Do Not Expect Too Much From The End Of The World (2023)

“Where’s the director? … I have one word for you: emotion.”

Do Not Expect Too Much From The End Of The World (2023) is the third film of Romanian director Radu Jude’s that I have seen and I love his approach and style. Taking inspiration from Jean-Luc Godard and others, Jadu makes essay-films that bring a lot of texts to the table and look for the contradictions, overlaps and tensions between them. Here, this near three-hour film cuts between three media modes: the present day in black-and-white cinematography observing overworked P.A. Angela (Ilinca Manolache, who is fantastic) as she drives endlessly between assignments, pumping loud music to stop herself falling asleep; the TikTok/Instagram uploads that Angela makes as a character named “Boba,” using a filter to transform herself into a parody of toxic bro incels; and the repurposing of an older Romanian film, Angela Moves On, from the 1980s, made during stricter government censorship about a woman taxi driver also named Angela (played by Dorina Lazar). The older film is shot in colour and often the footage is slowed down to inspect the background, of people and locations that have changed.

There are tensions between the two representations of Romanian society then and now, and how the two drivers are treated by the men around them. Without knowing more about Romanian culture than what the movie comments on, there are strong themes that would speak to everyone, specifically the work culture of today, between Angela’s overtime and struggle to get through another day on the road, to the corporate video about workplace safety that she is interviewing potential actors for. Satirical, funny, observational, and dynamic in its intermingling of styles, texts and quotes (even throwing in hand-written quotes into the closing credits), this was masterful and compelling. Being slowly crushed by the wheels of industry but finding the time to get 40K viewers on your latest fucked-up TikTok.

The decision to have Angela wear a sparkly dress on her rounds is such a masterstroke in the black and white images. When she pulls over to sleep during the day and the sun hits the dress for a reflective glare like a disco-ball, further compounding the inability to find relief.

Available to stream on Mubi. Recommended.

Murina (2021)

Deep down in the blue. A morning errand dive for teenager Juljia (Gracija Filipović) and her father Ante (Leon Lučev). The type of father whose moods cloud and control the household. Underneath the water, he can’t say anything, demean and insult. They both carry spearguns to catch eels. Underwater is also where Julijia finds escape and relief; she’s a skilled swimmer with a drive to go further, particularly if it’s away from her father. Outside the water, the stone house is on a clifftop. The landscape is white pebbled, dry and a little bit barren. An almost mythical, ancient setting for what is a lived-in coming-of-age story. The cataylst is the visit of a charming man Javier (played by the ever-reliable, handsome Cliff Curtis), an old shipmate of the father, now a wealthy magnate. Ante wants to sell his land to him as a possible tourist site, and Juljia finds this old friend of the family to be a welcome alternative father figure as well as a developing crush, particularly once she finds out about his history with her mother, Nela (Danica Ćurčić) before she was married.

Murina (2021) is told from Juljia’s perspective and Filipović is really great in the lead performance, the camera observing her quiet observations and reactions to her domineering father. Eventually finding her own voice amongst the daydreams, hopes and frustrations. A scenic location and an intimate drama within the family’s reactions to the welcomed interloper. A film of simmering tension, and great underwater photography by cinematographer Hélène Louvart and her crew. Feature film debut of Croatian filmmaker Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović. Thank you to Claudia for recommending it to me, and now I recommend it to you. Available to stream on SBS On Demand.

El Planeta (2021)

A box of Ferrero Rocher chocolates in a display window. Filmed in digital black and white, a framed image that the camera lingers on and one of my favourite shots in the movie El Planeta (2021). In the Spanish town of Gijon, there are numerous shops boarded up, closed down on account of a recession. The Ferrero Rochers are part of a montage of street scenes. We see other shops and their display windows. Commercial items like shoes, lingerie and dresses. Even without the black and white cinematography, the atmosphere is austere. In the commercial shopping districts, we mainly see the elderly walk past. I find the Ferrero Rochers funny because of how they’re thought of as what you buy for a special gift or occasion. Real fancy, even though they’re available in supermarkets, service stations. Not necessarily expensive or hard to get – just imbued with something that is supposed to be classy and special. Appropriate to the theme of the movie, which is about carrying on as if you are expensive, and wealthier than you are, even as the restaurant tabs are piling up and the utilities are about to be cut for unpaid bills.

El Planeta is directed and written by artist Amalia Ulman, starring her and her mother, Ale Ulman. They play a mother and daughter named Maria and Leonor respectively, and we find them in slow free-fall. With the husband and father having died, their status as an upper class family is evaporating. And yet, they exist without urgency, cutting costs and stealing where they can, carrying on the charade of privilege. Casual shoplifting, returning items for refunds, and weathering their dwindling resources. Outside it’s too hot to wear their fur coats. Leonar is an artist and gets an opportunity to design a pop artist album cover in New York, yet has no money for the flight costs. In contrast to a comedy like Arrested Development where a wealthy family is forced to find other means of maintaining their status, the humour here is not broad. The comedy is deadpan and observational. Even as figures of satire, the relationship between mother-and-daughter feels believable and likeable, despite their grifting means.

Great low budget indie flick that is a promising debut for Amalia Ulman. Walks a modulated tone between being endearing and sharp, especially in the use of real world news footage in the closing credits. Available to stream on Stan. Shout out to Static Vision for distributing El Planeta. 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.

The Novelist’s Film (2022)

I’m still reading Dennis Lim’s book about Hong Sang-soo’s film Tale Of Cinema, which is used to discuss the prolific auteur’s body of work. I’ve seen a lot of Sang-soo’s films this year, mainly due to the fact that many of them were added to SBS OnDemand. By seeing more than one of Sang-soo’s productions, you understand the recurring themes, actors and overall approach. The action is mainly characters talking, eating and drinking together. Reading further into Sang-soo’s filmmaking style, the fact that he writes scenes early in the morning on the day of shooting contributes to the understanding of unfolding creation to the narrative. Reducing the filmmaking apparatus to one camera, unbroken master shots with the occasional zoom-in, and simple locations (cafes, offices, bookstores, cinemas), and hence has been able to complete films quickly, often releasing two to three in a year (running times ranging from 90 minutes to an hour).

The Novelist’s Film (2022) made me think of a couple of things, one related to a thematic interest of the director’s and another more broader and outside of his thematic concerns. The main character is an acclaimed, popular novelist Jun-hee (Lee Hye-young, who was great as the lead in Sang-soo’s In Front Of Your Face) who takes a trip to a quieter area outside the city. Often Sang-soo includes meta elements in his movies and this film in particular seems to be a conversation across his characters about the director’s creative thinking. The novelist is a bit stuck, feeling uninspired to write, and through the story, she meets an actor who doesn’t work as much. There’s an air of pausing between characters who have artistic occupations, and the meeting provides inspiration to the novelist: she decides to make a short film with the actress Gil-soo (Kim Min-hee, Sang-soo’s partner and collaborator) inspired by her presence. Conversations revolve around getting older, resting, and whether a good life is bound up with being creatively productive or financially secure. Essentially the way forward reflects Sang-soo’s own practice, and in many ways the film is a knowing statement of purpose.

Outside of the meta element about creativity, I reflected upon the days, rarer now, where it would start with one thing, catching up with a friend, and then keep progressing unexpectedly. You decide to have one more drink, one location begets another, an aimless walk leads to an unexpected encounter. The Novelist’s Film takes place over one day and we follow the main character move without a plan, deciding to go for a walk and visit a tower, bumping into people she knows or meeting people for the first time. Both comedy and depth comes from observing the characters conversing, humour in the awkwardness between then, and emotion from what might be unsaid or bluntly imparted. The beauty of the film is how these two connections are tied together, that creativity and ideas are inspired by living life and letting things unfold rather than forcing them into prescribed work. Shot digitally in black and white, film assembles mundane environments like bookshops and restaurants and parks, which are rendered acutely, and occasionally finds visual poetry, such as when characters walk up the park steps into a white sky of nothingness.

Regular players appear such as Kwon Hae-hyo and Ki Joo-bong, and particularly Seo Young-hwa who always brings a grounded presence to Sang-soo’s movies. Would The Novelist’s Film be a good entry point to Hong Sang-soo? Possibly – it has a strong protagonist in the Novelist who does not hold back in some social situations, though the ending might be elusive without knowledge of Sang-soo’s history particularly with Kim Min-hee. The Woman Who Ran and Grass were the first ones I saw, and both are like a collection of scenes and either would be a good start. I would also recommend Tale Of Cinema and In Front Of Your Face.

Available on SBS On Demand. Recommended.