Zeros And Ones (2021)

I wonder what viewers not familiar with director Abel Ferrara’s work would make of Zeros And Ones (2021). “From the director of King Of New York and Bad Lieutenant” is advertised in marketing and trailers, but this film has more in common with his later works like New Rose Hotel, Mary and 4:44 Last Day On Earth. All of these Ferrara productions exist in a fog between artiness and amateurism, themes hashed out across strongly dramatic scenes and sketchy digressions. In Zeros And Ones, we follow a soldier in dystopian Rome, J.J. (Hawke), and from the empty city streets, you can tell this was basically filmed during the COVID pandemic, masks and temperature checks are also part of the on-screen world. Searching for his twin brother (also Hawke), an activist in possible connection with a terrorist plot to blow up the Vatican, the dual roles allows Hawke to play both sullenly moody (the soldier) and loudly polemic (the revolutionary). It’s a murky movie both visually and story-wise. I guess that’s part of the point though with how political allegiances change and larger, and shadowy forces leave individuals on the ground twisting in the wind. This is a spy thriller the way New Rose Hotel was a cyberpunk movie by which it doesn’t satisfy any standard genre conventions. Sean Price Williams is the cinematographer (Good Time, Her Smell) and applies his digital aesthetic to the nocturnal empty streets and dimly lit interiors; it’s also embedded in the movie’s themes with Hawke as a soldier carrying around a digital camera as well as a gun, and the act of recording and observance becomes part of the film’s style. Several moments feel like digital art, a grainy aesthetic of surveillance. Of course, it’s all a bit pretentious, and often gets goofy (at one point the soldier is held at gun point to impregnate another agent played by Ferrara’s wife, Cristina Chiriac). Powering through it is an excellent prog-rock score by Ferrara collaborator Joe Delia which adds considerably to the dystopian atmosphere and mood. Your mileage will vary on your tolerance for Ferrara and Hawke in post-First Reformed mode. I was into it, particularly being taken off-guard by its concluding sequence, which despite being anti-climatic has a clear visual and thematic point. Bookended by Hawke as himself talking to the camera about the movie (a technique Ferrara used in Welcome To New York), the breaking of the fourth wall weirdly gives it a sense of closure that the story might not have had on its own. Available to rent/purchase on iTunes and on DVD. Recommended for the Ferrara-heads out there.

Saint Maud (2019)

Saint Maud (2019) is a critically acclaimed contemporary horror movie – the feature film debut of British director Rose Glass – that didn’t get a cinema release in Perth, and is now available direct to digital. There’s a cliche now of A24 type modern horror movies that are more like psychological character studies that only really become a horror movie right in the last ten minutes. Saint Maud is that, but to me, it’s the best version of it. Morfydd Clark plays Maud, a nurse who has been placed to care for a cancer-stricken dancer/choreographer (Jennifer Elhe) in a townhouse upon a hill (the film is set in the English coastal town of Scarborough, North Yorkshire). Maud is diligent in her duties but an odd character; we sit with her perspective and observe her prayers to God as interior monologues, which is not odd in itself – rather, it’s the ecstatic fits when Maud is overcome with “God’s love” and her face seems to stretch with possession. It’s a slow burn but sustains an unnerving, compelling tone through Clark’s committed, excellent lead performance as her relationship with her brittle charge, the dying urbane socialite, grows and Maud begins to unravel. Interiors are related in shadowy, baroque palettes (cinematography by Ben Fordesman). Realism is punctured by displays of body horror and haunted visions. The film is definitely helped by a sly sense of humour so that it doesn’t feel like a miserable slog, capped off by a memorable denouement. Available to rent on iTunes and YouTube Movies. Recommended.

The Sacrifice (1986)

The Sacrifice (1986; Offret) was one of Nathan Beard’s answers for ‘What movie would you want to watch when the world ends?’ when we held the VHS Tracking – Live event for Blue Room Theatre a year or so ago. I always had it in mind to watch because of that, alongside my ongoing journey into director Andrei Tarkovsky’s filmography, which for a long time I had not seen any of and had been a bit intimidated by their reputation. Delving into The Sacrifice on a late Saturday night after watching The Rapture, effectively a double feature about the end of the world and a protagonist’s conversation with God, Tarkovsky’s film had me engaged right from the first shot, a lengthy take that observes at a distance, the journalist/academic Alexander (Erland Josephson, best known to me from Ingmar Bergman movies) talking to his young son while he fixes a dead tree into the ground to water. As the shot continues, a talkative postman rides into frame (Allan Edwall) and the conversation continues while the shot tracks alongside them. This shot was so simple yet also felt complex and the movie became immediately involving. Set on an island (Gotland off Sweden), the film charts Alexander’s birthday celebrations where his wife, step-daughter and friend, a doctor, gather along with the servants. Aside from the presence of a car, a radio and a television, their dress and the interiors could almost be from another century yet everything is interrupted by the news of an incoming nuclear war, alongside the sounds of jets flying overhead. Isolated in their lovely house on the island, people go to extremes with the air of finality, and Alexander himself wonders what he could offer to God to make things right. I was quite gripped by certain sequences and images by cinematographer Sven Nykvist and the concluding sequence is amazing. There’s also a subtextual weight with the knowledge that this was Tarkovsky’s final film as he was dying of cancer and it stands as quite an intentional statement. Still kind of wrapping my head around. Much like the classical paintings or maps that the characters contemplate, this feels like a work you can come back to and sit with. Recommended.

The Rapture (1991)

Being a teenage fan of The X Files, I was aware of The Rapture (1991) as a movie David Duchovny was in before becoming Fox Mulder. Yet the central performance is by Mimi Rogers and she is great in delivering a character who shifts gradually throughout this movie’s ongoing thematic conversation with God and religion. The directorial debut of Michael Tolkin, the screenwriter who adapted The Player for Robert Altman, the movie is both a product of its time period – the early 1990s with its white walled interior apartments, baggy jeans and print flowing dresses – and the type of big issue debate movie you don’t see much in American mainstream cinema but handled in an eerie, unusual manner. At first, the movie flirts as a steamy erotic flick, Rogers is a switchboard operator who gets her kicks as a nighttime swinger. She and her friend Vic (Patrick Bauchau) prowl the streets in noirish clubs for people to pick up (including Duchovny in an eye-catching mullet). Yet underneath the sensual allure is a growing restlessness and unease as Rogers finds herself unsatisfied by her own life and becomes curious over increasing signs that the end of the world is nigh, where believers are all having the same dream. Years ago I spoiled what happened in the movie by reading the Wikipedia plot summary foolishly, yet finally watching it, I was still floored by the disquieting conclusion. The movie shifts along with its protagonist’s spiritual changes, and even if some of the plot moves are schematic to make its ultimate point, Rogers is convincing and commanding. Great supporting work from Will Patton alongside Bauchau and Duchovny. The score is composed by Thomas Newman, offering a distinctive ambience before he would make everything sound like his American Beauty theme. There’s also an effective apocalyptic air generated by its moderate budget and minimal effects; others have also compared it to Todd Haynes’ Safe. The Rapture takes religion seriously, while also remaining questioning and ultimately resolute in following through its character’s arc. Available to rent on Amazon and Google Play in the US (if you have a VPN). Recommended.

Elmer Gantry (1960)

Watching a few Burt Lancaster movies recently and I was contemplating him as an actor, how he fills up a frame with his tall, athletic physique and his garrulous, charismatic, confidence. Lancaster won the Oscar for Best Actor for playing the title role of Elmer Gantry (1960), based on the Sinclair Lewis novel, and it is a showy, big and bold character, which the actor plays to the tilt, all rockets blazing. The first scene finds Elmer Gantry in a bar, a fast-talking salesman telling dirty jokes to the fellas and eyeing the shape of a dame at the bar. Yet we follow his travels as he starts to schmooze his way into the world of revival tent preaching, drawing on his own history as a seminary school drop-out (expelled for lewd behaviour, we find out) to claim his stake in this growing industry as a “reformed sinner”. The success of Sister Sharon Falconer (Jean Simmons, excellent) and her touring tent show offers Gantry someone to turn his talkative charms onto. As Gantry becomes a popular fire-and-brimstone preacher, journalist Jim Lefferts (Arthur Kennedy) keeps a wry eye over everything, and particularly causes a stir when an editorial denounces the congregation’s move to a big city centre (cue timely scenes of Gantry whipping up his congregation by denouncing the newspapers as “fake”). Shirley Knight is also great in the later half as Lulu Bains, a sex worker who was also an intimate acquaintance of Elmer’s back in the day, and aims to get revenge on Elmer’s sanctimonious agitation against illicit businesses. The first half is strong satire on the ghoulish faces in rapture at Gantry’s absurdist speechifying, but I was surprised to see how the movie allows its characters to be sincere and that the emotional relationships become more layered than simply being a critical take-down of religious business. As a big budget Hollywood drama, it is long, colourful and broad, but also feels like an influence on later movies like PTA’s There Will Be Blood or The Master in its motivated, morally dubious protagonist and particular the latter film’s interest in an American society that feels lost and lonely, seeking some form of guidance that is both entertaining and “spiritual”. I thought it was great. Directed by Richard Brooks and based on the novel by Sinclair Lewis. Available to stream on Stan. Recommended.