The stylish campness of moustachioed detective Hercule Poirot is not exactly lost in the Gothic dread of A Haunting in Venice, though it is at least more subdued in comparison to his previous outings. Approximately ten years have passed since Death on the Nile, and here Kenneth Branagh picks up on Poirot’s reclusive retirement in late 1940s Italy. One can only stand to witness so many crimes in their life before finding themselves totally disillusioned with humanity, and the horrors of World War II have no doubt taken their toll on his idealistic resolve as well. As a result, Poirot may be the most cynical that he has ever been, and yet as he is drawn into this mystery of mediums, seances, and vengeful ghosts, the foundations of his hardened logic are confronted with visions of the impossible.
What better location to set this loose adaptation of Agatha Christie’s novel Hallowe’en Party than Venice too – a city which by day presents itself as a grand historical wonder built around classical stone monuments and canals, and which by night reminds us that the ghosts of its legends are still very much alive. It certainly helps that Branagh chooses to shoot on location rather than falling back on the green screens of Death on the Nile, which previously produced a somewhat artificial look. Magnificently authentic Venetian backdrops thus make for a rich visual presence throughout the first act, before the Belgian detective is lured into the claustrophobic, centuries-old palazzo of opera singer Rowena Drake with the promise of a séance that will defy belief.
Rowena’s deceased daughter Alicia is the spirit that this small party intends to commune with, having thrown herself into the canal one year prior, presumably out of heartbreak. Also present is American crime novelist Ariadne Oliver, Poirot’s old friend who invites him to the séance with the challenge of disproving medium Joyce Reynold’s supernatural abilities. Tina Fey and Michelle Yeoh are enthralling in these roles, though Branagh’s cast is not quite as loaded as it has been in previous films. Few of these characters carry the enigmatic magnetism of Emma Mackey’s spurned lover in Death on the Nile or Michelle Pfeiffer’s resentful family matriarch in Murder on the Orient Express, making Poirot’s interrogations particularly sluggish in the film’s middle act.
Still, Branagh’s chilling direction pulls through even at the narrative’s weakest points, and tantalisingly heightens its most shocking developments. Masked figures sail down canals illuminated by nothing but golden lanterns, ominously warning of a mystical danger that only reveals itself at night, while the Gothic parlours and spiral staircases of Rowena’s palazzo are warped in long shots framed through wide-angle lenses and Dutch tilts. The effect is unsettling, evoking Robert Wise’s 1963 horror The Haunting in its lavishly creepy stylings that escalate into close-up tracking shots attached to Poirot’s anxious face, and camera movements that twist our perspective upside-down. Adding to this the ghostly legend of children who were forcibly quarantined in the basement during the Black Plague back when the building was a hospital, and Branagh effectively blends his murder mystery narrative with supernatural horror, complicating our search for truth with further layers of deception and uncertainty.
Needless to say, Alicia’s suspicious death is not the only one that Poirot sets out to investigate in A Haunting in Venice – her murderer is in attendance at this very séance, Joyce proclaims as she channels her spirit, and it quickly becomes apparent that they will kill again to destroy evidence of their guilt. An unexpected attempt on Poirot’s life significantly raises the narrative stakes, and an impossible mystery seemingly leaves us with no logical explanation when another victim’s life is claimed in a locked room, heavily suggesting that those children’s spirits are more than just medieval myth.
That A Haunting in Venice departs quite significantly from its original novel and often tends more towards the Gothic literature of Edgar Allen Poe is no great source of frustration in this screenplay. Over the course of three films, Branagh has sought to construct a broader picture of the flamboyantly perfectionistic detective across decades of his life, from his days fighting in World War I, through the Great Depression, and now picking up the remnants of his passionate idealism in the aftermath of World War II. The series so far has no doubt made its missteps, and yet here Branagh proves his ability to keep expanding Christie’s classic murder mystery format in thrilling directions, questioning and reaffirming those fundamental narrative foundations that seek to fully comprehend the treacherous yet ultimately rational world they have constructed.
A Haunting in Venice is currently playing in theatres.
Twenty-four years after a preadolescent Nora immigrated to Toronto and left her childhood sweetheart Hae Sung behind in Korea, and twelve years after briefly reuniting with him through social media, the two finally meet again face to face in New York City. As they wander its streets and promenades, their conversation turns to the Korean concept of in-yeon – the mysterious, metaphysical thread that binds lovers together across multiple lives, drawing them closer in each incarnation until they finally fulfil their mutual destinies. Perhaps these characters we see before us were once monarchs, birds, or merely just strangers passing on a street, and yet even as they playfully consider these possibilities it becomes apparent that we are already witnessing in-yeon of a different kind.
This romantic understanding of reincarnation is delicately weaved into the triadic structure of Past Lives, effectively framing these characters as three different versions of themselves. As innocent children growing up in Seoul, to ambitious young adults divided by an ocean, and finally as accomplished professionals seeking closure, Nora and Hae Sung travel along winding paths that only intersect once every twelve years. Nora’s own personal ambitions effectively become markers along this journey too, characterised at each age by her desire to win either a Nobel Prize, a Pulitzer Prize, or a Tony Award – though by her 30s, it is clear that she does not put so much value in these lofty accolades.
Similarly, is Hae Sun not the same kid that Nora crushed on back as a 12-year-old back in Korea, nor the flat image on a laptop screen she would casually hang out with in her 20s. They may be emotionally drawn towards each other at each age, and yet whether through circumstances beyond their control or personal hang-ups, their meetings are always cut short before their relationship can blossom into full romance. The very first time we observe this too, Celine Song composes a melancholy illustration of diverging futures as the two children bid a quiet farewell, before continuing their independent journeys home from school – Nora ascending a flight of stairs on the right, while Hae Sung continuing along the level street on the left.
Fate wins out every time, guiding them into the arms of others who are closer to home, and yet there is still an indissoluble connection which perseveres against comfort and convenience. It is not quite strong enough to leave their life partners or goals behind, but still these old friends can’t help but wonder what they might have been to each other had they stood firmer against the tides of destiny.
Then again, perhaps destiny is more in sync with this unfulfilled romance than it appears. After all, is it merely chance which spurs Nora to reach out to Hae Sun through Facebook over a decade since they last saw each other, only to discover that he has been trying to do the same? Is this a tiny machination in the broader cosmos, entangling these souls across multiple lifetimes where their relationships take on thousands of forms?
It is clear to see the influence of Krzysztof Kieslowski’s philosophical meditations emerge in such profound questions, contemplating the invisible connections between total strangers, and representing enormously abstract ideas through the minutia of everyday life. Song echoes a similar tenderness in her delicate moving camera as well, but as Past Lives reaches its final act she sets out to craft an aesthetic far more in line with Richard Linklater’s Before trilogy or Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation, serenely observing her characters wander against backdrops of New York’s modern architecture and warm city lights.
Subtly crucial to the melancholic serenity of Nora and Hae Sun’s conversations too are those organic silences that emerge between them, revealing a mutual comfort in each other’s presence rather than awkward uncertainty. Through Greta Lee and Teo Yoo’s small glances and understanding smiles, we see all the poignant complexities of their semi-romantic love, while life continues to move around them in spinning carousels and rocking boats.
Still, none of this negates the relationship Nora has built over many years with Arthur, her Canadian husband. He is keenly aware of what he might have represented in the simplified fairy tale version of this story, playfully considering how some alternate narrator might frame him as the evil villain getting in the way of his wife’s destiny. Hae Sun does not represent a better alternative – just a different one, who, through no fault of Arthur’s, is able to understand parts of Nora’s life that her husband never will.
It is this strange dynamic which rises to the surface in the film’s pivotal bar scene, shutting Arthur out of a conversation spoken in Korean between Nora and Hae Sun. So central is this meeting of all three characters in Past Lives that Song uses it twice, alternating our perspectives each time.
From within the conversation, we discover Nora and Hae Sun at their most honest, reminiscing a history that belongs solely to them and considering the alternate paths they might have taken along the way. When this scene first plays out in the prologue though, it takes on even greater significance, palpably manifesting Nora and Hae Sun’s in-yeun before we even learn of the concept. Song sets the frame in a gorgeous, warmly lit wide shot, slowly zooming in on their muted conversation as the voices of an unseen couple across the bar playfully theorise their identities and relationships. The visual cues they pick up on are specific yet open-ended, leaving us similarly guessing who they might before we even meet them, and it is in that sweet spot of ambiguity that Past Lives flourishes in its romantic optimism. Within the 24 years they have known each other, Nora and Hae Sun may be helplessly limited to their respective paths, and yet across the expansive history and future of all living things, the possibilities of their undefined love are infinite.
The primal horror at the core of White Dog does not come down to standard psychological questions of whether it is nature or nurture guiding the titular beast towards its most hateful, vicious instincts. There is absolutely no doubt to be had at all that it is a product of the abhorrent environment it was raised in, motivating it to attack Black people on sight. The truly terrifying question that Samuel Fuller poses is whether this conditioning ingrained in the dog’s mind from a young age can ever be overwritten, saving the animal from its own upbringing, and potentially many Black lives from its violent racial prejudice. To achieve such a feat as this would be a professional milestone for African American dog trainer Keys, though on an even broader level he recognises the social significance of the mission too. The exploitation and weaponisation of innocent creatures to do one’s malicious bidding is a perverse act against nature itself, soiling their pure white coats with bloodstains, and so to prove that such virulent racism is fully reversible would mark a victory in Keys’ small crusade for justice.
Blood tainting the pure white coat of the dog, revealing its monstrous persona.
That Fuller deftly imbues this allegory for bigotry and indoctrination with all the tension of a pulpy horror film makes for an extraordinarily creative triumph too, framing the dog as a two-sided creature akin to Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. He draws this comparison directly in the dialogue, but it is also plainly evident in the suspense he builds around the dog’s behaviour, never quite letting us be sure whether we are about to get the loyal friend who lovingly gazes up at the camera with big, brown eyes, or the salivating beast ready to rip someone apart.
In the hands of a lesser director, White Dog could have very easily been a cheap melodrama falling back on stilted dialogue, and Fuller doesn’t entirely smooth over these flaws written into the screenplay either. Instead, he compensates for them by driving the film even deeper into thriller territory with his subjective camerawork, cutting between tight close-ups of Keys and the dog as a tenuous connection is forged between the two, and gradually closing the gap between black skin and white fur.
Strong iconography in the black skin and white dog, suspensefully closing the distance between both.Fuller has a sharp sense of unconventional camera angles, peering through Keys’ legs as the dog bounds towards him.Fuller drives the film even deeper into thriller territory with his subjective camerawork, cutting between tight close-ups of Keys and the dog as a tenuous connection is forged between the two.
At the same time, Fuller is also wisely discerning in those moments where he pulls his camera back from the action altogether, sitting in a wide shot as the dog sniffs at a pile of garbage on a streetside, momentarily ignorant to the African American boy we see playing just around the corner. Later when it launches into a bloody attack inside a church, there is a morbid irony in the camera’s calm movement upwards to a stained-glass window where St Francis of Assissi stands in harmony with a canine companion. With camera placement as bitingly precise and anxiety-inducing as this, Alfred Hitchcock’s influence is overtly present in Fuller’s direction, only magnified by Ennio Morricone’s persistent flutes and strings score uneasily haunting the background.
Hitchcockian suspense in the framing of this wide shot, underscoring the dramatic irony that threatens to erupt into violence.During one bloody attack, Fuller’s camera pans over to the stained glass window of St Francis of Assissi – with a dog by his side, no less.
At the same time though, Fuller’s style is far from plain imitation. Perhaps White Dog’s most compelling visual choice is also its most distinguished, forcing us to helplessly watch in slow-motion terror as the German Shepherd bounds towards its victims, teeth bared and face pulled into a tight snarl. In each instance, time reaches an agonising crawl, finally building to a nail-biting climax within Keys’ giant cage that harshly wraps around them in the dog’s final test.
Fuller’s slow-motion is a brilliant stylistic choice that lifts the quality of the entire film, forcing us to helplessly watch the dog’s attacks in visceral terror.
If the culmination of this scene doesn’t leave us defeated by the animal’s seemingly untreatable conditioning, then we are at least totally disturbed by the sudden appearance of Wilbur, the man who raised it and who now intends to take it back home. His warm, genial demeanour is at complete odds with our knowledge of his hidden cruelty, which sees him manipulate the course of nature to create killers in his own image. With two granddaughters by his side as well, Fuller hints very strongly at the chilling indoctrination likely going on behind closed doors, only with children in place of animals.
If we are to hold onto any hope and make a judgement based off the dog’s very last actions, then we might have reason to believe that one can indeed be cured of bigotry, paving the way for a far more compassionate and open-minded society. The deeply ingrained hatred which fuelled that prejudice, however, is a different beast altogether. In White Dog’s closing minutes, Fuller finally delivers one last twist of the knife, revealing the ugliness that lies at the sensitive root of the matter. This resentment bred by old prejudices does not necessarily seek racial violence to quench its bloodlust – it just seeks violence.
A melancholy crane shot pulling back in the final seconds, letting the tragedy sink in.
White Dog is currently available to rent or buy on Apple TV, YouTube, and Amazon Video.
While much of Hollywood has recently taken to telling the feel-good stories of those entrepreneurs who innovated broadly successful products such as Air Jordans, Tetris, and Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, BlackBerry’s unlikely pairing of tech bro Mike Lazaridis and cutthroat businessman Jim Balsillie proves to be a satirically wry subversion of that formulaic rags-to-riches tale. In theory, these two should have been a dynamic duo with enough brains between them to take over the world – and indeed they do for a time. The downfall of a brand which once made up 45% of the cell phone market though seems virtually predestined with the benefit of hindsight. As far as most people are concerned, BlackBerry seemingly disappeared without explanation, and so with a natural spontaneity behind the camera and a cynical wit at hand, Mike Johnson follows in the creative footsteps of Adam McKay to fill in the gaps of what we know about one of the most catastrophic business failures of the 21st century.
In its crudest form, the PocketLink device which Mike Lazaridis initially pitches to Jim with his friend Douglas Fregin isn’t terribly impressive, though its novelty is admirable – for one, the invention capitalises on a free wireless signal that spans North America, and which hasn’t yet been tapped into. It is little more than good timing which prompts a recently unemployed Balsillie to take them up on the offer, immediately establishing himself as co-CEO. For a time, his savvy business instincts work wonders, though the role his intimidating, hostile persona plays in this can’t be discounted. Corners must be cut, and quality must be sacrificed for progress. For such a dour man, his nuggets of wisdom are hilariously condescending, even targeting a subordinate as they commit the minor transgression of reaching for a bottle of water.
“Thirst is a display of a weakness.”
Glenn Howerton’s comic instincts that he has spent years crafting on sitcoms pays off tremendously in this role, effectively transplanting the raging narcissism of Dennis from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia into a tragically humourless businessman with an equal lack of self-awareness. The number of times he smiles in BlackBerry could be counted on one hand, but even when he does there is a cold arrogance in his eyes. Expressions of unbound fury come far more naturally to Balsillie, serving him well enough when he faces down competitors, though also incidentally revealing the rottenness which America’s capitalist industries thrive on.
Still, there is an odd respect that forms between Balsillie and Lazaridis. While the business shark proposes inserting BlackBerries into elite circles and marketing the brand as a status symbol, the tech genius wins over investors with his innovation, making for a perfectly symbiotic partnership. The tension that inevitably arises is even more tantalising to watch though, and it is through Johnson’s documentary shooting style that we begin to feel like voyeurs watching a colossal trainwreck in the making – albeit one desperately trying to save face in the public eye. Handheld cameras and zoom lenses probe into private spaces from a distance, studying the vulnerabilities of these entrepreneurs, all while Johnson keeps accelerating the momentum of their ruin in montages cutting across archival news stories and talk shows.
It isn’t just Lazaridis’ struggle to match the innovation of Apple’s iPhone touchscreen, but the very qualities which once made Balsillie such a compelling businessman are the same which brings his empire down around him. In this way, BlackBerry also becomes a cautionary tale of what comes of such nefarious distractions, obsessions, and shady practices in a capitalist industry, eventually degrading the very quality of the product until it becomes a cheap copy of itself. Through Johnson’s cynical bookends, the irritating buzz of poorly manufactured devices brings Lazaridis full circle back to where he started, only with the problem now multiplied around him a millionfold. The long-lasting era of smartphones may have been dreamed up by these forward-thinking men, and yet as BlackBerry casts its final condemnation upon the ruthlessly corrupt free market, it is also clear that its future was never going to flourish in their ill-equipped hands.
Whenever Toshiro Mifune’s rōnin strides through the streets of the small Japanese town in Yojimbo, he always seems to be accompanied by dust swirling in whirlwinds around his feet, underscoring his subtle yet formidable command over the atmosphere itself. He moves in straight lines, unwavering in his confrontation of whatever danger lies ahead of him, and supremely confidently that it too will bend to his mere presence.
He isn’t wrong in his self-assurance either. Akira Kurosawa builds a complex ensemble of characters in this gripping narrative, dividing many of them between two rival crime rings who have taken control of the town’s local trades, and each bidding for the service of this mysterious yet powerful newcomer who has wandered into their midst. When they barter for his protection, he does not even need words to push them up to the price he knows he is worth, instead simply meeting them with a cold, stoic silence. He is factionless, unswayed by their political ambitions and promises, and yet still recognising the necessity of at least some temporary alliances to achieve his ulterior motives – eliminating both warring gangs once and for all, and restoring peace to the village.
Kurosawa’s widescreen aspect ratio is crucial to his long shots, setting the scene of Sanjuro’s wandering into town with traditional Japanese architecture lining a wide, open street.
Even the identity of this wandering samurai seems concocted on a whim, taking inspiration from a nearby shrub when he is asked his name – Kuwabatake Sanjuro, or ‘thirty-year-old mulberry bush.’ He does not associate himself with any great clan of Japan’s Edo period, nor does he need to when his skill with a sword speaks entirely for itself. He is simultaneously every hero ever spoken about in Japanese folklore, and nobody at all.
The precedent that Mifune sets for Clint Eastwood’s own Man with No Name in Sergio Leone’s Dollars trilogy is clear, with both being framed as lone figures that have walked straight out of legend and into the real world, though this shouldn’t be a surprise though given that Yojimbo was remade in the first film of that trilogy, A Fistful of Dollars. For all the rich aesthetic and cultural details unique to Japanese history here, pitting sake brewers against silk merchants in beautifully rustic sets, its structure speaks to far broader narrative conventions built into Eastern and Western mythology.
Kurosawa’s narrative in Yojimbo sits among his most compelling, exerting an influence over many westerns in the years to come, but it is also his cinematography that astounds in his meticulous arrangement of actors in the frame.An incredible blocking of faces here in Kurosawa’s deep focus imagery, placing the emphasis on the actors’ scheming expressions.
Kurosawa’s love of Shakespeare is evident in the intricate power struggles between the rival crime lords, with Ushitora having previously served as Seibei’s lieutenant before striking out on his own, and both now playing out their feud through kidnapping and trading hostages. It takes Sanjuro’s wit and manipulation to trick both gangs into their first public confrontation, seeing them nervously inching towards each other from either end of the main street while he sits on the sidelines, gleefully cackling at their exposed cowardice and hoping for mutually assured destruction.
Mifune sits between both sides of the gang war as a factionless unknown, and Kurosawa’s blocking in low angles during their battle sharply reflects this characterisation.
The sudden arrival of a government official is all the excuse they need to prematurely halt the battle before any major loss, though tensions have been irreversibly inflamed. When Ushitora’s sadistic brother Unosuke enters the picture, Kurosawa kicks the stakes up another notch, painting him as a ferocious adversary as he stands with a manic grin in front of the warehouse he has set alight. After Mifune, Tatsuya Nakadai gives the next best performance here as Sanjuro’s villainous foil, possessing a similarly cunning mind yet lacking any sort of moral code. It is thanks to him after all that the feud continues to violently escalate, seeing the other gang match Unosuke’s destructive spectacle by stabbing holes in all their enemy’s sake barrels, and erupting fountains of alcohol across the brewery.
Tatsuya Nakadai may be second to Mifune in this cast, but he makes every second he is onscreen count, portraying a remorseless villain with a wicked grin.Dynamic imagery in the sake pouring out of barrels, escalating the gang war to all-out sabotage and property destruction.
True to Kurosawa’s penchant for such dynamic imagery, Yojimbo is brimming with visual majesty, using its widescreen aspect ratio and deep focus as a rich canvas for his epic showdowns. In his long shots of the town’s main road, he effectively turns it into a battle arena lined with taverns and homes that host nervous spectators. There is little privacy to be founded in these establishments, many of which are only separated by wooden beams that intrusively obstruct Kurosawa’s shots, while dramatic high and low angles bring a daunting gravity to the action unfolding just outside. The percussive, jazz-adjacent score that Masaru Sato injects into these scenes is not at all conventional fit for a film so rooted in the samurai genre, and yet the fusion here of jaunty, brassy melodies and traditional Japanese instruments rings out with a discordant confidence that matches Mifune’s own defiant, swaggering presence, similarly bucking cultural conventions.
The main road in town becomes a battle arena of sorts in Yojimbo, making for some gorgeous imagery loaded with symbolic weight.The divisions between establishments deny inhabitants any privacy, but also obstruct shots such as these to divide the foreground from the background.
It isn’t until the film’s extraordinary climax though that Kurosawa unites all these formal and stylistic elements together into its greatest scene, building a steady rhythm in the editing between Sanjuro’s restrained stride up one end of the road, and Unosuke leading his yakuza down the other. The dust which once blew in small flurries around Mifune’s feet is now whipped into the air through enormous gusts of wind, lashing his robes and hair while he persistently moves forward at the same measured pace, and in total command of his environment. With each cut between him and Nakadai, Kurosawa’s camera moves incrementally closer to both, studying their furious expressions until their shared acknowledgment registers – both men know this final fight will be the end for one of them.
Yojimbo’s greatest scene comes in the dusty showdown between Sanjuro and Unosuke’s men, as Kurosawa cuts between both sides and moves his camera in closer each time. Clearly an enormous influence on Sergio Leone’s spaghetti westerns.
Even when up armed with a gun, Unosuke is no match for Sanjuro’s blades, finding himself incapacitated almost right away when a dagger is thrown into his arm. Our hero makes short work of the rest of his men, cutting each of them down with his sword and only granting mercy to one young man he realises still holds onto a shred of innocence and regret. Like John Wayne at the end of The Searchers though, or Alan Ladd in the final scene of Shane, Sanjuro cannot continue living in the peaceful new paradise he has established, free from danger and crime. Kurosawa’s mythologising has rarely been so potent as it is here in Yojimbo’s circular arc, leading this lonely samurai back into the realm of wilderness and legend where he came from, ready to emerge whenever Japan’s commonfolk are most in need.
