Film comments 2024: Lady parts

 

Film comments 2024: Lady parts

For films that talked about lady parts, there was none moreso than Yorgos Lanthimos’ ‘Poor Things’.  If at first it seemed dangerously close to a male fantasy of creating and maltreating a child-woman, riffing on ‘Frankenstein’ and classic picaresque, it soon became apparent that this is not a ‘Weird Science’ fantasy but more musing on nature and nurture. Ditching the unreliable narrator element of Alasdair Gray’s novel, among other aspects, it offered a romp through the picaresque – also overlong, which is a feature of the form – with a feminist slant. Although I had friends that thought Emma Stone was mostly just over-acting instead of good – which I didn’t wholly agree with – there was much to the aesthetic and execution that was undeniably great, a full feast.  

And from “Goth ‘Barbie’” to “Gore ‘Barbie’”, Coralie Fargeat’s ‘The Substance’ proved to be the essential winning shock to the year’s worthy cinema. It is true that I couldn’t help but have reservations as I had with Fargeat’s debut ‘Revenge’ – what I saw as a certain carelessness with detail that shortchanged all that was good – but there was no denying its triumph of being a crossover body-horror success with scrungy B-movie basis and A-movie gloss. 

Zelda Williams’ ‘Lisa Frankenstein’ also played with body horror and female perspective, but it was ultimately an airless warm-and-fuzzy Eighties homage rather than insightful (you’d have to go to ‘I saw the TV Glow’ for a homage with a real emotional charge).

 And body-horror was also a feature of female expression in Rose Glass’ ‘Love Lies Bleeding’, but that was just one Tokyo Drift that its erotic thriller basis took, having already integrated an ugly Ed Harris mullet, buff lesbian bodybuilding, drugs, modern American Noir and Gothic, obsession, and moments of superviolence. Its genre play and overcooked ingredients all held together successfully by pure vibe, with a finale akin to ‘The Substance’. But here, the feeling was that it got crazier and more surreal as things heated up and desperation sets in.

Certainly it was a more successful Coen-esque potboiler than Ethan Coen’s own ‘Drive-Away Dolls’, which was cartoonish to the point of diverting-without-substance. It shared a similar premise of two women in love on the wrong side of the law, and I enjoyed it more than most, sensing from the start that it wasn’t going to need much investment, but it melted away where ‘Love Lies Bleeding’ gathered more respect in retrospect.

Similarly, ‘Bottoms’ didn’t quite hit the nerve of Emma Seligman’s previously delicious ‘Shiva Baby’, however spiky it was, mostly because it ultimately turned to a more conventional mode, forsaking much of its edginess and satirisation of the high school genre to something predictable.

Like ‘The Substance’, Ozgood Perkins’ ‘Longlegs’ was another film that I felt out of step with the general consensus. It was all centred on the trauma of Agent Lee Harker (an appealingly offbeat Maika Monroe) … to a contrived degree. Brilliantly directed but upon reflection, I was unconvinced, excellent direction in my book requiring attention to details that I felt ‘Longlegs’ lacked. Even if it absorbed a full throttle Nicolas Cage performance without losing focus, there were too many non sequiturs and an underachieving finale.

As often happens, two similar genre pieces came out around the same time; this time there were a couple of nunsploitation horrors. ‘The First Omen’ proved surprisingly stylish and better than expected although it ended up petering out. Needed more convoluted death set-pieces. ‘

'Immaculate’ took the opposite approach, apparently just shrugging and deciding, “Fuck it! Let’s go bonkers for no reason for the last act.” And horror fans were sated at the outrageousness and bad taste.Looks good, swiftly jogs through its predictable beats (oh, “catacombs” you say?), has a series of knowing performances and Sydney Sweeney gives it her all, from piousness to mania. Gleefully goes through its tropes and archetypes until revealing itself to be an entertaining slice of schlock. Again, for religion, a woman’s body is the battleground and ornate ceremony is the curtain of respectability. Moving through nunsploitation, superficial jump-scare horror, a pretence of po-facedness, nightmare sequences, a little mad scientist and Final Girl action, it’s the final movement that delivers its true worth. Horror fans will be rewarded the wait and left smiling.

Ti West’s ‘MaXXXine’ ended the Pearl & Maxine trilogy with the least surprising, least satisfying instalment. ‘Pearl’ had promised something that would make this trilogy a modern horror classic, but it turned out all the dangerous stuff was already used up and the narcissism that made Maxine such a promising horror narcissist-sociopath was subsumed under an admittedly enjoyable Eighties-and-giallo recreation but an average conclusion.

Rather, it was JT Mollner’s ‘Strange Darling’ that offered up the danger. Told in six chapters but out of order, which means we get sensory and action overload up front before setting in for long two-hander flirting – “Are you a serial killer?” And then the revelations… Willa Fitzgerald is exceptional with Kyle Gallner more than her match. The 35mm thriller colour scheme, the abrasive then seductive sound design, the dialogue, the hints of something retro, all go to make this smart, fun, funny, upsetting but ultimately a hugely entertaining thrill ride with a little something to say about gender roles. Even makes room for making breakfast being a highlight.

While ‘Strange Darling’ was strictly rollercoaster genre fare and therefore one step removed from reality, a film like Elric Kane’s ‘The Dead Thing’ offered up a more a nuanced inquiry into modern feminine identity. It’s true that many didn’t think this gelled and just bored, but from the languid pace I found an interesting ghost story about the modern malaise of urban hook-up culture. Blu Hunt gives an assured turn as a woman who turns to fleeting sexual encounters to alleviate her dislocation and depression, leading to lust-motivated hauntings. Putting all-encompassing desire at the forefront of motivation gives this its quirk and the atmosphere is of a dreamy urban ambience.

Emma Benestan’s ‘Animale’ had another fascinating female character: she’s a bull runner that isn’t butch or competing with the machismo, but just trying to be a part of what she sees and wants. It's the slow burn that draws you in with Oulaya Amamra’s soft-and-tough performance riveting from the start. The measured world-building allows the etching of the community and character to soak in. If it ends up being more obvious than promised, not realising that it need not be, it is nevertheless fascinating, exhibiting a sure hand and sense of place and culture in the Carmague region bull running context. And what to do with a bull running woman, eh men?

Michael Sarnoski’s ‘A Quiet Place: Day One’, ‘Broken Bird’ and ‘Magpie’  all offered interesting female leads, if not quite wholly successful: the first replacing action with the maudlin; the second having tonal problems until reaching a decent Gothic finale; the last reaching only Get-‘em-girl! cliches. And there was plenty of Final Girl Kick Ass action from the likes of ‘Azrael’ and ‘The Bitter Taste’ , but even better were the historical revenge dramas ‘The Last Ashes’ and even Stone Age ‘Outof Darkness’ that delivered more tricksy and thoughtful contemplations on female violence.

But it was ‘Furiosa: A Mad Max saga’ that delivered the full-throttle raw and thoughtful female-led drama, despite stretching across Furiosa’s coming-of-age. In fact, that this and ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ both rage against toxic masculinity whilst delivering the very petrolhead action you came for are their exemplary achievements. 

But it was ‘Smile2’ that proved the surprise in its slippery structure, devotion to failing reality and empathic examination of celebrity. Its smarts and nuance meant it convinced me on the subject far more than ‘The Substance’: not as delirious or delightful, but there was proper meat on the bone.

But it was Pascal Plante’s ‘Red Rooms’ that felt truly dangerous. There are films where you feel you’ve gone deep in the hole, where you feel you might have been where you shouldn’t, and this is one of them. Juliette Gariépy’s performance became increasingly brilliant as the plot unfolded. Compelling, morally murky/challenging, a brilliantly structured thriller where what? and why? slides into WTF?! without ever fully answering any of that, never being quite what you think.

'Black Test Car' and 'The Black Report'

 Black Test Car

黒の試走車 – Kuro no tesuto kâ

Director: Yasuzô Masumura

Writers: Kazuo Funahashi, Yoshihiro Ishimatsu

Novel: Sueyuki Kajiyama

1962, Japan

‘Black Test Car’ looks like Sixties New Wave shaded by Film Noir, and it certainly uses this look and urgency to dress up its tale of industrial espionage as a spy thriller. Two companies engage in dirty tricks – blackmail, bribery, bullying, pimping, spying, etc – to beat the other to the punch in developing a sports car. But of course, it’s much deeper than that. The fanatical company loyalty is akin to blind patriotism, and indeed there are CEOs with military backgrounds and the whole rivalry is played out like a warzone where ethics are seen as naïveté. And of course, this is conflated with capitalism. Jonathan Rosenbaum speaks of how Masumura portrayed this as a madness.*

JapanonFilm equates Asahino’s closing moral speechifying as typical of this genre of drama, condemning their tactics as concomitant with gangsterism, but also in a specifically Japanese context. 

“But he adds the unexpected twist of comparing the company to the Army and telling his boss he might as well “put on khaki.” Masumura and his screenwriters are not necessarily representative of the society as a whole, but the very idea that the previously god-like Army could now be considered worse than the yakuza in a mainstream entertainment movie indicates just how far a large segment of public opinion has swung by 1960.”

Aside from this insanity of unquestioning devotion, the correlation between sex, work and money is brazen. Masoko (Junko Kano) sensuously kissing a jewelled ring after she’s been pimped out by her boyfriend to obtain industrial secrets is typical. Inevitably, when business is so dominated by men, toxic masculinity is rife; but as Rosenbaum notes, everyone here is villainous. It’s not quite like ‘The Sweet Smell of Success’ where the women are superior, ethically speaking, but ‘Black Test Car’ is even more obvious that the women know that their gender compromises their opportunity and choices. The men have no such mitigating motivation: their company loyalty is corrosive.  

It’s not so subtle and doesn’t need to be, with characters often talking in exposition (or at least the subtitles do: “Here is your spying money,” is a highlight). The settings are boardrooms and clubs and bedrooms, but the sequences are often rapid, the pace persistent, the plotting and double-crossing keeps coming, so it’s always compelling. The black-and-white compositions and suits give this an element of surface cool even as the centre gets increasing warped and destructive. 

The word “black” became synonymous with corruption in Japanese culture, with Deiei’s Tokyo studio releasing a whole series of films under this rubric. Made during a booming period in Japanese cinema, these films reflect post-war social changes and anxieties about such economic booms – such as the car industry – and wrestled with ethical struggles with new and old systems. Masumura’s follow-up to ‘Black Test Car’ was ‘The Black Report’ (aka. ‘Black statement Book’), a similarly thorough and cynical text on the legal system.

The Black Report

Aka. Black Statement Book

Kuro no hôkokusho

Director: Yasuzô Masumura

Writers: Yoshihiro Ishimatsu, Yasuzô Masumura 

‘The Black Report’ starts with the beautifully composed aftermath of a murder, the scene decorated with flowers. The mixture of death and decoration is almost giallo-like. Both ‘Test Car’ and ‘Report’ begin with their most striking images – the car covered in a tarpaulin to disguise its design and the murder scene – that imprint themselves in the memory from the outset as the film goes into more offices and meetings to tell its tale. ‘The Black Report’ is less jazzy than its predecessor, but courtroom dramas have a built-in suspense mechanism.

Again, as things unfold, Masumara’s style is rapid with barely a diversion or segue. Just clean cuts, parcels of information developing the narrative with each scene. There’s so many details – this affair, another affair… no… Yes?... that another film might take half hour dispensing where Masumura takes ten minutes. And then, the trial falls apart as the angle of each testimony changes. One side has the ideal of law and the other sees it as sport. 

Both these films end with triumph and defeat as equal, as much losing when winning, creating a picture where truth and fairness are impossible within a crowd of personalities and perspectives, weaknesses, plots and corruption. Comeuppance is waved tantalisingly at the audience before the deadline is missed and the idealist becomes the scapegoat. 

And yet although fatalism and sleaze caps the narratives, so does acceptance and both films finish with the idealist going on to do presumably future good works, presumably wiser from their experience. Despite the beautiful high contract black-on-white on display, this is definitely a frustrated world of grey. That element of “unfairness” that I always find so memorable in a film does not register here: one of the notable achievements of these films are that they refuse to fall on either side of nihilism or wish-fulfilment. They resound with something far more complex.

• * ‘Black Test Car’, Arrow release: ‘What Matsumara Does With Our Madness’: John Rosenbaum.