The 2018 Oscar The Grouches

Every year I post on here and hope someone reads it. Usually they do, not many but some do and it makes me smile. This year hasn't been a big one for smiling. In the past I've lamented how time constraints and changing life situations have affected my cinematic input and output, how I've watched far less and written about fuck all and sadly the trend has continued. In August 2017 I went to Japan, the realisation of a long-held, unbelievable dream, and had the added test of sharing 2 weeks of my socially awkward, self-reliant life with a group of people, most of whom I'd never met or even spoken too. This is a dreadfully trite phrase that I abhor using but it was truly the most joyous time of my life. This past June I tried another test, travelling to Japan alone, not speaking the language, not really knowing how I was going to cope and it was wonderful and I did cope and flourished. Other times of the year I didn't. I had the worst period of mental ill health that I've had in a long while, I came close to losing my job and I feel reduced, a redundant format of myself from when things were bad. But I'm trying. In films watched I beat last year, barely but I did and that's something. Last year I joked about promises for the new year, about how I was going to be better. In 2019 all I can say is that I'm trying. Here's my list


1. Phantom Thread (Paul Thomas Anderson - USA)
2. Moon Maids (Tchidi Chikere - Nigeria)
3. Mulk (Anubhav Sinha - India/Hindi)
4. The Third Murder (Hirokazu Kore-eda - Japan)
5. Imaikkaa Nodigal (R. Jay Gnanamuthu - India/Tamil)
6. Bitch (Marianna Palka - USA)
7. Badhaai Ho (Amit Ravindernat - India/Hindi)
8. 2.0 (S. Shankar - India/Tamil)
9. Slava (Kristina Grozeva/Petar Valchanov - Bulgaria)
10. Happy End (Michael Haneke - France/Austria)
11. Kolamavu Kokila (Nelson Dilipkumar - India/Tamil)
12. 6.9 pe scara Richter Scale (Nae Caranfil - Romania)

I want you to piss in pain so I can console you

Happy End
Michael Haneke 2017 France/Austria
Starring: Fantine Harduin, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Isabelle Huppert, Mathieu Kassovitz, Franz Rogowski, Laura Verlinden, Toby Jones


That Michael Haneke's latest film is forensic and wildly pessimistic may not be a surprise. That said film is also a shockingly modernist comedy with the frankly optimistic title of Happy End and opens with the eyes of the main character replaced by the proxy of a camera phone spying on a woman going through her nightly routine of ablutions, the accompanying dialogue appearing on screen in the form of a series of texts, will almost certainly be unexpected. Likewise that the 12 year old behind the camera, Fantine Harduin's Eve, then films her hamster eating feed laced with her mother's antidepressants "to see what happens" sounds like it could have come straight from Benny's Video. The commentary, again by text to a never revealed recipient (perhaps live updates on a blog or YouTube channel of some sort), talks about how unhappy "she" is and for a moment it's unclear if "she" is the hamster out of its mind on Sertraline or Eve's mother, only shown through an emoji spattered screen. The hint that the former may have been a dry-run for the incident that launches the film's story frankly feels further towards gallows humour than Haneke or many directors would be comfortable with. Also despite the genuinely legendary cast Haneke has assembled for what is defiantly an actor's drama regardless of its lack of chat, it's far less even-handed than his past work. Here Eve is the main character, somewhere between too smart for her own good and genuinely psychopathic, and Harduin gives the towering central performance with the established superstars Huppert and Trintignant as admittedly brilliant support fleshing out the story as Eve is removed from her normal life and transplanted into the middle-class household of her parently baffled father Thomas (Kassovitz), a philandering doctor somehow successful in every walk of life despite being about as smooth as Swarfega; her cold, organized aunt Anne (Huppert), head of the family company and dealing with a workplace accident that has caused the death of a working-class employee with steely style; her volatile, desolate, rapidly destructing adult cousin Pierre (Rogowski); and her suicidal grandfather Georges (Trintignant in his 87th year and coming out of retirement for Haneke again), a dyed in the wool patriarch suffering the early stages of dementia and apparently declared too healthy for Zurich. Also on board is an underused Toby Jones as Lawrence, Anne's English lawyer and sometime boyfriend. They all communicate for the most part electronically; Eve with her unidentified, perhaps wished for online friends; Thomas exchanging sexual depravities with his mistress; Anne and Lawrence linked only by cross-Europe phone calls. The only pair who really talk are Eve and Georges, at first with him inquiring how old she is - an indicator of the fact that he hasn't seen her since she was 3 as much as his depleting faculties - then welcoming her to "the club" before moving into late, brutally stark conversations about death and their past misdeeds (although no judgments are offered so misdeeds may be the wrong word). They seem to have an understanding as Georges tells her how seeing a bird torn apart by a predator in the garden, its feathers flying like it was snowing, caused his hands to shake while he found a similar scene poetic on a TV documentary. A skewering of the modern world isn't difficult to read although when, mid-film, the family have a day at the beach, the lingering gazes on gorgeous bodies and fleeting glimpses of Calippos bring to mind the Greek New Wave's lust and lack of understand more than the normally muted shades of grey synonymous with Haneke's theatre of cruelty. Harduin is utterly believable and worryingly intense throughout, particularly in the scene where she suddenly, momentarily breaks down in front of her father but remains more in control of the situation than him, another where faced with her ailing mother she can only glance back bored by it all and the best moments of the film late on with Trintignant. She found early fame with a mentalism act on Belgium's Got Talent and she often appears almost hypnotised, emotion gradually pushing its way out of her frame through single tears and harsh words cracking her resolve. Everyone is excellent but the only scene that truly matches her is Rogowski, drunk out of his mind and in the midst of a simultaneously ferocious and crumpled karaoke session. A nice counterpoint is provided when a violinist performs at a family party, violently gesticulating as she goes, her movements far less frightful and hideous because they're socially acceptable (at least in the world of the characters). Another typical nuance occurs in the traces of racism when Trintignant attempts escape for the umpteenth time, wheeling himself down the pavement and flagging down a group of young black men to ask directions only for a middle-aged white man to cautiously intervene because he has misread the situation spectacularly and can't imagine it can be happening any other way. A reference to a dead sibling being floated as the start of Eve's disconnection however feels tacked on, melodramatic and in the end never important enough to be elaborated on. The silent passing of time is treated more delicately, portrayed as ultimately unimportant as everything else in perhaps the most despondent film Haneke has made since his debut.

The 2017 Oscar The Grouches

This year has been stranger than the last. In many ways it's been the best I've perhaps ever had and I've done things I never would have thought possible, I went to Japan which has been a dream since I was a pre-teen who couldn't connect with people, made so many friends around the world, removed some poisonous people from my life. I have a job where I actually have to deal with people head-on the whole time rather than simply working behind the scenes to a soundtrack wider than my head and not interacting with anyone for hours at a time. Unfortunately said job is also the source of a few bad things, it saps my energy, takes up a lot of my time, it can be very stressful and in September I had my first major depressive episode in about 5 years. I'm not watching anything like the number of films I used to. A few years back I did the 365 challenge, namely to try and watch one film for every day of the year and I managed it without much problem. This year I watched 89, very possibly the most paltry number since I was a teenager, and missed so many I was excited about, my multiple-times-a-week cinema visits going down to a couple a month if I'm lucky. Regardless, here are my favourite films of this year, the list may not be as far-reaching or full as it has been or as I'd like but here goes. I hope I'll improve in 2018, but for now I deserve all of Shahib Hosseini's stern looks.

1. The Salesman (Asghar Farhadi - Iran)
2. Cemetery of Splendour (Apichatpong Weerasethakul - Thailand)
3. Through The Wall (Rama Burshtein - Israel)
4. Toni Erdmann (Maren Ade - Germany/Austria)
5. Dear Zindagi (Gauri Shinde - India/Hindi)
6. Get Out (Jordan Peele - USA)
7. Chi-Raq (Spike Lee - USA)
8. The Sky Trembles and the Earth Is Afraid and the Two Eyes Are Not Brothers (UK/Morocco - Ben Rivers)
9. Arunoday (Partho Sen-Gupta - India/Marathi)
10. Raees (Rahul Dholakia - India/Hindi)
11. Old Stone (Johnny Ma - China/Canada)

The 2016 Oscar The Grouches

This year has been a strange one in so many ways. At the end of 2015 I felt disenchanted and fairly disappointed in myself in a number of ways and did something I never have before, namely making three loose aims to reach for in 2016. In a surprise to everyone (especially me) two of the three have actually happened. I've made them happen. Unfortunately as good as things have been in those respects my spare time and energy has taken a big hit and as a result so has the number of films I've seen and written about. There are so many I've wanted to see and not gotten around to and a few more that have simply fallen by the wayside. 250 has become 126, 100 odd has become 1 and the top 20's of past years have become a top 11. Last year I said that I wanted to be better and I humbly think I am but in 2017 I still want to improve, to be far better than I am now, more able, more capable, more efficient in dividing my time and handling my load (no sniggers please). I want to watch more, write more and enjoy both but I don't know if I will. I don't know that I'll get the chance. Regardless these are my favourite films of the year, give them a shot, enjoy them, make of them what you will. Until we meet again.

1. The Wait (Piero Messina - Italy/France)
2. Ae Dil Hai Mushkil (Karan Johar - India)
3. Yakuza Apocalypse (Takashi Miike - Japan)
4. A Girl At My Door (July Jung - South Korea)
5. The Forbidden Room (Guy Maddin & Evan Johnson - Canada)
6. Thou Wast Mild And Lovely (Josephine Decker - USA)
7. Room (Lenny Abrahamson - Canada/Ireland)
8. Anomalisa (Charlie Kaufman & Duke Johnson - USA)
9. Horse Money (Pedro Costa - Portugal)
10. Sarbjit (Omung Kumar - India)
11. Bridge (Amit Ranjan Biswas - India/Bengal)
    

Butchers don't smile.

Eyes Wide Open
Haim Tabakman 2009 Israel
Starring: Zohar Strauss, Ran Danker, Ravit Rozen, Tzahi Grad, Avi Grayinik, Eva Zrihen-Attali, Mati Atlas

A new year traditionally brings new resolutions, old hopes that one often so desperately wants to achieve and ritually attempts to force into practice. I'm no different but, after settling on what I consider the most important of my own aspirations, have struggled to shake off the lesser parts of my personality and have done very little of any note in the past 12 days. One positive thing that the dawn of 2016 did encourage me to do though was a bout of spring cleaning that, in true movie fashion, yielded the discovery of long-forgotten, ill-gotten gains - namely, a box of video tapes containing films recorded from the annals of TV history long before the days of Sky Plus and the comforts of a regular salary. Some are classics from a variety of genres, some most assuredly are not. Others, such as Mani Kaul's 1971 adaptation of Hindi pioneer playwright Mohan Rakesh's Ashad Ka Ek Din, I've since discovered are a real bugger to find even in the days of DVD, Blu-Ray, restoration and on-demand streaming services so I'm delighted to get the opportunity to experience them. Also among all these are a couple of films that even I in all my geekery don't remember much about. One of those films, Haim Tabakman's Eyes Wide Open, I could recall a mere visual of, that of two men (one apparently a Haredi or Hasidic Jew) chin deep in a pool of blue-as-a-road-sign water, the smiles on their faces belying the danger such a visual could conjure up. Watching the opening minutes the mystery only deepened with torrential rain beating down and, in a gorgeous moment, dripping from the wide brimmed hat of the main character as he attempts to break into a shuttered building, the raised hand and sickle on the sign matching his own as he uses a large rock to defeat the padlock and chain blocking his way. Is he a particularly ill-prepared burglar? Or perhaps the owner, either having locked himself out or suffered the pain of repossession? Behind him is a death notice and as he enters the sodden floor and upturned furniture seem to suggest that neither of the latter are likely. He soon sets to cleaning the mess revealing it as a butcher's shop but still doesn't look all that pleased with himself. An extended glance at a photo of an older man indicates that it may be a relative and that his efforts might come from a deep familial obligation although as he can't even raise the enthusiasm to greet his customers let alone engage them in conversation it's difficult to imagine who he could be obliging. He seems like he hasn't a loved one left...except he does. He has a pretty wife who stops singing when he returns home and four submissive children, a sudden cut (no pun intended) as he snaps a heavy book closed to his cleaver slicing through a side of meat hinting that coldness and even violence may not be a stranger to his household while the sight of so many children indicates that maybe he hasn't always been like this. The man's name is Aaron and he's devoutly religious and as strict with himself as he is with his family - despite his adopted profession he doesn't allow himself much meat or fish, rejects his wife's advances and his associates' modernist insight into religion and can't bring himself to trust a helpless stranger. So it's a shock when he shows a flicker of charity and even hope, stating that "there is no such thing as broken", and takes on (and takes in) homeless, young student Ezri, teaching him his trade despite the disapproval of the insular society he lives in. In just one of a series of nice moments of mirroring Aaron finally lets his guard down and the pair go swimming, Aaron immersing himself in the water he was earlier trying to avoid then taking his apprentice home and singing boisterously at the dinner table, the release liberating him at least temporarily. The film's pace, both patient and intense, allows their relationship to develop almost unnoticed until they kiss (although Aaron at first rebuffs Ezri's advances) hungrily. The sex  scenes that follow are skilfully shot, as if Tabakman and DOP Axel Schneppat were mindful of their bodies entwined coming off as controversy-seeking. Zohar Strauss (Aaron) is exceptional throughout, his opposite number (Ran Danker) lesser so, the former's masterful internal conflict far exceeding the latter's half-heartedness. Danker in fact risks portraying Ezri as little more than the doe-eyed, opportunistic charmer that many suspect him of being. A later storyline featuring a community campaign against Aaron feels tacked-on and features some amplified acting at odds with the intricate sensitivity of the rest of the film but if nothing else provides a fresh look at the disturbingly mafia-like structure inherent in some quarters of modern Orthodox Jerusalem, the homophobia inherent in many traditions, the threat of the "modesty police", the absolute power of the (understanding) rabbi. Nevertheless the film's sincerity and incisiveness covers its failings and the startling final scenes linger like the feelings and temptations Aaron's soul just can't veil.