Film Review: Darren Aronofsky's The Whale

The Whale is directed by Darren Aronofsky and stars Brendan Fraser, Sadie Sink and Hong Chou. The film follows morbidly obese English Teacher Charlie as he reconnects with his estranged daughter. It is based on the play of the same name written by Samuel D. Hunter, who also wrote the screenplay.

It goes without saying that The Whale is led by a tour de force performance from Brendan Fraser. He inhabits the role of Charlie completely, and through him, we see so much sorrow and tenderness that the film just becomes so emotionally overwhelming. There are scenes nearly impossible to watch, namely the binge eating scenes, which is triggering for anyone who has suffered from not only binge eating but any sort of addiction.

It’s also heartbreaking to watch him interact with his daughter and the defensive cruelty that comes with each interaction and then the deep love his friend and nurse Liz has for him, which is bogged down by shared past trauma and the very one-sided nature of their relationship. These complex performances from Sadie Sink and Hong Chou add a whole other dramatic texture to the film and also add to the agony of Charlie’s spiralling despair.

I need to know that I have done one right thing with my life!

The choice to use a 4:3 ratio powerfully reflects the claustrophobia of the setting and the protagonist's psyche; in essence, Charlie is trapped in his apartment and in his body. Furthermore, the use of such a dark and gloomy colour palette only heightens this oppressive framing to make the film both thematically and visually heavy.

Transit Film Review

Transit is a film of many layers, it’s about immigration, fascism, the transience of time and the nightmare of bureaucracy. It is Petzold’s final film in his unofficial ‘love in the time of oppression’ trilogy (Barbara and Phoenix being the other two). Transit stars Franz Rogowski and Paula Beer as spectral immigrants trying to flee France before it is overtaken by Fascism.

Petzold fascinatingly uses Anna Seghers novel of the same name but transposes it to the modern-day rather than the ’40s, creating an anachronistic film that belongs simultaneously in the past and the present, like ghosts if you will. The novel is very symbolic for the director as he was introduced to it many years ago by his friend, mentor and collaborator Harun Farocki and while I haven’t read the novel just yet (I will for sure after seeing the movie twice!) I can tell that his interpretation of the novel is respectful.

“Wer vergisst schneller? Der Verlassene oder die, die ihn verlassen hat?“

"Who forgets faster? The abandoned or the one who left him?”

Many of Petzold’s films deal with transit, he has his characters often on physical journeys that lead them to moments of self-discovery, but perhaps Transit is his most literal and obvious mediation on the idea. Characters are stuck between freedom and certain destruction and as such, they drift around the port city of Marseille like spectres and perhaps non more so than Paula Beer’s Marie Weidel.

She is a woman searching for her writer husband that she abandoned, but out of guilt (and to get a ticket out of there!), she starts looking for him. She rushes around the city always wearing the same coat and very similar clothes almost as if she herself is haunting the place, that she is already beyond the realm of the living. Rogowski’s Georg encounters her several times, often because she has mistaken him as her husband, which is ironic because he has stolen her husband’s identity after the writer committed suicide. What occurs is a cycle of guilt for both characters and they slowly grow closer over the three weeks they are stuck in limbo at Marseille, but there is always a barrier between them.

I watched the film twice in close succession and I definitely found I preferred it on the re-watch, everything including subtext and symbolism sunk in just that little bit more on the second time around. I wonder if it will get even better with the third watch…

German Film Review: Fear Eats the Soul by Rainer Werner Fassbinder

Angst essen Seele auf (Fear eats the soul) is directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder and stars Brigitte Mira and El Hedi ben Salem. The film follows Mira as Emmi, an older German woman who is a mother of three adult children and a widow who meets and falls in love with Ali, a much younger migrant worker from Morocco.

This was my first foray into Fassbinder’s filmography, and I must say it’s brilliantly shot. I love all the claustrophobic framing through doors, which reflects the crushing limits society puts upon the protagonists. Likewise, the scene outside amongst the sunshine-yellow tables is a particularly beautiful moment, but it again adds to the idea of isolation as the couple are completely alone; they can have a tender moment in public only because the scene is unpopulated by other prying eyes.

But what’s most shocking and really quite sad is that a film made in the 1970s about racism, ageism and prejudice feels just as relevant now, and while we have progressed slightly, we are nowhere near to where we need to be!

Fear Eats the Soul is a must-watch and a great introduction to a master of German cinema. I’m intrigued to watch more of his films, one for the fact that Fassbinder was a filmmaker that dared to push boundaries and famously proclaimed, ‘I don’t throw bombs, I make films.’ and because Fear was just such a great place to start.

François Ozon's Swimming Pool: The writer as voyeur

François Ozon's 2003 erotic thriller Swimming Pool follows Sarah Morton (Charlotte Rampling) a successful yet dissatisfied crime novelist as she spends some time away from stuffy England at her publishers home in France.

Spoilers ahead…

From the get-go Morton is uptight and bizarre, her excessive consumption of yoghurt is rather uncanny, her interaction with a fan on the tube and simmering jealousy of a new writer is telling. She’s going to undergo a metamorphosis and become less stoic and boring by the end of the film. But how she gets there is going to be rather interesting.

Morton is also a voyeur, she watches Julie (the daughter of the publisher whose house Sarah is staying at) have sex with a random stranger one night and often finds herself watching her when she swims and also becomes irritated by Julie talking and laughing on the phone. A weird obsession grows. There's also a scene in Sarah’s imagination where the camera tracks the contours of Julie’s body as she sunbathes, it’s almost the male gaze at work but it’s actually Sarah’s gaze, her authorial imagination at work.

I feel like the writer as a voyeur is such an obvious yet intriguing trope in thrillers. I mean writers definitely have to be voyeurs to some extent, people-watching is a socially acceptable form of voyeurism. But a thriller always makes them a little more creepy, and to be honest, Rampling makes this trope work so well that it almost feels fresh again.

“When someone keeps an entire part of their life secret from you, it's fascinating and frightening”

However, this is when things start to get complicated, Julie reads Sarah’s book and invites the local waiter Frank (to who Morton has taken a liking) over to make her jealous, they party. The morning after a panicked Sarah sees the pool covered up with a lump in the middle of the tarpaulin. Is Frank dead? No, it’s just the inflatable lilo. This moment was done well, it was predictable but it still makes your skin crawl for the duration of the scene.

Unsurprisingly, Frank does actually turn up dead, the two women bury him and vow to get on with their lives, Sarah even has to seduce the gardener after he starts to inspect the grave they dug the night before.

But this is all a ruse.

The entire plot of the film is put into question when an emboldened Morton returns to London with her finished novel and announces to her publisher that she has signed with someone else to release the book. Upon leaving the office a young girl enters and is addressed as Julie and greets her father. The Julie in France is not the real Julie in fact she never existed at all!

What a brilliant twist. She’s just an over-imaginative and slightly perverse writer. The metamorphosis I mentioned earlier happens because she gets her inspiration back, she blooms again because she has written something that excites her. I love how Ozon weaved this narrative and for a while, I thought it was going to follow an obvious course but I was really pleasantly surprised.

Ozon himself said ‘Charlotte's character kept mixing fantasy and reality. Although in Swimming Pool, everything related to fantasy is part of the act of creation, so it is more channelled and less likely to end up causing madness. In terms of directing, I've treated everything that is imaginary in Swimming Pool in a realistic way so that you see it all – fantasy and reality alike – on the same plane.”

French Cinema: Juste la fin du monde (It's Only the End of the World) Film Review

It’s Only the End of the World is a French-language film directed by Xavier Dolan. The film stars Gaspard Ulliel, Nathalie Baye, Marion Cotillard, Léa Seydoux, and Vincent Cassel who are arguably some of the biggest names in French cinema.

Based on the play of the same name by Jean-Luc Lagarce the narrative of the film follows Louis, a playwright on his trip home for the first time in 12 years wherein he plans to tell his family that he is dying.

It’s easy to see that this film is based on a play due to its intimate settings, small core cast and telling dialogue where what isn’t said is just as intriguing and important as what is said. I also love how there is so much ambiguity throughout the film as it’s never revealed why Louis left in the first place only that something triggered it. This for me adds to the realism of the film as the story is essentially about how important communication is and how we often fail to listen to each other which results in awkwardness and resentment especially when it comes to family. In some parts, it did feel a bit over the top, especially when Louis is in the company of his aggressive older brother Antoine, who just can’t help but be a complete prick to everyone around him, but for the most part, it was a compelling family drama.

This is the first film by Xavier Dolan that I have seen and I must say that I’m kind of annoyed that I haven’t watched any of his work sooner as I was really quite taken aback by the cinematography (claustrophobic close-ups, intense colour grading) and the use of soundtrack in the film. Especially the use of O-Zone’s Dragostea Din Tei (yes that so cheesy it’s kind of good song from 2003) and Exotica’s Une miss s’immisce and how they weave into moments from Louis’s memories. These scenes are a world away from the claustrophobia of the family home in the present. Running hopefully over a sun-drenched field as a kid or a sensually lit (oranges, pinks and greens dominate the colour palette here) teenage sexual encounter, these flashbacks are beautifully nostalgic and the music only helps to create the atmosphere for each one.

« la prochaine fois nous serons préparés »

“We'll be better prepared next time…”

The film’s ending is also quite visually striking with severe fiery oranges that take over the colour palette due to the sun setting. It is also a fitting symbol for how intense and fraught the whole day has been for Louis and that perhaps like the setting sun signals the end of a day, this sunset is the end of his connection with his family. Bird imagery is also dispersed throughout the film but most notably at the end with a surreal moment where a small cuckoo escapes the cuckoo clock and flies frantically around the house searching for a way out. Almost certainly a metaphor for Louis himself, he flew the coup and should not have returned and as it lies dying on the floor at the close of the film, he too is on his journey towards death, alone.