White Material (2009)

The workers have reluctantly agreed to help. Five days at a coffee plantation as violent conflict happens. An unnamed African country. Rebel soldiers and the military fighting. The French colonialists have withdrawn, only Isabelle Huppert’s character stubbornly staying behind for a business that she married into. One more yield before they pack up and leave. Regular employees have left, fearing for their safety. The new workers have been promised money, and Huppert shows them to their quarters. The water pump is over there, there’s a wheelbarrow of supplies and a torch is handed to one of the men. The light spotlights little more than dirty mattresses in the room. This is all they can expect. They look on hesitantly.

A great scene in director Claire Denis’ White Material (2009), showing the exploitation of Huppert’s character, or just the unthinking treatment of her employees. Despite the violence in the air, the threat amassing around the gates of the coffee plantation, this is what they get. What more would they expect? White Material observes Huppert going on her rounds, doing everything she can to make the business run despite the social upheaval. We follow Huppert but the film is meditative and observant, considering and critically eyeing the colonial legacy of the white industrialists. Chickens coming home to roost. When the violence happens, there is impact in the framing and editing; Denis and her collaborators are not sensationalist, and death can be sudden, with or without warning. A knife draw on a sleeping child soldier. Workers shot down without hesitation.

Huppert is magnetic underneath the observant gaze of the camera. It’s lovely to see Christopher Lambert in a dramatic role like this, as her ex-husband, more concerned about the oncoming danger. Regular collaborators of Denis appear such as Michel Subor as the sickly father, the original manager of the plantation, and Isaac De Bankole as a wounded rebel leader on the run. Score by Tindersticks once again.

Available on Mubi (US) and Tubi (US). Recommended.

Pacifiction (2022)

The white suit. When commissioner De Roller (Benoît Magimel), an official of France working in Tahiti, rides on a boat towards a surfing competition as part of his duties, he waves to a couple of people on the shore. It struck me how the white suit De Roller constantly wears in Pacifiction (2022), which seems both suave in a Bryan Ferry kind of way and also harkening back to classic French colonialism, is an iconic look. He wants to be noticed on the island, even from afar across the water. A recognisable look as he makes diplomatic rounds. Magimel is a handsome guy but he also seems a bit out to pasture, robust and slightly corpulent, which completely suits this character, continually snacking as he sits down to meetings, knocking back drinks at bars. He also continually wears tinted shades, even indoors, with an open tropical shirt, and we follow his shaded/shady perspective for the near three hour length of this languid epic.

I was compelled to watch Pacifiction after watching a few interviews with director Albert Serra and hearing about his signature approach to filmmaking. He shoots with three digital cameras for coverage, and there’s no direct communication between cast and crew. Scenes are open for actors to inhabit without hitting marks, and he even discussed how Magimel was not given the full script, and would often be fed lines through an earpiece – not so much because the actor didn’t learn his lines – but a conscious move to have the actor in a state of arrested concentration. As we observe De Roller move from night club to official meetings and receptions, eventually hearing rumours of the French government resuming nuclear testing on the island, and becoming increasingly paranoid that he is being slighted by this, past the hour mark I understood that the movie wouldn’t have any action per se, or any conventional release of tension. Everything is at a low boil as De Roller wanders the frame, often alone in a master shot. Pink hues of sunset, lush greens of the vegetation, the rolling waves of the blue water. Often tinted in post-production. A lone figure in a postcard landscape, smoothing his hair back, smiling to himself, trying to see evidence of a secret submarine through binoculars.

With French sailors congregating in a nightclub called Paradise, the staff in briefs and underwear, white cotton and silk translucent in the purple neon lights, there’s an aura of seediness in Pacification. But the film never shows anything directly, implying through sound and oblique angles. Magimel is a fantastic presence, a tour guide into powerlessness, and the foreboding vibes grow in the final act as we seem stuck in an endless night of exhaustion and suspicion. Keep the suit jacket on, mon ami, even as the sweat collects upon your forehead.

Available to stream on Mubi (US). Recommended.

Apartment Zero (1988)

Two roommates in Buenos Aires getting to know each other over breakfast, the British owner of the apartment, Adrian DeLuc (Colin Firth) asks the new American tenant, Jack Carney (Hart Bochner), “Do you like cinema?” The film, Apartment Zero (1988), then cuts to an exterior shot of the cinema that Adrian runs, Adrian and Jack walking together into the entrance, and with the score by Elia Cmiral, there’s something quite magical about this moment. We then cut back to Adrian and Jack having breakfast again; was this moment a dream or real?

We are first introduced to Adrian in the projection booth, crying over the end to Touch Of Evil. He has framed photos of movie stars hanging in the apartment, and tries to get to know Jack by playing a trivia game: give me three actors and guess the movie. When we first meet Jack, he is composed in a camera shot, doubling a framed photo of James Dean on the wall next to him; there is a rugged American air to him, and Bochner – best known for playing the bearded yuppie Ellis in Die Hard – projects a serene himbo energy, which darkens when he locks eyes with someone and smiles seductively. In contrast, a pre-Pride and Prejudice Firth escalates his fussiness and yammering, obviously drawn in desire to his roommate, which also manifests into his latent paranoia growing. Firth’s character doesn’t like his eccentric neighbours and distances himself from them. His mother is in the hospital with mental health issues. And then suspicions arise over Jack – who is this man and what are his motives? And does it have anything to do with the history of Argentina and the previous government’s silencing of political dissidents? Ultimately, there is something of the Anthony Perkins about Firth’s mannered performance here. As he says to Jack at one point, “We’re all allowed one or two hundred idiosyncrasies” – a variation on Psycho’s “We all go a little mad sometimes.”

For some viewers, Apartment Zero would be a more effective thriller if it was shorter and tighter, 90 minutes instead of two hours, but I personally enjoyed its ambling quality, and living in the tension over who Jack Carney is, and what is ultimately the relationship between him, a louche drifter, and Adrian, a twitchy fusspot. Directed by Martin Donovan (not the actor) and co-written with David Koepp (his first produced screenplay) the decision to film in Argentina and incorporate its history into the suspicions and tensions is from Donovan’s background growing up there. In fact, Firth’s character presents himself as British but was born in Argentina, only raised in the UK for his education; it is a pretence he uses to distance himself from the country he lives and works in, and its issues. Much like the film knowledge and love that Firth’s character displays, even taking Jack to see Compulsion at one point, which they discuss, the style of Apartment Zero is indebted to psychological melodramas of previous decades, and even within its homoeroticism and violence, leaves a lot said through charged glances and the edits between scenes. That and a framed photo of Montgomery Clift. Everything is finally revealed, and delves into more sinister terrain, even taking one scene into what feels like something from a Tales From The Crypt episode. However, the great final shot is a much better conclusion, and allows the film to retain the idiosyncratic and inscrutable mood it has trafficked in for its duration.

While not everything works in Apartment Zero, and there’s a messy, campy air throughout, I really liked the film’s intriguing oddness as a psychological thriller, and its use of style and tension. Watched an uploaded copy on YouTube with Spanish subtitles; it’s a shame this isn’t more widely available. Recommended.

The Yards (2000)

The Yards (2000) has been one of those movies that has always sat there on my “Must watch” lists, and I’ve never felt strongly compelled to watch it, thinking to myself, “Yeah, yeah, I’ll get around to it.” After seeing Armageddon Time and watching Two Lovers for the first time, I was more inclined to see director James Gray’s earlier work, and I was pleasantly surprised to find how much I really liked The Yards. Like, I knew it would be good and a solid New York crime drama about corruption. An update of On The Waterfront but indebted to the 1970s approach of Francis Ford Coppola and Sidney Lumet, mumbled conversations in hallways, character actors in suits holding backroom meetings, and hard moral choices between keeping your mouth shut or taking a stand. What defines Gray’s filmmaking is the sense of place – the way in which apartment rooms feel lived in and real – and the characterisation shading in all of these archetypes into believable people, delivered by a great cast giving excellent performances.

Leo Handler (Mark Wahlberg) arrives home from a stint in prison, taking the blame for a car theft that he and his friends were involved in, and in the opening sequence, he is welcomed by his single mother Val (Ellen Burstyn), his aunt Kitty (Faye Dunaway), his cousin Erica (Charlize Theron) and her boyfriend and Leo’s friend Willie (Joaquin Phoenix). Leo is looking for work at his uncle’s company, Frank (played by James Caan), who provide engineering and maintenance to the city’s rail system; Phoenix’s character also works there in management, but fundamentally greasing the wheels and making under-the-table deals to get city contracts. It doesn’t take long for the extra money that Leo is earning to go bad, and when a mission to sabotage a competitor’s trains goes wrong, Leo is once again left holding the bag and tasked to make a hard choice to keep a wider investigation from happening.

On one hand, the movie goes where you expect it, but on the other hand, it’s the weight that Gray and his collaborators give to the scenes which makes them grounded and full of tension. Adding considerably to the neo-noir atmosphere is the cinematography by Harris Savides and the brilliant use of lighting and shadows; the use of constant black-outs in the neighbourhood is a masterstroke for how darkness and deep shadows are used in key scenes. All of this is also complemented by a stirring, strong score by composer Howard Shore. Everyone in the cast is great, and it’s wonderful to see familiar character actors in the supporting cast like Tony Mustante, Victor Argo, Tomas Millan, and Steve Lawrence. An underrated New York crime melodrama that feels of a piece with Gray’s understanding of the city, like his next film, We Own The Night also starring Wahlberg and Phoenix. I appreciate how Gray invests in a classic approach to narrative, hitting points you might expect, but finding a deeper register, taking you through the character’s struggle in the face of a difficult choice. There is tragedy to The Yards but also a feeling of inevitability and rather than wrapping things up with a cathartic gun-fight, knows that things are usually resolved in a back-room deal where money sets the agenda. Recommended.

Rats In The Ranks (1996)

“You know what politics is? It’s not if you’re a bum, but if you’re a smaller bum than someone else.”

I remember seeing Rats In The Ranks (1996) reviewed glowingly by Margaret and David on The Movie Show when it was on SBS, and then eventually this Australian documentary was screened on ABC. Revisiting it through a YouTube upload (it’s also available on Kanopy), this is one of the best Australian documentaries. A big part is that its focus seems so inane and small potatoes, the mayoral elections for Leichhardt Council in 1994, local politics in action. And yet, ego, power moves and campaigning strategies are still all on clear display as Larry Hand, current mayor, seeks to stay in office.

The image of Hand – who resembles an everyday Marlon Brando – near the start of the movie, wearing his leather jacket as he sits in the mayor’s chair in the council chambers, is a perfect meeting point between the mundane and the lofty. Hand’s place isn’t assured with the votes being based on the 12 people on the council, a couple of whom would like to back themselves for the position, including Neil Macindoe, a member of the Australian Labour Party, and Kath Hacking, an older, potentially conservative member who has become disenchanted with Hand. Key players are other ALP members such as Deputy Mayor Janet Butler and her right hand person Trevor Snape, and their swings between supporting Hand, wanting Butler to be a candidate, and loyalty to their political party, particularly when consensus cannot be reached about the preferred ALP candidate (Butler or Macindoe). It’s a low level fight between the operators, the sticklers, and the despots.

Hand makes for a perfect focus as he’s smooth and charming, but quite happy to confide and play to the camera about who he considers to be a “back-stabbing traitor” or drafting up lists of potential votes in his office, often treating the camera as his sounding board. Meetings are held in the cafe down the road, Bar Italia, and there’s always a casual smoke break indoors. Directed and shot on film by Bob Connolly and Robin Anderson, with access to behind the scenes meetings, it is an engaging and dryly funny movie, eschewing the heightened dialogue we might see in The West Wing or The Thick Of It, with people ending phone calls with “Alright, mate, talk to you later” or people ending a meeting by saying, “Well, better get dinner ready.” And now the film has an unforeseen resonance with the ALP representative called upon to resolve the ALP mayoral candidate’s squabbles (and does not agree to be filmed) being Anthony Albanese, now Australia’s current Prime Minister. To quote Larry Hand again: “It’s a lot of shit I have to go through, an absolute lot of shit… But that’s politics!” Recommended.