Movies

Subterms

    More stories

    • 63 Shares109 Views

      in Movies

      Losing Control With Riz Ahmed

      by

      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeBest Netflix DocumentariesNew on Netflix“The thing that doesn’t exist in culture is someone like me,” said Riz Ahmed, a British actor-rapper. “But that’s how you stretch culture, by bringing yourself to it.”Credit…Ryan Lowry for The New York TimesSkip to contentSkip to site indexThe Great ReadThe ProjectionistLosing Control With Riz AhmedThe actor’s process is so intense, his “Sound of Metal” director refused to share dailies with him. But after all that overthinking, formidable instincts kicked in.“The thing that doesn’t exist in culture is someone like me,” said Riz Ahmed, a British actor-rapper. “But that’s how you stretch culture, by bringing yourself to it.”Credit…Ryan Lowry for The New York TimesSupported byContinue reading the main storyJan. 28, 2021, 10:00 a.m. ETTo call it the worst night of sleep Riz Ahmed ever had would imply that any sleep was had at all. It was the night before Ahmed began shooting “Sound of Metal” — an intense, critically acclaimed Amazon drama that has vaulted the 38-year-old into the best-actor Oscar race — and he could do little but stare at the ceiling as adrenaline coursed through his body, robbing it of rest.This wasn’t the first time Ahmed had dealt with preshoot paranoia: Before the British actor embarked on “The Night Of,” “Four Lions” and “Nightcrawler,” he found himself similarly sleepless, with an uneasy mind that could not be soothed. Still, every time he makes a new movie, Ahmed convinces himself that it’ll be different — maybe meditation will help, or even a glass of hot milk before bed.It’s never different. “Nothing’s going to put that animal to rest when it’s growling,” he said. “So I just don’t sleep.”Several restless nights into shooting “Sound of Metal,” Ahmed began to overthink things. Maybe it wasn’t the nerves that were keeping him awake, or the thrilling, terrifying challenge of embodying Ruben, a punk-metal drummer in recovery from heroin addiction who struggles with the onset of hearing loss.Maybe it was the mattress.The more Ahmed fixated on it, the more certain he became. He ran it by his director, Darius Marder, who seemed skeptical, but during a break from shooting Ahmed still peeled off to make a purchase. “I went and I bought a new mattress, man,” he said, laughing about it now.“We bought him two new mattresses,” Marder would tell me later.Did things get any better? Sort of yes, sort of no. The new mattresses hardly helped, but all that sleeplessness actually paid off. “When you’re too tired to think,” Ahmed explained, “you just have to let other things take over.”And that feeling of being so overwhelmed by a project that you’ve got to give in and allow yourself to be guided by pure instinct — well, as much as Ahmed may overthink the path that gets him there, he also knows that state is the exact thing he’s so often seeking.“It’s when you release control that the interesting things happen,” he said. “That’s when your subconscious will start speaking in tongues, when you can’t articulate the words yourself, when your body has an intelligence and wisdom that you hand the reins over to. Creativity is more physical than we realize.”Ahmed in a scene from the movie. He plays a punk-metal drummer facing both addiction issues and hearing loss.Credit…Amazon StudiosThis is the way Ahmed talks, in torrents of passionate philosophy. He offers a raft of ideas for every question he’s asked, then undergirds those answers by quoting from Tolstoy, Rumi and Pixar. When Ahmed’s big brown eyes widen and he really gets going, as he did early this month while we spoke via video, he can sound like a terrifically engaging podcast played at 1.5-x speed.“He’s a bit of a savant, like a supercomputer,” Marder said of his Oxford-educated star. When he met with Ahmed for “Sound of Metal,” Marder regarded that fearsome intellect as both an asset to the film and a challenge to be overcome.“I felt if he were to build such a solid foundation for this character that he could let go of that incredibly adept frontal lobe of his and just trust in his instincts,” Marder said, “then there was a performance in him that could be really transcendent.”After a series of supporting roles in “Venom,” “The Sisters Brothers” and other movies, Ahmed was eager for an all-consuming challenge, and he recognized a kindred spirit in Marder, who had spent 13 years searching for stars who could match his full-throttle commitment to the movie.“I basically was trying to scare actors and see if they were up for it,” Marder said. “I told one actress she had to shave her head, because I knew it was the thing she wouldn’t do.” (Though the female lead in “Sound of Metal” is played by Olivia Cooke, actors like Matthias Schoenaerts and Dakota Johnson were previously attached to the project.)Marder would dare actors to drop out, and most of them obliged. But Ahmed wanted a director who could push him out of his comfort zone. “I think we both like the intoxication of feeling overwhelmed by a creative obsession,” Ahmed said. “We like not being able to feel the bottom of the swimming pool.”Before filming, the director said, “Riz’s process was very intense. It was not a chill time.”Credit…Ryan Lowry for The New York TimesSo the London-based Ahmed uprooted himself to New York in 2018 to spend eight months preparing for “Sound of Metal.” Each day, he would spend two hours learning American Sign Language, two hours on drum practice, two hours sculpting his body with a personal trainer, and the rest of the day with his acting coach.“You prepare like an obsessive psychopath,” Ahmed said, “and then you turn up like someone who doesn’t know how to tie their shoelaces and you see what happens.”Still, his eagerness often ran up against his tendency to overthink things. “I have to tell you, the time leading up to this shoot was so thick with fear,” Marder said. “Riz’s process was very intense. It was not a chill time.”Marder would often refuse Ahmed’s requests for further script analysis, and the day before the shoot, as Ahmed began steeling himself for a sleepless night, Marder came to visit and said he wouldn’t allow the actor to watch dailies of his performance.“He absolutely lost it,” Marder said. “He said, ‘This is part of my process, I have to look at dailies, I have to analyze.’ I said, ‘Well, you’re not going to.’”The standoff was broken only when Marder said, “Riz, I’m not going to be your enabler.’” After having spent months immersed in the language of recovery, that idea made Ahmed laugh. They parted with a hug, and a tired but game Ahmed showed up on set the next day, ready to trust his instincts and give himself over to the character.The result is a career-best performance, intimate, persuasive and heartbreaking. And for all of Ahmed’s well-practiced physical verisimilitude — you’ll believe every drum solo and signed exclamation — it’s a performance he ultimately sells with those striking, vulnerable eyes. As an actor, he doesn’t need much more.“To Riz’s credit, he trusted me,” Marder said. “It was impulse. It was non-analytical. It was scary. But it was alive.”I asked Marder if he had come to any conclusions about the essential tension at the heart of his leading man. What does it mean when a self-described control freak like Ahmed feels such a strong gravitational pull to projects that he hopes will overwhelm him?Marder laughed, because something was occurring to him for the first time. “Well, I think that might actually be the definition of an artist,” he said.He took on so much in 2016, he started to lose his center: “I was willing to diligently train for the validation of others.”Credit…Ryan Lowry for The New York TimesHERE IS A PARTIAL INVENTORY of Riz Ahmed’s projects from his breakthrough year of 2016:— Two television shows, “The Night Of” and “The OA”;— Four feature films, including the blockbusters “Star Wars: Rogue One” and “Jason Bourne”;— One essay contributed to the best-selling book “The Good Immigrant”;— And two major musical moments, a guest appearance on the “Hamilton” mixtape and the album “Cashmere,” released by Ahmed and the rapper Heems as part of their hip-hop duo Swet Shop Boys.It was a lot, for good and for ill. In December of that year, Ahmed took to Instagram for a celebratory look back that sounded more than a little exhausted. “Only a year ago, for various reasons, I wasn’t sure I could carry on doing this,” he wrote. “I had a realisation through some really tough moments that we have no control in this life. And it got me down, but then, seeing no other way forwards, I had to embrace this helplessness.”Over Zoom four years later, I read the caption to Ahmed, who blinked twice. “When did I write that?” he said. “I have no memory of that. Wow. Wow. I had a bit of a burnout.”Ahmed has always been eager to pile his plate high. “Like Ruben, I rely heavily on being obsessively busy,” he said. A successful career as an actor practically demands an itinerant lifestyle and that came naturally to Ahmed, who grew up in Wembley, London, with a father who worked for the Pakistani merchant navy: “He was away from home a lot, so maybe I’ve internalized this idea that what you’re meant to do as a working man is go out of the house and cover as much ground as possible in the world.”Or maybe, Ahmed mused, a child of immigrants will always feel an innate sense of wanderlust. “There’s a constant narrative of home being somewhere else, home’s the next place you’re going to get to,” he said. “But if home is always the next place, then you’re building a tent on quicksand. The work itself is the place you can live, maybe.”So live there he did, working steadily then heavily, and in the process becoming the first Muslim and the first South Asian man to win an acting Emmy for his transformative role as an accused murderer in “The Night Of.” But around that time, after having been pulled in so many different directions, Ahmed began to lose his center. Worse, the creative spirit that animates him had come to feel less like a wild creature and more like a circus animal.Darius Marder and Ahmed on set. The director said of his star: “He’s a bit of a savant, like a supercomputer.”Credit…Amazon Studios“It was something I was willing to diligently train for the validation of others,” Ahmed said, “whether that’s the ‘bravo’ of an audience or the ‘well done’ of a director or the retweets of music fans or thinking about what the people in my community need from me.” Taking on too much had left him alienated from the things he loved doing, and guilty for even feeling that way.“I think that’s a byproduct of a lot of things,” he said, “like feeling a bit of a burden of representation on your shoulders, and realizing that you might occupy space that many others don’t.”In his essay for “The Good Immigrant,” Ahmed wrote about the toll of being racially profiled in airports and auditions, and the implicit instructions he felt to leave a part of himself at the door if he wanted to be waved through. “It’s being told you are not enough,” he said. “You are not the right shape, size, color, you’re not what people expect, you don’t fit into any of these archetypes.’”But why shouldn’t he have the opportunity to give all of himself to something, instead of contorting to fit into ready-made boxes? “The thing that doesn’t exist in culture is someone like me,” Ahmed said, growing animated. “Characters like Dev Patel don’t exist, bro! Dev Patel’s a 6-foot-5 black-belt Indian dude from northwest London, and I don’t see that character on the screen.”That’s why Ahmed found the overwhelming specificity of his “Sound of Metal” role so attractive. He knows that a man like Ruben — a deaf, heroin-addicted American with bleach-blond hair and a buff body covered in tattoos — might seem worlds away from a garrulous actor-rapper who studied philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford.“You prepare like an obsessive psychopath,” Ahmed said, “and then you turn up like someone who doesn’t know how to tie their shoelaces and you see what happens.”Credit…Ryan Lowry for The New York Times“But that’s how you stretch culture, by bringing yourself to it,” Ahmed said. And the chance to pour every part of himself into this role paid personal dividends, too: “I feel more connected to me now than I’ve ever felt by going on a journey through space and time and inhabiting another body. You leave home to return home.”There were lessons learned from playing Ruben, as well as lessons he’ll keep having to relearn, Ahmed admitted. “Ruben is on a journey to try and learn the value of stillness and that’s something that I think I can get better at,” he said. His past year, though tempered by the pandemic, was still an eventful one: Ahmed put out a hip-hop concept album, “The Long Goodbye,” shot the film “Invasion” alongside Octavia Spencer, and married the novelist Fatima Farheen Mirza.There’s always going to be a lot going on with Riz Ahmed — that’s just the kind of person he is. Still, Marder sensed a change in his actor on the other side of making “Sound of Metal.”“I do think it marked this kind of crossroads in his life as an artist and as a person,” Marder said. “Maybe it’s not a mistake that he’s married now. He’s taking these big moments in life, these big changes, and giving himself to something else that is also out of his control.”Ahmed agreed. That desire to overwhelm himself, he said, is a reminder to live less in his head and more in the moment.“If we don’t control anything, then maybe every single thing in your life is a gift,” Ahmed said. “Wow! That’s amazing, you know?” And he wasn’t talking about the sort of gifts that awards season can bring, like the Gotham Award for best actor his “Sound of Metal” performance earned in early January.“I mean the bird on the windowsill, dude,” Ahmed said. “Or a tree. Or this breath.” He closed his eyes and sucked in all the air he could, then smiled. “Or the way it cools my insides when it comes in,” he said.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

    • 150 Shares129 Views

      in Movies

      ‘The Dig’ Review: Carey Mulligan and Ralph Fiennes on a Treasure Hunt

      by

      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeBest Netflix DocumentariesNew on NetflixAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main story‘The Dig’ Review: Carey Mulligan and Ralph Fiennes on a Treasure HuntA small team makes a groundbreaking discovery in this fictionalized account of an actual archaeological expedition close to home.Carey Mulligan and Ralph Fiennes in “The Dig.”Credit…Larry Horricks/NetflixJan. 28, 2021, 7:00 a.m. ETThe DigDirected by Simon StoneBiography, Drama, HistoryPG-131h 52mFind TicketsWhen you purchase a ticket for an independently reviewed film through our site, we earn an affiliate commission.Carey Mulligan’s range is a thing of wonder. If you’ve already seen her as an avenging American in “Promising Young Woman,” watching her in “The Dig” may induce something like whiplash. Here she portrays, with unimpeachable credibility, Edith, an upper-class English widow and mother in the late 1930s who is fulfilling a dream too long deferred.The dream is to dig up her backyard. It’s a big one, mind you, on her estate in Suffolk, dotted by what appear to be ancient burial mounds. To this end, Edith, whose youthful interest in archaeology was squelched on account of her sex, hires Basil Brown, a determined freelance archaeologist played with stoic mien and working-class-tinged accent, by Ralph Fiennes.[embedded content]Once the work begins, it becomes clear that something big is underground — this movie by Simon Stone, and the novel upon which it’s based, is a fictionalized account of the discovery of the treasure-filled Sutton Hoo, one of the biggest archaeological finds of the 20th century.Brown’s crew increases, taking in a dashing cousin of Edith’s (Johnny Flynn, bouncing back from the grievous “Stardust”) and a discontented married couple (Ben Chaplin and Lily James). Big Archaeology tries to horn its way in. Much drama ensues.Weighty themes are considered here: the question of who “owns” history; the corrosive effects of class inequality; the potentially tragic intertwining of sexual repression and loneliness. To its credit, this consistently interesting and at times engrossing picture declines to strike any of its notes with a hammer. Trading on the great British art of understatement, it’s scrupulous, sober, and tasteful throughout.The DigRated PG-13 for themes and language. Running time: 1 hour 52 minutes. Watch on Netflix.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

    • 125 Shares199 Views

      in Movies

      ‘The Reunited States’ Review: Hopeful Moments in a Political War

      by

      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeBest Netflix DocumentariesNew on NetflixAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main story‘The Reunited States’ Review: Hopeful Moments in a Political WarDirected by Ben Rekhi, this documentary profiles people who have made a mission of listening to the other side.Susan Bro, the mother of Heather Heyer, in a scene from “The Reunited States.”Credit…Dark Star PicturesJan. 28, 2021, 7:00 a.m. ETThe Reunited StatesDirected by Ben RekhiDocumentaryFind TicketsWhen you purchase a ticket for an independently reviewed film through our site, we earn an affiliate commission.The quelling of political warfare in the United States has to start somewhere. Topical in broad strokes yet frustratingly allergic to particulars, the well-meaning documentary “The Reunited States,” directed by Ben Rekhi and inspired by Mark Gerzon’s early-2016 book, “The Reunited States of America,” profiles people who have made a mission of listening to the other side.David Leaverton, a former Republican strategist, regrets that he contributed to a toxic political climate; with his wife, Erin Leaverton, and children, he embarks on an RV trip to meet strangers and learn about their lives. Susan Bro, who says she didn’t pay attention to politics until her daughter, Heather Heyer, was killed in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017, carries on Heyer’s civil rights message.[embedded content]Rekhi shows Greg Orman, who ran for governor of Kansas as an independent in 2018, trying to convince voters that choosing a third-party option isn’t a waste. Steven Olikara, who promotes cooperation among millennial politicians — and is also a drummer — compares democracy, at its best, to “a boisterous jazz ensemble.”The movie is filled with hopeful moments. The Leavertons deepen their understanding of racism and xenophobia. Near the end, Bro, sitting with the Leavertons, acknowledges that it’s hard for her to meet them.Still, the film focuses on the admittedly tough work of bread-breaking, avoiding substantive policy debates that might interfere with the spirit of cordiality. Orman may be an independent, but he had stances, and the film largely keeps his platform offscreen. Furthermore, the camera’s potential role in mediating (or exacerbating) tensions goes unacknowledged.The Reunited StatesNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 25 minutes. Watch through virtual cinemas.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

    • 100 Shares189 Views

      in Movies

      ‘The Little Things’ Review: Good Old-Fashioned Police Work

      by

      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeBest Netflix DocumentariesNew on NetflixAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main story‘The Little Things’ Review: Good Old-Fashioned Police WorkDenzel Washington and Rami Malek play detectives on the trail of a serial killer in John Lee Hancock’s vintage thriller.Denzel Washington and Jared Leto in “The Little Things.”Credit…Nicola Goode/Warner BrosJan. 28, 2021, 7:00 a.m. ETThe Little ThingsDirected by John Lee HancockCrime, Drama, ThrillerR2h 7mFind TicketsWhen you purchase a ticket for an independently reviewed film through our site, we earn an affiliate commission.A note during the first scene in “The Little Things” — an effective cold opening, full of danger and suspense — indicates that it’s 1990. At first, I thought this meant that the action would quickly vault forward into the present day, but instead the movie, which takes place mainly in Los Angeles, settles into a fairly generic version of the semi-recent past, occasionally flashing back to a few years earlier.There aren’t many historical details or period flourishes that would justify this choice. It seems mostly like a pretext for removing cellphones, internet searches, GPS tracking and other modern conveniences that might ruin the analog ambience needed for an old-fashioned serial-killer thriller. Which is fair enough. When it comes to spooky neo-noir resonance, it’s hard to beat a ringing pay phone on an empty nighttime street or an envelope full of Polaroids.Written and directed by John Lee Hancock and starring Denzel Washington as a weary professional with keen instincts and a battered conscience, “The Little Things” is an unapologetic throwback. It broods over the psychologically and spiritually damaging effects of police work as its two main detectives (Rami Malek alongside Washington) pursue an elusive, malignant murderer of women. You might think of “Se7en” or “Zodiac” or a lost season of “True Detective,” though this movie is less self-consciously stylized than any of those.And that’s partly because “The Little Things” is both a latecomer and a forerunner. (Time is a flat circle, doncha know.) Hancock wrote the screenplay almost 30 years ago, and in the ’90s possible directors included Steven Spielberg and Clint Eastwood. Hancock wrote the scripts for two Eastwood films in that decade, “A Perfect World” and “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.” More recently, he has directed “The Blind Side,” “Saving Mr. Banks” and “The Highwaymen.”At their best, those movies are competent rather than groundbreaking — admirable in their sturdy commitment to filmmaking craft even as their stories stubbornly cling to convention. This one rises to a slightly higher level, though it doesn’t entirely avoid the clichés of its genre: “You know, you and I have a lot in common,” a suspect says to one of the detectives. That the apparent bad guy is played by Jared Leto doesn’t necessarily help matters.But Leto, as a self-confessed “crime buff” with a creepily calm demeanor, isn’t bad. Malek as Jim Baxter, a zealous and ambitious Los Angeles detective flirting with career and personal catastrophe, is pretty good too. Who are we kidding, though? This movie is a coat that has been hanging in the closet for decades waiting for Washington to slip it on.Not that the man’s actual clothes fit. That’s part of the texture of the performance. Joe Deacon, usually addressed as Deke, starts the movie as a sheriff’s deputy in a dusty stretch of California’s Central Valley. The khaki uniform does him no favors, and Deke carries himself like a man buckling under a long-carried burden — round in the shoulders, thick in the middle, slow and heavy in his stride.You get the sense that it wasn’t always that way. You get that sense partly because you have seen Denzel Washington in this kind of role before, but the great ones can play endless variations on the same theme. When Deke drives down to Los Angeles on some irrelevant police business, we learn that he was once an L.A.P.D. homicide hotshot. He receives a mixed welcome. The captain (Terry Kinney) can barely stand to look at him. Deke’s former partner (Chris Bauer) and the medical examiner (Michael Hyatt) greet him warmly, but their kindness is edged with pity and disappointment.Deke partners up with Baxter to hunt down a killer preying on young women, who may have been active back when Deke was on the force. (The cop who seems to be Jim’s actual partner, played by Natalie Morales, doesn’t have much to do). The case takes some expected turns, and some that are less so, but as the clues and leads accumulate the film’s interest is less in who done it than in what it does to the detectives. There is something Eastwoodian not only in Hancock’s clean, unpretentious directing, but also in the ethical universe he sketches. The line between good and evil is clear, but that doesn’t banish moral ambiguity or save the righteous from guilt. Nor does it guarantee justice.That’s a heavy idea, and “The Little Things” doesn’t quite earn its weight. Thanks to Hancock’s craft and the discipline of the actors, it’s more than watchable, but you are unlikely to be haunted, disturbed or even surprised. You haven’t exactly seen this before. It just feels that way.The Little ThingsRated R. Tortured souls and tortured bodies. Running time: 2 hours 7 minutes. In theaters and on HBO Max. Please consult the guidelines outlined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention before watching movies inside theaters.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

    • 63 Shares169 Views

      in Movies

      ‘The Night’ Review: Late Checkout

      by

      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeBest Netflix DocumentariesNew on NetflixAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main story‘The Night’ Review: Late CheckoutThis Iranian-American thriller traps a married couple in a haunted hotel.Niousha Jafarian in “The Night.”Credit…IFC MidnightJan. 28, 2021, 7:00 a.m. ETThe NightDirected by Kourosh AhariHorror, Mystery, Thriller1h 45mFind TicketsWhen you purchase a ticket for an independently reviewed film through our site, we earn an affiliate commission.“The Night” begins with a round of the party game, Mafia. The film’s central couple Babak (Shahab Hosseini) and Neda (Niousha Jafarian) play along, each wryly accusing the other of hiding secrets, each saying that the other might be the killer. The Persian-language, Los Angeles-set thriller that follows builds tension around the resentments that have accumulated in their marriage. But the stakes never rise past the movie’s first game.With their infant daughter in tow, Babak and Neda head home from a night of friends, drinks and Mafia. But Babak’s driving is impaired from the libations, so the family stops to stay overnight at a nearby hotel. There, the evening begins its descent from confusion to horror. The couple begins to encounter strange figures — a babbling drifter on the hotel steps, an ominous desk clerk, a woman who wanders in silence, a child who calls for his mother.[embedded content]The director, Kourosh Ahari, unravels the mystery at a slow pace. It’s halfway through the film before Babak and Neda realize their visions are not just spooky, but may be supernatural. As the couple’s dread mounts, the hotel begins to show them refractions of their regrets, distorted visions of the secrets they’ve kept within their relationship. They try to leave, but every exit offers an entrance for the encroaching woman, the entreating child.The repetition of the visions and the film’s deliberate pace gives the audience too much time to guess which betrayals haunt Babak and Neda, and this lack of emotional suspense hampers the horror. After all, bumps in the night don’t seem so scary when it is obvious what’s causing the ruckus.The NightNot rated. In Persian and English, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes. In theaters and available to rent or buy on Google Play, FandangoNow and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. Please consult the guidelines outlined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention before watching movies inside theaters.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

    • 63 Shares149 Views

      in Movies

      ‘True Mothers’ Review: Family Entanglements

      by

      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeBest Netflix DocumentariesNew on NetflixAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main story‘True Mothers’ Review: Family EntanglementsParents clash in this Japanese melodrama from Naomi Kawase.Aju Makita in “True Mothers.”Credit…Film MovementJan. 28, 2021, 7:00 a.m. ETTrue MothersDirected by Naomi KawaseDrama2h 20mFind TicketsWhen you purchase a ticket for an independently reviewed film through our site, we earn an affiliate commission.Remarkably resistant to sentimentality in individual scenes yet baldly manipulative in the big picture, the melodrama “True Mothers” is probably the most mainstream effort yet from Naomi Kawase, a Japanese director who hasn’t received much distribution in the United States but has been a mainstay of the Cannes Film Festival for two decades. Although the pandemic canceled the festival in May, in June the Cannes programmers announced “True Mothers” as an official selection of the event-that-wasn’t (and later screened it at a mini-festival in October). The movie has the sort of densely plotted texture and widely accessible emotions that might have earned it the Palme d’Or — not necessarily for the best reasons.Adapted from a novel by Mizuki Tsujimura, the film is told through a series of intricately interlocked flashbacks. At the outset, Satoko (Hiromi Nagasaku) and Kiyokazu (Arata Iura) have a kindergarten-age son, Asato (Reo Sato), whom they adopted when he was a baby. His teacher calls to say that a boy has fallen off the jungle gym and claims Asato pushed him. Soon after, that boy’s mother, taking a jab at what she perceives as Satoko and Kiyokazu’s wealth, requests reimbursement for the medical expenses. Is it possible that the couple took in a bad seed?[embedded content]In straight cuts — that is, the time shifts aren’t obviously telegraphed with blackouts or dissolves — “True Mothers” doubles back to the story of how Asato was adopted: of how Kiyokazu’s inability to start a pregnancy led him to propose divorce, of how the pair learned of an adoption agency and independently began to research it.By the present action, they have blossomed into devoted and conscientious parents. Then Satoko receives another call: A young woman claiming to be the boy’s biological mother wants either the child or a payoff.Satoko and Kiyokazu suspect she isn’t who she says she is, and Kawase drops a new anvil of flashbacks to tell the story of Hikari (Aju Makita), the teenage girl who gave birth to the boy. A further set of flashbacks is triggered after police turn up at Satoko and Kiyokazu’s door. Whether the stranger claiming to be the mother was an impostor, and how these narratives loop together, isn’t settled until the end.“True Mothers” explores the malleable nature of family and complementary forms of mothering: one mother gives birth, another nurtures and a third — the head of the adoption agency (Miyoko Asada), who sheltered Hikari at a difficult time — acts in a mother’s stead. The gauzy flourishes from Kawase’s less accessible films remain, such as her penchants for blown-out imagery and transitional nature shots. The stunning seascapes of the Hiroshima-area island where Hikari lives during the pregnancy help establish a contemplative mood.Only a mountain couldn’t be moved by “True Mothers” — but like Asato’s parentage, the sources of that effect are complex. From one angle, “True Mothers” is sensitive and layered. From another, the tricks it plays with perspective constitute an all-too-calculated ploy for tears.True MothersNot rated. In Japanese, with subtitles. Running time: 2 hours 20 minutes. Watch through virtual cinemas.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

    • 88 Shares159 Views

      in Movies

      ‘Softie’ Review: Battling for Votes in Kenya

      by

      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeBest Netflix DocumentariesNew on NetflixAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main story‘Softie’ Review: Battling for Votes in KenyaIn this political documentary, the activist and photographer Boniface “Softie” Mwangi runs for office in a quixotic struggle against a corrupt system and a legacy of election violence.Boniface “Softie” Mwangi is the subject of the documentary “Softie.”Credit…Icarus FilmsJan. 28, 2021, 7:00 a.m. ETSoftieDirected by Sam SokoDocumentary, Drama1h 36mFind TicketsWhen you purchase a ticket for an independently reviewed film through our site, we earn an affiliate commission.As a photographer, Boniface “Softie” Mwangi made his name recording the carnage of Kenya’s postelection violence in 2007 (including work published in this paper). Embracing activism, he agitated for reform of the country’s corrupt politics with its dynasties, vote-buying and postcolonial tribalism. In Sam Soko’s sometimes bewildering documentary “Softie,” Mwangi presents as an unassumingly stirring figure: an ardent advocate for democratic processes, but a seasoned realist about nefarious forces in his home country.The movie cruises through about a decade of personal and national history. Mwangi leads protests — from marches attacked by riot police to a stunt that unleashes pigs outside parliament — and then runs for legislative office himself. In many ways it’s a standard campaign documentary, under volatile conditions; check-ins with Mwangi’s wife, Njeri, and their children punctuate his campaign’s voter outreach and struggle to defeat their rival candidate, a pop singer.[embedded content]After Mwangi and his family receive death threats, Njeri spirits the children away to live in Jersey City. Soko crams in eye-popping footage of brutality and unrest, with bursts of history and news analysis. But despite ample attention to Mwangi’s struggle to balance family and politics, the film neglects to flesh out his policies.Soko gets credit for not softening Mwangi’s landing, and the outcome of the election is dropped as nearly an afterthought to his valiant efforts. But the on-the-ground campaigning and complex history could use a better shape than the film’s fits and starts.SoftieNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 36 minutes. Watch through BAM’s virtual cinema.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

    • 63 Shares159 Views

      in Movies

      ‘Beginning’ Review: Faith Under Attack

      by

      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeBest Netflix DocumentariesNew on NetflixAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyCritic’s Pick‘Beginning’ Review: Faith Under AttackDea Kulumbegashvili’s debut feature ensnares its heroine in circles of religious and patriarchal persecution.Ia Sukhitashvili in “Beginning.”Credit…MubiJan. 28, 2021, 7:00 a.m. ETBeginningNYT Critic’s PickDirected by Dea KulumbegashviliDramaNot Rated2h 10mFind TicketsWhen you purchase a ticket for an independently reviewed film through our site, we earn an affiliate commission.The boxy frame of the camera turns into a trap in “Beginning,” the masterful debut feature by the Georgian filmmaker Dea Kulumbegashvili. For the film’s opening, the camera plants itself on one end of a small Jehovah’s Witness Kingdom Hall and stays there, unmoving, as the congregants slowly filter in and the preacher begins his sermon. It doesn’t budge even when, nearly eight uninterrupted minutes into the shot, a Molotov cocktail flies into the room and explodes into flames, scattering the panicked worshipers.The scene is a warning to viewers of this unsparing film: Fear the frame. Locked in its rigid, rectangular grip, you will be unable to escape what’s onscreen or anticipate what awaits just outside.[embedded content]“Beginning” follows Yana (Ia Sukhitashvili), the preacher’s wife, as she deals with the fallout of that firebomb attack. A former actress, she has given up her career to support her husband’s mission in a predominantly Orthodox Christian town outside Tbilisi, the Georgian capital. The film ensnares her in circles of religious and patriarchal persecution: The police take no action on the attack despite there being surveillance footage of the perpetrators, and when Yana’s husband goes to the city to consult with community elders, a detective arrives at her doorstep. In one of the film’s many queasy tableaux of simmering violence, this unnamed man interrogates Yana in her living room, preying more and more humiliatingly on her status both as a cultural minority and a woman.Power-plays of faith and gender trace acrid paths across “Beginning,” but neither is the central subject of the film. There’s little psychological or sociocultural detail in the movie’s fastidious compositions, which fix Yana in shadow-flecked rooms and landscapes as stifling as they are gorgeous.Instead, if Kulumbegashvili’s film is about anything, it’s the act of seeing — of witnessing. Such is the effect of the violence that ensues when Yana encounters the detective near her home in the dead of the night. Kulumbegashvili holds the bone-chilling scene for what feels like an eternity, keeping us at a distance that only amplifies its horror. If this test of viewer endurance is a bit sadistic, it’s also remarkable in how cleanly it strips the scene of any sensationalism. Rarely has a film made me so painfully, viscerally aware of the impotence of spectatorship — of the dubious remove from which we watch suffering.As the film’s cloistered frame closes in on Yana, “Beginning” plunges us further into despair — until its mystifying coda opens the movie into a whole other world. Kulumbegashvili leaves us with an ethereal reprieve from her film’s corporeal terrors.BeginningNot rated. In Georgian, with subtitles. Running time: 2 hours 10 minutes. Watch on Mubi.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More