Category: Must-See

Damien Chazelle | 3hr 9min

In the very first scene of Babylon, we find studio hand Manny trying to handle an elephant and transport it to a raucous party in the Hollywood hills. Later in the dusty night-time deserts of Los Angeles, ‘it girl’ Nellie squares up to a rattlesnake, ready to fight it in front of her fellow partygoers. Somewhere else in a sex dungeon that is hidden beneath the city, a chained alligator snaps at visitors, and a muscle-bound circus freak eats live rats.

That these people are constantly lowering themselves to the level of animals speaks multitudes about the bestial nature of their own humanity. As far as Damien Chazelle’s decadent vision of early Hollywood is concerned, there is little separating one from the other. Babylon swings as hard in its debauched maximalism as the pleasure-seeking characters populating its 1920s movie sets, and in doing so eagerly teases apart the connection between their pioneering genius and their self-gratifying depravity.

Chazelle is no stranger to exploring the insurmountable ambition of artists, nor is he one to shirk that quality in his own work. Babylon writhes with excitement at cinema’s potential during the years of its own formation, inviting us into Nellie and Manny’s first days on set via long takes energetically tracking through the scorching Californian desert. There, silent dramas unfold on pop-up wooden stages, hundreds of extras in Medieval armour clash for giant epics, and full orchestras play off to the side for dramatic effect. Frivolous squabbles and lethal catastrophes are equally part of the job, although the petty threats of Nellie’s jealous co-star clearly hold greater weight than the accidental impalement of an actor during a chaotic battle scene.

This isn’t the only collateral death to take place in Babylon either. It is often only after the dust has cleared that bodies are discovered, whether in the heat of a frantic shoot or in the drug-fuelled parties where cast and crew blow off steam. They are little more than unfortunate sacrifices to the vast industry being built, likened in the film’s own title to the mighty ancient city of Babylon which rose to indulgent heights and subsequently fell from God’s grace. In a slightly more obscure reference, it is also a nod to the famously gigantic Babylon set from the monumental silent epic Intolerance, itself typifying the spectacle of early Hollywood filmmaking. Either way, Chazelle’s symbolic intentions are clear. This modern empire of innovation contains both the best and worst of humanity, not as warring factions, but rather as qualities paradoxically contained in each individual, simultaneously carving out new artistic paths and feeding their own hedonistic, gluttonous egos.

Much like his characters, Chazelle doesn’t hold back from bombarding us with displays of absolute excess either. In ornate, golden halls where exotic dancers and drunken partygoers run wild, he fills his shots with expressionistic clutter, adopting the cinematic language of Josef von Sternberg’s 1930s romantic dramas. In this manner, there is also a hint of silent comedy conventions at play which dedicate the entire frame to visual gags, interrupting conversations with someone suddenly falling through a window in the background, or having a car appearing out of nowhere to crash into a statue.

Unlike so many of these silent comedies though, Chazelle’s camera couldn’t be more liberated from the constraints of static tripods. It announces its vigour early on in a shot that spends several minutes flying in acrobatic movements through a party, swooping above the heads of guests and right into the band’s blaring trumpets. Whip pans and tracking shots blend perfectly with Babylon’s rhythmic montages, and later as we cut between multiple urgent missions on movie sets, Chazelle’s parallel editing delivers a propulsive sequence which itself draws on this era’s formal innovations. Whether unleashing ecstasy or hysteria though, his kinetic direction keeps Justin Hurwitz’s up-tempo jazz score bouncing along by its side, pounding out bright, brassy motifs that look ahead to the rock ‘n’ roll music of future decades.

Virtually everything here exudes the cinematic vigour you would expect from the director of Whiplash and La La Land, and yet Babylon is far more aggressive than either in both form and content. It skewers the pretensions of its artists with derisive cynicism, sharply identifying their uninhibited amorality and the necessity of such behaviour to let their professional ambitions flourish. The hubristic downfall of early Hollywood is especially delineated with clearer lines and richer nuances though when our focus is narrowed down to the central figures in Chazelle’s tale, which he attaches to archetypes of his historical setting.

Although relative newcomer Diego Calva is technically in the lead as aspiring producer and Mexican immigrant Manny, he is not given as much material to chew on as Margot Robbie or Brad Pitt, essentially serving as the link between their parallel character arcs. Still, he carries the strain of the part well, nervously sweating as he races to pick up a rented camera before sundown, and visibly on edge as he descends several circles of hell into the “asshole of Los Angeles” to pay off a debt with fake money.

For Robbie, her turn as actress Nellie LaRoy may be her single greatest performance yet, luminously drawing attention in crowds and simultaneously mouthing off in a noisy New Jersey accent. She is the definition of a self-made movie star, rising to fame through sheer charisma, talent, and a little bit of luck, while refusing to consider the long-term ramifications of her reckless lifestyle. Like Sharon Tate in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, she represents the glory of a historical epoch, though Nellie evidently carries far greater emotional baggage. With more conservative attitudes developing in the 1930s and the restrictive Production Code looming on the horizon, her attempts to reform her party girl image fall flat – she is willing to put on an act for the camera, but never to compromise her own identity.

Nellie is a clear surrogate for silent movie star Clara Bow, but she is just one of several historical substitutes populating Babylon’s expansive ensemble. Cabaret singer Lady Fay Zhu asserts a magnetic presence, representing the real-life Anna May Wong as the first Chinese-American actress to gain international fame. Elsewhere, African-American bandleader Sidney Palmer parallels jazz drummer Curtis Mosby, finding himself contending with the industry’s systematic racism. There is a mythological quality to the legacy that each build during their times in the spotlight, standing in for an alternate vision of Hollywood not too distant from reality, though it is Pitt’s debonair film star Jack Conrad who wrestles with fame’s fleeting nature most directly.

Much like Douglas Fairbanks, Jack’s career takes a sizeable hit in the transition to sound films. He spies on audiences sniggering at his line deliveries, and an enlightening conversation with gossip columnist Elinor St. John forces a recognition of his own mortality within the ever-turning wheel of the film industry. A long take floating through his hotel brings his arc to a poignant end, but much like Nellie’s own ambiguous walk into darkness, there is an enduring indelibility attached to the image of his graceful exit.

At some point or another in Babylon, each major character finds peace in obscurity, finally allowing them an escape from the anarchy and copious bodily fluids of Hollywood’s incessant frenzy. Some of the drama here is not operating at the same level as many of the earlier scenes, slightly compromising the momentum Chazelle has built up, though the unadulterated experimentalism that he points his ending towards makes for a feverishly gratifying conclusion.

In its very last scene, Babylon steps beyond the confines of its own narrative, embracing the entirety of film history as an ongoing project of avant-garde invention, and involving each artist as an essential stepping stone along the way. They mix in playful, spontaneous patterns, much like the colourful dyes intercut throughout the manic montage, becoming part of something larger than any one of them. In this moment, Chazelle finally distils Babylon’s formal ambition into its most pure, self-aware state, all at once recognising the tragically human flaws of those who laid its foundations, and yet equally remaining steadfast in his intoxicated, eloquent expressions of love for the artform itself.

Babylon is currently playing in theatres.

David Cronenberg | 1hr 36min

Even after we see the true violent colours of diner owner Tom Stall, we still might struggle to believe the truth. Gangster Joey Cusack is buried so deep in his consciousness that even he might consider it a dream of a past life, surfacing only when he finds himself in high pressure situations. But even when he isn’t taking lives, that viciousness is there. It explodes when Tom engages in violent sex with his wife, when he slaps his son Jack in a moment of anger, and then when Jack goes to school and savagely beats up his bully. A History of Violence does not aim for the same visceral disgust as previous David Cronenberg films, and yet in its psychological interrogations of humanity’s ravenous craving for self-destruction we still find traces of the director known for his body horror.

It opens with a four-minute tracking shot along the outside of a motel where two thugs, Leland and William, eliminate its owners with chilling nonchalance. Thanks to Cronenberg’s reserved, distant camera, we barely even register it happening at first. Our discovery of the blood-streaked office plays out with equal detachment, treating the bodies as if they are simply part of the furniture. For Cronenberg, they might as well be. The title A History of Violence may refer to Tom’s hidden past, but it also holds implications regarding the merciless foundations of our very society, its brutal inclinations being passed from one generation to next like DNA. That is certainly the case when we see how easily Jack embraces force as means to solve his problems after seeing his father use it, but in the contentious relationship between Tom and his estranged brother, Richie, Cronenberg also calls back to the very first instance of violence record in the Bible – the murder of Abel by his own brother, Cain.

Through this approach to allegorical storytelling, Cronenberg imbues his fascination with carnal flesh with spiritual significance. Joey describes his transformation into Tom as a process which took several years of his life, like Christ’s own self-exile into the desert. Later when he must make that change again, he kneels in front of a lake and washes himself in the water, as if performing a ritualistic baptism that will see him reborn again as meek, mild-mannered Tom.

Capturing these contradictory facets of a single man’s identity is no easy feat of acting, and yet watching Viggo Mortensen shift between both modes is like seeing a switch flip, instinctually moving from passivity into fierce action. It is a duality that Cronenberg deftly builds into the form of his narrative as well, playing out submissive scenes of harassment, sex, and family time, before turning them on their head later by revealing the violent versions of each that Joey is far more familiar with.

Though the character of Richie Cusack has been built towards through the film, it isn’t until we meet him in the final act and witness William Hurt’s menacingly courteous portrayal that we fully understand the dark past that Joey has been trying to suppress. This is a man who represents every sin Joey has ever committed and tried to forget. Though Richie casually nicknames his brother “Bro-ham” he also delivers his dialogue with an unblinking, penetrating gaze, bringing to light Joey’s violence which, whether he likes it or not, has afforded him his own survival.

The foundation of violence upon which Tom’s American Dream is built is not one that can easily be shied away from once it is exposed. Cronenberg skilfully stages A History of Violence’s final scene within a terse silence, bringing Tom back home to a wordless family dinner right after killing his brother. His daughter sets his place at the table, his son offers him the meatloaf, but forgiveness might be a stretch too far for his reticent wife. Whatever return to ordinary life he was hoping for seems preposterous now given its jarring contrast with what came immediately before. Life may return to some semblance of normality, but the shadow of violence is there to stay, hanging over a family that will continue visiting the sins of its father upon the children.

A History of Violence is currently streaming on Stan, and is available to rent or buy on iTunes, YouTube, and Google Play.

Pablo Larraín | 1hr 51min

It should be noted before anything else that Spencer is not a biopic. It is a ghost story, set in a limbo that looks a lot like Queen Elizabeth II’s Sandringham Estate in Norfolk. Within these cavernous halls, there is a woman who has not yet died, but who has already departed all those worlds she once inhabited – the world of common people, the world of royals, the world of her childhood, each one remaining just barely out of reach or view. She is a spectre who is gazed at in awe by the public and with judgement by her in-laws, yet who continues to float by with an intangible presence, unable to make any sort of meaningful contact with the worlds beyond her immediate prison.

The subject of famously troubled women is not unfamiliar territory for Pablo Larraín, whose 2016 film Jackie followed Jacqueline Kennedy in the days following her husband’s assassination, but there is a narrative and stylistic transcendence to Spencer which reaches far greater heights. Few shadows can be found in the soft, even lighting that permeates each frame, as instead we are left to bask in the eerie mist laid out over the estate’s ethereal landscapes. A sense of poetic realism also emerges in Larraín’s tracking camera, delicately catching Prince Diana’s reflection in a pond as it follows her movements from the other side, and Jean Renoir’s The Rules of the Game is especially evoked in a pivotal hunting scene that reveals a barbaric underside to the royal family. In the interiors though it is often The Shining that feels more present in the camerawork, closely tailing Diana down the intimidating corridors of the manor which gradually erode her sense of self.

But the madness that explodes in Stanley Kubrick’s horror only ever remains lurking beneath the surface here, manifesting as ghostly hallucinations of royal servants and, in a frighteningly psychological turn, Anne Boleyn herself, the second wife of King Henry VIII. What starts as a mere curiosity on Diana’s part gradually escalates into a full-blown identity crisis, at the height of which Kristen Stewart slips between playing the princess and Boleyn as two sides of a coin, both being women destroyed by the royal family they have married into.

Much like Larraín, Stewart is far more concerned in peeling back the layers of this woman’s disintegrating mindset than the historicity of the piece. As such, her performance is quite singular among so many of this ilk. It is one thing to find an actress who can flawlessly impersonate Diana, but another to cast one whose screen talents are so well suited to this morose, whispering vision of the character. Stewart has never been a bad actress, but she has often struggled to find directors who know how to utilise her brooding screen persona so well, and it is in Larraín that she finds someone who understands these strengths on such a level that both effectively create the best work of their careers.

Jonny Greenwood also seems to be riding a wave of great success in 2021, having additionally composed the scores for The Power of the Dog and Licorice Pizza. As impressive as his work is there, the dissonant, syncopated jazz that hangs in the background of Spencer might just come up on top of all three. Improvised trumpet melodies clash with strings and tinkling percussion, each one playing to their own rhythms, and the effect is heavily disorientating, as if forcing us to jump from one thought to the next without a chance to gather ourselves.

And all of this serves to underscore that formidable isolation eating away at Diana’s mind, eased only by the comfort of her children and the few staff members who keep her company. In fact, it isn’t until almost an hour into the film that she speaks with another royal who isn’t Princes William or Harry, and even then it is still a frighteningly tense stand-off with her husband, Prince Charles. As they stand on either end of a red billiards table in this confrontation, Larraín plants his camera right in the centre of it, cutting between both sides with shots that tenaciously track forwards as tempers rise, insulating the two bitter foes in their own frustration.

As sparse as these interactions with fellow royals are, the in-laws themselves are still quite present in Spencer. Larraín makes remarkable use of shallow focus to keep them just slightly beyond our view, letting Diana dominate the frame while they linger as a foreboding presence in the background, and then when they do finally come into our line of sight, they simply deliver silent, icy stares right into the camera. If there was any more dialogue, Spencer might have been a historical melodrama, dealing with the power dynamics of Britain’s monarchy and one woman’s ordeal within it. But in the stretches of time spent watching Diana quietly unravel in her search for a way out of this secluded estate, Spencer instead becomes a tragically surreal portrait of a woman doomed to an early grave, cut off from a world she barely ever got the chance to know.

Spencer is currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video.