Category: 1990s

Michael Haneke | 1hr 49min

There is a perverse ritualism to the physical and psychological torture that strangers Paul and Peter exact on the Schober family in Funny Games. Personal motivations appear to be non-existent, and Michael Haneke even mocks the idea that some tragic backstory might explain their desensitised hostility. Truth is, there is no satisfying justification for the events that unfold over what was supposed to be the first night of the Schobers’ vacation at their lakeside getaway. Paul and Peter are completely void of any individuality, and rather serve a purely functionary purpose in Haneke’s disturbing piece of metafiction. They are simply acting on behalf of another invisible presence that exists just outside the boundaries of this story – us, the audience.

Within this self-aware framing device, it stands to reason then that Georg, Anna, their son Georgi, and their dog Rolfi are the sacrifices, satiating our desire for gratuitous entertainment. They too lack any specific backstories which might define them as individuals worth our sympathy, and yet when faced with Paul and Peter’s sadistic games, we naturally hope that these archetypal victims might triumph over their adversaries.

Still, Haneke knows us better than that. This family’s torture is the reason we are watching to begin with. We don’t care about them as human beings with rich, interesting lives. When the movie is over, we will immediately forget about them and move onto another set of characters whose trauma will entertain us for another two hours. We don’t have any right to complain when we see Paul and Peter brutally pick off each victim one by one. Isn’t that what we came for?

As such, the invitation that Funny Games offers into an entertaining story of visceral sensationalism unexpectedly turns the mirror back on us. In its reflection, we don’t just see ourselves, but an entire culture that thrives on the suffering of others, blurring the lines between fiction and reality until the distinction barely matters anymore.

When it comes to Haneke’s actual depictions of the film’s brutality though, it is surprising just how much he holds back from explicitly displaying it onscreen, and how much more gut-wrenching it is as a result. What we are left with is violence minus the thrill factor, hearing the snap of a leg breaking as it is hit with a golf club, or a gunshot go off in the living room while Paul nonchalantly fetches food from the fridge, leaving us to desperately wonder which of our main characters has been killed.

In truly torturous fashion, it is of course the most innocent who are offed first, with Paul leading Anna to Rolfi’s body in a cruel game of ‘Hot and Cold’, and Georgie suffering the fatal consequences of Peter’s random selection. On a broader level though, the dehumanisation of these characters has been in motion from the very start, with Haneke’s camera largely averting its gaze their faces, or otherwise refusing to budge from long, static shots that resist any emotional engagement. At its most devastating, his camera spends ten minutes painfully hanging on the immediate aftermath of Georgie’s death, though the image is composed in such a way that it takes a few seconds to notice his body on the floor, his blood splattered on the wall, and his parents paralysed with catatonic grief. Where so many other directors would draw out a visceral horror here, Haneke rather underscores its inert dread, and the chilling mundanity which begins to emerge in the absence of any cuts or action that might move the story along.

This is the state of gratuitous modern entertainment, Haneke posits, dissolving the lines between fiction and reality which we might otherwise use to justify our depraved tastes. There is absolutely no urgency on Paul and Peter’s part to put the family out their misery, and so as they sit down in front of the television and flick through an explosive action movie, a natural disaster news report, and a motor sports program, he reveals a common thread of suffering between them from which we draw the same indulgent gratification. Later when he sits on a close-up of the TV streaked with Georgie’s blood, the visual symbolism is even harder to ignore – modern mass entertainment has been thoroughly stained by its own sadistic corruption.

This is the icy, emotionless distance that Haneke would make a key feature in so many of his films from this point on as well, but never again with the dark satirical humour he carries in Funny Games. Though we certainly feel for these victims, the insecurity we feel is just as anxiety-inducing whenever Paul turns towards the camera and includes us in his fourth wall breaks. When he initially lays out the stakes and bets that the whole family will be dead in exactly 12 hours, we too are offered stakes in the wager that we subconsciously make every time we watch a horror movie.

“What do you think? You think they stand a chance? You’re on their side, aren’t you? Who are you betting on?”

When Georg begs for them to be put out of their misery, they again slyly implicate us in their rejection – “We’d all be deprived of our pleasure” – and when Anna claims they have suffered enough about 95 minutes in, they claim “We’re not up to feature-film length yet,” before turning straight to the camera and asking if we agree.

“Is that enough? You want a real ending, with plausible plot development, right?”

Haneke’s use of Paul and Peter as storytellers within the story is calculated, having them knock the house’s phone into water early on to cut off the family’s communication, and continuing to progress the film through their self-aware actions. Haneke isn’t afraid to let Funny Games stray from traditional narrative conventions whenever he wishes to prove a point about their fickleness though, granting our unrealistic wish that these villains would leave the family alone by letting them randomly disappear for some time, and consequently revealing how little tension there is in the absence of their violence. Similarly, the common objectification of female characters rears its head when the young men force Anna to strip. By hanging the camera on a close-up of her distraught face though, Haneke excises whatever perverse thrill viewers might have found, leaving us only with a deep discomfort.

If it isn’t clear yet just how much Haneke is playing with our hopes for a happy ending, then the all-powerful, invisible hand that has been guiding this family towards their inevitable deaths is certainly at least revealed when he blatantly throws all plot logic out the window to avoid an easy win for protagonists. It looks as if Anna’s quick thinking has saved the day when she grabs a rifle and blasts Peter away, allowing us a moment to cheer for what is the first death explicitly depicted onscreen, and the gory comeuppance we have been waiting for. If we are to find ourselves carried away in the triumph though, then there is one key detail we are likely forgetting – Paul and Peter are the storytellers, and they have the freedom to break whatever rules they like.

It only takes Paul a quick rewind on the TV remote to take us back a few minutes before his friend’s death, allowing him to take the rifle away before Anna can snatch it and thereby transcending the arbitrary narrative logic that we have falsely believed must apply to him as well. Suddenly, it becomes bleedingly apparent that we were never in control of this story, or any story that we consume for that matter. Storytellers might be there to serve their audiences, but they are the ones who have the final say, often making decisions simply based on their own erratic whims.

Still, Haneke delights in leading us on just a little bit longer in the final minutes of Funny Games, reminding us of a knife from the start of the film that was dropped to the bottom of the yacht Anna is now tied up in. Of course though, Peter is sure to snatch away the Chekhov’s Gun before she can free herself. After dumping her into the lake, it doesn’t bother Paul too much that they have prematurely killed their last victim an hour before the deadline they promised us. It’s hard work sailing, and it’s about time they grab something to eat – narrative convention be damned. There were many families before this one who have suffered their ritualistic torture, Haneke suggests, and there will be many more to follow. As long as it keeps us gratuitously entertained, then who are we to complain?

Funny Games is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel, or you can buy the Blu-ray on Amazon.

Robert Altman | 2hr 4min

The modern, commercialised Hollywood of The Player is so steeped in the grand mythology of American filmmaking, it is no wonder that those left to continue its legacy fall so drastically short. It isn’t exactly nostalgia that Robert Altman is expressing here, though his sentimental adoration for the great cinematic masterpieces is evident. This industry has been so thoroughly milked of originality that virtually every new pitch thrown out is a retread of old ideas – Ghost meets The Manchurian Candidate for instance, and even the potential for a dark sequel to The Graduate is seriously considered.

On one hand, the churning out of tired tropes and cliches at least brings in audiences and guarantees Hollywood’s long-term survival. On the other, it destroys any potential for creative innovation, teaching filmmakers to sacrifice artistic integrity for box office earnings. As a metacommentary on the American movie industry, mass entertainment, and the necessity of pandering to audience expectations, The Player occupies a curiously subversive space among all of this, turning one Hollywood studio executive into the star of a crime plot he would much rather stay out of. Much like those films it is sending up too, The Player wears its neo-noir, thriller, and comedic influences on its sleeve too, albeit in much more self-reflexive manner.

In many ways, this is no huge departure from Altman’s usual interrogations of genre traditions, having previously taken on war, neo-noir, and western films, and yet it is worth noting that The Player comes out over a decade after his unparalleled run of hits in the 1970s. His penchant for satire has not faded, though his targets are closer to home than ever, tearing down the egos behind his line of work. Writers driven by pure passion put everything on the line, desperately hoping that their script is the one to be picked out, while the producers who call the shots insensitively brush off a vast majority of them, only hiring the remaining few with the intent to warp their vision beyond recognition.

There is not a whole lot that separates our antihero Griffin Mill from every other executive who conforms to these rules. It is only through pure misfortune that he is the one to be targeted by a rejected screenwriter. Postcards have been turning up in his mail for some time now with threatening messages, and after some effort he finally locates the man who he believes is responsible – one David Kahane. The clumsy scuffle that incidentally kills David may disturb a guilt-ridden Griffin, though not enough for him to take responsibility for it. He can’t dwell too long on the ominous image of a writer lying face down in a neon red puddle, his hopes and dreams quite literally dead in the gutter. Pressures and deadlines are looming at work, heaping on a thousand other priorities that take priority over this one.

What a busy, expansive world Altman builds here too, recalling his talents that previously breathed life into cinematic depictions of Nashville, a rural Western town, and a war hospital, and now applying them to an urban landscape so vast that brutal murders simply blend into the miasma. Though not an overly beautiful film, his camera pans and zooms capture an organic naturalism not bound to any single frame, but rather sprawls beyond its borders. The lives of A-list celebrities, star-struck visitors, impatient producers, and eager assistants intersect in his chaotic overlapping dialogue here, refusing to limit the story of Hollywood’s dream machine to any one perspective.

With this ensemble framework in mind, the eight-minute shot that opens the film effectively captures a slice of Hollywood’s everyday routines, commencing with a fourth wall-breaking clapperboard before hovering the camera just outside Griffin’s office window as conversations pass by. Despite the commotion, not a single detail escapes Altman, who briefly lingers on a discussion regarding the great long takes of cinema history. Touch of Evil reigns supreme, one studio bigwig asserts, claiming a family connection to the shoot while shutting down the delivery boy’s suggestion of the obscure British musical Absolute Beginners. The Player vaguely follows in Orson Welles’ lineage in this way, and yet there is a spontaneity to Altman’s roving camera which is quite distinct from Touch of Evil’s, crafting a shot that is entirely his own even as he pays homage to that which came before.

The microcosm of Hollywood captured in this opening also serves another purpose in The Player’s heavily intertextual screenplay. Whether hanging the threat of total failure over Griffin’s head by evoking the box office catastrophe of Heaven’s Gate, or having his stalker summon him with the fake alias of Joe Gillis, the writer from Sunset Boulevard killed by the movie star, Altman is using Hollywood’s historical legends to mark significant narrative beats. In this modern setting though, they are propped up as images of industrial icons while stripped of their substance, leaving foreign classics to be written off entirely.

“When was the last time you actually bought a ticket to see a movie? You actually paid your own money to see it?

“Last night. In Pasadena. The Bicycle Thief.”

“It’s an art movie, it doesn’t count. I’m talking about ‘movie’ movies.”

To executives like these who prioritise profits above all else, a Hollywood movie must tick off a list of boxes to be successful – suspense, violence, hope, nudity, sex, and a happy ending. Sure enough, Altman is consciously sprinkling in a little bit of each here too, subtly noting their contrived artifice as they consequently pull us out of the story. As for films that fall outside the mould like Habeas Corpus, the legal drama Griffin decides to greenlight – they can at least be reshaped into the desired form if the potential is there, and as long as the writers are open to making changes.

Rather than letting these cliches confine The Player, Altman delights in their escalation of narrative stakes across multiple subplots, as Griffin simultaneously discovers that David was not the man behind the postcards, finds his job under threat, and lands himself in the middle of a murder interrogation. Adding on top of that his perverse romance with David’s girlfriend, June, as well as his unlikely acquittal in a police lineup, and The Player’s keen manipulation of genre conventions pushes our suspension of disbelief in playfully comic directions.

Going by the rules of Hollywood moviemaking, Griffin’s improbable reversal of fortune by the end of The Player is exactly how the story is meant to play out, paralleling the contrived happy ending of a heavily rewritten Habeas Corpus as it plays for test audiences a year later. “What took you so long?” a young Julia Roberts asks Bruce Willis as he heroically carries her from a gas chamber. “Traffic was a bitch,” he quips in return, setting up a corny one-liner that Griffin echoes in the final scene when he happily comes home to his now-wife, June.

The self-awareness of this unexpectedly conventional resolution comes with yet another chilling twist though as Griffin receives a call from his colleague, introducing a man with a brilliant movie pitch. It is called The Player, and is about a studio executive who kills a writer, runs off with his girlfriend, and escapes his comeuppance. These similarities are more than just fate. “He gets away with it?” Griffin nervously asks. “Absolutely. It’s a Hollywood ending, Griff,” the anonymous, postcard-sending stalker on the other end of the line replies, still very much alive. “If the price is right, you got it.”

There are clearly greater powers than art or morality at play in the dream machine of The Player. As Altman’s dark satire winds to a discomforting close, he identifies a quiet insidiousness that resides in Hollywood’s happy endings. By irreverently playing within these set rules, he effectively turns our eyes towards the source of those narratives that dominate the cultural mainstream, and use their status to tell audiences what sort of people deserve success and good fortune. It is certainly no coincidence either that these winners are so often the same wealthy, obnoxious jerks with the power to determine what exactly those narratives are.

The Player is currently streaming on SBS On Demand, Amazon Prime Video, and The Criterion Channel, is available to rent or buy on Apple TV, or you can buy the DVD or Blu-ray on Amazon.

David Lynch | 2hr 15min

As far as fated high school prom queen Laura Palmer is concerned, the only supernatural forces by her side as she suffers through her final days are those demons driving her towards a violent, degrading death. They hide in plain sight within the idyllic Washington town of Twin Peaks, masking an evil so insidiously manipulative that even its victims try to disassociate them from the images of warmth and comfort they project. If there are any guardian angels working to defend innocent civilians from their influence, then they certainly aren’t looking over Laura while she sinks into a deep pit of self-destruction. As she kicks back one weekend with her far more naïve friend Donna, she can’t resist inserting herself into the hypothetical question she is posed of whether one would slow down or accelerate while falling through space.

“Faster and faster. And for a long time, you wouldn’t feel anything. And then you’d burst into fire. Forever… And the angels wouldn’t help you. Because they’ve all gone away.”

The end of her life is near, and she can see almost exactly how it is going to unfold, with no chance of some saving grace arriving in the nick of time to save her. Still, even with this pessimistic clarity, there is still a shred of hope in her lingering glances to the angel picture that hangs on her wall. Salvation is but a distant dream in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, even as its shallow façade casts a sleepy spell over suburban America.

David Lynch’s prequel to his television series offers an alternate view of the titular town – one which has not yet pulled in FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper to investigate Laura’s inevitable murder, and that keeps its darkest secrets contained to a smaller group of characters. This is not to say that Kyle MacLachlan’s detective is absent though, as the thirty-minute Deer Meadows prologue effectively bridges the gap between him and Twin Peaks, sending him down the dead-end rabbit hole of a previous murder in a neighbouring town that bears striking similarities to Laura’s own demise.

The extension of these formal parallels between Laura and the late Teresa Banks is striking, and this is quite significantly not some piece of dramatic irony that escapes the attention of Lynch’s characters either. Though Laura and Cooper never meet in person, a mystical, psychic connection forms between the two, allowing both a prescient foresight of their destinies and specifically giving the latter an image of who the killer’s next victim will be – another blonde, sexually active high school girl with a drug problem, crying out for help. “You’re talking about half the high school girls in America,” his colleague teases, though he isn’t exactly wrong. The surreal portrait that Lynch is painting of the nation’s corrupted innocence reaches far across modern society, exposing the lie that its supposed moral safe havens are impenetrable, incorruptible defences for the nation’s youth.

Further linking the detective and the subject of his future investigation is the limbo where both disappear to in dreams, encountering visions of each other along with a small assortment of bizarre figures. Lynch’s eye for eerie designs reaches a peak in this metaphysical plane referred to as the Lodge, enclosing its inhabitants on all sides with red curtains and laying out a black-and-white, zig-zag pattern on the floor beneath them. So too do his slow, long dissolves subtly emphasise the Lodge as the connective tissue between the two, fading from Laura to its red curtains and then onto Dale in one lethargic transition, and further inducing a soporific reverie through the formal repetition of this editing device. The lore of the Lodge runs much deeper than what is presented in Fire Walk with Me, but in essence it draws our two primary characters into another layer of existence between life and death, and occasionally hosts the demon whose presence has been haunting Laura since she was a child – Killer BOB.

Taking the form of long-haired, dishevelled man with a sinister smile, Bob projects the image of a man who anyone would easily believe sneaks into the rooms of teenagers at night, whispers his evil intentions in their ears, and takes advantage of them. That his nocturnal attack on Laura is accompanied by silent flashes of lightning without thunder should clue us into her numb detachment from reality, instinctually kicking in to preserve any remaining belief in evil as a foreign agent, and not a homegrown mutation of the familiar. After all, this is the image of malevolence that is easier to live for her to live with, even as it breeds a self-loathing which pushes her into underage sex work and substance abuse. Never one to address the psychological breakdowns of his characters through a literal lens though, Lynch’s subtextual implications begin to reveal themselves with the discovery of Bob’s true identity – or perhaps possessed victim is a more appropriate term. Laura’s own humble father, Leland, is the mortal through which this demon inflicts his sadistic cruelty on the world, but even upon learning this we are simply left to wonder: which man in this parasitic relationship is the true evil, and which is wearing the other’s face as a mask?

Given the occasional cruelty that Leland displays behind closed doors, it wouldn’t be hard to believe that he is more than just Bob’s puppet. At the dinner table, his torment of Laura starts with him shaming her for not washing her hands, though the implications of virginal purity don’t remain discreet for long once he starts calling her filthy for her promiscuity. Meanwhile in the corner, his wife is rendered powerless, incapable of protecting her daughter from his verbal rampage. Leland’s tearful yet shallow apology later sounds like the words of a man deeply struggling with his own psychological issues, yet unable to come to terms with how dangerously ingrained they are in his being. Within the seven days leading up to Laura’s death, she may finally grow cognisant of her father’s true threat, but to him these hostile outbursts might as well be the work of the spirit that has taken control of him.

In fact, this is the deluded narrative that most of Twin Peaks would want to preserve, and the perspective which Lynch adopts with his trademark surrealism. The peculiar townsfolk often speak in disjointed passages that dwell on insignificant matters, until they are interrupted by cryptic riddles which speak to some profound truth. When Laura approaches the Roadhouse bar one night, she is stopped by Margaret the Log Lady who feels her feverish forehead and offers an elusive warning of the teenager’s corrupted virtue.

“When this kind of fire starts, it is very hard to put out… The tender boughs of innocence burn first, and the wind rises, and then all goodness is in jeopardy.”

Inside the Roadhouse, her meaning is somewhat clarified. This is where Laura often meets her pimp Jacques, who exploits her illegal affairs with adult men. Its smoky haze is only pierced by Lynch’s red and blue stage lights, not unlike those used in Isabella Rossellini’s performance in Blue Velvet, and he even stages a similar musical act with Julee Cruise wistfully crooning ‘Questions in a World of Blue’.

The song is enough to move Laura to tears, briefly letting her mourn the loss of normalcy in her life before she picks herself back up to entreat a pair of clients. With Cruise’s melancholy song still playing in the background though, Lynch’s musical sound design continues to prove itself a crucial part of his psychological worldbuilding, underscoring her muted conversation with dreamy synths. Save for those moments that he is emphasising the emptiness of silence, he is often manipulating the blend of diegetic and non-diegetic noises around Laura, absorbing the low, steady thrum of a ceiling fan into Angelo Badalamenti’s droning score in one scene that suspensefully leads up to her discovery of Bob’s identity. On a broader level too, the main theme’s slow, lazy bass riff becomes a lethargic motif for the town in general, lulling us into a drowsy acceptance of its surreal mundanity.

Visually, the Roadhouse scene also develops the colour palette that Lynch formally has set out right from the Deer Meadows prologue with the blue rose and red shirt, and continues to weave into his costumes, lighting, and décor. The duality of this aesthetic is as cleanly divided as the moral binaries which govern this sheltered town, splitting good and evil right down the middle with no consideration for the space in between. Though it has entirely disintegrated within Laura, it takes everything in her power to preserve the spotless purity of those in her life who remain truly untainted. She is distraught to see Donna engage in the same debauched behaviour as her when they enter a sex club together, and later she breaks up with her secret lover James as she spirals faster than ever. “You don’t even know me. Your Laura disappeared. It’s just me now,” she ruefully asserts, recognising the hollowed-out shell of a woman she has become.

Still, when death finally comes for her, she does not submit to the pressing darkness without a fight. Lynch is a proven master of formal symbolism, tying mysterious threads through the recurrence of Teresa’s green ring, the Lodge, and mysterious masked strangers, but it is when Laura witnesses an angel hovering over her fellow sex worker Ronnie as they are tied up that he affirms Fire Walk with Me’s most powerful metaphor. Blessed by this heavenly entity, Ronnie just manages to escape Bob’s violence, though just as Laura expected, there are no angels looking out for her.

At least, not in this world, which would much rather brush over the traumas of those who publicly take on the celebrated image of the all-American sweetheart. Only when she is freed from those constraints and is ushered into the Lodge does she find the symbol of divine salvation she has been holding out hope for all along, recognising the goodness in her which saved multiple others from her inner darkness. After all, this is what sets her apart from men like Leland, who divide themselves into separate beings so they may simultaneously inflict their misery on others and remain guiltless in the process. When all is said and done for this tragically fated prom queen, she finds solace in her own virtue at the end of a tortured life, turning tears to laughter as the faint imprint of her angel hovers overhead.

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel, and is available to buy on YouTube.

Darren Aronofsky | 1hr 24min

The singular, unifying code which connects all aspects of the universe in Pi cannot be solely attained through the calculations of greedy businessmen, nor divined through religious texts. It transcends humanity and even God himself, laying out the basic foundations of existence and explaining everything there is to know. Wall Street brokers and theologians alike chase it down, believing it can predict the stock market and reveal the true name of Yahweh, and yet the prophet who has been bestowed with this knowledge is reluctant to let fall into the hands of any ideological faction. When it comes to mathematics, Max Cohen is a purist, believing that his 216-digit number is simultaneously a gift from a perfectly logical universe, and a weapon far too easily exploited by self-serving humans.

Right from the first close-up of his face squashed against his computer desk, Darren Aronofsky inhabits the mind of this reclusive number theorist with painstaking discomfort, making a debut as equally haunted by sensory and mental disturbances as his own tormented subject. Part of this has to do with the grainy monochrome aesthetic he crafts, driving a harsh distinction between the blacks and whites of each image with an enormously high contrast, and cluttering his mise-en-scène with monitors, lights, and cables running all over the set. Given how hideous this is to look at much of the time though, it would be hard to call this an unadulterated visual triumph.

It is rather in Pi’s pulsating, formal rhythms that Aronofsky unites his creative tools behind a wholly disorientating vision, manifesting the aggressive concoction of illnesses plaguing Max’s mind and body. Central to this is his vigorous editing, cutting fast through visual demonstrations of the mathematician’s hyperactive, stream-of-consciousness voiceover that can’t stop spilling out abstract theories. The emergence of the Fibonacci sequence in game theory, the stock market, and biological evolution supports his primary belief that patterns can be found in every facet of life and beyond, forming an objective foundation of existence that transcends the whims of humanity. Driven to equally establish order from his muddled thoughts, Max methodically lists off his assumptions in a list.

“One, mathematics is the language of nature. Two, everything around us can be represented and understood through numbers. Three, if you graph the numbers of any system, patterns emerge. Therefore, there are patterns everywhere in nature.”

Perhaps this rational stability is why he is so drawn to maths in the first place, given his own acute psychological suffering. His headaches, anxiety, and schizophrenic hallucinations frequently manifest in extreme close-ups and rapid jump cuts, and sharp mini-montages also flash through his quick downing of pills to quell these symptoms. Through a highly-strung electronic score and amplified sound design, Pi sensitises us even further to the sound and movement of its relentless, propulsive thrum, juxtaposing Max’s frenzied obsession against the cold rationality of the universe.

These editing and aural devices would later be refined in Requiem for a Dream, with Aronofsky even bringing composer Clint Mansell back to score its haunting them ‘Lux Aeterna’, but the surrealism he dabbles in here is far more detached from any reality present in that mind-bending trip. This is a character study of intensive, psychedelic focus, desperately scrabbling to make sense out of an all-encompassing chaos, yet often falling to Max’s horrific delusions. In one scene he halts as he makes his way through a subway station, coming across something that lies just behind the camera, and in the reverse shot we see his brain. As if trying to penetrate its mysteries, he pokes it with a pen, and yet each time we cut back to him flinching in shock and pain. As Aronofsky disintegrates the laws of physical space and enters an entirely unfamiliar psychological realm, reality ceases to exist, and all we are left with is the obsessive mania of this neurotic genius.

By the time the conspiracy surrounding his cryptic 216-digit number has fully emerged, there is no holding Max back from descending right to the depths of paranoia. Lenny, a Hasidic Jew with a keen interest in number theory, is determined to take him back to his sect which believes the code will bring about the Messianic Age. Marcy Dawson, a Wall Street agent, is just as dogged in her efforts to claim the number, convinced that it is the key to manipulating the stock market. The number is relevant to every corner of society, yet only Max sees its value beyond its utility, as well as the dangerous potential for its exploitation. In this constructed narrative, he is the saviour of a world verging on apocalypse, tasked with protecting secrets no human should ever be allowed to know.

That is, if we can take everything that he perceives at face value. Like the computer that gains consciousness the second it calculates that divine number, becomes aware of its own nature, and immediately melts down, Max is set on a parallel trajectory that erodes his mind the closer he gets to what he believes is enlightenment. Aronofsky underscores the dangers of that hubris in the formal repetition of one specific anecdote throughout the film, as Max reminisces a childhood memory of being cautioned against looking directly at the sun, disobeying the warning, and being temporarily blinded for some time after. Like Icarus from Ancient Greek mythology, his arrogant ambition was his downfall, and continues to ruin him now in his effort to transcend human knowledge.

This number has not brought Max peace in attaining greater wisdom, but rather the opposite, intensifying his headaches and even swelling a bulge on the side of his head. The David Cronenberg influence on Aronofsky is apparent, drawing a close link between bodily mutations and mental degradations, and so for Max it is only with the violent removal of the former that order can be restored to the latter.

It is worth questioning how much of a genius Max truly is versus how much is delusion, especially as Aronofsky laces in plenty of hints that his self-perceived intelligence is purely contrived. Regardless of whether it was self-inflicted brain damage that saved him or a humble acceptance of his own limitations though, Pi draws a surprisingly optimism from its feverish neurosis, with Max discovering an even deeper peace than he ever knew while in the throes of analytical obsession. Within Aronofsky’s acute formal interrogation of intellectual delusion, true order is found not by trying to penetrate a complicated yet rational universe, but rather by accepting its dazzling, wondrous incomprehensibility.

Pi is currently available to rent or buy on Amazon Video.

Hou Hsiao-hsien | 1hr 54min

The flower houses of 19^th century Shanghai are inherently political establishments, hosting affairs between the city’s wealthiest men and the young courtesans look to pay off their debts. To an extent, their relationships are monogamous, though these social conventions are vaguely defined. Hou Hsiao-hsien wisely doesn’t force drama from this tension, but rather lets it transpire in naturalistic conversations between patrons, concubines, and the aunties who run the brothels with firm hands. Composed of 38 single-take vignettes cleanly divided by fades to black, Flowers of Shanghai weaves together inspirations from Robert Altman and Jim Jarmusch in its naturalistic dialogue and elliptical structure, yet with a visual style as exquisitely ambient as this it undoubtedly belongs to the Taiwanese master of mise-en-scène.

Though we are confined to the interior of these pleasure houses for the entire film, the detail that Hsiao-hsien instils in them are essentially all we need to understand the society his characters belong to. The accomplishment of production design is integral here – common areas and bedrooms are decorated with wood panelling, floral artworks, ornately carved furniture, ceramic ornaments, embroidered curtains, and stained-glass windows, bearing the façade of great wealth while its inhabitants struggle in poverty.

From the oil lamps that often obscure shots in the foreground, a dim amber glow radiates across these rooms, diffused softly through the light opium haze suspended in the air, and blending beautifully with the gold and red palettes so richly drawn through the traditional Chinese décor. These are similarly the colours which the courtesans wear in their period-authentic robes, becoming part of the gorgeous scenery while the men disappear into the darkness with their predominantly black outfits. The gender divide is clear, though the power struggles between both sides is far more nuanced.

Plot threads of girls trying to earn their independence drift through this screenplay, though there is also some structure given to these vignettes in the loose chapter titles named after individual girls, which are in turn derived from colours, flowers, and gemstones. Negotiations over Emerald’s expensive freedom is a running subplot throughout scenes, peacefully resolving in Master Luo successfully taking her away. Other efforts aren’t so diplomatic, with Jade attempting to trick Master Zhu into a murder-suicide after he rejects the notion of marriage.

Most complicated of all though is the difficult situation Master Wang finds himself in after breaking off a lengthy relationship with Crimson, and moving onto the younger Jasmin. In this world where boundaries of professional and personal relationships are dangerously blurred, such an abrupt and informal breakup is considered a cheap show of disrespect, and with Crimson struggling to gain more customers Wang soon finds himself pressured by the aunties to settle her remaining debts.

The casting of Tony Leung in this part is an inspired choice by Hsiao-hsien, as he effectively replaces his natural charm here with an enigmatic, brooding presence, and stands out as the quietest of all the men who frequent the brothel. As the camera elegantly floats through conversations and congregations with passive tranquillity, it often finds its way back to him in crowds even when he is not speaking, intrigued by his subtle expressions. As time passes though, his unspoken instability grows more apparent, eventually bursting out in a lonely, drunken rage upon discovering that Crimson has found herself another man. Wang’s decision to marry Jasmin even while he still has feelings for Crimson was only ever going to end in another broken relationship and agonising self-loathing.

Hsiao-hsien is patient with this character development and his narrative at large, frequently dwelling on those games of mahjong which men and working women bond over, while slipping in tiny details of their own arcs. The sound of traditional Chinese music always seems to be lingering in the background, almost like a hypnotic accompaniment to the sound of trivial conversations and comfortable laughter, while many of the more scandalous moments aren’t shown at all. Though the girls frequently speaking of the aunties beating them, this violence is never rendered onscreen, and when Jasmin finally leaves the brothel with Wang we only ever learn of her cheating through second-hand sources.

In effect, this combination of open-ended character arcs, naturalistic dialogue, and an elliptical narrative structure develops Flowers of Shanghai into a wholly immersive slice of life, denying tidy endings to issues that may never be resolved. Perhaps Wang will always be an irretrievably unhappy man, and it is likely that many of these girls will never find the freedom they desire. Much like his serene, hovering camera, Hsiao-hsien does not intrude on their lives, but positions us as silent observers of the sharply gendered politics inherent in this setting. 19^th century China has never felt so tangibly real on film as it does in this seductively authentic drama, exploring the tentative boundaries that lie between sex and business in its most frequented pleasure houses.

Kaagaz Ke Phool is currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

The Dardenne Brothers | 1hr 34min

The story of Igor’s relationship with his father, Roger, in La Promesse can be understood through the three-act journey of his signet ring. He first receives it as a stolen gift, and proudly compares it to the matching one Roger wears on his own hand. When he is forced to do his father’s dirty work, it gets grimy. Afterwards, Roger is right there to polish its surface, erasing all traces of what went down. In this unjust world it is his most treasured possession, both for its sentimental and monetary value, so his final, selfless decision to pawn it off for the benefit of someone else in need marks a major shift in his loyalty. The Dardenne Brothers are dedicated realists on every level of their filmmaking, tying their narratives up into knotty moral predicaments, and yet it is through these tinier symbolic developments that La Promesse progresses with archetypal formality, leading Igor down the path to maturity and the responsibilities that come with it.

In 1996, this film marked a cinematic breakthrough for the Dardennes, who carry the neorealist traditions of 1940s Italy into contemporary Belgium and its own unique set of social issues. Exploitation of undocumented immigrants, trafficking, gambling, and petty theft thrive in this small industrial town, swaying the prospects of its local youth away from respectable occupations and towards the corruption of their elders. Right in the opening minutes, Igor steals a purse from a woman without a whole lot of guilt, clearly following in his father’s steps as an amoral, opportunistic criminal looking to take advantage of the system. Being a teenager though, his childhood innocence has not yet entirely faded. He would much rather ride bikes and go-karts than pursue his dead-end future, and in the formal repetition of these shots hanging in close-up on his untroubled face flying through town, the Dardennes uncover a youthful desire for freedom which no adult can harness.

That goes for his father too, who squanders every opportunity to model upstanding behaviour. Roger will easily transition from beating up his son and then continue working on his tattoo in an instant, and in tying these two acts together we find a powerful representation of his desire to make another man in his own image. Igor searches for guidance, but all he finds is his father’s warped direction, obliterating the intimacy of family by asking to be called Roger rather than Dad, thereby making his denial of responsibility just a little easier. This means that when Hamidou, an undocumented immigrant they have been exploiting at work, falls from scaffolding in a panicked attempt to hide from inspectors, Roger has no issue getting Igor to help cover it up. In this instance they are not a father and son, but merely just work buddies, equally culpable for the ‘accident’ that has occurred.

The bonds we hold to others can be tricky though, and Igor quickly discovers this when a dying Hamidou makes him promise to look after his family, directly conflicting with the loyalty he has to his father. This is the dilemma upon which La Promesse pivots its entire drama, holding us in the grip of Igor’s torn mind as he tries to figure out compromises between the two.

Back home, Hamidou’s wife, Assita, speculates that he has run away due to gambling debts, and for a while Igor can entertain this theory, even setting up a co-worker to drop off 1000 francs under the guise of repayment. Really though, measures like these to soothe her worries are only temporary. Doubts keep creeping back into her mind, seeing her resort to traditional African divination readings from chicken entrails and a local seer to provide the truth of the matter. It is a strange dose of mysticism the Dardennes inject here, obscuring our view of the whole situation with the consideration that there may be some grander, divine force at work. These readings are never precise enough to convince us of their truth, but neither are they entirely inaccurate, with the seer sensing the rage of justice-seeking ancestors in Assita’s sick baby. Whether this is real or not may not even matter – the diagnosis haunts Igor all the same, pinning the baby’s fever on him and driving him deeper into his own guilt.

It is a bitter, unjust society which these characters persevere through, persecuting them systematically, as we see in Roger’s attempt to sell Assita off as a prostitute, as well as in bouts of random cruelty, typified by the two strangers urinating on her for their own entertainment. The Dardennes are no great cinematic stylists, but their grainy 16mm film stock, handheld camera, and long takes do serve to underscore the pure joylessness of this setting, sitting in the back of cars and holding tightly on Igor’s face as he crumbles under pressure. Any actor would be envious of a debut performance as vividly pained as this, as Jérémie Renier bears the gradually increasing strain of Igor’s predicament with discomposed weariness.

His final, decisive action does not come as a shock, but the timing is certainly unexpected. There are no didactic monologues or urgent stakes pushing Igor to come clean – just the slow, mounting shame weighing on his conscience, spilling the truth out in a train station after a long, burdensome silence. The Dardennes land this ending with precision, resisting the urge to have Assita respond with anything other than a resolute turn around and walk back into town, now reinforced in her mission by the answers she has so desperately sought.

Lesser filmmakers might have hinted a little at the aftermath, though it is insignificant here for two reasons – this is the point where the story is is no longer purely in Igor’s hands, and it is also where he decisively puts his stake in the ground, resolving to be a man with integrity rather than a passive bystander. La Promesse is not about a death, a lie, or a fight for justice, though the messiness of each are unavoidable. It is about the promise a boy makes to be better than the world around him, starting with the sworn oath itself, and ending with his first step towards fulfilling it.

La Promesse is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel.