Art Smitten

Julieta is the latest film by Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar, based on three short stories by Canadian writer Alice Munro. The eponymous lead character is depicted in the present and in flashbacks through a diary she is writing in a sort of cathartic fit. From the flashbacks we learn of Julieta's life, her joys and more specifically her tragedies, of which there are several, spanning everything from her parents to her daughter to her love.

Some have criticised the film for being emotionless, for retreading themes familiar to Almodóvar's previous work  - such as loss, passion and parent-child relationships  - in a lacklustre way. But I would in fact argue the opposite. In the words of Almodóvar, this is a "dry, tearless film". Such was his intention when shooting, so much so that he specifically told the actors not to cry.

So really, Julieta is not so much about the emotions felt when grieving as the lack of emotions felt when grieving. The empty hole you find yourself in. The depressive chasm loss pushes you down. And I thought he captured this elegantly and tenderly. Perhaps the most epitomising image for me was a scene where Julieta is in such a pit of depression that her daughter has to bathe her; there she is, in a bathtub, naked and drenched, and still not crying. Just numb. I was very much moved.

Capping this all off are grounded performances that internalise and consolidate the drama, and a complementary score by Almodóvar regular Alberto Iglesias, as well as the vibrant, evocative and rich colour schemes that Almodóvar is famous for, which here serve to contrast with the resounding emotional absence. Julieta for me is among his finest work, and a truly affecting portrayal of grief. Definitely very much recommended.

Julieta is in cinemas now.

Written by Ben Volchok

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Thierry, Andrew and Ayden interview Clare Watson about Malthouse Theatre's 2016 production, Gonzo.

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Christian interviews curator of the NGV's Vincent Van Gogh exhibition, Ted Gott. It will be opening in 2017, on April 28th, and running until July 9th. 

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If you’re fan of that strange nostalgia that comes from witnessing old Hollywood glamour, Café Society might just be for you. Complete with a backdrop of wonderfully detailed fashions, an upbeat jazzy soundtrack and in the company of presumably rich, carefree socialites, Woody Allen’s latest venture is a rabbit hole into that bygone era of Hollywood romanticism.

Set in the late 1930s, Café Society details the life of the young and naïve Bobby Dorfman, as he sets foot in Hollywood, eager to make a name for himself. Using the connections of his powerful uncle, he is given a front seat to the glitz and glam of Hollywood life. However, for all it’s glory and lavishness, Bobby finds himself more infatuated with his uncle’s secretary, Veronica, or rather, Vonnie, as she’s called. From here, a messy and bittersweet romance unfolds itself and brings Bobby back to New York, where he runs a high society night club with the support of his colourful and eccentric family.

The film is delivered with a light-hearted playfulness and charming sense of humour.

And through this whimsical setting, Café Society departs a rather sympathetic view towards the fickle and impulsive nature of love and its effect on relationships. Whether or not you agree with the character’s choices throughout the film, it’s clear that Allen isn’t afraid to have them dwell on their feelings and in many cases explain their positions in the form of conversation and argument. There are numerous scenes throughout this film where characters unabashedly proclaim their different ideals and philosophies on life, on relationships and whatever else. It’s here that Allen really shines, able to create incredibly natural dialogue full of conflict and energy, yet never loses its sense of wit.

In this sense, the constant shifting from party, to restaurant, to dinner table really sells the heart of this film: A Café Society obsessed with itself, full of moral ambiguity, mindless gossip – all drenched in a layer of pretention. And what’s not to love? It’s difficult to resist the allure of it all, especially with the detail they have put into the setting. Here, many of the background characters spring to life. Just through little snippets of dialogue and interaction with the main cast, Allen manages to carefully construct many vibrant set pieces that suck you in.

In terms of the performances, Jesse Eisenberg plays, well, Jesse Eisenberg. His stuttery and seemingly perpetually-nervous performance of Bobby is to be expected at this point, and save for a few scenes, it’s acceptable for the most part. Surprisingly, Kristen Stewart sets the bar as the mysterious and ever down-to-earth Vonnie. Though I never thought I’d say this, the muted and generally stoic demeanour that has copped her criticism in the past actually comes off quite refreshing in a sea of endlessly flamboyant characters with rapid-fire speech patterns.

In concluding this review, I’d like to make a somewhat embarrassing and shameful confession: I have not seen a Woody Allen film. There, I said it. Now, whether this discredits my authority on the quality of this film or perhaps, leaves me unclouded to whatever preconceptions his previous works may given me, that is up for you to decide. But I will say for sure, from what I’ve seen so far, I’d like to see more.

Café Society opens to cinemas everywhere on the 20th of October.

Written by Victor Cai

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Nicolas Winding Refn's The Neon Demon would have been, I imagine, quite an easy film to pitch, but a very hard one to describe. Since seeing it I've been explaining it to people as "the Black Swan of modelling,” which might sound very reductive, but given how much it invites comparison with Darren Aronofsky's film, I wouldn't be surprised if that's how Refn had originally conceived it.

Both of them begin by introducing a gifted but naive young woman wanting to enter into a soul-crushing profession, one that they short-sightedly think they can handle without losing themselves completely. This time around, we have 16-year-old Jesse (Elle Fanning, giving, to date, the best performance of her career) a natural beauty who wins over everyone with simply her radiating  personality. At first, she is aware of this great power she possesses, but only somewhat, only enough to know that, as a girl with no real professional skills and no family or friends to support her, her looks are something she can make money from.

Her lack of any personal connections is never explained, but there's no denying it's effectiveness as a writing tool. It makes Jesse a clean slate, a mysterious wanderer with a murky past. Every other character in the film is someone that both she and the audience are meeting for the first time, and so every relationship she forms with them is seen in full, from its very beginning. Two of the most memorable people she connects with are a budding photographer, Dean (Karl Glusman), and a more experienced model, Ruby (Jena Malone) who both take an interest in her, for whatever reason.

Out of all of Jesse’s modelling peers, Ruby is the only one to show her any kindness or to offer her any guidance. Funnily enough, she is also the only one who doesn’t have blonde hair, a choice that’s about as subtle as anything else in the film, which gets more expressionistic as it goes along. When a film opens with a vivid wide shot of a blood-splattered girl lying still in a bathtub, followed by a closeup of a young man coolly taking pictures of her, you certainly get an idea of what you’re in for. True to the name, just about every scene in The Neon Demon is bathed in a fluorescent glow, and just about every frame is filled with objects that catch and reflect that glow.

However, there is definitely more than just one demon to be found here. Most of them are female, with ghostly faces saturated in makeup, who go from discussing the “Red Rum” brand of lipstick in front of a mirror to eventually turning into literal blood-sucking, flesh-eating monsters. Of course, this is all meant to represent the dangers of the modelling industry, all the harmful things it teaches to young girls and the kinds of women they apparently have to become in order to win over the male modelling agents and fashion designers.

Naturally, a lot of this will be common knowledge amongst the audience. While Black Swan took place in the world of ballet, a profession that most people see as benign, respectable and not at all self-destructive, the modelling industry has been under public scrutiny for a while now, so it is doubtful that an emotional, rather than an intellectual film will bring anything new to the table.

Still, as annoying as it is to see yet another production about women fighting each other for a man’s attention, it is a pleasant surprise to see a film that commits to having a female protagonist, several female antagonists and a few male supporting characters that remain as much all the way to the end. That said, you can still tell this was written and directed by a man. While some of the scenes between the models are quite clearly heightened, others feel more like a version of group female interaction rendered more comprehensible for men. If it weren’t for his co-writers, Mary Laws and Polly Stenham, I imagine some of the dialogue would have probably turned out even more stilted.

Still, the five lead actresses always find ways to make their characters convincing, despite the absurd things they might end up saying or doing. Certainly Elle Fanning, and Melbourne actresses Bella Heathcote and Abbey Lee, all shine in the most intriguing roles they have ever been offered. It’s particularly interesting to hear the two Australians using their native accents in an American production, a subtle reminder that models, unlike actors, are seen but not heard in their profession. Unsurprisingly, Christina Hendricks portrays one of the better stone-cold industry gurus we’ve seen onscreen in a while, and Jena Malone, possibly taking inspiration from Mila Kunis, is genuinely cryptic as the suspicious Ruby.

Dean, on the other hand, very quickly proves himself to be a true friend of Jesse’s, and apparently the only decent person in sight. He suitably ends up going head to head with the two most despicable male characters: the fashion designer that all the girls want to be chosen by (a curiously uncredited Alessandro Nivola) who gets to say “beauty isn't everything; it’s the only thing”, and Jesse’s vulgar landlord (Keanu Reeves) who embodies every reason why a woman might be afraid to be out alone at night.

Jesse’s power is not just her beauty, but, most importantly, her honesty, her moral integrity, her pure intentions. Initially, she simply wants to make a living and has no wish to step on other people’s toes. Her power comes from the fact that she’s not even aware that this is a power at all. The films presents us with a fascinating paradox when as soon as this neon demon realises how powerful she is, she is rendered powerless, and defenceless against the real demons she thought she could take on.

Her pivotal transformation scene, about 90 minutes in, turns out to be the most stylised, well-paced and hypnotic part in the film. Rather than drag out the inevitable with a series of more realistic scenes, Refn wisely chooses to compact this character change into one fluid, dialogue-free sequence, which would have worked brilliantly as a final or penultimate moment. Unfortunately, though, we then end up spending half an hour with this brand new version of Jesse, which, as it turns out, we might have actually needed more than one scene to get to know.

There soon comes a point where the style turns into excess, the characters turn into caricatures, the commentary just becomes comedy and the macabre expressionism turns into a full-on gore-fest. Strangely enough, I eventually got a little tired of watching the main character die, in many different ways, and slowly stopped caring if this was another fantasy sequence or if this time she had actually died for real. It’s always hard to know, not because of the complexity of the writing but more because it’s unclear what Refn expects us to accept as realistic and what we can safely assume to be fantasy. There are only so many fake murders that one little Stanley Kubrick reference can justify. I’m sure that the multiple death scenes are meant to show how this profession is slowly killing her from the inside, destroying her piece by piece. It’s a valiant effort to shock us all into sharing his anger, but by the end of the film, just before Sia’s ‘Waving Goodbye’ plays over the end credits, it looks like he’ll be getting more laughs than anything else, which is not to say that The Neon Demon fails as an art film, but rather that it succeeds as a late blooming horror flick.

Written by Christian Tsoutsouvas

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La Mama Theatre’s The Masque of Beauty seems to have taken its name from Ben Johnson’s courtly masque composed in 1608. However, in Peter Green’s ‘Renaissance Cabaret’ we certainly feel far away from the England court, even if he uses a few Shakespeare passages on one of his literary medleys. Green’s writing, and indeed Faye Bendrups’ directing, both take Australian audiences to very different theatrical territory than they might be used to. True to the form of a masque, this show is a meandering hour of live music, dance pieces, dramatic scenes and chorus style songs, which historically would espouse the most famous figures of the day.

On this particular outing, to the Italian court, we encounter three formidable sisters-in-law – the notorious Lucrezia Borgia, the sharp-witted Isabella d’Este, and the worldly Elisabette Gonzaga – as well as the controversial Pope Alexander VI, his son, and Lucrezia’s brother, Cesare Borgia, the Monna Lisa (“constipated for over 500 years”) and a very nervous young Leonardo da Vinci. This production might have done away with some big hallmarks of the masque – the actual masks, the decorative sets and the audience participation – but aside from that, it really does feel like a journey back to the 16th century. 21st century audiences are very used to narrative-based entertainment, and to more visual forms of storytelling, whereas the figures displayed here are introduced much more through monologue than dialogue. Even the grim ensemble songs feel much more like an Ancient Greek chorus than an exchange played out in song. In these parts of the show, the four voices of the cast - Maria Paula Afanador, Madeleine Field, Claire Nicholls and Jessica Greenhall – seem to blend into the one entity. The dances and the more physical scenes function more as further illustrations of the figures than as a way of driving forward a story. I call them ‘figures’ instead of ‘characters’ because they are far from being active players in a dramatic narrative.

The Masque of Beauty is, throughout, a consciously historical work. More specifically, this is revisionist history, and the sardonic kind at that, based on rumours and re-evaluations. This piece is undisguisedly looking backwards, and makes no attempt to make us feel like we are looking forwards as though we and the performing ensemble don’t know what’s coming.

The cast and creatives are certainly in the know, but unfortunately, for the most part, their audience is probably not nearly as knowledgeable about it all. The commentary on Leonardo and the Mona Lisa works because this is a part of Italian history that is very much general knowledge. As for the three noble sisters-in-law, as fascinating as they seem, and as exuberantly as they are portrayed, they aren’t really part of the public consciousness. The production team might now know almost everything there is to find out about them, and they certainly seemed to find their commentary on them amusing and compelling, but I’m not sure that a lot of their audience will. It’s definitely a more obscure part of history, something the La Mama staff seemed to have picked up on. At the box office, each audience is member is given a Wikipedia blurb on each figure in the story, which helps a little but it still takes more than a couple of hastily read paragraphs to achieve that same level of familiarity.

I’m sure those who know the history of the Italian royals will appreciate what this talented team manage to do with them, but those who don’t are never really brought up to speed at any point here, or at least not in any helpful way. There is often a large disconnect between what you are being told on stage here and what you are being shown. When the exposition becomes particularly intricate and hard to follow, it is very easy to be distracted by the other stagecraft elements and miss certain factual details. You can definitely feel that this is set in a world of seduction, corruption, manipulation and murder, but it’s very hard to be clear on who is doing what to who, and why. Seeing as there is no real narrative movement anyway, or even much thematic movement here, those who aren’t already familiar with all of these people will probably feel start to feel a bit restless. It’s definitely a treat for any Renaissance aficionados but will probably be quite unmemorable for anyone else.

Written by Christian Tsoutsouvas

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Hell or High Water is a 2016 film written by Taylor Sheridan and directed by David McKenzie. Set in blistering rural Texas, it focusses on two brothers, played by Chris Pine and Ben Foster, who rob banks, and a cop on the verge of retirement who is chasing them, played by Jeff Bridges. There’s action, there’s tension, there’s laughs.

Tonally, the film carries itself with a particular relaxed, laid-back nature that seems to befit the type of life present in small-town Texas. What makes this tone so much more appealing is how well it complements the more intense moments of the film, of which there are plenty, with much of the film’s runtime being taken up by bank heists, car chases and shootouts, and more. Adding to the fun of the plot is a real sense of humour which shows up not just in the banter of the various main characters but also in the dialogue of the various minor or incidental characters that pop up, including a very memorably dismissive elderly waitress in a steakhouse.

The film explores some interesting themes relating to poverty and capitalism, and the central premise of the brothers stealing from the banks that are stealing from them is an irony that serves the film quite well. Unfortunately, it’s an irony that is too often stated rather overexplicitly, meaning the way that the issues are treated is too on the nose to have proper weight. I would have preferred to see a more subtle approach to dealing the social commentary, an approach that can in fact be seen in the film, particularly in the ways that it raises certain moral questions, but it’s an approach which is obscured by the numerous bits of dialogue that make it painfully obvious.

Likewise, the soundtrack seems piled on a bit too high. For some reason the filmmakers felt it necessary to add songs underneath every second scene until there was little room for anything else to tell the story. It’s a pity because there’s an absolutely fantastic central score done by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis which truly gives us a feel for the setting and works with the visuals to create an interesting mood. It’s just not given much breathing space because of how overstuffed the rest of the soundtrack is.

Clever but not quite clever enough, if nothing else this film is a lot of fun and is definitely better than your average crime drama.

Hell or High Water opens October the 27th.

Written by Ben Volchok

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Thierry, Ayden and Andrew are joined in the studio by writer and performer, Ryan Good, about his production Cosmonaut in the Melbourne Fringe. 

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“Sharp, smart and hysterically funny!”… “A cult hit….gleaming with comic polish.”… “A frothy, sill, saucy and spectacular affair.”

These are just some of things critics have said about 5 Lesbians Eating A Quiche, a play written by Evan Linder and Andrew Hobgood, currently being performed for Melbourne audiences as part of the Fringe Festival.

And it was the reviews that initially attracted me to the show, although, as I realised afterwards, no words could really describe what I had witnessed.

The year is 1956, right in the middle of the Cold War and the constant threat of a nuclear disaster. It’s in this context that we meet the Susan B Anthony Society For The Sisters of Gertrude Stein – 5 feminist widows who are preparing to celebrate their annual Quiche Breakfast.

The 5 women who star in the play are hilariously drawl and camp, and absolutely obsessed with quiche. They tremble and coo as the time for the first quiche tasting draws closer. At this point I thought the play had already reached peak absurdity, and I was wrong.

Suddenly, right after the first quiche tasting, a nuclear bomb goes off and the women are thrown into survival mode. The good news is that the Susan B Anthony Society For The Sisters of Gertrude Stein centre is bomb proof and they have enough rations to last 4 years. The bad news is that they’ve left the rest of the quiches outside. And as I said, these women really really love quiche.

I’m not going to spoil the rest of the play for you, but let’s just say that the action rises into higher and higher levels of absurdity in such a clever and shocking way that you’re left on the edge of your seat.

The play is flawlessly acted, and sends up the naivety of the white female suffragette with incredible sharpness. In particular, Lauren O’Rourke, who plays a  slightly hysterical and very enthusiastic southern belle, is wet-your-pants funny, particularly when she takes her first bite of quiche and basically has an orgasm.

After the show, I felt utterly entertained, but a little flat. It’s hard to critique this show, but I’d say that the storyline was possibly a little one-dimensional. There was no real tension between the characters – they all had the same motivation – and there was no self reflection within the script.

I think I would have liked this story better if one of the characters, at some point, stepped outside the story world and questioned it, or helped me relate to it to my 2016 perspective.

Then again, that’s perhaps what the show is playing on – the fact that the original American feminist movement, the values and beliefs of these women, can look absurd from a modern perspective. Perhaps, in another 60 years, they’ll be making fun of today’s feminists in absurd comic plays. Instead of a quiche breakfast, it’ll be a feminist club meet up over lattes at a hipster café.

Written by Beth Gibson.

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Francofonia is the latest film by Russian director Alexander Sokurov, who is perhaps best known for his 2002 documentary Russian Ark, an ambitious and awe-inspiring one-take trip through St Peterburg’s Hermitage museum during the Russian Revolution. In Francofonia, Sokurov once more returns to the themes of art and war and museums, this time focussing on the Louvre during the Nazi occupation of France.

As someone who doesn’t get on terribly well with documentaries, I found Francofonia rather intriguing as it played with the documentary form and fused narrative with truth and reconstruction, past with present. We see Napoleon wandering the halls of the museum, we see the German officer in charge of dealing with the Louvre meeting with the then head of the museum. Sokurov himself narrates the documentary and appears on screen as one of the film’s central figures, talking to the characters while also being depicted as trying to piece the film together and not knowing how because the nature of culture is too overwhelming.

But the film itself is not a failure – the nature of culture is overwhelming, and this is intentionally presented in the daunting and elusive way that it is. The fragments of history are all woven together in a way that urges us to draw our own conclusions in the way that Sokurov tries to over the course of the film.

While at times disappointingly Eurocentric in its analysis of culture and the significance of culture, Francofonia still provides plenty of food for thought. What is culture? How much is it worth and who needs it? Who has a right to it? Perhaps the most interesting facet for me was the parallel drawn between Germany capturing the Louvre during its invasion in WWII and Napoleon invading other countries during his reign and bringing back countless artefacts to be displayed in the Louvre. Plus there’s a lot of fascinating snippets about the museum’s formation and the particulars of what it went through during the Second World War.

Complex and at times confusing – in a good way – Francofonia has a lot to offer, even if we have to do a bit of work to piece it all together.

Francofonia opens October 6.

Written by Ben Volchok.

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