Happy Oscars weekend! It has been such a strong year, and I managed to watch most of the main category nominees out of genuine interest early in the season, so today’s post is a couple of Indie Spirit nominees I caught up with before that show, and then some documentaries. I admit that I didn’t finish that category because they all looked so bleak and the two I did watch did not encourage me. I’m sure the rest are deserving films, but I couldn’t bring myself to watch them.
Here’s what I did see:
I saw a review of this that referred to it as a “romantic comedy,” and I guess it is a romance and the driest of comedies, but I tend to think “frothy” when I think rom-com, and any bubbles in this film are immediately burst. Not to say its dour, I laughed out loud multiple times! (Basically any time Janne Hyytiäinen was onscreen as the best friend). But it’s the deadest of pan and makes life in Helsinki look like a bleak place to live, with interjections of the war in Ukraine whenever anyone turns on a radio. Throw in some alcoholism and you can see why these characters think a Jarmusch zombie movie is an escape.
That all being said, its an oddly comforting kind of bleakness, and these is a cute dog. Plus, it’s less than 90 minutes long, so give it a shot!
I think this movie is really badly titled. It grabs your attention, sure, but it implies a raunchiness (my critical obsession of the year I guess) that is not at the center of this story. Also, the trailer I saw implied a tragedy that isn’t, so, I guess I didn’t appreciate the packaging of the story, but I did like the film!
It follows three British teen girls on the European version of a Spring Break type of bacchanalia. It manages to capture both what is liberating and terrifying about being young and choosing to let go of control (through the medium of astoundingly copious amounts of vodka). The bad things that happen are captured with empathy and subtlety, but what really got to me emotionally was the ways that the girls let the pressures of “desirability” and jealousy erode their friendship. (The writing of Skye (Lara Peake)’s undermining of Tara (Mia McKenna-Bruce) cut me deep.)
A cautionary tale that has the confidence to also show that this kind of mess can be genuinely fun, it both made me so grateful to not be that young anymore and a little wistful for the version of myself that had the energy to dance all night and be up for brunch.
Bobi Wine: The People’s President
Every year, as we get close to the end of the season, the movies i have left tend to feel like the bleakest & heaviest list. Partly, this is an “importance” bias in the documentary branch of the Academy, but it’s also a matter of my own motivation. Which is how I spent the afternoon of my President’s Day off curled up in a chair, holding my breath watching Bobi Wine, a Ugandan pop star turned activist-politician as he tried tom use democracy and non-violence to combat dictatorship in his country.
He is an inspiring figure, as his wife, Barbie Kyagulanyi, and I am glad that I learned their story. But this was a really heavy watch, particularly since last year around this time I went on a similar journey with Navalny and his death has been weighing on me.
Wine’s fight is worthy and inspiring and this film captures it well, but it is a lot.
If I have convinced you sometime over the last 8 years to watch Jim Jarmusch’s Paterson and it didn’t work for you, then you can keep scrolling, because this movie has a very similar, quiet beauty and slyness that I just adored. But if you don’t get on its wavelength, it could feel pretty sleepy. Lead actress Anaita Wali Zada, in her debut role, carries the whole thing and I really hope she keeps acting because her face is so compelling.
Quiet, slow, but lovely.
(Also, if you’ve seen the trailer, just FYI Jeremy Allen White doesn’t actually show up until the end, but he’s great, of course, when he does.)
At the Indie Spirits, director Kaouther Ben Hania told Natalie Portman to see her movie, because people were saying it was a North African documentary May December. I can see what she mean, because while it is a documentary, it captures not the central events covered by the interactions between a group of actors hired to portray members of the family and the members of the family who are telling the story/playing themselves. This leads to meta-discussions of performance and sequences of an actress watching her subject eerily closely. But, what I found really notable about Four Daughters was the willingness of the central figure, Olfa Hamrouni, to be almost cruelly honest about the harsh and violent ways she treated her daughters (two of whom joined an Islamist terrorist community). The honesty is painful to watch and the actors allow the narrators a distance from their painful pasts that facilitates a level of reflection that is rare to achieve. Truly hard, but powerful watch.
At various points in this movie I found myself bringing my fingers to my mouth in a gesture of astonishment at how lovely it was. Not a lot happens, we just follow Hirayama (Koji Yakusho) as he goes about his days as a cleaner for for Tokyo’s public toilets, living his solitary, but not empty, life. Each day is the same, except for how they are different, in ways both small (which cassette he plays on his van’s tape deck, how crowded his preferred ramen bar is), and big (being dragged along on a doomed attempt at getting a date by his obnoxious but entertaining coworker Takashi (Tokio Emoto), the unexpected arrival of his teenage niece Niko (Arisa Nakano)). It never swerves into melodrama and remains sweet and humane without ever becoming saccharine.
I could write forever about this, just listing every detail that Wim Wenders captured perfectly, but instead, I’ll just tell you all to go see it. A wonderful way to end a really strong awards season/movie year. Come back Monday for an Oscars Round Up!
I Get a Bit Obsessive 