?

Okay, cheap joke.

The movie's an impassioned plea for interracial/intercultural/interwhateveral co-existence; that much I got. Maybe my biggest problem is that it falls far short of what Boulle's novel was trying to do, what  the best science fiction (as opposed to sci-fi) tries to do: refract real-life issues through the genre's distorting lens, in an attempt at a fresh approach. The key word is distorting: Boulle's novel was satire in the tradition of Swift, with some withering things to say about our pretentions to standing on the top rung of the evolutionary ladder; Reeves (and Wyatt before him) seem to be trying to serve up a deadly earnest drama about yet another socioethnic minority group clawing its way to acceptability. Where Boulle and Franklin J. Schaffner's '68 film presented apes as exaggerated mockeries of the worse humanity has to offer, these two reboots present them as just an evolutionary step upward from what you see in your local zoo, down to the zoologically accurate body language of the motion-captured actors. Despite what today's filmmakers might tell you, realism is not a virtue in satire; a clear view of the target is required, shining through the effects. You miss the dark humor, the comic-horrific sense of ordinary life turned upside-down (Schaffner captured Boulle's satiric thrust best; Burton's, while scattershot shallow, still managed to plant tongue firmly in furred cheek). 

Plus I miss Helena Bonham-Carter's Ari, all ape makeup surrounding a pair of soulful, sensual eyes, the single most subversive element in Burton's remake. Cornelia, Caesar's mate (Judy Greer), is about as sensuous as a hair shirt--you wanted to give her not sympathy but a bottle of industrial-strength tick powder; Bonham-Carter's Ari on the other hand was capable of inspiring a serious erection--she made you want to rethink the arguments against the practice of bestiality.

Stranger in a strange land

James Gray's The Immigrant despite its melodrama despite its flaws is extraordinary, a retelling of Vito Corleone's entry from Sicily into New York, only from the point of view of a woman. Ewa (Marion Cotillard) has traveled from war-torn Poland to Ellis Island with her sister Magda (Angela Sarafyan) in tow. Magda's coughing gets her quarantined; Ewa faces a different problem--rumor has it that she's a girl of 'loose morals,' and will probably be deported.

The Godfather analogy is inevitable; Gray seems to be setting himself up as the millennial equivalent of Coppola (even his We Own the Night, which I thought was terrific, openly invites comparison), though not just Coppola--one is reminded of Guiseppe Rotunno's work on Luchino Visconti's The Leopard, and of Miroslav Ondicek's for Milos Forman's Ragtime, the kind of stately amber handsomeness that can be mistaken for White Elephant filmmaking--only Gray adds an emotional obliqueness that belongs more in an Ozu or Naruse film, and in the case of Joaquin Phoenix's Bruno a volatility that recalls--well, recalls Phoenix at his most unhinged. The emotional dynamics also resemble the tortured relationship between pimp and imprisoned prostitute in Kim ki-duk's Bad Guy, only told almost entirely from the prostitute's point of view--Phoenix does not make deadly with a paper dart, alas, but does share Han-ki's relentless, often contradictory obsession with his captive.

Bruno introduces himself gently into the picture, as a courtly well-dressed gentleman willing to take troublesome Ewa off state hands. He takes time in revealing his darker side; when he does it's an explosive outburst that frightens not because it's so violent or sudden, but because it's so indignant: he believes--or has long since talked himself into believing--that he's doing Ewa a huge favor setting her up, that she's being incredibly stupid or irrational or perverse turning him down. 

What sets Bruno apart from most if not all pimps is that he's enthusiastically backed up by his charges. The other girls are all over him, kissing and hugging, cornering him in all kind of sensual clinches. They're so convincing in their ardor and he comes through for them, especially Ewa, so often--sometimes at cost to himself--that you begin to wonder: maybe he's not such a bad guy after all, maybe it's Ewa who's the problem.

Cotillard is a marvel, and perhaps a measure of her achievement is that you can't quite put a finger on why she's such a marvel. Her Ewa is no pistol-packing take-charge heroine; most of the time she's just awkwardly stumbling into one form of trouble after another, helplessly clutching an iron pick plucked out of a coal bin to defend herself (rather feebly) against potential attackers. 

But--when you think about it--what can Ewa do? She's a woman in 1920's New York, a foreigner at that. If she speaks her mind, she's mannish and arrogant; if she resists she's unreasonable and stubborn; if she surrenders she's a whore. She's defiant after a fashion, but it's a furtive kind of defiance, defined by her strictly straitened circumstances: she has to steal her moments when no one's looking, keep them hidden like treasured jewels, like a secret identity. 

Ewa keeps saying it's all for her sister, and I believe her, or at least believe she is totally invested in  what she says, but at a certain point you wonder if maybe she uses that declaration as a rallying cry, a goal in life, an impossible dream she can look at above the muck she's in, neck-deep. Certainly it's for her sister, but I'd say it's also very much for herself; if she fails to rescue Magda, if her sibling dies before being rescued, she would probably have killed herself in despair.

Sometimes Ewa gives in, perhaps more often than she wants; but--crucial difference--she never gives up. Behind her eyes you sense an unbelievably tough kernel of intelligence watching, waiting for a chance. 

Ewa never gets that chance, at least not the way she would in a conventional drama (or conventional melodrama). Instead (and here I go into the film's climax in considerable detail) Bruno arranges for her to escape, but beforehand declares the true nature of their relationship once and for all. He tells her of how he first saw her, plotted her capture, sabotaged her chances of meeting her family; of how he treated her, abused her, used her worse than any of his women; he tells her her true role in their shared narrative--as a victim of sexual, emotional and spiritual rape for years on end, his plaything and slave, his unforgettable, unforgivable sin. She's his damnation--because of what he's done to her he's reduced to being less than a man; he's nothing.

And then her response. Not the blows she rains on him, a weak pummeling that wouldn't harm a kitten, but her absolute denial of his claim. "You are not nothing!" she declares, and in that simple little statement is a wealth of implication: I am not your victim--or I have been for years, but refuse to be only your victim. I refuse to play a role in your drama any more. I refuse to remain marked by your revelations, no matter how painful. 

I refuse to be your sin--to be the one who weighs you down, drags you to hell. I refuse to play the woman who hates you endlessly. I care for you, in as much as a person can care for someone who has both helped and hurt her so much. 

And I move on. I am free, and intend to live the rest of my life as I see fit.

Would like to take a moment to point out how closely (and rather recklessly of Gray, who I have to assume is a churchgoing member) Ewa's stance seems to hew to the Catholic position on such matters; to 'turn the other cheek' when one is wronged and 'love one another,' and so forth. Call Catholicism a passion or delusion but occasionally it's the evoking of older faiths--of centuries-old words or terms or ideas--that inspires the most potent emotional moments. Either it works for you or doesn't, you're free to respond according to your will (you must be; that's a crucial Catholic requirement for salvation, a defining characteristic of the human soul).

In this Gray joins the small group of fellow American filmmakers who focus on their Catholicism onscreen, or at least on the Catholic concepts of sin and guilt and redemption--Martin Scorsese, Abel Ferrara and, yes, Francis Coppola--with maybe a crucial difference: where Travis Bickle, The Lieutenant (or Thana, if you like), and Michael Corleone would probably seek retribution if they were in a similar position, Gray's Ewa opts for a more radical reply: not to kill Bruno or punish him but transcend him. She's a victim, but refuses to let that define her life.

In an extraordinary shot Gray slices the screen in two with a mirror and follows Bruno and Ewa as they flee to their respective fates. The moment isn't celebratory--if anything it has a pointedly mournful tone--but it does feel like a stopping point of some kind. Whatever future they have in store for them Gray isn't saying--we can choose one of several alternatives, or choose not to assign one at all; again, we are free to respond accordingly. 

Strained 

Guillermo del Toro's novel has been adapted for television with the filmmaker himself directing the premiere episode; the results sad to say are, well, not effortlessly achieved or easy to like. 

The contemporary setting directs our attention to the rather wooden characters; the dialogue lacks the kind of wit that enlivened the banter of a Blade or Hellboy (maybe they need to introduce a super-powered character or two, drily commenting on the action). The ostensible protagonist, a CDC officer, has marriage issues and is a control freak. We're basically setting up the story here, and so far the human side of the story is less than engaging. 

That said, it's handsome to look at, even on the small screen. Del Toro lights his huge sets in deep reds and greens, the better to set the tone, and during one of several exceptions--where everything is bathed in a dim steel blue--the impression is so striking it makes you want to shiver from sheer cold. 

That exception is actually a direct steal from the granddaddy of all vampire novels, Bram Stoker's Dracula, only instead of a dead ship we have a dead plane. The device still works, and del Toro still manages to direct an appropriately creepy little sequence, set inside the darkened jetliner. The episode is a study of contrasts, of juxtapositions between the medieval and the 21st century: ancient carved coffin sitting in an industrial warehouse; menacing sycophants in a plush corporate setting; an ancient evil loose in an ultramodern city. Del Toro is retelling the story, this time without the swooning sensuality and twinkling sentimentality; he's telling the story straight, using (to these inexpert ears) authentic epidemiological terminology, the latest CDC can offer. 

Two other sequences stand out: there's something unsettling about video footage depicting something inexplicable--in this case what looks like several hundred pounds of crated dirt suddenly vanishing into thin air. 

And then the morgue sequence: palm, burrowing worm, scalpel. Need I say more? 

I'm giving this one a chance. Hopefully they beef up the characters a little; unlike on the big screen, plot and dialogue matter more in a TV series. Del Toro directs with impressive panache--more than impressive, considering he's working on a TV budget--but he needs some solid writing in his episodes to firm them up for the long haul.

Frances Ha (Noah Baumbach, 2012)

No permanent address

Amazing how the plot of many a film revolves around New York apartments--C.C. Baxter lent his out to top executives looking for a private venue to conduct their extramarital affairs; L.B. Jeffries was trapped for weeks inside his by a broken leg; Rosemary Woodhouse bought a huge one in the famous Bramford for an unreasonably small sum (turns out the residence's true cost was far too dear).

Can't remember a recent film that made as much fuss over rented New York real estate as Noah Baumbach's latest feature: Frances (Greta Gerwig) and Sophie (Mickey Sumner) are best friends living together in a Prospect Heights apartment in Brooklyn; Sophie moves in with her boyfriend, leaving Frances high and dry and struggling to find new digs. 

That's the premise, really. Baumbach labels each succeeding chapter of the film not with dates or suggestive titles but with addresses, signposts of Frances' odyssey through the city in search of a safe haven or at least reasonably stable nest; it's not her biggest preoccupation throughout but certainly an important one, money being the other most constant/pressing/difficult. 

And the mood's infectious, the sort of desperation anyone who's dealt with the issue can understand. Helped a friend once with her apartment hunting in the city--she ended up dorming, which meant I had to look for my own place to stay, temporarily. At one point had to spend the night in my little junker of a car, parked along one of the curved streets unique to Stuyvesant Town; came back to the spot the next day to find my car had been towed. Instant homelessness! Only in New York.

That much of Frances' story I can immediately relate to; that, and the notion of a friendship that endures all kinds of life events--though not without cost, and not without undergoing its own series of changes. A lasting relationship? A kinder, gentler conclusion? Something new for Baumbach's films and presumably Gerwig's influence, though in an interview Ms. Gerwig reveals that she would have subjected her character to harsher treatment; it was Baumbach who wanted to dial back whatever comeuppance she was fated to experience (p'raps what Ms. Gerwig meant was that she enjoyed an indirect (though not necessarily unprofound) influence--that Baumbach couldn't bring himself to inflict so much cruelty on a character she played). 

Beyond Gerwig's and Sumner's performances as close friends ("we're the same person with different hair," Frances declares and watching them together it isn't hard to believe that--even their occasional irritation with each other comes off as self-hatred, like twins quarreling), beyond the two narrative threads (the breakdown of friendship and the struggle for living space), there isn't much more to recommend. Baumbach shoots in black and white, presumably in homage to Woody Allen's Manhattan (Allen isn't that much more talented visually, but did have Gordon Willis in charge of the camera). He throws in a reference to Leos Carax's Mauvis Sang, with Frances attempting an athletic dance-run a la Dennis Levant (Carax invests irrepressible energy in his images with Levant doing an eyepopping body flip along the way, while the most memorable gesture Gerwig manages is an awkward facedive). He inserts the lovely chime music from Francois Truffaut's The 400 Blows--a disastrous idea, as you find yourself noting how much more moving and enchanting the latter is compared to the former. His Frances bears more than a passing resemblance to Delphine in Eric Rohmer's The Green Ray--the same self-centeredness, the same somewhat grating cluelessness--only you miss Rohmer's subtle sense of humor, in some ways more ruthless than Baumbach's. At one point Baumbauch sends his protagonist to Paris of all places, and while the idea of Frances making a less-than-ideal visit to the City of Lights (like Delphine and her equally disastrous vacation) is effectively mined for comedy, the city itself comes off as less than divine, a sort of injection of beauty by default (the city is gorgeous of course, but despite and not because of the black-and-white photography).

Liked this just fine, really I did; just wish Baumbach refrained from referencing other films so much--it's distracting, and keeps reminding me of films I really want to watch. 

First published in Businessworld, 6.26.14

Margaret (Kenneth Lonergan) - Extended Version

The naked city

There's a long and involved story behind the making of Kenneth Lonergan's Margaret (2011)--about how Lonergan, having directed his first independent feature back in 2000, started his second some five years later from a huge, unwieldy script (Josh Hamilton: "I remember doing a reading of that screenplay in his living room years ago--it must have been 500 pages long. I mean it was all day"); how Lonergan ended up with a three-hour film but was contractually obligated to produce a two-and-a-half hour cut; how he struggled for six years to reduce the running time; how after three versions of the film were assembled (including one edited by Martin Scorsese) the studio finally screened Lonergan's 150-minute cut in two theaters, to mostly mixed-to-hostile reviews; how an admiring critic organized an online petition to see the three-hour version; how a year later both versions have been made available on DVD/Blu-ray.

A mangled account, I'm sure; I did hear that the longer cut managed to inspire at least two critics to change their minds and call it a masterpiece.

So that's what I decided to watch for now. 

It's opera; you can tell that it's been written, shot and scored like opera, has the breadth, depth, scale of opera.  

It has a story: Lisa Cohen (Anna Paquin) is a beautiful, comfortably rich young woman living in Manhattan. A discussion with Mr. Aaron her math teacher (Matt Damon) tells us she's manipulative (he accuses her of cheating, she talks him out of doing anything about it); a determined search for a cowboy hat (she's headed for the West Coast to join her dad (played by director Lonergan) in a week-long ranch holiday) tells us she's still a goofy if self-centered adolescent.

And then--while chasing down a bus whose driver (Mark Ruffalo) happens to be wearing her long-sought hat--tragedy strikes. Blood, lots of it; whole quarts sprayed about. Monica Patterson (Alison Janney, in a brief but memorable performance) dies in Lisa's arms; Lisa sits on a sidewalk, her pants drenched red, weeping.

It's an arresting opening--a lively if flawed main character struggling for the next hundred and eighty minutes to deal with her trauma--but isn't all that happens onscreen. What distinguishes Lonergan's sophomore effort from nearly everything else is the sense that his hold on Lisa's story is at best tenuous, that in a city with eight million stories (strange how that figure hasn't deviated much from what was quoted in Jules Dassin's 1948 classic noir film, or the TV series it inspired) a good number threaten to intrude into Lisa's own. 

You see it from the opening--the view up and down Manhattan's avenues, the pedestrians teeming at the foot of skyscrapers in ominous slow motion. At one point Lonergan's lenses lingers over a plane crossing the sky and you thrill at the sight--it's like someone posted captured footage of an angel in flight. Pretentious? I suppose; Lonergan throws up shot after obsessive shot and you find yourself peering closer, wondering: every taxi cab, every street sign, every face lightly blurred by motion adds detail to a vast animated mural of a city caught in the intricate act of living--and, in the midst of that living, the occasional dying. 

Critics mention the cafe scene--the camera looking down at Lisa and her friend Darren (John Gallagher Jr.) as she tries to explain to him that she likes him (but not that way), only instead of listening to her we hear a nearby couple talk about an ugly dog ("good, nobody'll steal him" "who's gonna steal him?"). I actually prefer a later shot, the camera gliding sideways across a row of apartments as we overhear a phone conversation about a missing person, overhear a couple arguing through the bathroom wall ("why don't you come in here and tell me everything I did wrong, and I can give you a preview of everything I'm going to do wrong?") before arriving at Lisa's. The shot recalls Jacques Tati's Playtime, where we peer into the side of a building the way a child peers into a dollhouse, the inhabitant's lives laid out before us--Lonergan doesn't have Tati's rigorous geometric wit, but the idea's similar. 

Again and again stories intrude--before Lisa can arrive at a police station to submit an accident report we hear an officer describing a married man's second wife and family, hidden away in Staten Island; Lisa's mother Joan (the amazing J. Smith-Cameron, Lonergan's wife) stars in a play and we hear brief snatches, sense a fully formed story being told (even if Lonergan has yet to actually write it out the play feels fully formed); later we learn that the late Monica had relatives with whom she never talked, and the story behind that sounds like another interesting subplot. Lonergan like Robert Altman before him and Jean Renoir before him seems to have mastered the (Catholic?) knack of giving us a world swarming with people, each worthy of our notice, the film frame at best an arbitrary boundary imposed to keep our attention limited to a reasonable span.

For a film with such wayward focus the (ostensibly) main characters feel alive, perhaps because (like Lonergan's multiple storylines) their defining boundaries aren't fully established, their personalities less than complete--they're still developing onscreen, and our responses change accordingly. 

Take Lisa's friend Paul (Kieran Culkin): we first see him bartering cocaine for the privilege of making out with her; later she asks him to take her virginity and he agrees (the cad). Postcoitus, Lisa is upset--he'd come inside her before he could slip on a condom; Paul calms her by (arrogantly) assuring her he's the wrong demographic to have AIDs, and (more sensibly) pointing out that this being her first time, "it might as well be a basically happy memory instead of a shitty one." Paul's an asshole but oh so casual about it--even capable of a thoughtful remark--that you can't help but be charmed, even when bristling defensively.

Lisa's mother Joan is an even more complicated creation, a victim of Lisa's changing sensibilities; she can sense the gulf opened up between them but feels helpless in the face of Lisa's stone silence. She reaches out to Ramon (Jean Reno, charmingly slow-witted) and they become lovers--that's the easy part--but never intimate. His mind is an alien landscape to her, inexplicably European (or so she suspects), unalterably rooted in old-world machismo, despite (or perhaps because of) his love of European and in particular opera culture. 

Early in the film Joan gives us the startling impersonation of a baby crying; later her face crumples when Lisa rejects her clumsy attempts at communication, and you wonder: who's the adult, who the child? For all her sophistication Joan seems to grow more helpless, Lisa more independent (the accident, the blood on her jeans have granted her new authority); at one point Joan insists that, having a new man and new play to worry about, she's got needs too (not "I demand obedience!" but "I demand consideration!"). Of course Lisa hides a gigantic trauma Joan can only guess at, but where the daughter used to come to her for every major crisis, this sudden remoteness must frighten Joan, who can only see the silly adolescent she raised.   

Lisa is instead drawn to Monica's best friend and executor Emily (Jeannie Berlin), who has gravitas and warmth, who insists on clarity and straight talk (she berates people for being either incoherent ("Who are you talking to? You know we don't know what that means!"), or deluded ("this is not an opera!")). But Emily has a life beyond the confines of the narrative, and when she finds herself being fitted into Lisa's she lashes out: "this is my life we're talking about...I don't want to be sucked into some kind of adolescent self-dramatization!" A startling demand, considering she is a fictional character in a drama where Lisa is protagonist. Or rather, a character in a drama that nominally presents Lisa as protagonist, but is perfectly willing to listen to Emily protest her part.  



Lisa  is a fascinating bundle of adolescent clunk and sly manipulation. When she visits Mr. Aaron's apartment to speak with (translate: seduce) him she asks right off if she could smoke, and I asked myself: why would she do that? Lighting up before a man you're trying to bed isn't smart--he probably hates the smell of smoke, for starters. Yet she holds the cig like a pocketsized phallus and powers through; the misstep starts looking like a gesture of confidence, a sign that whatever she wants to do he'll go along...

As for the accident--call what happened trauma, and Lisa's response to it the psychological (or spiritual) equivalent of a bruise. Damage is done: guilt, pain, fear, anger leak from surrounding tissues with nowhere to go, resulting in swelling, discoloration, pain; the only real remedy is time. She tries to deal with symptoms best she can, talking to her mother, talking to the police, talking to Mr. Aaron, basically discussing the gory details without once discharging the psychic pain. There's only one person she really wants to speak to, and that person--Maretti, the bus driver (Ruffalo)--shuts her down. 

And that sets Lisa off. The man is refusing to do what she--with considerable difficulty--has done, hold herself accountable in the eyes of others and the law (despite which she was deemed essentially innocent). It's this righteous anger, this need to address a grievous injustice (he won't even acknowledge any wrongdoing!) that fuels her campaign to sue the bus company; justice or at least her idea of it must be served (unspoken: and her innocence validated).  

Lisa goes far; almost all the way. Then on speakerphone (funny how Lonergan's crucial conversations--between Lisa and Monica's relatives, between Lisa and her father--often take place over telecommunication lines where facial expressions cannot be read, where people struggle to catch nuances or make a best guess, often through static), Lisa talks to lawyer and relatives about a possible cash windfall and realizes just how much in control she really is (big money of course developing its own momentum, its own set of consequences). 

The whole painful process feels like a long and roundabout path toward Lisa's second pivotal confrontation, this time with the hapless Mr. Aaron. Lisa strides towards him and his co-worker Bonnie (unspoken: they're dating) and lets him have it: she was pregnant, and just had an abortion (unspoken: it's his child). 

And Mr. Aaron shuts Lisa down. No, not quite true--he looks her in the eye and dares her (without saying a direct word) to make an accusation. He's standing on his principles of course; the first time in the film he does. You can't help but think he represents the establishment, and hate him for it; Lisa on the other hand proves more human--more humane if you like--for not being as self-destructive as she's always threatened to be. She finally earns our pity and our love. 

Stepping back you can view the film several ways: Lisa, unmoored by the accident and seeking control of the world and people around her, is stopped cold twice: by a man outside of her control, by another who's grown beyond her control. Or Lisa, unmoored by the accident, drifts away from mother Joan, attempts to attach herself to surrogate mother Emily (until Emily brings that to a screeching halt), comes back to her mother's waiting arms. Or Lisa, unmoored by the accident, seeks to punish herself for her sin--first through the law (she's exonerated), then through her body (her hymen, her uterus), then through another's suffering (the bus company sued, Maretti dismissed); only when Mr Aaron humiliates her does she finally allow herself to feel release. 

This is at most an intermediate attempt to sketch what Margaret (the title is from a Gerard Manley Hopkins poem, about youth facing oncoming grief) is all about. I could go on and on but have to stop somewhere (thankfully Lonergan didn't, or didn't know how). In my book the best American film of the past five years--if there's better, I can't think of the title at the moment. 

First published in Businessworld, 4.10.14

Manila in the Claws of Neon (Lino Brocka, 1975)

With the film's digital restoration and premiere at the Cannes Festival, and subsequent Feb. 9 Saturday at 8 pm screening in New York City's MoMA, a reprint of my thoughts (pre-restoration) on the film:

Maynila at the edge of greatness

(Warning: plot discussed in close detail)

Lino Brocka is the best Filipino filmmaker ever; his masterpiece, Maynila sa mga Kuko ng Liwanag (Manila in the Claws of Neon, 1975) the greatest Filipino film ever made.

That was the consensus arrived at some time after Maynila first came out, and the idea has persisted ever since. Has, in fact, been given greater legitimacy with a top spot in the Urian's list of the ten best Filipino films in the past thrty years, and by inclusion in the book Film: the Critic's Choices--a list of what some critics consider the 150 greatest films ever made.

That's what they say. What about us-- you, me, the mere mortals? What do we think?

Maynila sa mga kuko ng liwanag (Manila in the Claws of Neon, Lino Brocka, 1975)

To be released by the Criterion Collection on June 12, 2018, Lino Brocka's best-known film. 

Some thoughts (pre-restoration) on the film:

Maynila at the edge of greatness

(Warning: plot discussed in close detail)

Lino Brocka is the best Filipino filmmaker ever; his masterpiece, Maynila sa mga Kuko ng Liwanag (Manila in the Claws of Neon, 1975) the greatest Filipino film ever made.

That was the consensus arrived at sometime after Maynila first came out, and the idea has persisted ever since. Has, in fact, been given greater legitimacy with a top spot in the Urian's list of the ten best Filipino films in the past thrty years, and by inclusion in the book Film: the Critic's Choices--a list of what some critics consider the 150 greatest films ever made.

That's what they say. What about us--you, me, the mere mortals? What do we think?

Norte, the End of History (Lav Diaz, 2013) screened at the New York Film Festival!

Belated news: Lav Diaz's Norte was screened at the New York Film Festival last September 29. 

Would have been nice to know about it beforehand--but nice to know it was screened there, nevertheless.

My Film Comment article on in my book the best film of the year

Excerpt:

In Norte: Hangganan ng Kasaysayan (Norte: the End of History) Fabian (Sid Lucero) is our brilliant yet alienated Raskolnikov; Magda (wonderful Mae Paner) the massively avaricious pawnbroker Mrs. Ivanovna. Archie Alemania plays Joaquin, and we're not sure who is his equivalent in the novel, only that he's another of Magda's client, as desperate if not more so than Fabian (he and his wife were about to open a small diner when an accident cripples him and sucks up his startup capital).

The first half feels like a direct transposition to a Philippine setting: Fabian is a topnotch law student who has dropped out for vague reasons, which hasn't stopped him from eloquently, endlessly debating with friends and former law professors. Like Raskolnikov Fabian believes in a sentiment-hating, results-oriented, vaguely Nietzschean philosophy; like Raskolnikov Fabian longs to put his philosophy into practice in the most radical way possible: by killing an utterly irredeemable (in his mind anyway) human being, the fat and heartless Magda, and stealing her money. The deed done the film takes a quietly radical turn: instead of a relentless manhunt, a false accusation; instead of Raskolnikov's desperate evasion of the authorities Fabian embarks on an existential and at one point self-destructive quest.

Why the departure? One can't be sure--I suspect even Diaz is uncertain--but one can hazard a few guesses.

9.6.13