“Jesus wanted me to have that truck,” ex-convict Jack insists early on in 21 Grams, blissfully unaware that he will soon be behind the wheel when it kills two young girls and their father, Michael. His prosperity has come as a direct result of his conversion, he believes, preordained by a loving, omniscient God. From our perspective too, there was no other way this sequence of events could have unfolded. Jack’s fate is woven into the very structure of Alejandro Iñárritu’s splintered narrative, as are the destinies of former drug addict Cristina and maths professor Paul, pulling these strangers to the centre of a whirlpool that drowns them in guilt, grief, and a pressing sense of their own mortality.
The result is purposefully disorientating, throwing us not only between three colliding stories, but also across their respective timelines. Right as Cristina receives the devastating news that her family has been hit by a truck, we also see a shaken Jack arriving late to his birthday party, confessing to his wife Marianne what he has done. Suddenly, we jump several months forward to Jack driving Cristina and a mortally wounded Paul to the hospital – only to then leap back to Paul being given Michael’s heart, wondering whose death saved him from a life-threatening illness. On a broad level, this narrative indeed progresses from start to finish, yet its asynchronous flow is as jarringly fractured as the lives of its tormented characters.
The religious faith which once uplifted Jack becomes a burden as he wrestles with a guilty conscience.Splintering characters through the visuals as well as the narrative, reducing them to broken pieces of themselves.
Even more than the examination of humanity’s interconnectedness from Iñárritu’s previous film Amores Perros, 21 Grams binds these strangers together in close physical proximity. No one here truly lives in isolation, so each time we cut to a disconnected scene without the context of what immediately preceded it, we find ourselves trying to fill in the gaps. Showing Cristina smelling her children’s clothes, ambiguously proclaim “We have to kill him” in her next scene, and then bake a cake with her daughters a few minutes later not only whips us between her the emotional extremes of character arc. In moments of happiness, this formal fragmentation instils sorrow, and we equally recall memories of innocent joy as we behold unconscionable devastation.
Scenes of a jaded, vengeful Cristina contrast heavily against scenes of domestic bliss – her evolution is raw and jarring as both ends of this arc are placed next to each other.
From the disordered information provided to us, we gradually infer what has happened and what is yet to unfold. Like these characters though, still we long for the catharsis of deeper understanding. Jack may be burdened by a guilty conscience after all, but there is no doubt in his mind that this tragedy was anything but an accident. If God gave him that truck, then doesn’t it stand to reason that he was chosen to carry out this manslaughter? If so, then how can he possibly love a God who doesn’t simply allow suffering, but decides who should live with the responsibility of inflicting it?
Where Jack’s belief in a fatalistic cosmos is furiously directed towards an all-powerful deity, Iñárritu lays out a formal contrast through Paul’s scientific determinism, heavily informed by his background as a maths teacher. “There’s a number hidden in every act of life, in every aspect of the universe,” he passionately expounds to Cristina, trying to express his own growing fondness for her. Everything that will ever happen is already written into the code of the universe, he maintains, invisible to the eye of its unassuming inhabitants.
“Numbers are a door to understanding a mystery that’s bigger than us. How two people, strangers, come to meet.”
Strangers connected and broken apart by tragedy, written into the very code of the universe.
Indeed, what looks at first glance to be sheer randomness in these lives is rather governed by many intersecting causal relationships. Whether one finds joy or tragedy in this complex web of probabilities is purely a matter of subjective experience, yet from the macro perspective Iñárritu grants us in 21 Grams, we also find a spiritual communion of their souls. Although they find themselves on divergent sides of this accident as a perpetrator, a survivor, and a benefactor, all three understand each other better than they realise.
It is largely through the three leading performances that we see these parallels emerge as well, balancing out the film’s expansive scope with raw, interior insight. Benicio del Toro’s tired resignation to suicidal depression, Sean Penn’s melancholy reckoning with the inevitability of death, and Naomi Watts’ grief-stricken regression into unhealthy behaviours are delivered with mesmerising naturalism, exposing all three at their most psychologically vulnerable.
A weary resignation to suicidal depression in Benicio del Toro’s performance, seeing guilt cannibalise a man from the inside out.Mortality weighs heavy on Sean Penn’s soul, accepting the inevitability of death.A prime achievement of acting from Naomi Watts, shattered by an unfathomable grief which violently twists her soul.
For Watts in particular, the fateful disaster which destroyed her entire family haunts her like a recurring nightmare. The first time it unfolds, we are with her at home, unaware that the voicemail she receives will be the last words she hears them speak. The second time, we are with them on the street, hanging on the excruciating seconds immediately preceding the accident. Finally, we visit the site with Cristina herself, replaying the brief audio message as the camera circles her in shaky, handheld motions. Even according to her own experience, this tragedy cannot be confined to a single point-of-view. As we witness in such pointed formal repetition, it instead warps and echoes into distortions of itself, existing somewhere between an objective historical event and intense, undistilled emotion.
Echoes of tragedy, the first time playing as a voicemail when Cristina arrives home…The second time as a flashback…And the third time as a memory, following her as she walks down the street where her family died.
By physically tampering with the film stock as well, Iñárritu alters the crude, gritty texture of his visuals according to each characters’ psychological state, heightening the varying impact of their trauma. This largely comes through the bleach bypass effect, deliberately skipping steps of film processing to increase contrast and decrease saturation, while using a colour cast to wash a faded green tint over its harshest scenes in the prison and hospital. Along with Rodrigo Prieto’s jittery camerawork and Gustavo Santaolalla’s sombre, reverberating score, these stylistic treatments consume us wholly in Jack, Paul, and Cristina’s collective vulnerability, lulling us into a hypnotic submission to fate’s unpredictable hand.
Iñárritu underscores the grittiness of his mise-en-scène by tampering with his film stock, accentuating the coarseness of the film grain.Green colour grading and lighting woven through 21 Grams, tinting the imagery with sickly hues.
There is a thin line between resignation and acceptance though, and much of it lies in the context one places their own life, regardless of the path that has been travelled. Every so often, Iñárritu grants us reprieve from his arduous narrative by way of cutaways, deeply infused with metaphysical wonder as birds take flight at sunset and leaves blow in the breeze. This complex world evidently sprawls further out than these three interconnected characters, and as their stories finally converge upon a montage of memories and pensive deliberations, there is even a touch of Terrence Malick in its meditative flow.
Visual poetry in the flying birds and leaves, revealed in cutaways as we pensively reflect on the fleeting places these characters occupy in an enormous world.
“How many lives do we live? How many times do we die?” Paul reflects as he faces the end of his life for the third time in the film.
“They say we all lose 21 grams at the exact moment of our death. Everyone. And how much fits into 21 grams? How much is lost? When do we lose 21 grams? How much goes with them? How much is gained?”
True to the maths professor’s instincts, an exact number is placed upon the weight of a human life, yet still his thirst for knowledge remains unsatiated. As far as Jack, Paul, and Cristina are concerned, its impact is immeasurable, echoing across a vast network of seemingly trivial yet unfathomably intricate relationships. At least through the fractured storytelling of 21 Grams, Iñárritu gifts us a miraculous glimpse into this infinite expanse, and the terrible, intimate burden it imposes on our souls.
21 Grams is currently streaming on Binge, and is available to rent or buy on Apple TV, YouTube, and Amazon Video.
Adolescence is a painfully awkward time for the best of us, magnifying every embarrassing blunder under the scrutiny of unforgiving teenagers looking to distract from their own insecurities. We can barely understand the physiological changes taking place in our bodies, let alone our minds, rapidly transforming us into stronger, more complex versions of ourselves. As such, it is a lethal combination of hormones, repression, and psychological torment which bubbles up inside high school student Carrie White, who can barely catch a break between her bullies and fanatically religious mother. Coming of age is quite literally a horror show, so when those caught in the thick of it are belittled and terrorised, not everyone is going to make it out alive.
Our protagonist’s burgeoning supernatural powers are but a mere footnote in Carrie’s opening scene, though Brian de Palma does not treat the traumatic fallout around her first period with any less terror for it. Pino Donaggio’s piano, strings, and flute wring out a mournful melody as the camera floats in slow-motion through the fogged-up locker room where she showers, and close-ups linger on her bare skin as blood begins to cascade down her legs. “Plug it up!” the other girls viciously taunt as they throw tampons and towels at her, amused by her panic. Suddenly, a light bursts overhead, and Donaggio’s score recalls the stabbing strings from Psycho for the first of many times. De Palma may famously be characterised as the Hitchcock imitator, but clearly this influence extends to his pick of creative collaborators as well.
De Palma’s camera floats in slow-motion through the fogged-up locker room where Carrie’s first period strikes – coming of age is a literal horror show for this teenage girl.Religious oppressions hangs over Carrie in this shot, shoving down her rage and shame.
Carrie evidently finds no solace at home either. It was sin that brought on Carrie’s period, her mother chastises, refusing to educate her any further. To atone, she must be locked in the “prayer closet”, a claustrophobic space lit by a single candle and adorned with a grotesque, white-eyed icon of Saint Sebastian. Of course though, abuse does little to quell the dissent growing inside. Rather the opposite in fact, as her repressed anger continues to feed uncontrollable, telekinetic outbursts, vibrating an ash tray in the principal’s office and throwing a kid off his bike for calling her names.
Forced to pray to a grotesque icon of Saint Sebastian in the claustrophobic prayer room – magnificent imagery literally bottling up Carrie’s emotions.
Even in these heated moments though, Sissy Spacek maintains a wounded vulnerability in her performance, revealing the shame and distress from which this teenager’s dark impulses emerge. She is isolated in de Palma’s blocking, yet through the deep focus of his split diopter lenses, intricate relationships are developed with the few characters who have some sympathy for her. Perhaps most prominent among these is fellow classmate Tommy, whose poem in English class draws mockery from everyone but her. “It’s beautiful,” she mutters under her breath, her face turned down in the background while his is pressed close to the lens in humiliation. With some encouragement from his girlfriend Sue as well, Tommy resolves to ask Carrie to the prom – and for a fleeting moment in her tragic life, her future starts to look bright.
Isolation and connection in de Palma’s trademark split diopter shots, making for some tremendously blocked compositions.
Not that her mother would ever understand the emotional and social needs of a lonely teenage girl. A thunderstorm rages outside as the two sit down to eat dinner on prom night, gloomily mirroring The Last Supper mural which looms behind them and foreshadows their own impending fates. Finally recognising her own power, she disregards her mother’s orders for the first time, pinning her to the bed and departing for what she is certain will be the happiest night of her life.
The Last Supper mural makes for an ominous backdrop to another last supper between mother and daughter, foreshadowing the imminent tragedy.
Right from the moment we enter the gymnasium of red and blue lights, de Palma wields spectacular control over every cinematic element at his disposal, mounting suspense in long, delicately choreographed takes. Drifting above the crowd in a crane shot, the camera finds its way to a naïvely optimistic Carrie, and dreamily circles her and Tommy from a low angle as they begin to dance. While she is contained in her own blissful bubble though, believing they have both been nominated for Prom King and Queen, we also trace her bullies putting their plan to humiliate her into action. A tracking shot follows Norma swapping out real ballots for fake ones, before catching a glimpse of Chris and Billy hiding beneath the stage. With the dramatic irony laid on thick, we finally follow streamers to an overhead shot from the rafters, where a bucket of pig’s blood fatefully awaits its victim.
Red and blue lighting in the school gymnasium, setting up the all-American innocence soon to be corrupted.De Palma is a Hitchcock acolyte through and through, tracking the camera along the streamers leading to the pig’s blood atop the stage – horrifying suspense leading into disaster.
Hearing her name read out as Prom Queen seems almost too good to be true for Carrie, though who is she to question this unbelievable stroke of fortune? Heavenly strings and a dazzling white light accompany her as she approaches the stage, beaming a wide smile that feels almost foreign on her face, yet de Palma’s editing only ramps up the tension with its incredible slow-motion. The tone of Donaggio’s score continues to shift as we alternate between her ecstatic ignorance and the dread-stricken people around her realising that something is very wrong – not that any are quick enough to prevent the inevitable toppling of the bucket and her short-lived euphoria.
Angelic naivety, fleeting yet ecstatic as these final seconds of innocence are drawn out in slow-motion.
Just as blood ushered in the beginning of Carrie’s metamorphosis, it now completely douses her as she reaches her final, terrifying form. Whether menstrual or pig’s, it is a symbol of both evolution and suffering, inextricably bound together here as something inside her snaps. While many in the school gymnasium can only stare in silent pity, through her point-of-view we see them laughing as distorted hallucinations, and Spacek’s eyes widen in cold, merciless fury. The timid young girl is gone, and in her place stands a monster, refusing to distinguish between ally and foe. Everyone has their inner darkness, but while Carrie’s abusers have freely shown theirs to the world, an unimaginably crueller abomination within her has been raised, repressed, and finally released.
An outstanding performance from Sissy Spacek as something inside snaps, her eyes widening in cold, merciless fury.Split diopter shots give way to split screens as chaos reigns in Carrie’s massacre.
Split screens sharply divide the frame in two as she telekinetically slams the doors shut, piercing the audience’s defences with her unforgiving gaze on one side, and the other revealing her frightened victims. With a flick of her head, the stage lights bathe her in a hellish red wash, and the massacre begins. No longer do her powers lash out on impulse – now she wields them with perfect command, purposefully seeking to inflict as much harm as possible by turning the firehose on students, electrocuting the school principal, and crushing the only teacher who ever tried to help her beneath the basketball backboard. Silhouetted against a blazing fire, she strikes the image of a demonic queen in her blood-stained gown, and begins to walk in slow, stiff motions off the stage.
The gymnasium drenched in bloody red lighting, trapping staff and students alike in Carrie’s personal torture chamber.A demonic monster is born, silhouetted against the blazing fire which consumes every living soul in its path.
Although Carrie returns home, the nightmare is not yet over. As if preparing a ritual exorcism, her mother has lit the house with candles, though her entire demeanour seems drastically different. No longer the priggish disciplinarian, she confesses to the abuse she suffered at the hands of her late husband, the guilt she felt for her perverse pleasure, and the drunken rape which led to Carrie’s conception. Her daughter is the product of sin, she reasons, and though her logic is harsh, it is somewhat adjacent to the truth. More accurately, Carrie is the product of abuse, raised in a loveless home and carelessly twisted into violent killer.
Carrie’s mother poetically perishes in the same pose as the icon of Saint Sebastian, pierced with knives.
That Carrie’s mother should perish in a pose that mimics the unsettling Saint Sebastian figurine is a perfectly ironic end for this supposed martyr. Pierced with knives, she hangs in an open doorway, suffering the consequences of her neglectful parenting. Still burdened by a self-loathing conscience, Carrie is close to follow her into the darkness as well, collapsing the entire house and ending her rampage with herself as the final victim. The jump scare that de Palma sneaks into the final scene not only haunts the prom night’s sole survivor, but also points to the skewed legacy left in her wake. Carrie is not to be remembered in this town as a victim of immense tragedy, or a teenager struggling to comprehend strange physiological changes. She is a ghost who lives on in nightmares, whispered between neighbours as a local legend, and exacting the trauma she once suffered back on the world a thousandfold and more.
Carrie’s legacy in this town is that of a monster, haunting nightmares as an undead creature never truly put to rest.
Carrie is currently streaming on Stan and Amazon Prime Video, and is available to rent or buy on Apple TV, YouTube, and Amazon Video.
In a small English police station, 13-year-old Jamie Miller is charged with the murder of his classmate, Katie Leonard. Back at school, an entire community is left reeling with confusion and grief over what has unfolded. In a youth detention centre, Jamie’s motives are uncovered by a forensic psychologist, and some months later his family continue to grapple with the long-term consequences in their own home. Four snapshots across thirteen months are all that Philip Barantini needs to uncover the humanity in the horror of Adolescence, plunge into its despairing depths, and lift this crime beyond the sort of freak occurrence that most people are fortunate enough to only ever see in news headlines.
Where a lesser series would thinly spread its sprawling drama across dozens of episodes, Adolescence weaves the fragmented nature of television into its very structure, dedicating an hour at a time to its characters’ messy lives. It is not an anthology of self-contained stories, but neither does it maintain the straightforward continuity that we often expect from serial dramas, letting us fill in the days and months that separate episodes. As such, its narrative economy is remarkably efficient, unravelling four vignettes in real time while intertwining the movements of police officers, students, and relatives.
We are pulled right into the action with this in media res opening, storming the Miller household as the police pull Jamie from bed – all captured in one continuous take of course.
Barantini’s stylistic conceit of playing out each episode in single, continuous takes must be credited for our immersion in this harrowing study of modern-age masculinity. Right from the in media res opening of episode 1, we are launched into the police force’s raid of the Miller residence, sharing in the same shock as Jamie’s panicked family as he is arrested. The handheld camerawork keeps us in Barantini’s tight grip, disorientating us as we move with Jamie from the house into the police van where we finally get a moment to collect ourselves. In the absence of cuts, we sombrely sit with him for several minutes during his transportation to the police station, tuning out the adults’ muffled speech while a tense, ticking score takes over. The sheer length of sequences like these only deepens our discomfort in Adolescence, growing our dread throughout this first episode.
Barantini orchestrates his camera’s push and pull between wide shots and close-ups beautifully, anxiously tightening on Jamie’s face as his fingerprints and mugshot are taken.
When Jamie’s mug shot and fingerprints are taken, again we hang on the unspoken guilt written across his face, while the agonising humiliation suffered by his father Eddie is given an agonising close-up during the young teen’s strip search. In the consultation room, Jamie’s blue jumper blends in with the muted, melancholy tones of the walls around him, where the camera tentatively circles the emergence of truth. Jamie was caught on CCTV footage stabbing Katie to death in a parking lot the previous night, we eventually learn, effectively rupturing the innocence of a community which never believed such a barbaric act could be committed by one of their own – and least of all by a child.
Adolescence doesn’t feature overly gorgeous mise-en-scène, but the muted blues in the police station and costuming make for an admirable standout in episode 1.
Episode 2 is set only a couple of days later, though it delivers an impressive sense of scale by widening its focus to the staff and students at Jamie’s school, many of whom become witnesses in DI Luke Bascombe’s investigation. With his son Adam only a few years above Jamie, his personal life is not entirely removed from this case, and in their emotionally estranged relationship we begin to see patterns emerge between the fathers and sons of Adolescence. Here, Barantini locks onto the social influences which slyly insinuated themselves in Jamie’s life, mixing a lethal Gen Z cocktail of cyberbullying and incel propaganda with the sort of male insecurities even older generations would recognise.
Episode 2 widens its focus to an entire community impacted by Jamie’s crime, skilfully navigating the school grounds and classrooms where his worst influences begin to show their faces.Patterns emerge between fathers and sons in Adolescence, revealing an emotional estrangement in otherwise close relationships.
This episode features what may be Barantini’s singularly most ambitious shot, traversing the school grounds, classrooms, and offices to reveal the interconnectedness of the local community. The camera often hitches onto characters as they move from one location to the next, linking conflicting accounts of Jamie and Katie’s relationship to a secret emoji language, and the missing murder weapon to Jamie’s friends. During its final minutes, Barantini even seamlessly lifts the camera into a drone shot flying over the entire neighbourhood to a choral rendition of ‘Fragile’, echoing its mournful lyrics as it eventually descends to witness a mournful Eddie laying flowers at the site of Katie’s murder.
A breathtaking highlight of Barantini’s soaring camerawork, lifting the camera above the school, flying over the town……and eventually descending into a close-up of Eddie’s face, laying flowers at Katie’s shrine.
With all this said, the greatest hindrance to Barantini’s long takes are Adolescence’s lengthy dialogue scenes, often leaving the camera to wander without aim or purpose. Within these moments, its ambitions fall far behind other one-take films such as Birdman or Victoria, and this especially becomes restrictive in the single room setting of episode 3. The staging in Jamie’s detention centre is more akin to a play than anything else, focusing on his examination by forensic psychologist Briony Ariston, though in exchange young actor Owen Cooper is given a platform to deliver some of the most outstanding acting of the series.
The stagebound setting of episode 3 doesn’t quite earn its one-take conceit, but nevertheless underscores two brilliant performances at its centre, particularly from the incredibly talented Owen Cooper.
In Jamie’s frustration at Briony’s line of questioning, we see a teenage boy who can’t quite grasp his own emotions, resisting any attempt to probe deeper in fear of what he may find. “Are you allowed to talk about this?” he uneasily asks about half a dozen times when the topic turns to sex, repeating the phrase almost as often as his baseless claim – “I didn’t do it.” Unable to reconcile his guilt and dignity, he desperately tries to convince himself of his innocence, denying the traumatic reality of his actions. When this cognitive dissonance is threatened, he falls back on intimidation tactics to retake control from Briony, throwing insults and even a chair in bitter anger. She is perturbed, yet actress Erin Doherty holds a steel nerve against his torment, only ever revealing how deeply this experience cuts away from his judgemental eyes.
A brief respite in the corridor outside – this line of work is incredibly taxing for Briony, only letting her guard drop away from Jamie’s eyes.
In Jamie’s quieter moments too, Cooper’s angsty performance remains strong, unassumingly being coaxed into contemplating his relationship with his father. When he asked if he is loving, Jamie’s responds is dismissive – “No, that’s weird” – and as Adolescence moves into episode 4, Barantini allows this regretful man to take the final word on the matter. Thirteen months after the murder, the Miller family wrestles with the long-term ramifications of Jamie’s actions which have singled them out in their community as pariahs. Glimmers of healing emerge during their drive to the local hardware store, looking for paint to cover up the graffiti left on Eddie’s van, but even this simple outing cannot escape the cruel taunts of teenagers or conspiracy theorists chillingly advocating for Jamie’s innocence.
Isolated and ridiculed in their own community, the Millers desperately hold the remnants of their lives together in episode 4, as Barantini turns something as simple as a trip to the local hardware store into an entire ordeal.Online incel culture latches onto Jamie’s story and chillingly manifests in real life.Eddie splashes black paint across his van in a fit of rage, finding no other release for his emotions.
Finally exhausting his patience, Eddie throws his fresh tin of paint all over the van, and in this moment we see flashes of the boy who only last episode tossed a chair in anger. Retreating to Jamie’s room with his wife Manda, Eddie ponders where it all went wrong, at which point the dialogue begins spell out its themes a little too directly. The screenplay weakens here, exchanging subtext for literalism, yet Barantini nevertheless succeeds in bringing Jamie’s story full circle back to his biggest influence.
Eddie’s failure isn’t as simple as him being a bad father – that much is clear from the anguished guilt of Stephen Graham’s performance. “If my dad made me, how did I make that?” he laments, beginning to recognise how deeply entrenched his worst habits are in his own childhood and parenting. As he cries into Jamie’s bed, the blues we observed in the police station return in darker shades to envelop him in a familiar sorrow, yet this time allowing an honest outpouring of suppressed emotions. It is a catharsis that we have eagerly awaited in Adolescence, and one that is especially earned through the cumulative weight of Barantini’s long, restrained takes, pushing a quiet form of insistence – not only that we bear witness to this teenager’s shattering crime, but to the raw, fragmented, and unresolved mess left behind.
Emotional catharsis as Eddie finally reveals his vulnerability in the closing minutes of Adolescence, returning to Jamie’s room where it all began.
The villagers of Aci Trezza do not speak Italian, La Terra Trema’s opening text is sure to inform us. Theirs is a Sicilian dialect which most people would have trouble comprehending, but Luchino Visconti is not interested in rounding off these rough edges for the sake of his mainland audience. His ensemble is made up of real townsfolk rather than professional actors after all, so why compromise on those details which give their insulated community such character and complexity? Moreover, why not use its rugged coastlines and bustling marketplaces in place of artificial studio sets, capturing their lives with even greater authenticity?
Visconti was not the only neorealist pushing these innovations forward in the 1940s, though where Vittorio de Sica and Roberto Rossellini used real locations to tell the stories of individuals, La Terra Trema leans into the story of its setting. The omniscient Italian voiceover which describes Aci Trezza’s daily routines and power structures does not compromise the naturalism on display – rather the opposite in fact, effectively shaping this literary adaptation into a work of docufiction which observes the village with a distant curiosity. It speaks in present tense, underscoring the spontaneity of each narrative development, but there is also no doubt regarding Visconti’s meticulous craftsmanship. This tale of one fisherman’s attempted revolution against the greedy local wholesalers is given an epic stage here, tracing the sort of rise-and-fall archetype that once belonged to Roman mythology, yet which Visconti transposes to a microcosm of modern Sicily.
Leading lines into the background, using blocking of actors to design the frame while remaining completely organic.La Terra Trema is a family saga, and Visconti matches his visuals to the epic scope – not so much with vast landscapes than the sheer density of his crowded shots.
As is typical of these grand sagas as well, we find a family at the centre of its drama, rich with history and traditions which have thrived for generations. “The women always worry about the men at sea, as the family has always had a boat at sea, ever since the name Valastro has existed,” the narrator informs us, introducing the clan to whom our working-class hero Antonio belongs. Long have they been exploited by the wholesalers, but now that he has returned home from war, he has also brought with him radical new ideas. Uniting his fellow fishermen, he encourages them to resist budging on their prices, and ultimately claims victory despite the violence which breaks out. With the wholesalers temporarily out for the count, Antonio has the whole town on his side, yet this is only the beginning of his grand ambitions to reform Aci Trezza’s fishing industry.
Revolution among workers, using Eisenstein’s ‘monistic ensemble’ to transcend individualism.Staggered blocking of the wholesalers’ faces in this frame – a wonderful composition imposing smug superiority.
It is no surprise that Visconti was commissioned by the Italian Communist Party to create this film, even if he diverged a little from their instructions to shoot a documentary. The product is ideologically akin to the Soviet Montage films of the 1920s, though formally the only significant influence here emerges from Sergei Eisenstein’s theory of the ‘monistic ensemble’, blocking large crowds as single units that transcend individualism. When it comes to the pure visual composition of bodies in the frames as well, few are Visconti’s equal. The full depth and scope of his frame are used to build out social hierarchies within the Valastro family and beyond, staggering actors in dynamic tableaux that seem to emerge organically from their weathered environments. Even when his camera is tracking through masses pulling boats ashore or haggling at the market, still these hundreds of people are staged with a piercing clarity, revealing the unity and tension which pervades everyday life in Aci Trezza.
Intricate staging within the Valastro home, distinguishing men, women, and children.Masterful work with crowds, amplifying the scope of this saga.Incredible complexity and desnity in Visconti’s composition, filling the frame with bodies in different poses as the Valastro family hits rock bottom.
Perhaps just as impactful in characterising these people are the textures of the village itself, its rough stonework worn to debris and rubble by decades of exposure to the elements. Upon walls tarnished by discoloured stains, we also occasionally find the hammer and sickle symbol, blatantly pointing to the rising Communist sentiment in the area. Despite the complex social structures which see military officers perversely leer over impoverished women, it is clear that no one here is truly wealthy. These people are trapped by their unfortunate circumstances, ravaged by a capitalist system which equates them to their economic value and condemns them to squalid living conditions.
Weathered textures framing Visconti’s actors, encompassing them in destitute poverty.Much of this village has collapsed into debris and rubble, and Visconti’s location shooting does not shy away from exposing this side of Italy.Communist symbols graffitied on walls, pointing to rising anticapitalist sentiments in the region.Class and status depicted through height, with military officers often leering over the women of the town.
This is not to say that Aci Trezza lacks beauty, though its magnificence is entirely inseparable from the greyscale austerity of its land and seascapes. From the hours spent gazing longingly at the Mediterranean Sea and waiting for their men to return, the Valastro women may know this better than anyone too. Visconti’s low angles capture their black imprints against grey skies with great severity, their flapping cloaks giving the impression of crows as they brave the wind on the rugged headland. Jutting out of the water, craggy outcrops obstruct our view of the horizon, yet these also stand as familiar, welcoming landmarks to departing and returning sailboats. Meanwhile, high angles of the shoreline itself crowd the mise-en-scene with these wooden vessels resting between trips, blending in with the coarse sand and rock.
The Valastro women stand upon rocks in flapping, black cloaks like crows, gazing out at the sea – a masterfully bleak composition in this low angle.Craggy outcrops beyond the shore interrupt the horizon, standing as familiar landmarks to sailors.Rocky shorelines and wooden boats – Visconti loves setting these elemental textures against each other.
So bleak is this environment, it is difficult to see how Antonio’s success could ever be sustainable here. His dreams of becoming independent, buying a boat, and cutting the wholesalers out of the supply chain manifest through pure willpower and effort, yet still the narrator foreshadows an inevitable downfall. “Well, Antonio? You have everything. All you dreamed of is yours,” it sardonically reflects, moving beyond its once-detached tone. As much as we remain at a distance from these events, we can’t help but feel some resentment towards the cruel hand of fate which unleashes a destructive storm upon Antonio’s work, as well as the unforgiving capitalist system which kicks him while he’s down.
Antonio ostracised from his community, one man against the crowd.
Pressure mounts on the Valastro family when the bank comes to repossess their house, and soon even the town turns on them, effectively cutting Antonio’s sister Lucia off from any prospect of marriage. No longer is he a hero of the working class, but a reckless pariah who tried to enact change too quickly, and Visconti’s blocking continues to evolve with these new dynamics as the fisherman finds himself isolated among his own people. “One by one, the tree’s branches wither and fall,” the narrator laments, watching a once-respected clan collapse by the actions of one man who gambled their possessions away on a brighter future. Desperate and hungry, he returns to the smirking wholesalers in a moth-eaten shirt, and resigns himself to working under them once again as an underpaid labourer.
Antonio remains isolated even within his own fractured family.
It takes solidarity to spark revolution, and although it is this missing ingredient which sinks Antonio’s economic ambitions in La Terra Trema, the narrator does not lose hope in the slow wheel of progress. “No one will help him until they all learn to live and support each other,” it reflects, “and within himself he’ll find courage to start a new life.” Its impression of neutrality has faded, yet Visconti’s writing maintains a sincere conviction in the spirit of Aci Trezza – even if it continues to lie dormant beneath the cumbersome weight of inequality. For as long as these progressive ideals remain alive as a mere thought or feeling, human dignity endures in La Terra Trema, ingrained in the very fabric of a society sustained by its indispensable, tenacious working class.
A humiliating return to the status quo, meeting the wholesalers in a moth-eaten shirt and no bargaining power whatsoever.
La Terra Trema is currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
A television miniseries as the best film of the year? How is it so? Well with a stylistic vision as ambitious as Steven Zaillian’s and a formal dedication to patient, calculated storytelling, getting caught up on the structure of a cinematic work this brilliant is a mere triviality. It is far from the first time a miniseries has ended up in the top 10 of its year – just check out 2021’s The Underground Railroad and 2022’s Copenhagen Cowboy. It is however the first time that one has made it to the #1 spot, with similar masterpieces of auteur television like the Dekalog and Fanny and Alexander being slightly edged out in their respective years. Where most television falls flat in maintaining visual and formal ambition across multiple episodes, Ripley not only meets this benchmark but leaps over it, marking an enormous feat of filmmaking endurance akin to a seven hour epic. This is the third screen adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s novel The Talented Mr. Ripley, and through Zaillian’s crisp black-and-white photography and location shooting, it masterfully narrows in on the notorious con artist’s dark, decaying soul.
Baroque interiors and weathered stonework displaying meticulous attention to detail, reflecting the darkness that Tom carries with him throughout Italy. Few television series in history look like this, but Zaillian draws on the expertise of cinematographer Robert Elswit to capture these magnificent visuals, making for some of their best work.
Most Underrated – Dune: Part Two
Ripley could just easily be the pick here, but I will give the critical consensus some leeway since it will likely take a while for them to accept it as a work of cinema. The disparity between Dune: Part Two sitting outside the top 40 of the year while Part One ranks at #6 in 2021 is strange, especially given that both were equally well received at the time of their release. Denis Villeneuve expands the scope and scale of his worldbuilding in this sequel with sweeping, ominous majesty, concluding Paul Atreides’ Messianic ascension to leader of the Fremen and setting his sights on Dune Messiah.
As tremendous as Denis Villeneuve’s epic achievement was in the first instalment of Dune, it is clear with the context of Part Two just how much of that was simply setting up Paul Atreides’ subverted monomyth, where we witness his evolution into one of cinema’s great antiheroes.
Most Overrated – All We Imagine as Light
Payal Kapadia’s Indian drama sits at #2 of the year on TSPDT, and doesn’t come terribly close to my top 10. It is very easy to settle into the muted, comfortable rhythms of All We Imagine as Light, as well as the soothing cool blues of Mumbai’s warm evenings. The lighting is often gorgeous as we confront the harsh realities of modern companionship, but ultimately none of this justifies at as the second best film of 2024.
Payal Kapadia’s narrative flows between these two flatmate’s stories with lyrical grace, not only seeking insight into their interior lives, but also the friction in their own relationship to each other. In this nocturnal urban environment, love flourishes without judgement, connecting souls in moments of sweet, uninhibited honesty.
Best Directorial Debut – Nickel Boys
In some years this category barely warrants a mention, but 2024 is a year I am glad to single it out. RaMell Ross makes the leap from documentary to narrative filmmaking in Nickel Boys, and his avant-garde instincts come fully formed in its first-person camerawork and impressionistic montages. It is also through these perspectives that he studies the relationship between two Black friends in a 1960s reform school – one being an idealistic advocate for social progress, and the other a cynic looking to keep his head down. What could easily be used as a gimmick instead melds beautifully with Ross’ evocative storytelling and cinematography, calling to mind Barry Jenkins’ distinctive combination of shallow focus and close-ups which similarly forge profound connections with ostracised characters.
It is fitting that RaMell Ross should ground his visual style in first-person perspectives, playing with camera angles, orientations, and movements that we are intimately familiar with in our own lives. During Elwood’s childhood, the camera stares up at towering environments and reveals his growing sense of self through reflective surfaces.
Gem to Spotlight – Flow
The 2020s have ushered in a Golden Age of animation which peaked in 2023 with Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, and this small but ambitious Latvian film proves that it is far from over. Starting with a tiny budget and relatively small crew, director Gints Zilbalodis decided to animate Flow in Blender – a free, open-source computer graphics program that Pixar and DreamWorks would never even think of touching. Instead of using storyboards or concept art, Zilbalodis created expansive environments within the software and explored how his animal characters inhabited the space. It is a stunning achievement of wordless visual storytelling, exploring a flooded, post-apocalyptic world in long camera takes through the eyes of a cat, and immersing us in the harsh and soothing cycles of nature.
Flow illustrates with breath-taking wonder that there is no perfect state of being in nature, besides that of a balanced ecosystem which resiliently oscillates between different phases. We float and soar through a world in perpetual transition, basking in the order and chaos of nature.
Best Male Performance – Adrien Brody in The Brutalist
Adrien Brody gives a raw, battered performance as Hungarian architect László Toth. He is a culmination of countless devastating experiences, each resulting in unhealthy coping mechanisms that only deepen his psychological wounds. The Brutalist is his platform to project both supreme confidence and dazed, drug-fuelled breakdowns, dealing with Holocaust trauma the only way Toth knows how – through compartmentalisation and addiction.
Dune: Part Two sees Timothee Chalamet take the Messianic saviour of Arrakis to ominous ends, mirroring Anakin Skywalker’s descent into darkness. By the time he is standing upon platforms and delivering rousing speeches to followers and enemies, his voice has shifted down to a deeper, gravelly register not unlike Baron Harkonnen’s, and he exudes a megalomania that leads us to mourn the humbler Paul Atreides we met in Part One. Chalamet may be the most promising actor of his generation, and this is one of the best cases to prove why.
The Brutalist gives Adrien Brody a platform for his best performance and role in many years, playing that complex mix of guilt, trauma, and hope unique to Holocaust survivors.
Andrew Scott delivers a sinister interpretation of the titular antihero in Ripley, especially when comparing him against previous versions performed by Alain Delon and Matt Damon. Scott is by far the oldest of three at the time of playing the role, applying a new lens to Tom as a more experienced, jaded con artist. He delivers each line with calculated discernment, understanding how a specific inflection or choice of word might turn a conversation in his favour, while his onyx, shark-like eyes patiently scrutinise his prey.
Elsewhere, Daniel Craig plays a fictionalised version of writer William S. Burroughs in Queer, giving one of his most layered performances as a man wracked with existential insecurities over his sexuality. Ralph Fiennes also anchors Conclave’s sacred assembly of cardinals in a weary apprehension, both disillusioned by the church and anxious that its leadership should fall into the wrong hands. He is restrained, subtle, and subdued – something which cannot be said for Chris Hemsworth, who snarls his lines with broad, nasally glee in Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. His boisterous charisma is quite distinctive in this barren wasteland, styling himself in the fashion of a dystopian Roman emperor standing atop a chariot led by motorcycles.
Daniel Craig gives his most layered performance to date at the centre of Luca Guadagnino’s character study in Queer. He is an insecure, half-complete man torn between dualities – shame and indulgence, connection and independence, mind and body.
Finally, Bill Skarsgård delivers an acutely Slavic take on Count Orlok in Nosferatu, sporting a heavy fur coat, bushy moustache, and deep, Eastern European accent. His commitment to this otherworldly voice by training in opera and Mongolian throat singing is astonishing, and his naked physicality when latching onto victims is similarly unsettling as he pulses upon them like a pale, writhing leech. His face is often hidden by shadows, but when he does appear in dim light, he ravenously devours the scenery like he does his victims.
Ralph Fiennes’ performance anchors Conclave’s sacred assembly in a weary apprehension, both disillusioned by the church and anxious that its leadership should fall into the wrong hands. Worry lines crease his forehead, and we are often placed in his uneasy state of mind.
Best Female Performance – Lily-Rose Depp in Nosferatu
Lily-Rose Depp pays homage to Isabelle Adjani in Nosferatu, displaying total command over a deep-seated torment that is as psychological as it is physical. She swings wildly between emotional extremes, falls into demonic seizures, and embraces Count Orlok’s presence in her life with both blissful smiles and mortal terror. Depp does not play Ellen Hutter as the archetypal ‘pure virgin’, but rather a married, mature woman destined to play a far more active role in confronting the vampire.
A committed performance from Lily-Rose Depp, falling into demonic seizures and swinging wildly between emotional extremes. It is through these strong dramatic choices that Depp displays total command over Ellen’s deep-seated torment.
Hollywood’s past and present run up against each other in The Substance, with Demi Moore making a major comeback and Margaret Qualley capitalising on her excellent run in recent years. This body horror features both at their strongest as two sides of a woman simultaneously envying and revelling in her youthful glamour – and eventually pushing this complicated relationship to grotesque ends.
Much like Moore, Angelina Jolie also gives her best performance beyond the prime of her youth, proving that she has more than just raw star power in Maria. She inhabits the titular soprano as a shadow of herself, delicate and fragile in the final week of her life, while Mikey Madison alternately masks her vulnerability in Anora with a stubborn streak of independence. She is extraordinarily natural in this role, demonstrating savviness and resilience as a New York stripper who refuses to let her guard down, yet ultimately does for the wrong guy.
The Girl with the Needle sees Vic Carmen Sonne and Trine Dyrholm’s performances entwine in a disorientated haze – one a victim of abuse falling into guilty self-loathing, and the other masking incredible malice beneath a warm, maternal mask. Anya Taylor-Joy gets the final mention for Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, not quite reaching the heights of Charlize Theron’s soaring take on the character, but nonetheless asserting a powerful presence onscreen as the silent, brooding action hero.
For industry veteran Demi Moore and rising star Margaret Qualley, The Substance displays both actresses’ strongest performances to date, playing two sides of one woman simultaneously envying and revelling in her youthful glamour.
Best Cinematography – Ripley
Film
Cinematographer
1. Ripley
Robert Elswit
2. Nosferatu
Jarin Blaschke
3. Dune: Part Two
Greig Fraser
4. The Substance
Benjamin Kracun
5. Nickel Boys
Jomo Fray
6. The Girl With the Needle
Michał Dymek
7. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
Simon Duggan
8. Maria
Edward Lachman
9. The Brutalist
Lol Crawley
10. Monkey Man
Sharone Meir
11. Flow
Gints Zilbalodis
12. Conclave
Stéphane Fontaine
13. Blitz
Yorick Le Saux
14. Queer
Sayombhu Mukdeeprom
15. Challengers
Sayombhu Mukdeeprom
16. Disclaimer
Bruno Delbonel, Emmanuel Lubezki
The visual majesty of Ripley is astounding, drawing on the symmetry of Italy’s Renaissance architecture and Robert Elswit’s immaculate framing. The mise-en-scène earns a comparison to Michelangelo Antonioni here, aptly using the negative space of vast walls to impede on his characters, while detailing the intricate textures of their surroundings with the keen eye of a photographer.
Best Editing – The Substance
Film
Editor
1. The Substance
Coralie Fargeat, Jérôme Eltabet, Valentin Feron
2. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
Eliot Knapman, Margaret Sixel
3. Nickel Boys
Nicholas Monsour
4. Dune: Part Two
Joe Walker
5. Monkey Man
Dávid Jancsó, Tim Murrell, Joe Galdo
6. Challengers
Marco Costa
7. Maria
Sofía Subercaseaux
8. Queer
Marco Costa
9. The Brutalist
Dávid Jancsó
10. Ripley
Joshua Raymond Lee, David O. Rogers
11. Disclaimer
Adam Gough
12. Conclave
Nick Emerson
13. Kinds of Kindness
Yorgos Mavropsaridis
14. Civil War
Jake Roberts
Coralie Fargeat directly references Requiem for a Dream in The Substance, comparing the processes of beautification to an uncontrollable drug addiction through aggressive, rapid-fire montage editing.
Best Screenplay – Nosferatu
Film
Writer
1. Nosferatu
Robert Eggers
2. Ripley
Steven Zaillian
3. Dune: Part Two
Jon Spaihts, Denis Villeneuve, Eric Roth
4. Disclaimer
Alfonso Cuarón
5. The Brutalist
Brady Corbet, Mona Fastvold
6. Kinds of Kindness
Yorgos Lanthimos, Efthimis Filippou
7. Civil War
Alex Garland
8. Queer
Justin Kuritzkes
9. Nickel Boys
RaMell Ross, Joslyn Barnes
10. Anora
Sean Baker
11. Challengers
Justin Kuritzkes
Robert Eggers is not so much subverting horror conventions in Nosferatu than executing them with poetic flair, achieving a 19th century stylisation in the dialogue which elegantly weaves macabre metaphors among other rhetoric devices. The only trace of modernisation may be in the freedom of its subtextual and explicit sexuality, edging us gradually closer to a full consummation of Ellen and Orlok’s sordid affair.
Best Original Music Score – Dune: Part Two
Film
Composer
1. Dune: Part Two
Hans Zimmer
2. The Brutalist
Daniel Blumberg
3. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
Tom Holkenborg
4. The Substance
Raffertie
5. Nosferatu
Robin Carolan
6. Challengers
Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross
7. Conclave
Volker Bertelmann
8. Nickel Boys
Alex Somers, Scott Alario
9. Flow
Gints Zilbalodis, Rihards Zaļupe
10. Monkey Man
Jed Kurzel
11. Queer
Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross
12. Kinds of Kindness
Jerskin Fendrix
13. The Girl With the Needle
Frederikke Hoffmeier
14. Blitz
Hans Zimmer, Nicholas Britell
15. Ripley
Jeff Russo
Hans Zimmer’s score for Dune: Part Two intrepidly builds on the war cries and blaring electronic orchestrations from Part One, roaring towards a violent, devastating climax.
Year Breakdown
Auteur television has been on a steady rise through the 2020s with miniseries like Small Axe, Copenhagen Cowboy, and The Underground Railroad rivalling feature films in cinematic quality, and 2024 marks the peak of this movement towards episodic storytelling. Ripley is the first televised masterpiece of the decade, and Alfonso Cuarón’s psychological drama Disclaimer backs up the trend, cutting into the inherent subjectivity of storytelling through a mystery of conflicting perspectives. Of course, streaming services continue to dominate here, and credit must be given to Netflix and Apple TV Plus for producing such ambitious projects.
Zaillian is the creative genius behind Ripley, but Netflix deserves partial credit for this recent boom in auteur television. The streaming model blurs the boundaries between feature and episodic filmmaking, giving those directors with the ability to maintain cinematic ambition across multiple episodes a platform to show off their stamina.Cuarón’s last film was for Netflix, and it seems he is sticking with streaming as he move to Apple TV Plus for Disclaimer. He unravels its layers of conflicting perspectives with great patience, keeping us from the reality of Jonathan and Catherine’s mysterious relationship until the final episode, yet the subjectivity of such divergent accounts is woven into the series’ structure from the start.
It is a relatively quiet year for the old guard of tentpole directors like Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino, held up only by Cuarón with Disclaimer and George Miller’s newest entry in the Mad Max franchise. Clint Eastwood’s film Juror #2 is not quite on the same level, but he is officially the oldest director to make an archivable film at the age of 93 – an incredible accomplishment in itself, and a testament to his lengthy, laudable career.
Mad Max’s anarchic dystopia of dictators, marauders, and vehicle chases is clearly where George Miller is most comfortable as a filmmaker, turbocharging him with raw, high-octane vigour, and expanding its world to far more expansive proportions than Fury Road’s tightly contained narrative. Quite miraculously, Furiosa sticks its landing with dynamic poise, giving us greater reason to admire the titular warrior as a force of undistiled willpower.
In place of long-established auteurs, 2024 instead sees the next generation down continue to flourish. Yorgos Lanthimos comes off the grand success of Poor Things with a far more alienating anthology film, Pablo Larraín completes his biopic trilogy with a surreal character study of opera singer Maria Callas, and Robert Eggers’ meticulous remake of Nosferatu offers ups one of the most haunting horror films in recent years. This decade has been a very fruitful period for Luca Guadagnino as well, but with both Challengers and Queer, he also achieves the rare, remarkable feat of delivering two top 10 quality films in a single year.
Pablo Larraín brings his trilogy of biopics to a close with Maria. This historic soprano is a woman of magnificent contradictions, and it is in the collision between extremes of soaring exhilaration and abject misery where the film’s disorientating, nostalgic surrealism takes form.Yorgos Lanthimos returns to the deadpan bleakness of his earlier films in Kinds of Kindness, delivering an absurd anthology that studies love and abuse in all sorts of relationships. The style is more stripped back than Poor Things, yet wide-angle lenses and monochrome dreams continue to weave through his bizarre narratives.Art meets mass appeal in Dune: Part Two, delivering some jaw-dropping visuals – here with an overhead shot capturing the Fremen in their pale headdresses swarming Paul Atreides.
Chief among these directors though is Denis Villeneuve, who tops his first Dune film with an even more grandiose sequel and simultaneously smashes the box office – though not quite enough to unseat Inside Out 2 from the top. With that said, Pixar’s artistic cache is still wavering, leaving Latvian director Gints Zilbalodis to pick up the slack and keep pushing animation forward in the beautifully minimalist Flow.
Speaking of which, Zilbalodis is one of many up-and-coming directors worth noting this year. Nickel Boys and Monkey Man are extraordinary debuts for RaMell Ross and Dev Patel, while Coralie Fargeat, Magnus von Horn, and Brady Corbet make their well-deserved breakthroughs in The Substance, The Girl with the Needle, and The Brutalist. After 2022’s All Quiet on the Western Front, Conclave also marks the second time we have seen Edward Berger direct a film that nips at the edges of the year’s top 10, setting a healthy pattern that will hopefully continue into the future.
One of the defining shots of 2024, flipping the Statue of Liberty upside down as László Toth emerges from the darkness of the ship to find his new home in America.Dev Patel makes an incredibly admirable directorial debut in Monkey Man, transposing a John Wick-style narrative into modern-day India and drenching it in gorgeous lighting.Magnus von Horn’s bleak, black-and-white photography captures the dilapidated architecture of 1920s Copenhagen in The Girl with the Needle, adapting a chilling piece of Danish history with exceptional psychological tension.
At the Academy Awards and Cannes Film Festival, Sean Baker gets recognition for the remarkably consistent work he has been doing since 2015, with Anora winning the top awards at both. This is a feat accomplished by only three other films in history – The Lost Weekend, Marty, and Parasite.
Quite curiously, Anora is also part of a larger trend of films this year proving that Quentin Tarantino had an eye for casting in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Many of the young actors who played Manson Family members there have since launched into the celebrity stratosphere, this year taking on significant roles across a number of films. Besides Mikey Madison’s breakthrough in Anora, Margaret Qualley excels in The Substance and Kinds of Kindness, Austin Butler takes a villainous turn in Dune: Part Two, Dakota Fanning is led down a trail of lies in Ripley, and Maya Hawke is introduced as Anxiety in Inside Out 2. A new generation of talent is here, and Tarantino saw it before any of us.
Anora was the big 2024 awards darling and another solid achievement for Sean Baker, continuing his admirable run which began in 2015 with Tangerine.
The face of human evil is insidiously disguised in The Girl with the Needle, though the glimpses that Magnus von Horn’s nightmarish interludes offer us reveal the eerie horror behind its warm, maternal mask. Within black voids, faces morph and merge into monstrosities, transparently layered atop each other like projections. Hands forcefully rub cheeks, mouths stretch open in silent screams, and shadows pass across upside-down features, expressing a pain and malice which could be straight from the depths of hell.
An eerie montage of stretched, distorted faces in shadow, expressing pain, malice, and insidious glee.A codependent relationship between the abused and the abuser visualised in multiple reflections, trapped and helpless.
Within the uncanny blend of close-ups, two faces emerge which we will soon be made familiar with – factory worker Karoline, who finds herself at an impossible crossroads when she is impregnated with a baby she can’t afford to raise, and Dagmar, a middle-aged woman who takes her in seemingly out of the goodness of her heart. The destitute Denmark they occupy has been ravaged by the economic fallout of World War I, flaunting the privilege of the wealthy over the poor who must suffer in squalid conditions, and holding them in the grip of an inherently unjust system. As such, the cruel acts that Dagmar inflicts upon the few truly innocent inhabitants of Copenhagen are supposedly an anaesthetic to this psychological suffering, not unlike the ether she ritually abuses. Through her twisted sense of compassion, single mothers are not only freed of their unwanted children, but may also submit to the fantasy that they have been adopted by a loving, well-off family. When finally arrested and confronted with the severe weight of her crimes, her moral justification of the infanticide she commits is chillingly straightforward.
“That’s what was needed.”
Perhaps most unsettling of all is the historic basis of this character upon one of Denmark’s most infamous serial killers, whose notorious murders of abandoned babies shook the nation to its core. As repulsive as she may be, Horn is sure not to paint her as some aberration of society. She is the product of a post-war civilisation which ruthlessly tramples over the disenfranchised, and consequently births a new form of degeneracy which masquerades her services as gender and class solidarity.
Horn’s wide shots often use longer lens to compress his depth of field, here composing a delicate shot with the two women and stroller framed beneath the majestic tree.The war comes to an end, yet what should be a joyous occasion is accepted with solemnity among these factory workers, who remained resigned to the class hierarchy painted out in this marvellous blocking.Anchored in the destitute poverty of postwar Copenhagen, Horn often uses his setting’s dilapidated architecture and muddied streets in the vein of Béla Tarr, sinking his characters into a hopeless malaise.
Horn’s framing of her story through the eyes of fictional client Karoline effectively applies a grim, psychological lens, clouding our perception of 1920s Copenhagen’s harsh realities with terror, mistrust, and trauma. His stunningly bleak recreation of this period setting echoes Béla Tarr in its ruinous dilapidation, rendering the textures of coarse fabrics and peeling walls in high-contrast, monochrome photography, and slowly zooming in on doors and stairways where horrors unfold just beyond our view. The influence of Ingmar Bergman is also felt in Horn’s intimate framing of faces, notably splitting Karoline and Dagmar’s profiles on either side of the frame during a crucial confrontation, though the shallow depth of field on display is notably his own. Copenhagen’s bitterly cold parks and stone streets melt away into blurred backdrops through his long lenses, disconnecting Karoline from her environment, and especially isolating her from Dagmar once her betrayal is made apparent.
Narrow frames squeezing in on an oppressed Karoline, using the city’s narrow corridors and doorways to impede on her very being.Bergman’s influence in the blocking and lighting of faces, illustrating the poisonous relationship between Karoline and Dagmar as the truth comes to light.Horn’s shallow focus disconnects Karoline from her harsh environment, particularly here as a wealthy couple passes through the background in a blur.
With a score of low drones, rumbling vibrations, and metallic creaks, The Girl with the Needle takes haunting form in its minimalist soundscape too, uncomfortably accompanying Karoline’s descent into helpless reliance upon her child’s killer. This is a woman whose hopes for a prosperous life have been dashed by her affluent ex-lover, and whose husband Peter has returned from war both horribly disfigured and violently traumatised, eroding her faith in men as a source of stability. As such, she is in a deeply vulnerable place when she initially meets Dagmar at the local baths, attempting an abortion with a dauntingly large needle. The comfort provided by a stranger promising a secure future for Karoline’s daughter appears to be the only source of light in a dark world, so it is only natural that she gravitates toward it like a moth to a flame.
A minimalist shot packed with visual symbolism – the dirtied mirror masking Karoline’s face behind a layer of grime as she wrestles with her conscience, and the giant needle offering escape through pain.Gorgeous lighting diffused through windows and bouncing off wet surfaces, setting the scene for Karoline’s desperate escape.
Nevertheless, something seems very wrong even before Karoline learns the truth of Dagmar’s business, especially with Horn leading us to suspect the very worst. Once Karoline gets hooked on Dagmar’s ether, she effectively loses all agency, only finding purpose as a wet nurse to the abortion broker’s younger daughter Erena and a recently abandoned baby boy. Erena’s attempt to smother this infant when Karoline gives it too much attention should be the first major hint that murder is commonplace in this household, and suspicions expressed by her old colleague Frida similarly validate our own, mounting a foreboding sense of dread.
Painterly shots as Karoline stalks Dagmar through Copenhagen’s rough stone streets, mounting a foreboding suspense.A gut-punch of a reveal, confirming our suspicions with jerking, almost inhuman movements as we linger on Dagmar’s back.Horn realises it’s what remains unseen which haunts us most of all, unfolding harrowing trauma just beyond our field of view.
The stretch of purely visual storytelling which leads to Karoline’s discovery sits among the finest sequences of The Girl with the Needle, stalking Dagmar as she carries the baby through Copenhagen, before reaching a lonely alley and mysteriously settling on her back. From Karoline’s obscured perspective, Dagmar’s jerking, struggling movements ambiguously manifest her worst fears, while her subsequent inspection of the open sewer where the child disappeared confirms them. Despite her gut-wrenching distress though, still she can’t separate herself from this codependent mother-daughter relationship, entwining Vic Carmen Sonne and Trine Dyrholm’s performances in a disorientated haze of shame and violence. Horn’s desolate photography continues to submit to the despair through it all too, hovering an overhead shot above these women sharing a filthy bed, and casting creeping shadows across Sonne’s guilty face.
Toxic co-dependency in a single shot, laying these curled up women on a filthy bed.Karoline’s face consumed by shadow, hiding from her own guilty conscience.
Karoline is not the only one to dwell in the darkness though, as Peter too often hides in Horn’s gorgeously low-lit interiors, shamefully covering his mutilated face. Unlike Dagmar, the mask he wears is a shield from society’s prejudice rather than its judicial system. His visage may fit among those terrifying faces which haunt Karoline’s nightmares, but there is also a kindness here which even she overlooks due to his physical and mental scars, effectively rendering him unrecognisable to his own wife. With nowhere left to turn, he resorts to the lowliest job of all as a circus freak, letting others exploit and profit off his deformity in the most dehumanising manner possible. Despite the whimsical props which adorn his caravan, there is no levity in Horn’s shabby, carnivalesque production design here, yet healing and redemption may be found in even the dirtiest environments when one falls into the arms of a nurturing, dutiful lover.
Several characters wear a mask of some kind, and Peter’s is quite literal, covering up his facial disfigurement and hiding it in darkness.Carnivalesque production design at the circus, framing Karoline’s emotional recovery in the unlikeliest of locations.A stifling frame in the oval mirror, yet there is a touch of warmth in Karoline and Peter’s physical and emotional union, enduring a rough life together.
Perhaps it is indeed a stretch too far to believe that any adult in this derelict society would want to raise another’s unwanted child, but for all its misery and sorrow, Horn does not let The Girl with the Needle end without glimpsing a world where this might be possible. Even after abject depravity has shredded Karoline’s faith in humanity, we witness how a single act of love may change an entire life, formally subverting Dagmar’s cynical worldview which once perpetuated even deeper anguish. After all, tenderness is never too far out of reach in Horn’s profound, historical reflection, often hiding within those who have suffered the most, and offering glimmers of tenderness in a society consumed by its own despondent shadows.
Karoline subverts Dagmar’s cynical worldview, carrying out an act of radical love and selflessness.
The Girl with the Needle is not currently streaming in Australia.
As far as the proud, jolly doorman of The Last Laugh is concerned, there is no greater calling in life than the hospitality he offers to patrons of the Atlantic Hotel. This is his entire identity, so essential to his being that he is not even given a name. Instead, he is distinguished by his portly figure, regal moustache, and elaborate, militaristic uniform, commanding respect from those who pass through the revolving door he loyally guards. That he is so willing to help the homeless children who loiter outside his apartment building speaks to the strength of his moral character as well, establishing him as a man whose existence has been joyfully dedicated to the service of others.
It is a cruel turn of events then which delivers a letter of demotion into his hands, relegating him to the position of washroom attendant. He has gotten too old for his position, management claims, and in his place a younger man has donned the uniform he holds in such esteem. Framed through the glass double doors of the boss’ office, darkness surrounds him on all sides, until the camera tracks forward across the barrier and into the room itself. As we read these devastating words, F.W. Murnau imprints a vision over the top of the previous attendant handing in his white coat, and the text begins to blur in tearful distress. There is a desolate future ahead of this former doorman, and from here The Last Laugh plunges into his deep humiliation, teasing out the shame and indignity that comes with an earth-shattering shift in status.
Emily Jannings strikes a proud, regal figure with his moustache and uniform, setting up his bombastic pride before the humiliating fall.Murnau’s camera tracks forward from outside the door and into the room as bad news is delivered.In the absence of intertitles, Murnau uses these creative visual cues to relay exposition.
So rich is Murnau’s visual storytelling here that all exposition is minimised to a single intertitle, giving him room to explore the ambitious limits of his camerawork and mise-en-scene. Three years before Fritz Lang’s triumph of set design that was Metropolis, The Last Laugh was bringing to life busy streets, apartment buildings, and majestic hotels built on studio stages and backlots, each brimming with the sort of expressionistic detail that Germany was pioneering in the 1920s. The glass revolving door in the hotel foyer makes for a particularly impressive set detail as well, the oscillation of its vertical lines constantly reframing exterior views and merging with brisk camera movements to imbue the city with a bustling liveliness.
Tremendous apartment buildings and city sets constructed on studio backlots, brimming with expansive expressionistic detail.The revolving doors make for a superb recurring set piece, its oscillating lines constantly reframing exterior views of the city.
On a larger scale, this liberation from static tripods sits at the core of The Last Laugh’s stylistic brilliance, especially standing out for its immersion into our downtrodden doorman’s psyche. Right from the very first shot, we are introduced to the hotel from within the elevator, descending multiple stories as we gaze through the metal grills into the crowded lobby. When the doorman dances, the camera spins with him in gleeful unison, and when he dashes past sleeping security guards on the night shift, it too takes desperate flight.
The very first shot introduces us to the lobby via the elevator, descending into the bustling crowd.The camera spins with the doorman as he dances, swept up in his exuberant glee.Clean geometric lines and shapes in Murnau’s sets, making a bold statement of class and privilege.
Having recently dabbled in the realm of horror and fantasy, Murnau relishes the uncanny dreaminess of these visual devices, entering the doorman’s waking nightmare of the hotel’s edifice bearing down on him like a monster and later slipping into his unconscious mind with experimental panache. There, a double exposure effect blends a close-up of his sleeping face with an absurdly tall vision of the hotel’s revolving doors, before entering hazy, distorted crowds lavishing him with applause. There is no cumbersome struggle with bulky luggage in this world, as he is instead endowed with an almost superhuman strength, lifting bags with one arm above his head and tossing them into the air. For a moment, Murnau’s camerawork even goes completely handheld, stumbling with the doorman in dizzy motions among his ardent admirers.
Our entry into the doorman’s dream is marked by this double exposure effect, merging his face with that revolving door which extends infinitely up past the top of the frame.Hazy, distorted visuals in the doorman’s dream as he easily lifts bags in the air above his head, groggily captured by a swaying handheld camera.
When the doorman awakes the next morning though, it seems that reality hasn’t quite caught up. Too embarrassed to come clean to his family and neighbours about his demotion, he bears the weight of a guilty conscience, and through point-of-view shots we see his perception of the world stretch and blur in disorientating patterns. He finally arrives for his first day at work, yet in Murnau’s beautifully severe wide shot, this washroom looks far closer to a prison of harsh angles and dingy lighting. The mirror which extends an entire wall simply reflects his shame back at him, and next to it he sits alone in a wooden chair, no longer dominating frames with his hefty physique but rather shrinking into the background.
Faces stretch and warp as the doorman faces the world with a guilty conscience.This washroom looks far closer to a prison of harsh angles and dingy lighting in Murnau’s beautifully severe wide shot, extending a mirror along an entire wall to reflect the doorman’s shame back at him.
Every bit of Emil Jannings’ physical presence embodies this transformation too, making for a soaring accomplishment of silent acting that few others from this era have matched. It is a depressing thing to witness a man as large and exuberant as him shrivel up in sheepish submission, his back hunching over as he cowers before patrons and colleagues. Within Murnau’s magnificent close-ups too, his beaming smiles fall into maddened grimaces of distress and misery, and his tired eyes drift off in disoriented confusion.
Jannings’ face is meant for German Expressionism – a canvas of heightened emotion.The exposure of the doorman’s secret is played as horror, suspensefully edging his relative towards the washroom before hurtling us towards her screaming face.
There seems to be no end to the doorman’s suffering either, as it is only a matter of time before the truth of his demotion comes home to his family and neighbours. When one relative visits the hotel, Murnau plays her discovery like straight horror, suspensefully edging us towards the washroom before hurtling towards her terrified expression as he comes into view. Gossip spreads quickly around his apartment building too, and Murnau’s camera actively tracks its passage in whip pans between balconies and tracking shots into attentive ears. Catching like wildfire through the community, derisive laughter surrounds the doorman as he stumbles ashamedly through the streets, and soon inundates the entire frame as a multiple exposure effect thrusts expressions of gleeful scorn upon us.
Gossip spreads fast, and the camera tracks its passage in whip pans between neighbouring balconies.A brisk tracking shot into a neighbour’s ear, receiving news of the doorman’s humiliation.We stumble with the doorman down the street, neighbours pointing and mocking his shame.Cruel laughter dominates the frame in a double exposure effect, undercutting whatever dignity the doorman had left.
In a pure tragedy, this is where the story would end, leaving our wretched protagonist at his lowest point. In a strange twist of fourth wall breaking justice though, Murnau’s sole intertitle confesses the pity he took on the doorman, instead bestowing upon him an improbable epilogue which lands him as the beneficiary of one Mexican multimillionaire’s fortune. Whoever’s arms he should pass away in should inherit his estate, the wealthy man’s will decrees, and it just so happens that the Atlantic Hotel’s washroom should host his fatal heart attack.
Murnau’s moving camera continues to blend elegantly with the blocking here, comically revealing the doorman’s jubilant face behind a crowd of waitstaff and an enormous cake, though formally this development is shaky at best. However pleasing it is to see him become the hotel’s most distinguished guest and give its staff the respect he never received, this jarring shift in tone has no grounding in the narrative which led up to it. Clearly Murnau’s stylistic intuitions are sharper than his plotting, so it is fortunate indeed that this fable plays out largely by way of its dynamic, enthralling visuals. It is through the avant-garde after all that we find reality slipping so elusively from our grasp, and it’s in that vulnerable state that The Last Laugh reveals the heartbreaking capacity of our self-loathing, ready to destroy us the moment we hang our pride upon the dubious, fragile illusions of social status.
The Last Laugh is in the public domain and available to watch on YouTube.
Somewhere in the unnamed Swedish city of Songs from the Second Floor, a crash test dummy falls seemingly out of nowhere into a quarry. In a lavish hall, a crowd of clerics, aristocrats, generals, and businessmen prepare a young girl called Anna for a mysterious task. Finally, Roy Andersson pays off both scenes in a darkly funny punchline that leads the child along the top of a cliff, before sending her plummeting to an unseen death. As the same elites who groomed her for this ritual passively bear witness, a mournful hymn builds to a crescendo, commemorating the innocent life they have sacrificed to whatever gods might save them from the insipid, desolate hell they themselves have built on Earth.
Like an artist curating a solo exhibition, Roy Andersson is compiling a gallery of evocative tableaux that each express their own self-contained story in Songs from the Second Floor. No single image here reveals the full apocalyptic senselessness that this city of eternal traffic jams and mind-numbing bureaucracy has descended into, but when each are considered in unison, a more expansive landscape begins to form of surreal, urban decay. There is no redemption for bosses who fire their most loyal staff after 30 years of service, and no hope for the employee who pathetically clings to his superior’s leg as he is dragged crying down office hallways. All that can be done is to bury the shame deep down – though where is the sanity in that when humanity’s moral failures pervade the mundanity of everyday life?
A crash test dummy falls from a cliff onto a pile of rocks.A young girl is groomed for a mysterious tasks by a crowd of adults.Both vignettes come together and deliver an incredibly dark punchline – the young girl is sacrificed at the edge of the cliff, observed by members of society’s elite.
Individual scenes here vary between tightly interwoven episodes and standalone vignettes, yet each play their role in Andersson’s astoundingly formal world building, erecting life-sized dioramas that trap pale, lethargic characters in Edward Hopper-style paintings. There is a complete absence of in-scene editing, and in its place we find a consistent dedication to wide, static shots with a remarkable depth of field, often extending highly stylised sets far into the distance where background figures carry out their day-to-day routines. At its most absurd, this manifests as a procession of flagellating businessmen trudging their way through the perpetual congestion, hoping to find atonement through self-punishment like the masochistic monks from The Seventh Seal. Even when life beyond the immediate setting isn’t visible though, the noise of road rage and car horns can often be heard from just outside enclosed walls, rooting these trivial, woeful tales within a common dystopia.
Detail in Andersson’s world building, calling back to the masochistic monks of The Seventh Seal with this procession of businessmen and women whipping themselves through the city’s busy streets.
Perhaps the only thing holding Andersson’s film back from total melancholy is its sharply attuned, deadpan satire, carried by his idiosyncratic ensemble and revealing a civilisation that has reached a point of unsalvageable stagnation. Comparisons to Jacques Tati and Wes Anderson’s playful mockeries of modern society are apt, especially in their meticulous manufacturing of eccentric structures to speak for their monotonal characters, though Andersson’s humour possesses a far darker edge than either. Without physical slapstick or whimsical montages driving its narrative forward, Songs from the Second Floor languishes in the uncomfortable silence of awkward interactions, washed out by drab, desaturated colour palettes sapped of life.
Truly pathetic characters – we pity them as they grovel at the feet of their superiors, and as others quietly watch on from their offices.Surreal perfection in Andersson’s mise-en-scène, establishing the flat, low-contrast visual style that he would continue to stick to from this point on in his career.
Although Federico Fellini’s cinematic chaos does not draw so clean a parallel, Andersson’s condemnation of an indulgent, undignified culture reveals this influence to be particularly potent. Much like the Italian director’s later films, Andersson’s surreal imagery and episodic narrative unveil the egocentric irony in human suffering, manifesting as miserable self-pity afflicting an entire civilisation. When strangers are beaten up in public, injured in a botched magic trick, and stuck in a train door, bystanders in Songs from the Second Floor watch on with blank expressions, preferring to keep a distance from those who desperately need help.
A formal dedication to vignettes, each played with absurd deadpan as bystanders observe the suffering of others from a neutral distance.
Then again, perhaps it is the very fact that everyone is occupied by their own personal burdens which keeps them from stepping forward. In a particularly Felliniesque metaphor, Andersson stages what seems like hundreds of travellers at an airport terminal dragging overloaded trolleys of luggage towards the counters, where hostesses wait with professional apathy. The soundscape of desperate groans almost sounds like a hellish torture chamber, and although the distance to cover is minor, it feels like an eternity away as bags begin to topple over.
Perhaps the single greatest shot from Andersson’s entire filmography, extending this airport terminal deep into the background as passengers struggle with their towers of luggage.
Clearly everyone has their crosses to bear, and for some in Songs from the Second Floor, these manifest quite literally. If Andersson centres any character in this expansive tapestry of miserable lives, then it must be the middle-aged salesman Kalle who burns down his furniture business, attempts to claim insurance on it, and decides to join his old friend Uffe hustling religious paraphernalia. Lugging a crucifix-shaped package through train stations and cafeterias, he expects to find some financial or spiritual salvation, albeit one which never materialises. Religion is reduced to nothing more than a cheap commercial enterprise, and when he decides to seek genuine solace in a church, even the vicar is too preoccupied by his own troubles to consider the needs of his congregation.
“At the end of your wits… so who isn’t? I’ve been trying to get my house sold for four years.”
Glimpses of spiritual transcendence as train passengers burst out into an operatic chorus, while Kalle remains woefully apathetic.Andersson’s satirical critique of religion evokes Luis Buñuel, cutting into the con artists and salesmen who turn a profit on religious paraphernalia.
This is not to say that Kalle’s world is absent of mysticism or empathy. The aggrieved entrepreneur is simply too blind or deaf to appreciate it, even ignoring the melancholy, operatic chorus sung by surrounding commuters on a train. Their shared sorrows swell in beautiful harmony, carrying over to the following scene in a diner as well where Andersson reveals just how far this song of suffering resonates. Neither does Kalle grasp the divine enlightenment that his son Thomas has been blessed with, yet which has tragically condemned him to a psychiatric hospital. “Beloved be the one who sleeps on his back,” he proclaims, quoting Peruvian poet César Vallejo, before continuing to exalt all those overlooked by a complacent society.
“Beloved be the bald man without a hat.
Beloved be the one who catches a finger in the door.”
This poetry is the reason Thomas has gone insane, Kalle claims, so it is ironic indeed that each visit ends with the salesman being forcibly removed by hospital staff for his furious breakdowns. The resemblance Thomas’ words bear to the Beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount is certainly no coincidence here. He is a Christlike figure, albeit one who has been debilitated by a culture which sees his wisdom and calls it madness. He is no Son of God, but neither was Jesus, Thomas asserts – he was simply a man who was tormented to death for his kindness.
Thomas is the closest thing to a pure, moral figure that this film has, confined to a psychiatric hospital and called mad for his offbeat wisdom.
Still, the guilt which lingers beneath society’s thin veneer of apathy cannot be entirely ignored. The only time Andersson’s camera moves in Songs from the Second Floor is at the point where reality almost entirely breaks down, seeing it track backwards along a train platform where a man with bleeding wrists follows Kalle. This is Sven, we soon learn, a man who Kalle once owed money to yet eventually took his own life before being repaid. Kalle was not directly responsible for his death, though he sheepishly confesses to feeling relieved upon hearing the news.
Not far behind Sven is another spectre, though this one manifests as a far greater trauma in European history. Approaching Kalle with a noose around his neck, a young Russian who was hung by Nazi Germany is looking for his similarly deceased sister, hoping to apologise for his transgressions. Kalle has never met him before, yet still he feels a sense of shame as the foreign ghost stalks him through the city. “You’ll have to forgive me, but I’m afraid I can’t help you because I can’t understand what you’re saying,” Kalle weakly apologises as the boy pleads to him in his own language, though this is evidently little more than a convenient excuse for an embarrassingly disinterested man.
Echoes of European history haunt Kalle as ghosts, underscoring Sweden’s national guilt.
When all is said and done, was Sweden’s diplomatic policy of neutrality in World War II not a radical position in itself, granting themselves permission to sit by as millions died across the Baltic Sea? Elsewhere at a nursing home, the staff who celebrate a senile general’s 100th birthday ignore his Nazi salute and deluded greeting to Hitler’s right-hand man, as Andersson further characterises a nation whose self-proclaimed tolerance is also its greatest flaw. These ghosts may fade into obscurity, but they never truly disappear as long as the living refuse to address the torment they have inflicted and suffered, leaving the dead to amass an overwhelming force in the film’s closing minutes.
Nazis live on in modern day Sweden, shoved away into nursing homes so society doesn’t have to think too much about them.
Just outside the city’s borders, Kalle meets with his friend Uffe, who has given up his business. “How can you make money on a crucified loser?” he grumbles, hurling crosses onto a pile of junk. Religion has apparently fallen so far from the mainstream, no one even is even seeking the empty promises of its cheap icons. We can’t quite make out the faces of the people trudging towards him in the far distance, but when Uffe finally leaves, Kalle is quick to identify the leader.
“Why are you chasing me, Sven? Why are you tormenting me? I can’t make it up to you. How could I do that? You have no relatives. What can I do? Sven! Can we not treat each other decently? Forget it all. The past… just look ahead!”
The trash that he throws is enough to scare some off, and yet a hundred more rise from the earth, continuing their zombie-like march. Kalle whimpers, resigned to his fate, and though Andersson does not linger on this shot long enough to reveal what that might be, we do finally recognise the girl at the front.
An eerie, ambiguous conclusion as the sacrificed girl leads a crowd of ghosts to Kalle, forcing a terrifying confrontation with his own conscience.
After all, how could we ever forget that chilling image of a blindfolded child being led to her death along a cliff top? Like Sven and the Russian boy, Anna’s spirit continues to haunt those who call society’s evils ‘necessary’ and shirk moral responsibility. It wasn’t long after her demise that those who bore witness tried to drown their guilt at a hotel bar, we recall. There, an elderly aristocrat vomits on the countertop, a woman struggles to pick herself up off the floor, and one man’s demented cry eerily spreads through the establishment. “Where are we?” they collectively moan in confused discord, as if coming to the realisation that this modern hell has been nightmarishly fashioned from the reality they once believed in. As far we are concerned in Songs from the Second Floor too, this existential question might as well echo across the entire city.
This city is a nightmarish limbo, designed by those who wield absolute power yet ironically wonder where it all went wrong.
Songs from the Second Floor is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel.
When expecting father Justin Kemp hit something on a dark road roughly a year ago, he had no reason to believe it was anything other than a deer. He spent the night up to that point drinking alone at the local bar, relapsing into old habits to deal with the grief over a recent miscarriage, though it is a concerned text from his wife Allison which ultimately distracts him from the road. He exits the car to check on the potential casualty, but after scanning the bridge and river below, it appears that whatever he hit has disappeared into the darkness.
As such, the eerie alignment between details of the criminal case he has been summoned to serve as jury for and his own accident that cold, rainy night seems like a cruel twist of fate. Clint Eastwood’s parallel editing deftly plays out his realisation via flashback, initially through the attorneys’ opening remarks which lay out James Sythe’s alleged murder of his girlfriend Kendall, before revealing that Justin was at the bar during the violent public breakup that preceded it. After James forced her to walk home in the rain, Justin left in his car shortly after – and the later discovery of her body next to the bridge where he supposedly hit a deer appears to confirm his culpability. With the camera hanging on Nicholas Hoult’s face in close-up, moral turmoil begins to stir his conscience, and it is this inner conflict which Juror #2 teases out in its study of stifled, agonising guilt.
It has been many years since Eastwood directed an instant classic like Unforgiven, but the fact that he is still creating quality films is nevertheless a feat for a man going strong in his 90s. Juror #2 thrilling treads that line between honesty and self-preservation, setting up enormous stakes whichever way Justin chooses to go. Should he come clean, he would almost certainly suffer dire legal consequences and lose the chance to be part of his child’s life. Should he stay quiet, he would bear the lifelong burden of knowing an innocent man has suffered in his place. Immense power has been placed in his hands, and with the discerning minds of fellow jurors prying deeper into the truth as well, the matter becomes increasingly complex.
Driven by a feeble moral imperative, Justin is initially the only holdout among his peers to advocate for James’ innocence, despite being unable to openly justify his verdict. Still, the reasonable doubt he instils in others’ minds is enough raise questions, particularly from J.K. Simmons’ fellow juror Harold. When this former homicide detective decides to breach court rules and investigate the crime scene himself, his resolution to find James guilty begins to waver, and is ultimately replaced by an intuitive, cynical suspicion. Although Justin smartly gets him disqualified, the seeds of doubt which he initially planted have sprouted among other jurors, condemning him to reap their poisoned fruits should they be allowed to grow.
Eastwood gathers a talented cast here, integrating their respective talents to drive up the dramatic irony of Justin’s secret. Much like Simmons, Toni Collette possesses a bold screen presence as Faith, the prosecutor whose determination to win this case falters when fresh evidence comes to light. Her interrogation of Allison late in the film sees her come dangerously close to the truth, yet Eastwood wields superb narrative suspense as he resists crossing that line. In the jury room too, what could have been an inert discussion of ideas becomes an active exercise in hypothesising, with the blocking often separating a nervously agitated Justin from his peers.
Although Hoult is largely recognised as a character actor specialising in pompous male egos, Juror #2 proves his ability to slot seamlessly into a leading role, adopting an American accent and raw vulnerability. Beyond the interspersed flashbacks to that fateful night, he continues to unravel Justin’s backstory, revealing a previous car collision that pushed him to his lowest point yet spurred him to start taking responsibility for his actions. As he finds himself trying to cover up his guilt in the present day, his principles are arduously tested, undermining the very integrity he soon plans to model as a father. Freedom and redemption are mutually exclusive within this moral quandary, but as pressures from all sides mount with grim, inexorable foreboding, Eastwood rivetingly raises the question of whether either are truly attainable at all.
Juror #2 is currently available to rent or buy on Apple TV, YouTube, and Amazon Video.
Music is a supernatural force that can pierce the veil between life and death, we are told in the opening minutes of Sinners, and on the local juke joint’s opening night it is apparent that the local preacher’s boy is specially ordained to make that mystical connection. This Southern Gothic tale is deeply infused with the spirit of blues, thrumming with vibrant, soulful twang of guitars, but as Sammie takes the stage and rouses the crowd, we also witness a cosmic revolution unfold.
No longer is this bar simply a place for African Americans of 1930s Mississippi Delta to dance, drink, and party with their people. It transcends time itself, beginning with an electric guitarist joining the bluesy vocals and reverberating acoustic instruments, before pulling back to reveal a DJ dropping hip-hop beats. Still Ryan Coogler’s camera continues to fly around the joint as Sammie’s act summons spirits of the past and future, integrating tribal drumming with hip-hop and ragtime, while Crip Walks and masked Zaouli dancers fill the space with anachronistic energy. This may be a celebration of Black music from across history, but the Beijing Opera performers who join Chinese couple Bo and Grace suggest an even broader appreciation of cultural expression, folding in its many forms upon a single, eternal moment.
The highpoint of Sinners and Coogler’s career – a floating tracking shot transports the juke joint into another realm where spirits of the past and future join the patrons in cultural celebration. It is a tremendously inspired stroke of surrealism, burning the building to the ground as the living and dead continue to dance, and time folds in on itself.Those who have lost touch with their roots watch on in malicious envy, planning to seize this power for themselves.
It is no wonder why vampire Remmick longs to exploit Sammie’s mystical power to reawaken departed ancestors. Sinners remains relatively faithful to traditional vampire lore, depicting them as predatory creatures who have disrupted the natural course of life and death, while a brief glimpse of Native American hunters hints at a larger battle between spiritual forces at play. Just as these creatures have lost their humanity, Remmick has grown distant from his Irish origins during his time in America, making the purity of expression he witnesses in Sammie’s musical ability all the more awe-inspiring. Assimilation was the cost of freedom for Remmick’s people, and now as he seeks to similarly absorb Sammie’s community, Sinners’ most remarkable metaphor takes chilling form. Subsumed in another collective, these undead monsters lose the sun, their souls, and their culture – but if this assimilation also guarantees African Americans an escape from prejudice, could it possibly be a fair trade?
Coogler has certainly proven his hand at directing and elevating franchise films over the years, though it is no surprise that his first truly original story also marks his finest achievement to date, giving him a platform to explore his most eclectic artistic interests. Michael B. Jordan remains reliably by his side, cast in his most impressive role to date as twins Smoke and Stack who ran from the gangs of Chicago, and have now returned to their hometown in the Mississippi Delta. Jim Crow racism is rampant in the South, but it is better to deal with the devil they know, the brothers reason, not yet grasping the true depth of its inhuman evil.
Coogler recreates 1930s Mississippi in his production design with careful attention to detail, capturing the scope and sprawl of this setting in Leone-like establishing shots.Sinners is a superb addition to Michael B. Jordan’s resume, continuing his collaborations with Coogler as twin brothers Smoke and Stack – rich characters whose return to the Mississippi Delta reunites old friends and lovers.
The juke joint that Smoke and Stack intend to open is an opportunity for them to assemble old friends, family, and lovers, and Coogler is patient with the introduction of each, building out his ensemble with depth and vitality. Hailee Steinfeld plays Stack’s old flame Mary with subtle internal conflict, uncertain of her place as a one-eighth Black woman who passes as white, and drawing parallels with Bo and Grace whose outsider status similarly ally them with the African American community. Weathered pianist Delta Slim, discerning occultist Annie, and loyal field worker Cornbread continue to round out the supporting players here, so that by the time bodies start dropping and rising from the dead, the stakes of losing these characters are agonisingly high.
The time Coogler spends patiently building out each supporting character in the opening act is well spent, with each playing a crucial role later on – Mary as Stack’s romantic weakness, Annie as the occult expert, and Cornbread as the joint’s dependable bouncer.
The structural similarities that Sinners bears to From Dusk Till Dawn are notable, dividing the film in distinct halves that separate the drama from the bloody horror, though Coogler’s narrative goes down far smoother than Robert Rodriguez’s unevenly plotted spectacle. The prologue lands us in the immediate aftermath of the carnage, hinting at the imminent terror through smash cuts to single-frame flashbacks, and promising us that it will all be worth the wait – not that we need such a guarantee with characters this compelling. If there is any cinematic setback in the first act, it is those stretches of stylistic inactivity behind the camera, but the gorgeous period décor and natural light which permeates Coogler’s scenery nevertheless imbues this slow-burn setup with an enchanting effervescence.
Coogler’s prologue lands us in a rural church of spotless white mise-en-scène, disorientating us with smash cut flashbacks to the previous night.The breathtaking landscapes of rural Mississippi bask in the magic hour, and it is not just there for show – it is upon this brink between day and night where the setting’s true danger reveals itself.
Sure enough, our climactic arrival at Smoke and Stack’s juke joint is more than a worthy payoff, heralded by the crescendo of Ludwig Göransson’s acoustic blues and its gradual layering of heavy rock instruments. Here, the golden lighting sinks in an ambient warmth, recreating the spirited atmosphere of a live concert as singer Pearline stomps, belts, and enraptures the audience with her dynamic stage presence.
Coogler’s musical set pieces bask in the golden warmth of the juke joint, lit with lanterns and bulbs strung across the ceiling.
Equally astounding though is Göransson’s musical pivot at this point, ushered in with the unwelcome arrival of Remmick and his recently converted minions. There is a cold, shiny glint in their eyes as they approach the juke joint, seeking the invitation they require to enter. Their jaunty bluegrass tune comedically shatters the tension with the corniest possible rendition of ‘Pick Poor Robin Clean’, though once its incongruity settles, we recognise the menace in its soulless appropriation of a classic blues standard. Remmick’s later performance of Irish folk ballad ‘Rocky Road to Dublin’ is a far more sincere representation of the threat he poses, effectively clashing cultures through divergent musical traditions, and threatening the erasure of everything the juke joint represents. Never has a jig been so menacing as it is here, yet Jack O’Connell also imbues it with an impassioned longing, grasping at the remnants of a life he lost long ago and now seeks to revive through assimilation and bloodshed.
A cold, menacing glint in the eye of Coogler’s vampires.The juke joint becomes a sanctuary for the living, keeping out the evil which lays siege to its defences.The most menacing Irish jig you will ever witness, battling foreign cultures through clashing musical expressions and traditions.
This use of music to represent the division and fusion of cultures weaves incredible formal creativity through Sinners, though Coogler continues to push its conflict further as he draws it into the heart of the film, fracturing Smoke and Stack’s intimate fraternal bond. This archetype of warring brothers reaches far back to the biblical story of Cain and Abel, and Carl Jung’s consideration of doppelgängers as manifestations of one’s inner darkness similarly resonates in Coogler’s vampiric doubles. Hostility and grief bleed through Jordan’s dual performances, but it is also through this split that we see traces of both emerge in each other. Just as humans carry incredible capacity to inflict violence, so too is there a surprising emotional depth to their monstrous counterparts, regretfully aching for reconnection to that which once made them truly alive.
Coogler composes a Cain and Abel fable set in rural America, establishing virtue and corruption as equals and tragically setting them against each other.
The mid-credits scene is not one to miss, as it is here where this pivotal recontextualisation takes places, offering sympathy to those who exchanged one freedom for another in the process of social conformity. For human and vampire survivors alike, that devastating night is remembered with nostalgic melancholy over what was both gained and lost, allowing a mutual understanding to flourish among those who went their separate ways. It is there in Coogler’s epic battle of preservation and assimilation that a timeless riff resonates between warring cultural ideals, and it is through their haunting harmonies that Sinners echoes a harrowing, historic struggle for community.
