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GRAND TOUR (Miguel Gomes 2024)

LANG KHÊ TRAN IN GRAND TOUR
MIGUEL GOMES: GRAND TOUR (2024)
A 'dreamy Asian travelogue' is poetic cinema and exoticism
There is almost no fixed pretext for the constant traveling in Gomez's Grand Tour, and that, as it were, is the point. This is a journey whose theme is "Let's get lost." We are immediately plunged into exoticism, or orientalism, but in a gentle sense, plunging into the Far East at its most bizarre, a mondo cane where the cane is a pedigreed shiatsu.
The one dodgy low-level pretext is escape, because Edward (Gonçalo Waddington), a frumpily movie star-handsome man with good hair and variable outfits, doesn't want to get married, and he's fleeing his fiancée, Molly (Crista Alfaiate), who somehow finds out where he's going and sends a telegram to say she's on the way, whereupon he snaaks off somewhere else. Telegrams, because this is 1918. But Gomez is not too pinned down by that, or by plot developments. There are period images and contemporary ones. He is more interested in providing a living, on-scene cabinet of wonders as Edward flees quietly from Mandalay to Bankok, thence to Shanghai and beyond, with imagery swinging back and forth betwen then and now and from mostly black and white to occasional color. It is sometimes simply documentary, but even then the film's characters appear in the scenes.
Memorable moments: We get a good look behind and in front of the scene of Thai shadow puppets; a sweeping Strauss waltz is played not as in Sokurov's Russian Ark for ballroom dancers at the Hermitage Museum, but for a busy square full of sweeping, undulating motorcycles moving in slow motion. Molly develops an intriguing friendship with the beautiful French-speaking Ngoc (Lang Khê Tran) in South Vietnam, and their traveling together begins as if it were the most natural thing in the world
The limitation, but also the beauty, of Gomes' method is that during the filmmaking process he allowed the locations to determine where things would go as he went along, as Wes Anderson partly did when making The Darjeeling Limited (NYFF 2007) in India. But Gomes, unlike Wes, is traveling through numerous countries. And this is another beauty of the film, its languages, because it constantly shifts from its home tongue of Portuguese within a conversation or from scene to scene, to Thai, Vietnamese, French, Japanese, and Chinese. And the voiceover - and there always is one - in whatever country is spoken in the location language and is constantly shifting. Remember: "Let's get lost" is the organizing principle. All this is very similar to Gomes' 2012 Tabu, in whose second half the director also improvised as he changed from one exotic location to another. But the structure is stronger and the mood more unified here.
As was said in my Tabu review for the 2012 NYFF, Gomes' way of making exotic, romantic, retro fantasies can be a bit shallow, but nonetheless the result is "evocative and very cinematic." Lean back and enjoy the ride. This man is unique, and what he's going for is the world of your dreams.
Grand Tour, 128 mins., debuted at Cannes, receiving the Best Director award, and showing also at Sydney, Karlovy Vary, New Zealand, Toronto, Vancouver, and other international festivals, including the NYFF, where it was screened for this review. Metacritic rating: 76%. (Now 79%) A MUBI release.
Last edited by Chris Knipp; 11-16-2024 at 01:14 PM.
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APRIL (Dea Kulumbegashvili 2024)

IA SUKHITASHVILI IN GEORGIAN DIRECTOR DEA KULUMBEGASHVILI'S APRIL
DEA KULUMBEGASHVILI: APRIL (2024)
Struggles of a beleaguered OB-GYN
Georgian filmmaker Dea Kulumbegashvili's first film, Beginning, was a memorable part of the 2020 NYFF, and I concluded that despite all my questions throughout it was one of the most remarkable films of the festival and introduced the world to an exciting new filmmaker. Her style is just as harsh and provocative in this, her sophomore film. Beginning focused on a remote Georgian Jehovah's Witnesses congregation despised by the prevailing Eastern Orthodox majority and on the sufferings of the minister's wife. Dea's style and approach haven't changed here, but the focus has shifted to an OB-GYN doctor, Nina (Ia Sukhitashvili), who is an outsider in another way. Working in a harsh rural area, she secretly chooses to perform abortions, which are illegal. Her colleagues know this. Furthermore, When a baby is stillborn with her officiating (depicted in an uncompromising early scene), we learn from the angry father that there are rumors of her clandestine activity. If it becomes known to officials, not only her career but those of her closest associates may be finished.
Again as with Beginning Dea uses boxy academy ratio, again there are Carlos Reygadas-style nature visuals dialed up to the max. This time, watching the film in Lincoln Center's Walter Reade Theater with its remarkable sound system, winds and storms were overwhelming meteorological events: the disarmingly peaceful-sounding April is exhausting as well as disturbing to watch. There is nothing like the fire in Beginning. But just a drive down a country road is harrowing, due to the sound recording, which is emphasized by the complete absence of a score. There is no conventional he-said, she-said editing for conversations. The camera rests on one person for a long eriod, then shifts to another person for an equally long one. Again there are some long silences.
We witness one abortion, shown with a fixed camera a few feet away and as the patient, a deaf mute, softly whimpers, we see only her thigh and an assistent holding her and comforting her. The procedure goes perfectly well, but the later consequences are nonetheless tragic.
Nina is beseiged from several directions. There is pressure from her colleagues to stop performing abortions and the danger of what will happen if she doesn't. The stillborn birth is also leading to investigations. Though a thorough autopsy, read out by a senior colleague in numbing detail, shows the baby had no chance of surviving anyway, Nina is repeatedly accused of being guilty of negligence for avoiding a C-section simply because the mother wanted "a natural birth." So doubt is cast that also might cost Nina her job and her career.
Nina is the portrait of an obsessive. Perhaps such people are opaque; at least she is. One might think a person who devotes her life in more ways than one to a mission to deliver babies and help pregnant young women in trouble would be a warm, caring, sociable type. Nina doesn't seem this way. In a conversation with a man she went to school with, a onetime sweetheart, she declares that she cannot marry because there is no room for anyone else in her life. The actress Ia Sukhitashvili has a severe, almost elegant look, again somewhat against expectations. There is a sexual sequence in a car at night that is utterly cold and unpleasant and leads to violence. Her life outside the work seems empty and awful.
There are also elements of an art film or museum art piece and recurring surreal imagery of a strange naked figure, seen always at some distance, almost like a sepulchral walking corpse. This corpse figure pulls April away from the etreme, punishing naturalism it sometimes has. Again as with Dea's debut film I want to protest and say this is too much and too obviously one-sidedly violent, provocation for its own sake; and again one is convinced that this is too good and has too much conviction not to admire, if grudgingly. More grudgingly this time, though, partly because the protagonist is so unappealing. But aided by Bones and All's dp Arseni Khachaturan, a key source of the blend of long-take realism and nightmarish expressionism, and a powerful sound design, this is another clear demonstration that Dea Kulumbegashvili is a powerful new cinematic voice.
April, 134 mins., debuted at Venice Sept. 5, 2024, showing also at Toronto, Donostia-San Sebastian, Hamburg, and at the NYFF, where it was screened for this review. Metacritic rating: 89% (based on 7 reviews).
Last edited by Chris Knipp; 09-22-2024 at 12:35 PM.
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NO OTHER LAND (Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, and Rachel Szor 2024)

BASEL ADRA IN NO OTHER LAND
BASEL ADRA, HAMDAN BALLAL, YUVAL ABRAHAM, RACHEL SZOR: NO OTHER LAND (2024)
Nowhere to go
There have been many films about Israel and Palestine, but this one justifies inclusion in the selective New York Film Festival slate because it was made by a collective including both Palestinians and Israelis, and because it was shot over a period of years. It features the relationship between Palestinian Basel Adra and Israeli Yuval Abraham, two young men aiming to record Israel's constant assault on a patch of land in the West Bank, villages known collectively as Masafer Yatta, occupied by the same Arab families for generations. Again and again Israeli bulldozers come and destroy the Palestinians' modest houses. Finally the ultimate indignity: the big machines tear down a small school. Little by little the locals are forced to take up residence in nerby caves. This film records their steadfast resistence and refusal to leave the land.
Basel Adra has been photographed and recorded since he was five years old, we see. Mostly we see him as a vibrant but also weary young man puffing incessently on a shisha or taking too-deep drags on cigarettes while he sits with Yuval Abrahim, as the two of them contemplate the unchanging nature of things. In between is a lot of footage of the assaults, including the increasingly violent attacks of the Jewish settlers, whose illegal housing and vicious violence are tolerated by the Israeli government and constitute a nasty third arm to the IDF forces who are the ones who carry out the constant periodic destructions of Palestinian housing. The claim is that the land is needed for IDF training activities, but it comes out that this is just a pretext for displacing the inhabitants.
Sometimes I think of my years in Cairo when I learned that a common strong oath was الله يخرب بيتك (Ullah yashrib baytak!) - literally "God destroy your house." In this case God is reaplaced by Israelis. It's a cruel, vengeful, and lawless God.
Basel's uncle Hamdan gets shot when he tris to prevent the IDF from stealing the villagers' generator and becomes paralyzed from the neck down. His mother stays by him in this terrible state but she hopes that God will take him and relieve his sufferings. Hamdan inspires many demonstratons of the locals, which lead to arrests. Basel's father is arrested. And on and on it goes.
Sometimes over the years covered here there is a brief moment of Western awareness, a discomfort, even astonishment or outrage, but it passes. Nobody cares, or rather, nobody can go up against the US government, the perpetual main enabler of Israeli injustice. (This film is not concerned with analysis of these issues, however.)
It is always Yuval who is with Basel. The film informs us that there are two colors of car license plates in here. The yellow ones allow free travel, and the green ones go to Palestinians, whose movement is highly restricted. This is one illustration of why it's Yuval who comes to see Basel. Yuval expresses a dream that one day there will be a just and equal society and they will both be able to travel freely And Basel will come to see him. There's a certain charm and humor to this friendship of Yuval and Basel, who are so close (except for the inexorable separation of privilege) that one jokingly asks when their marriage is coming.
Most of the film and what might further convince the already committed - or inshallah wake up the unenlightened in the English speaking world - are the repeated images, year after year, of the home demolitions, and of the locals rebuilding. The school that gets destroyed was actually constructed clandestinely, partly by night, the only way there could be a school. The Israelis wish to deny Palestinians even literacy. The Palestinians in this patch of land repeatedly declare that they have "no other land" and they will not go away.
Eventually, after November 6, 2023 and what the West calls "the Israel-Hamas war," more properly Israel's war on Gaza, violence against the Palestinians in the West Bank also greatly increases and the population of the namesless village Basel belongs to must flee, as others have done. Basel and Yuval have had to stop filming what's happening or they would die like the 116+ journalists who have been killed in Gaza.
No Other Land, 92 mins., debuted at Berlin Feb. 17, 2024, and included in over 20 international festivals, including the NYFF, where it was sccreened for this review. Showing at the NYFF Sept. 29, Oct. 1, 5, and 6. For details see HERE.
Q&A with Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, and Rachel Szor in person on Sept. 29 & Oct. 1. Metacritic rating: 90%.
JANUARY 2025: OPENS FRIDAY, JANUARY 31 in the US. Now an Academy Award nominee for Best Documentary Feature.
Last edited by Chris Knipp; 01-29-2025 at 01:05 PM.
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A REAL PAIN (Jesse Eisenberg 2024)

KIERAN CULKIN, JESSE EISENBERG IN A REAL PAIN
JESSE EISENBERG: A REAL PAIN (2024)
Two Jewish cousins revisit their family origins in Poland
Jesse Eisenberg costars in his sophormore directorial outing here. After playing a great variety of roles and receiving acclaim as an actor, he draws on his own background, playing a man called David Kaplan who is an American Jew with a grandmother who was a Holocaust survivor from Poland, and at her demise has left money to pay for a trip with his cousin Benji (Kieran Culkin) to visit the house where she lived in Lublin, as well as Majdanek, nearby, the concentration camp she survived. We must survive the outlandish performance of Culkin, which ramps up several notches his (justiably) award-winning shtick as Roman Roy on HBO's addictivre series, "Succession."
Most people love Kieran Culkin's work as Benji here, but it's so obtrusive (and borderline offensive, especially for his use of F-words in every line) that it steals the picture, which seems a shame. There was a place for gentle humor here, especially considering the solemn subject matter. Nonetheless it has to be confessed that this movie is vivid and works and is a great improvement over Jesse's directing debut, When You Finish Saving the World.
There is no disputing that Kieran Culkin is a remarkable actor. His Benji, as fluently written by Eisenberg, is a bold, complex character, penetrating and outrageous in his remarks and observations, funny, charming. He frequently undercuts his own charm by causing offense to people the pair encounters. These notably include members ofthe little Polish Holocaust tour David and Benji join, then depart from. It includes a tight-lipped older couple, a recently single woman from California, an even quieter couple, an African-born Jewish convert, and the non-Jewish, occasionally droll British tour guide, James (Will Sharpe).
It's made clear both from things explicitly stated by David and from sad bookending shots of him sitting alone pre and post trip in the New York airort that Benji is in transition, or simply adrift, and things have gone very badly earlier in the year, and he lives in his mom's basement. In contrast David has what appears a very lucrative job selling digital advertising and lives comfortably in New York City with his wife and small child. Benji debunks the job as the lowest thing you could do; David defends it as essential to the very existence of the internet.
Benji may have been fun for Eisenberg to write because he can go anywhere at any time he wants with the character. For instance, when the cousins and the tour members are on a a posh train in Poland, Benji suddenly thinks of how Jews were shipped to their deaths in cattle cars and insists on running out of the first class compartment. Then later when David falls asleep next to Benji (a recurrant theme) in another car and they have to jump another train to get back to their meeting point, Benji insists they do this without paying, and when they sneak into a first class car he says they've "earned it."
Eisenberg is seeking to convince us that a neuro-divergent type like Benji deserves our sympathy and respect and can provide us with insight. David puts up with him, despite apologizing to the tour members. They tolerate, even like him, and James thanks him for his ruthless criticisms of his performance as a guide for being too weighed down by "facts" and not enough "reality," and pledges to reshape his methods accordingly.
This is a movie that amuses, provokes, and teaches, and Eisenberg carries off the teaching part without ever seeming pedantic or stodgy. As wild as some moments get, we are still always firmly in the "reality" of a Polish Holocaust tour. We get to see relevant cities and sites (including the concentration camp) exactly as they look today. What swings my views toward approval of the film are David's speeches, in which Eisenberg unobtrusively provides sane balance so that somehow it all works and you may think maybe Culkin's outrageous turn was after all actually more amusing than offensive.
A Real Pain, 90 mins., debuted at Sundance; shown also at Aspen, Zurich, BFI London, and the NYFF, where it was screened for this review for an Oct. 5, 2024 showing. Release in ten countries scheduled for early 2025; in the US, Nov. 1, 2024. Metacritic rating: 84% (based on 19 reviews).
Last edited by Chris Knipp; 09-25-2024 at 07:17 AM.
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ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT (Payal Kapadia 2024

PAYAL KAPADIA: ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT (2024)
A dreamlike Indian film that was a first at Cannes
In Competition-Grand Prix at Cannes. India's first Cannes Competition film in 30 years, says S.M Kaufman in INDIEWIRE, 'is a sensual triumph." "Dreamlike and gentle," says Bradshaw in the GUARDIAN, finally giving a film here 5/5 stars. The film is the story of three Mumbai hospital employees in monsoon season, two nurses and a cook, all originally from small towns, two of whom are roommates, the younger one causing scandal by having an ill-concealed Muslim boyfriend, an action on her part in rejection of arranged marriage. The eldest of the women is threatened with eviction due to an oversight of her late husband. Jessica Kiang in VARIETY says with just two features (this is the second, the first fiction) Kapadia "has established her rare talent for finding passages of exquisite poetry within the banal blank verse of everyday Indian life." The eldest decides to quit the hospital and go back to her home village and the other two women accompany her. DP Ranabir Das gives all sorts of light, Kiang says, a "gorgeous glamor." The portrait of the city is "unusually rich," so it's "almost a wrench" when the second half moves to the country but the new setting focuses more on the women's developed "bonds of mutual support" that burn brighter. And the Muslim boyfriend has secretly followed.
Kapadia won the documentary award at Cannes in 2021 for her film in Directors' Fortnight, A Night of Knowing Nothing. Fionnuala Halligan of SCREEN DAILY, who also uses the word "gentle" as well as for the latter part "mystical," says there's "a strong romantic streak" in the depiction of Mumbai that "calls to mind Wong Kar-wai's great love affair with the city of Hong Kong." (I can feel that too, but this world is more somber and less sophisticated.) Bradshaw notes up front a "languorous eroticism" and "something epiphanic in the later scenes and mysterious final moments." All We Imagine As Light jumped to the top of the Cannes SCREEN DAILY jury grid with a 3.3 rating, on a par with Sean Baker's Anora. - From my vicarious remote Cannes coverage.
The film has a cumulative effect. Early on, it may seem like merely an excerpt from a daytime serial, till you notice how compelling the actors are, how graceful the cinematography. The deep beauty especially of Kani Kusruti as Prabha, the nurse, impresses from the start, and grows on you. It is also effective that the film is divided into the city and country segments, evoking country and city tales told by Satyajit Ray, and taking you though a whole history of India (and Indian cinema) and whole lifetimes. Through her focus on the three women hospital workers, their dreams and frustrations, young Payal Kapadia, who is still in her thirties, has patiently woven movie magic.
All We Imagine As LIght, 118 mins., debuted at Cannes May 23, 2024, winning the Grand Prix, showing afterward at many, many international festivals including the NYFF where it was screened for this review (For an oct. 7, 2024 showing). US theatrical release begins mid-Nov., 2024. Metacritic rating: 93% (based on 12 critic reviews). Now 91%.
Last edited by Chris Knipp; 11-10-2024 at 09:59 PM.
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ANORA (Sean Baker 2024)

MIKEY MADISON IN ANORA
SEAN BAKER: ANORA (2024)
The most fun at Cannes comes to New York
VIDEO CLIP
In Competition at Cannes it won the top award, the Palme d'Or. Remember Baker scored high there with Tangerine about two "working girls" in 2015. Anora could be seen as a much more realistic version of Pretty Woman, spinning out a "whirlwind sex-work romance," says Peter Debruge in his VARIETY review, that "sparkles like the tinsel in its leading lady's hair." She's a New York stripper and he's the "reckless son of a Russian oligarch." The film that has a Safdie brothers flavor Debruge calls "compulsively entertaining, 80-proof emotional ride." Anora or "Ani" (MIkey Madison) is part Russian and speaks a bit of the language learned from her grandma, and shares a small house in Brighton Beach with her sister.
It's at the Manhattan strip club, HQ, where she's an escort and lap dancer that she gets sent to the table of young big spender Ivan, aka Vanya (Mark Eydelshteyn), and Ivan and Ani, close in age, click at once. The next day he brings her to his nearby mansion; she negotiates for $15K up front when he wants her to stay. 138 minutes "race by" (though a few could be lost) in a "full-throttle tragicomedy of romance, denial and betrayal," Peter Bradshaw says in his 4/5 star GUARDIAN review, A "a non-love story which finds its apex in a Las Vegas wedding chapel in the middle of the night, "slaloms downwards into the most extraordinary, cacophonous uproar of recrimination unfolding in what is more or less real time." David Rooney in Hollywood Reporter says "Sex workers have been a big part of Baker's gallery of outsiders" (as they have), and this makes Anora "a fine addition to his terrific body of work."
Ani has "a sweetness that humanizes even the most transactional situations" as well as "a defensiveness that makes her dangerous when threatened" - i.e., like when Ivan's dad sends goons to break up this mismatch, Ivan bolts, and Ani does a stand-off. Vegas is for the wedding, but they spend a lot of time at Brighten Beach-adjacent locales with Vanya and his "retinue of Russian-speaking locals," in Coney Island, "a pool hall, a video game arcade, Tatiana Grill on the boardwalk," etc. shot in 35mm with anamorphic lenses thus a messy but "satisfying watch." The images are blurry and bleary, ample and wintry. The leads are "terrific" (Madison) and "watchable" (Eydelshteyn) and " Baker’s film-making is muscular and fluent," wrote Bradshaw. In an enthusiastic Oscar Expert YouTube review Brother Bro (Mason Jaeger) called Anora, which he gave 9 out of 10, the best film he'd seen at Cannes, and predicted it would go on to collect many laurels in the US awards season with multiple Oscar noms including Best Actor and Best Actress for the leads.
All the attention has been on Mikey Madison, perhaps because she is so authentically needy. I give a strong vote for Mark Eydelshteyn because I haven't ever seen a type like that, both delicate and unbridled, and he's a genuine young Russian actor. This kind of story may not be so unusual, even a cliché, but Sean Baker makes it so rich, mainly through setting it in a Russian context, and carrying that through very solidly, with lots of Russian-speaking characters whose English may not even be that great, including Vanya.
The story is rich also because of its ambiguity. Vanya's parents laugh and sneer, saying this is not a marriage and this is not a love. But in a brief interview Mark Eidelshtein says he thinks this is Vanya's first love, "and maybe his last." He tells Ani he's 21 but he's really much younger, and when the goons and then his parents come to pop the bubble an illusion is shattered; Mark thinks he grows up instantly. Let's admit in their juvenile way Vanya and Ani did instantly fall in love with each other, so this is a "crime" and a bit of big misbehavior but also a romance. For all the crudity and humor, this is Sean Baker's sweetest (and then disillusioned) film as well as its most mainstream and multigenerational in appeal. The Sean Baker part is also in the long slow process of dismantling the dream. This is a tremendously fun film that also gives you a lot to chew on.
And the chewing doesn't stop. When it's all "over," the marriage is broken up, Vanya is gone, Ani is still left with the assistant Igor (Yura Borisov), and between Mikey and Yura what happens is very interesting.
Anora, 139 mins., debuted in Competition at Cannes May 21, 2024, winning the top prize, the Palme d'Or. Shown in at least two dozen international festivals including Telluride, Toronto, San Sebastien, Vancouver, New York, Mumbai, Hamburg, Zurich, Busan and London. Limited US theatrical (Neon) release Oct. 18. Metacritic rating: 91%.

MARK EDELSHTEIN AND MIKEY MADISON IN ANORA
Last edited by Chris Knipp; 11-18-2024 at 10:27 PM.
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THE DAMNED (Roberto Minervini 2024)

IMAGE FROM MINERVINI'S THE DAMNED
ROBERTO MINERVINI: THE DAMNED (2024)
The documentarian tries his hand at an atmospheric Civil war drama
The Italian has lived in the US for two decades chronicling marginal people. I've reviewed Stop the Pounding Heart (2013) and What You Gonna Do When the World's on Fire? (2020). His Cannes release this year continues that process in his first period piece, set in the Civil War period when the U.S. Army sends a volunteer company to patrol the uncharted Western territories. See Peter Debruge's Variety review: he makes the film sound thin in story to put it mildly, but an "atmospheric and unscripted" depiction of young men in the war, mostly not in combat, and a "welcome extension" of the filmmaker's documentary work. Jordan Mintzer in his*Hollywood Reporter review says that in its "aesthetic" here Minervini suggests Terence Malick’s The New World and Alejandro Iñarritu’s The Revenant. Amusingly he suggests this is a low-keyed, laconic version of those movies. In particular this can seem an uninspired version of Malick's spiritual musings when the soldiers talk about whether or not they believe in anything.
When one absolutely doesn't believe, and you notice how much they say words like "OK," if not before, you realize these men are talking in their own modern vernacular. In this, the film is in and out of time, also like Terrence Malick.
They are Union soldiers on the periphery, sent to investigate western lands and seen in Montana. (One is from California and one from Virginia, so they come from afar.) A man brings his two young sons, or the sons rather chose to come with him. Some of them have no experience; one is sixteen and says his facial hair doesn't yet grow and he does not yet know what it is to be a man. His knowledge of riflery is shooting rabbits and a few squirrels.
The interest of this film is also its limitation for some, that it has virtually no plot (not unlike Minervini's documentary films). They are just there. But this is life, and especially military life. At one point there is a skirmish, with shots fired and men endangered. It's not clear what it really comes from. There is a sergeant, but nobody knows what they're doing. At one point the older of the two boys, who expresses religious convictions, says he no longer knows why he is there. "Becoming a hero" no longer seems a likelihood.
The boys and men, the latter longhaired and bearded, talk and these non-actors seem to be improvising on their own. It's pretty dilatory and sometimes empty or repetitious, but that again is the way people are.
I like plot and story as much as anyone. They are the lifeblood of fiction. But we know how much plot and story can run away with a film. We also know that in the hands of Samuel Beckett fiction can compel with minimal plot. Toward the end of the film four of the men go off on their own to scout for a pathway through the mountains in the snow, abandoning the rest of the men. An image of the starting point shows back at base camp many have died.
Horses play an important part in this film with their presence. At one point a dark mare is tethered on a wire line and pulling at it, complaining. Another example of aimlessness and the waiting that is an essential part of army life.
Admire the caps and the big blue capes, and drink in the helplessness of soldiery, Union Army style. This could be a good new direction for Minervini.
The Damned/I dannati, 89 mins., debuted in the 2024 Un Certain Regard section at Cannes in which it won the Best Director award. Also shown at Toronto and the NYFF, screened at the latter for this review. Metacritic rating: 63%.
Last edited by Chris Knipp; 10-01-2024 at 05:02 AM.
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