Author: SceneByGreen

David Fincher | 2hr 37min

While political cartoonist Robert Graysmith spends years digging into the details of the Zodiac murders across the west coast of 1960s and 70s America, we find David Fincher using Graysmith himself to conduct his own intensive examination of human obsession. How curious it is that the author of these accounts upon which this film is based becomes Fincher’s subject of scrutiny, his characteristic nuances and flaws often foregrounded over his book’s thrilling subject matter. While this true crime procedural moves at a steady, purposeful pace through all two and a half hours of its run time, leaving us to piece together loose tiles of an enigmatic puzzle with no fixed resolution, Graysmith is the real source of fascination at its centre, enslaved by his own compulsive desire for truth even as the world around him loses interest.

This fastidiousness is a trait echoed across both character and director, as Fincher similarly fixates on the details of the Zodiac killer investigation as a means to understand the mentality of Graysmith. The ambidexterity of one key suspect, Arthur Leigh Allen, is hammered home as a potentially significant piece of evidence, as is his Zodiac branded wristwatch, and even when many of these details amount to little more than circumstantial, Fincher continues to remain glued to each new revelation. Just as Graysmith remains patient and willing to accept that such obsessiveness may not herald the answers or justice he desires, so too does Fincher revel in the journey of speculation and discovery, drawing narrative comparisons with All the President’s Men in his paranoid, fussy handling of this historical journalistic investigation.

Patience and deep concentration are qualities built into the very fabric of this narrative, carrying us along in Graysmith’s compulsive drive while keeping us at enough of a remove to recognise how these same traits are echoed in the criminal he is so doggedly pursuing. Each time we hear the Zodiac killer speak, it is from a different voice so as to throw us off any distinct identity, though his personality emerges clearly in his eerie letters and phone calls speaking of a haunted, troubled mind, plagued by urges he cannot escape. Remarkable form in characterisation is thus drawn between hero and villain, two men who fall victim to their own psychological impulses, and at least one of whom loses everything because of it. Though Graysmith’s passion may have attracted his future wife on their first date, it also becomes the cause for the disintegration of their marriage. While his associates are driven to exhaustion and substance abuse over the investigation, he remains persistently focused. Over the years his apartment turns into a cluttered study of boxes and papers, and Fincher sends a haggard Jake Gyllenhaal running through rainy streets at night in desperation, tying Graysmith’s physicality and environment to his own restless, obstinate mentality.

Such visual prowess continues to reveal itself in Fincher’s magnificent depth of field all throughout Zodiac, keeping every detail of this mustard-yellow period setting in crisp, sharp focus. Within the San Francisco Chronicle newsroom, slightly lowered camera angles turn the rows of yellow fluorescent lights into distinctive backgrounds against which the mysteries of the Zodiac letters unfold, while the journalists themselves are blocked across layers of the frame. Fincher’s trademark yellow lighting makes an especially atmospheric impact here in its bright, clean radiance through corporate interiors, while shady homes, streets, and restaurants are dimly illuminated with soft amber glows, allowing an uncanny darkness to overtake scenes of paranoia and doubt.

Calling Fincher a master of crafting tension may imply parallels to Alfred Hitchcock’s own sadistic fascinations, and yet there is something a little more ethereal about the suspense present here in Zodiac. Without an identifiable figure to pin these crimes to, Fincher’s evil is far more impressionistic than it is tangible, emerging just as much through his dingy, uncertain atmosphere is it does through its narrative. Such obscurity is made all the more frustrating by the pinpoint precision with which he attacks his plotting, cinematography, and characterisation, leaving us to question the productivity of such relentless obsession over impossible mysteries – and whether turning that intense focus inwards to our own humanity might bear a more fruitful life.

Zodiac is available to rent or buy on iTunes, YouTube, and Google Play.

Terence Davies | 1hr 25min

Memories flow like water in Distance Voices, Still Lives, swirling around in the basin of human thought, gliding from one to the next through intuitive connections and tangents. Its plotlessness should not be mistaken for a lack of form, as Terence Davies effectively builds visual and thematic motifs based around cultural tradition which run through almost every scene. Chief among them is his use of tableaus, many of which bear striking resemblance to those composed by Carl Theodor Dreyer, in which groups of characters stand or sit in structured formations without making eye contact. This lack of connection hints at an isolation between them, yet the flashbacks these images segue into illustrate the equally traumatic and nostalgic memories which bind them all together.

Distant Voices, Still Lives is also heavily autobiographical for Davies, who paints a moving portrait of a working-class family in wartime and post-war Britain. In troubled times, their community gathers at the local pub to savour the few scraps of escapism that they can conjure. Alcohol is an important part of this, especially beverages such as ‘rum and pep’ and ‘mackies’, names which almost seem as if they belong to an entirely foreign dialect.

Even more important than the drinking culture is the songs they sing in moments of quiet reflection and boisterous joviality, ranging from folk to jazz standards. As many of these characters lack formal education they are not especially eloquent with their words, and so it is rather through their soulful renditions of popular, period-appropriate music that they communicate their deepest feelings, even as they hear the bombing of their city outside.

Though the quaint mannerisms and habits of these characters belong to a different era, there is a universality to the complexity of their pain. The first half of this film, titled Distant Voices, opens on the funeral of the Davies family’s patriarch. While his wife and children grieve, they simultaneously recognise the conflicted emotions that come as a result of their loss.

In flashbacks we see dimensions of the man who could not possibly be captured in a five-minute eulogy. He was troubled, angry, and abusive, clearing preferring one of his daughters above his other children. But at times, there was a sensitivity that shone through when he thought no one was watching. The children would climb up to the stable loft just to get a glimpse of him content, singing to himself as he brushed the horses. It is the small moments like these that linger decades later, leaving the impression that these memories aren’t long forgotten tales, but are rather just as vivid as the present day. The cumulative effect of each recollection continues building to form a nuanced, poetic impression of the Davies family as a whole.

The second half of the film, Still Lives, was filmed two years after the first and moves past the funeral, opening with the baptism of Eileen’s baby girl and ending with Tony’s wedding. While the rest of Distant Voices, Still Lives is made up of small, seemingly insignificant memories, the events that are considered truly consequential are religious ceremonies, emphasised further by their placement at the start, midpoint, and conclusion of the film. These Catholic traditions are the bedrock of the family’s faith, giving them a sense of stability through life’s harshest trials. Towards the end, a gorgeous composition of black umbrellas huddled together in the rain reflects the Davies family’s own ethos in a single image, collectively keeping the woes of life at bay through their tight formation.

Distant Voices, Still Lives moves so seamlessly with match cuts, long dissolves, and fades to white that it is easy to wind up lost in its timeline, not realising where the past stops and the present begins. This smooth editing, paired with Davies’ immaculate frames, brings a photobook quality to the film, blending the family’s memories to the point that we stop caring about their chronological order. Instead, all there is left for us to do is lose ourselves in this nostalgic, poetic ode to the love and struggles of Davies’ old-fashioned, working-class family.

Distant Voices, Still Lives is currently available to stream on Tubi.

Jia Zhangke | 2hr 10min

Four vignettes of modern-day China, each inspired by real national news stories, and all culminating in an act of desperate violence – this is the formally bold artistic statement which Sixth Generation Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhangke puts forth with A Touch of Sin, pushing the boundaries of his usual neo-realistic style until they overlap with more traditional crime thriller conventions. China’s soulless, exploitative economy remains the source of much disaffection here, but where many of his previous characters let their disillusionment linger in a state of ambivalent inaction, here it is transformed into a fixated bitterness, with each of his four leads being brought to forceful, parallel conclusions about how to tip the scales of inequality.
 
Frustrated by the wealth gap between its labourers and managers, a worker representative at a coal mine in Shanxi goes on a crusade of justice against his superiors. An estranged husband returns home to his family for Chinese New Year Celebrations in Chongqing with a mysterious accumulation of money, which he has gained through morally reprehensible means. A receptionist at a spa in Hunan grows tired of her affluent clients’ misogynistic attitudes, snapping in a moment of cathartic brutality. And in Guangdong, a factory worker who is constantly being shifted between jobs that place little value on his wellbeing, is eventually driven to an act of self-destruction.

Jia’s formal exercise in comparing these four diverse, self-contained tableaus makes for perhaps his most confrontational attack yet on China’s move towards a dehumanising, capitalistic economy. Still Life implied violence in the deconstruction and demolishment of towering structures, but this is the first time he has chosen to represent this cultural decline so viscerally, through the depiction of actual bodily harm. Whether it is a premediated string of murders or a spur-of-the-moment action, each perpetrator in A Touch of Sin is driven by an overwhelming sense of nihilism, realising they are left with no options except that which they would have never considered before.

Though Jia’s use of architecture as character is evident, the sheer variety of geographical locations prevents A Touch of Sin from developing a consistent aesthetic. An ancient temple sets a holy backdrop to a callous assassination, smoke stacks and factories appear in a montage evoking Yasujiro Ozu’s ‘pillow shots’, and the bright red Wushan Yangtze River Bridge from Still Life arches over a canal like a welcoming entrance, but should Jia have followed through on any of these stylistic choices a little more, he might have been able to find greater form in the connection between each vignette.

The Roberto Rossellini influence that Jia exhibited in his earlier films with his use of dilapidated buildings does make a return here, but there is an even more notable narrative inspiration from the Italian neorealist’s 1948 film Germany Year Zero. In the final vignette which follows the alienated factory worker, Xiaohui, the young man steadily accumulates one misfortune after another, and this persistent bleakness builds towards his devastating, climactic suicide. While every other act of violence implies an external connection between the aggressor and their victims, Xiaohui’s isolation keeps his destructive fury contained to his own mind and body, capping off A Touch of Sin not with a ferocious attack on authority, but rather a moving plea for empathy

A Touch of Sin is currently available to rent or buy on iTunes, YouTube, and Google Play.

Bela Tarr | 7hr 20min

We open on a farm. The first thing we notice is the bleak, monochrome colour palette filled with shades of greys and blacks, but no whites. The purity of white just doesn’t belong in this film. A barn stands a fair way away, and at first everything is completely still. But then we see a small bit of movement in one of the doors, and a moment later some cows emerge, followed by even more. They trudge out across the churned up field that dominates the frame, and the camera slowly moves with them. This shot lasts about eight minutes. Right from the start Tarr is setting a dreary tone, warning us – if you can’t get through this, then you won’t survive all gruelling seven and a half hours of it.

When human characters do finally enter, Tarr keeps framing his horizon in the upper half of the frame with slightly raised angles. He keeps our focus on the cold, harsh elements of the earth, pulling the characters downwards as they slog along seemingly endless roads. Tarr’s moving camera doesn’t exactly float or glide, but it always appears to be pushing against another force holding it back. It is slow and methodical. It will move in a singular direction for minutes at a time, pausing when it arrives at something of interest, and then changing course along a new path. His camera isn’t a neutral observer, but a character with its own mind, constantly wandering, directing our attention to the lives inside this small, impoverished Hungarian village.

The moving camera is especially suited to this specific kind of non-linear narrative as well, which is invested in following separate perspectives that converge upon common events. Usually there is some sort of failure to communicate or understand that takes place at these meeting points, hitting home the utter futility of any interaction in this village.

The first time we see the girl, Estike, run to the Doctor for help, it is through his drunken, confused perspective. Tarr keeps us distant from the encounter, so we’re not fully sure what is taking place before she runs off. The second time we see this, we follow Estike in a mid-shot. Within the context of her own narrative, it hits differently. This is a girl who has suffered immensely, perhaps even more than any of the adults of the town. While they can drown their misery with dancing and drinking, she is left alone to watch their party from the outside. When we see this through her eyes, it seems like she goes unnoticed. But later when we watch this scene from inside the party, Tarr cuts away from an extra long shot to show her peering in from the outside. If this scene is coming from the adults’ perspective, then maybe they did actually see her at the window, and simply pretended they didn’t. In this case, Estike isn’t invisible to the adults of her town – they just don’t care.

Ignorant to her plight, the villagers continue dancing to the accordionist playing the same repetitive phrase over and over for what feels like at least ten minutes. The town drunk keeps stumbling around, one man keeps balancing bread on his forehead, and the innkeeper keeps hitting the bar with a stick. Like the riot scene in Werckmeister Harmonies, nobody is talking, shouting or singing. They just continue moving silently until they pass out from exhaustion. It’s not much, but it’s certainly better than having to take deal with their real problems. Like taking care of that girl looking through the window, for instance.

Though Bela Tarr marks the end of each chapter with a voiceover, its interjections rarely do anything to lighten Sátántangó‘s overwhelming austerity. The one exception here is Estike’s suicide. For the village her death is a tragedy, but for her it is an escape. And ironically enough, it is one of the few respites Tarr allows us.

“She felt at peace inside and around her the trees, the road, the rain and even the night all radiated tranquillity. Whatever happens is good, she thought. Everything was simple, at last, forever. She recalled the events of the day, and smiled, as she understood how everything was connected. She felt that these events weren’t connected by chance, or accident, but by an indescribable beautiful logic bridging them together. And she knew she wasn’t alone, since everything and everyone, her father up above, her mother, her siblings, the doctor, the cat, these acacias, this muddy road, this sky and the night below it, all depended on her, just as she depended on everything else. She had no reason to worry. She knew her guardian angels were already on their way.”

Though Tarr has a talent for finding beauty in solemnity, he only uses it sparingly. In this destitute Hungarian village of dilapidated buildings and free-roaming farm animals, a Messiah figure seemingly returns from the dead. Like the Prince in Werckmeister Harmonies, people are suspicious of him, and yet he quickly and easily charms them. Irimias is a false prophet bearing false promises, encouraging the villagers to give up their wealth to start a new, prosperous community which never manifests. Instead they are spread to distant corners of the country, unable to do anything but follow his orders even once their faith in him has been thoroughly destroyed.

The two characters who remain immune are the Innkeeper and the Doctor. The former retains a grip on reality, but is ultimately left alone for being the only one to do so. The latter is simply not around to realise what is going on. He shuts himself inside his house, only ever venturing out to buy more alcohol, and so when he realises the town is deserted he is confused. Regardless, he will just keep doing what he has always done.

The Doctor’s routine is only perturbed by the ringing of bells from a church we have previously learned doesn’t have any. Must the noise then be a sign from God? Upon investigating the source, the Doctor finds a madman clanging a piece of metal in the ruins of the church. “I’ve mistaken a common bell for the Great Bells of Heaven,” the Doctor laments. But Futaki heard the exact same sound at the start – surely this is no coincidence? The Doctor boards up his windows, retreating into a void that cuts him off from the outside world. Though traces of magical realism are sparse in Sátántangó, the instinct to reject the possibility of some mystical essence is widespread. Through these bookends Tarr intertwines this bleak landscape and the town’s lack of faith in spiritual icons, following unreliable worldly figures instead.

There may not be seven and a half hours worth of narrative here, but Tarr has always been adamant about his distaste for plot. Sátántangó is about a progression of tones and images, glacially paced, suffocatingly drab, and completely mesmerising from start to finish.

Sátántangó is currently available to stream on The Criterion Channel.

Nicolas Roeg | 1hr 50min

To live through the tragic death of your own child is a horrifying enough prospect on its own, but in the convergence of past, present, and future that emerges in architect John Baxter’s unwieldy, indistinct hallucinations, that grief becomes a sea of despair, pulling him down into its cold, all-consuming depths. The layers of subtext and symbolism that flow through Don’t Look Now may take multiple viewings to fully appreciate, but in Nicolas Roeg’s fluid editing which swirls between cryptic images of blood, churches, water, and grotesque representations of death, its feverish atmosphere takes hold, haunting us with the ghosts of events that have already taken place, and some that are still yet to happen.

The supernatural clairvoyance that plagues John’s mind may be considered a curse in this way, but as we witness in Heather, a blind psychic he meets in Venice, such mysterious gifts need not be so detrimental. Though she cannot see, the special vision she possesses allows her more insight into the world than anyone else, and the abundance of mirrors and reflective surfaces surrounding her frame her as such, becoming distorted yet enlightening filters of reality.

Water consequently becomes an especially potent visual metaphor, particularly early on when an upside-down pond reflection of John and Laura’s young daughter, Christine, ominously portends her imminent drowning. She is not the last person in the film to die in such a gruesome manner either, as in a subplot concerning a loose serial killer in Venice we observe bodies being drawn up from the canals, rotted from the time spent submerged in their murky depths. If John’s own supernatural ability can be likened to these bodies of waters that contain splinters of answers, then it is important to recognise the necessity of coming at them from purely figurative angles, and avoid submerging oneself in the overwhelming, suffocating currents of literalism.

It is the latter course of action which tragically defines John’s own arc, as in the wake of Christine’s death he decides to accept a commission in Venice to restore an ancient church, and ironically dig deeper into his own scepticism. Unable to accept the possibility of the supernatural, he takes all his visions at face value, living them as if they were immediately present rather than considering their underlying significance. All around Venice he continues to chase a small figure dressed in a red coat, identical to that which his daughter wore when she died, and warnings of his own impending fate continue to emerge all around him. This city of deep canals, misty alleys, and ancient architecture becomes its own mysterious force in John’s journey, constructed just as much through Roeg’s masterfully inventive editing as it is through the location’s own unique layout of disconnected islands.

In those few moments where the gravity of the present outweighs all else, Roeg delivers weighty, slow-motion sequences, dramatically underscoring John’s discovery of Christine’s body as well as Laura’s fainting in the restaurant. Outside these scenes though, he delivers a masterclass in montage and parallel editing, intercutting the couple’s love-making with their morning routine the day after, and then in the very final of the sequence of the film smashing together the fragments of foreshadowing we have seen throughout the film to form a complete puzzle. Roeg’s magnificently frightening reveal flows in graphic match cuts between symbols, premonitions, and shots whirling across church interiors, all the while bells clang chaotically in the background.

From Heather’s clarified perspective, these enigmatic icons can be contemplated from a distance, allowing their underlying implications to arise organically. For a man like John though, so wrapped up in his own grief and scepticism, the reckless pursuit of logic only delivers answers after he has plunged right to the gloomy depths of his mysterious visions. And as Roeg’s persistent foreshadowing drives home over and over through Don’t Look Now, there is no hope of surfacing again this far down.

Don’t Look Now is currently available to rent or buy on iTunes, YouTube, and Google Play.

James Whale | 1hr 15min

Before Universal Studios’ monster movies became parodies of themselves with such soulless sequels as Son of Dracula and Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy, there was a brief moment in the 1930s when it looked as if its attempts at franchise moviemaking might have retained some sense of artistry. In retrospect, the brilliant success of Bride of Frankenstein can be more put down to James Whale than anything else though, as the Gothic director steps up the subtext, camp, and expressionistic mise-en-scène of his original 1931 film Frankenstein to deliver not just a lynchpin of horror cinema, but a piece of film that feels even truer to his own dramatic sensibilities.

If it feels like Bride of Frankenstein carries a little less narrative elegance than its precursor, perhaps that can be put down to Whale’s diversion from Shelley’s original story. What he does offer though is an increased fascination in the more humanistic side of Frankenstein’s monster, lending the story a transgressive edge that frames him as a lonely outcast searching for genuine companionship, no matter how unorthodox. Where society deems him an inherently unlovable figure, Dr Pretorius decides that giving him a wife of his own kind might just be the answer. After all, isn’t that a perfectly conventional expression of happiness? The fact that the most honest, meaningful connection the monster makes is so quickly destroyed by strangers speaks volumes about the cultural restrictions placed upon individual happiness, particularly as they pertain to those who do not fit its most conservative definitions.

And indeed, it is in those areas beyond the ordinary, quiet village that the monster prefers to dwell, keeping out of sight for as long as he can. In this sense, Pretorius isn’t all that dissimilar – he too is a macabre figure who basks in the gloom of crypts and uses coffins as picnic tables. If there was anyone who could possibly understand the minds of both the monster and creator, it is him, a mad scientist who recognises his own innate darkness and yet brushes it off with grim jokes and a foppish theatricality. He is in a better position than anyone to realise what sort of friend the monster needs, and even in spite of this, the solution he poses is nothing more than a cruel, self-serving experimentation and tribute to his own ego.

Pretorius’ new world that places him at its centre is truly one of “gods and monsters”, and Whale recognises it as such in all its magnificent menace. Stark shadows are cast across faces and bodies caught in high, low, and canted angles, twisted in grotesque shapes like ghastly extensions of the Gothic architecture surrounding them. The influence of German expressionists pervades Whale’s aesthetic all through Bride of Frankenstein, its ubiquitous atmosphere forcing his characters to either struggle against or submit to its dark, eerie power. Towards the end though it is the Soviet montage theorists whose impact emerges in Pretorius and Frankenstein’s major experiment, as Whale builds a kinetic rhythm in his rapid cutting that climactically leads to the reveal of the Bride herself.

In the short few minutes she appears onscreen, Elsa Lanchester gives a performance that, like the monster himself, has become the definitive icon of the character. Her eyes darts around the space in twitchy motions like a bird, stretched wide open in horror at her own existence. She does not react kindly to the monster either, as she screeches in fear at what has been thrusted upon her. “We belong dead,” is not so much his assertion of the natural order than it is a poignant submission to social convention, and a damnation of those other souls consumed by necrotic decay. One can’t help but feel in these final minutes that the empathy Whale holds for the monster is of an entirely different kind to that held by Shelley. Perhaps in the original 1931 film he was an abomination that Dr Frankenstein should have never created, but Bride of Frankenstein gives him the inalienable right to human life, and realises that he will only ever return to the place he came from when any chance of living that life outside the boundaries of social convention is well and truly destroyed.

Bride of Frankenstein is currently available to stream on iTunes, YouTube, and Google Play.

William Wyler | 1hr 58min

After Breakfast at Tiffany’s, this is the version of Audrey Hepburn that stands tall in the public consciousness – a young, fresh-faced actress who, while not yet entirely refined in her craft, exudes such natural magnetism that she can carry entire scenes solely with her reactions. This performance, paired with that of the handsomely confident Gregory Peck, makes for a breezy two hour hangout in the streets of Italy.
 
Aside from the clear acting talent on display, Roman Holiday is also all the more effective for its location shooting in the nation’s capital, with William Wyler clearly relishing every opportunity to frame his actors against bell towers, sculptures, cars, stairs, columns, and historical monuments. The seeping of Italian neorealism into American film culture is evident here as early as 1953, even if the product is more hybridised than directly imitative. It isn’t like the studio system of this era to step beyond its backlots and sound stages, but the extra effort pays off here in emphasising the emotional immediacy of the characters and their environment, thereby letting the plot take a backseat much like the films of neorealism.

The tension that underlies the narrative is twofold – firstly in the lie that Joe is maintaining to get a good news story out of the runaway Princess Ann, and secondly in Ann’s own concern about being pulled back into the restrictive royal lifestyle she has grown tired of. We get just enough of these complications recurring through the ensuing adventures that they are never forgotten, but they are not so present that they dominate the sheer joy and romance of the film.

The minimal exposition is especially notable, as all it takes is a few cutaways of Ann slipping her feet out of her heels and stretching during a formal engagement to understand her dissatisfaction. Likewise, the ten-minute finale which wraps up Roman Holiday resolves every single lingering emotional thread with nothing but a few looks and words between the two lovers at a public press conference. Though these words hold little significance on their own, they are brimming with the subtext of coded lovers language. You could mute this scene and understand everything purely through their expressions – Ann’s disappointment in realising the lie Joe has told, his shame at her discovery, her silent forgiveness, his gratitude for their lives crossing, and finally, a mutual, bittersweet understanding that they are set on different paths.
 
Most of all, Roman Holiday is proof that “sweet and charming” doesn’t necessarily mean “small and modest”. William Wyler is a director with an eye for deep focus imagery, and he puts it to good use here by turning Rome’s architecture and geography into a living, breathing environment, providing Ann and Joe the romantic, challenging adventure that both needed at this point in their lives, whether they knew it or not.

Roman Holiday is currently available to rent or buy on iTunes, YouTube, and Google Play.

Paul Schrader | 1hr 52min

In a motel room where each piece of furniture has been wrapped tightly in white sheets and all decor has been stashed away, a man sits at a desk and writes. This is William Tell, a small-time gambler as skilled at card counting as he is restrained in flexing this talent. His routine is rigid – move from city to city, win modestly, and then depart without leaving so much as a blip on anyone’s radar. It is a level of dogmatic dedication equal only to Paul Schrader himself, whose flair for constructing formally rigorous character studies of brooding, isolated men stretches all the way back to Taxi Driver, and which has manifested more recently in his theological meditation on human greed and corruption, First Reformed.

Schrader doesn’t falter here in The Card Counter either. With a slightly narrowed aspect ratio, a consistent voiceover meticulously expounding the tricks of each casino game, and a deeply internalised performance from Oscar Isaac, the film becomes a wholly focused examination of regret, self-discipline, and atonement. Having lived a troubled life as both an ex-soldier and ex-convict, William is as complex a figure as any Schrader protagonist. Sin has implanted itself so firmly in his soul that profiting off it is the only way he knows how to survive, but as long as he keeps it quiet and modest, there may be some hope that his environment remains untainted by his presence. In wrapping his motel rooms up in sheets, he similarly ensures that no trace of his inherently iniquitous existence is left behind, and denies himself any chance of worldly pleasure by turning them into bare chambers of his own self-punishment.

Such minimalistic austerity suits Isaac tremendously, whose quiet, grim performance stands monumentally among the best of the last few years, and certainly in the upper tier of his own career. He is discreet, logical, and observant, gazing out at the world from beneath heavy lids with an intense, unblinking focus. In nightmares and flashbacks that let us into glimpses of his days conducting enhanced interrogation techniques for the US military, Schrader filters the environment through ultra wide-angle lenses that catch everything within a 180-degree field of vision, putting every inch of pain and suffering on full, hyper-sensitive display. “This isn’t about following a manual. It’s about getting answers,” William’s superior, Major John Gordo, instructs him, and within this line Schrader draws a clear distinction between their attitudes towards codes of conduct as means to keep one honest. Though Willem Dafoe is not onscreen a lot in The Card Counter, the weight he carries in this role is substantial, especially as Major Gordo’s presence continues to hang over William as a reminder that his past sins are still very much alive and unatoned for.

Notions of forgiveness, revenge, and redemption all swirl around each other in Schrader’s screenplay, particularly as William begins to engage with two new associates who each draw out pieces of his identity he has been trying to suppress. In Cirk, the young, rash son of one of William’s former army comrades, he finds the temptation to dredge up the past as a means to destroy it entirely. In La Linda, a gambling acquaintance, he finds the chance to absolve himself of his own sins, and to once again interact with the world without putting up physical and emotional barriers. There may seem to be a conflict between both goals, but there is also a tenderness to the small, oddball family that forms between them. As William and La Linda wander through the Missouri Botanical Gardens through tunnels of colourful lights on a date, the two are illuminated in a warm glow of love and redemption, and there is similarly something spiritually transcendent in Schrader’s sweeping camera movement upwards, revealing the expanse of this bright, shining corner of the world.

The casino is where William feels most at home though, centred as the one in charge through recurring back-of-head tracking shots that follow him around the space. He haunts the space like a ghost, influencing it just enough to make a difference but never enough to draw attention to himself. The world beyond the poker and roulette tables is ruled out-of-bounds, though when he finally does violently breach that gap Schrader makes the intelligent choice to keep the camera removed, leaving us only to listen to the grisly developments from the next room over. That barrier between William and the rest of the society is no doubt a tough one to break, but Schrader touchingly recognises in the final minutes of The Card Counter that there is still hope even as it remains intact. Sometimes all it takes is a simple recognition from someone on the other side, both parties reaching out in a mutually affectionate gesture of acknowledgement and appreciation.

The Card Counter is currently out in theatres.