La Civil

La Civil

Director – Teodora Mihai

Writers – Habacuc Antonio De Rosario, Teodora Mihai

2021 – Belgium-Romania-Mexico

Stars – Arcelia Ramírez, Álvaro Guerrero, Jorge A. Jimenez

 

From the Glasgow Film Festival.

When her daughter is kidnapped by a local gang, Cielo (Arcelia Ramírez) can’t let it lie although everyone takes is as just everyday life in Mexico.

With her daughter opening the film with a joke about Adam and Eve and Mexico being Paradise, the films lays out the religious nature of a culture who are in no illusion that they are living in a Hell, preyed on by cartels. Of course, such a narrow view of Mexico might be problematic as playing on stereotypical conceptions of the country for outsiders, but in the Q&A, Mihai makes it clear that it is based on a real person and stories. The emphasis is unwaveringly on Cielo, her increasing activism and unlikely emergence as amateur detective.

The camerawork is often the smash-and-grab of documentary film, which is Mihai’s background, but even then the focus is always on Cielo. The camera is never leaving this crusading mother’s side, even she joins an army attack on a cartel horror site. The violence is mostly heard as she wanders through the bloodstained rooms looking for her daughter. It is never quite “thrilling” or “exciting” in a superficial way, and in that way circumnavigates exploitation.

One poster has the tagline “Never underestimate a mother’s wrath”, with a gangster pointing a rifle for the kill against the backdrop of an explosion, but this is deceptive packaging as a revenge thriller. It’s feels more like “despair” than “wrath”, even when anger takes her over. Consistently melancholy and contemplative, the tone is not quite as all-out brutal as the unrelenting ‘Helo’, but the bleakness moves into a more conventional ‘Sicario’ rhythms as Cielo joins the military to witness and eventually participate in their questionable tactics. In this way, it follows more conventional thriller beats, but Ramírez’s performance as an unglamourous, average mother keeps things grounded, convincing and gripping throughout its runtime.

Her Way - Une Femme du Monde

 HER WAY

UNE FEMME DU MONDE

Director – Cécile Ducrocq

Writers – Stéphane Demoustier(collaboration), Cécile Ducrocq(screenplay)

Stars – Laure Calamy, Nissim Renard, Béatrice Facquer

 At the Glasgow Film Festival.

A character piece about Marie (Laure Calamy) putting everything into her effort to get her somewhat lost and apathic teenaged son Adrien (Nissim Renard) into a prestige culinary school. It’s the only thing that really seems to focus him, that brings out his talent. The thing is, she’s a sex worker.

It’s a woman’s film which neither presents choosing to be a proud prostitute as liberating or as wrong. It’s more a portrayal of the trials of work life and what you will do for your kids. Marie is laser focused on lifting Adrien from his awkwardness and self-loathing, but sometimes she resorts to shouting and badgering him too much. Perhaps if she stops on this quest, she will have to clearly face her own shortcomings, which she is not about to do just yet. The fiery pride that emboldens her to protest for her profession also frequently puts her at odds with her son. In fact, her maternal determination which is so admirable also makes her increasingly dangerous to others. 

This mother-son stuff is great, rightly the heart of the film and will hit many chords. Laure Calamy and Nissim Renard put in riveting, believable performances, and that’s where the story’s strength lies. The scene where Adrien is sat down to do a dummy interview with his mother’s transvestite lawyer friend is a highlight, loading with swinging sympathies and perspectives, uncomfortable to watch, and ultimately touching. And this scene shows the film is not frightened of showing casual prejudices: there is also the detail of Marie’s racism mixed with her resentment of competition. These are fully-rounded, complex characters that are venerable and sympathetic but not always likeable and frequently frustrating.

Often amusing, always engaging and flighty, you’re likely to be fully onboard in her plight and his fear of failure that you won’t care if the film starts to reveal more stereotypical beats by the end. But the message that, no matter how much you want to help, the individual still has to find their own way and that determination may not be enough is quietly stated and welcome.

Bird Box

BIRD BOX

Susan Bier, 2018, USA

The high concept end-of-the-world scenario this time is Sandra Bullock is pregnant but seemingly not quite the maternal type, preferring to paint and stay home rather than go out and start mothering (it’s the art/motherhood conflict). Then the apocalypse happens and people start seeing something that makes them either suicidal or homicidal. So don’t look… although it seems that whispers of temptation from your subconscious has a lot to do with it too. Soon Bullock is holed up with a house of mismatching and bickering survivors, including the archetypal John-Malkovich-is-an-asshole type.

It’s like the Talk Talk song ‘Happiness is Easy’  which points out that a part of religion’s key allure is the faith that the afterlife is better – so why not kill yourself? The threat in ‘Bird Box’ seems to be not only that the vision is sublime, but also the appeal of an (empty?) promise that you get to see your deceased love ones. Which casts Bullock’s trajectory to motherhood as a struggle against violence – to herself and others. The family dynamic becomes literally blindfolding yourself and trusting to luck. Or to the kindness of the narrative. And it plays on the themes of kindness and empathy whilst also check-listing that no-good-deed-goes-unpunished. But as the cast is whittled down, all this is filtered to Bullock opening her eyes to motherhood.

‘Bird Box’ was/is a NetFlix phenomenon, the self-perpetuating kind made possible by social media and memes and the “Bird Box challenge” (where you can play at being blind!). It’s just dangerous enough to mark genre credentials and yet safe enough to be a crossover hit – for the big screen, it was rated “R”, but it’s average stuff for a horror fan. More than many NetFlix originals, this feels like a TV movie.

Based on Josh Malerman’s novel, this will inevitably be compared to ‘A Quiet Place’ in that survival depends more-or-less upon denial of one of the senses. But blindness is surely harder to convince with because, even if we accept the rapids, when they are fleeing through woods and not constantly tripping or running into trees it relies more on suspension of belief. Perhaps the “blind” car expedition for food is the best horror set-piece as it taps into something truly unpalatable – as well as being great promotion for proximity sensors. Bier doesn’t take us close to the detail of being blind, mostly rendering the experience from mid-shots or in brief cuts, such as small moments of blindfolded camera; she never truly finds a way of solving the problem of characters not being able to see in a visual medium which deflates any terror.

‘Bird Box’ is serviceable and slick then, if average, and the blindfolds provide a vivid meme that audiences have already run with. But there’s not enough in the execution to overcome its obvious weaknesses –where it differs crucially from ‘A Quiet Place’ – or the questions that Amy Nicholson lists: 

"However, the back of the audience’s brain is stuck trying to figure out things like: are the monsters hunting their prey, or is it just impersonal? How do the roommates get rid of the corpses? And how offended will the American Psychiatric Association be that Bird Box’s secondary fiends are mental patients who, according to the film, can’t be driven crazy by the creatures because they’re already insane?"

And now falling into the mode of cheesy reviewer’s-punning-punchline: you’ll be looking for more.