When the rock at the centre of the Toda family is lost, there is little that remains to hold its fragments together – though the enthusiastic attendance of Shintarō’s 69th birthday celebrations might originally suggest otherwise. Surely his children would loyally support each other after his passing, and they would certainly never try to palm off their now-homeless mother and youngest sister Setsuko, effectively washing their hands of responsibility. For those who comfortably belong to Japan’s upper-class though, family ties are diminished by their lack of interdependence, and Yasujirō Ozu’s filmic foray into the stratosphere of the elite exposes the true weakness in their relationships.
With his focus shifting away from society’s disenfranchised, the personal conflicts in Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family stem more apathy than the insecurity of Ozu’s previous characters, marking a notable departure from the industrial wastelands of The Only Son or the provincial streets of A Story of Floating Weeds. Perhaps this break from rundown locations is partly why its visuals are a little more muted, but it’s tough to criticise his mise-en-scène too much when it still bears the markings of his carefully set interiors. Here, patterned wallpaper forms delicate frames around doorways, while abundant flowers densely crowd out compositions at Shintarō’s funeral, commemorating his life through immoderate displays of wealth.
It is at Shintarō’s birthday party though where we get our first taste of this family’s decay, revealed in pillow shots which follow his initial collapse and move into an empty doctor’s office. There, a grandfather clock rhythmically swings its pendulum with the repetitive, ringing telephone, marking the first of several instances that Ozu calls upon this symbol of time and mortality – not that the Toda children necessarily consider the weight that either bear on their lives. Apparently the cultural tradition of honouring one’s elders only applies to the underprivileged who continue to lean on them, and even after being wracked by Shintarō’s post-mortem debts, still these siblings dedicate the bare minimum to looking after their mother.
When Mrs. Toda and Setsuko move in with the eldest brother Shin’ichiro, disharmony finds fertile ground, eventually sprouting into a confrontation between his wife Kazuko and Setsuko. Quarrels in Ozu films are rarely impassioned, yet resentment simmers in glacial accusations, beginning with Setsuk’s simple request that Kazuko avoid playing piano while she and her mother are sleeping. Kazuko is seemingly happy to oblige, but not without questioning why they didn’t greet the guest they had earlier that day, openly laying out her disdain for all to see.
Perhaps then peace will be found living with the eldest sister Chizuko, but when Setsuko expresses her desire to get a job, she is chastised for even considering the disgraceful notion of joining the working class. Elsewhere in this household, Chizuko’s resistance to disciplining her rebellious son sparks a clash with her mother, and ends in Chizuko sharing perhaps the harshest words of the film.
“Just stay away from my son.”
With this arrangement failing as well, Ayako is next to reluctantly offer her home, so she is relieved indeed when a frustrated Mrs. Toda resolves instead to reside in the family’s only remaining property – a rundown house by the sea. If there is any redemption to be found among the Toda siblings, then it is through the final sibling Shōjirō, whose move to China shortly after his father’s death has largely insulated him from these affairs. Upon his return for the one-year anniversary of Shintarō’s passing, he effectively becomes Ozu’s mouthpiece, scolding each of his siblings for neglecting their gracious mother. His home in China is not ideal given its distance, but it is nevertheless a safe place for his mother to relax and Setsuko to find work, free from judgement.
Rarely does Ozu take so firm a stance on the tension between tradition and modernity as he does in Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family. Shin’ichiro, Chizuko, and Ayako may not be villains, but the shallowness with which they approach their personal responsibilities brands them hypocrites in his eyes, holding the foundations of their privilege in little esteem. Prosperity is evidently not the measure of family bonds in this cutting class critique. Through grief and adversity, the hollowness of their affluence is laid bare, and reverent devotion for one’s roots holds on by a single, resilient thread.
Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel.
The Tokyo that Ryōsuke inhabits is not quite the bustling metropolis that his mother O-Tsune envisioned. His neighbourhood is a desolate wasteland of processing plants and garbage incinerators, raising chimneys high up above landscapes and imposing its industrial architecture upon locals. In fact, it isn’t terribly different from his rural hometown Shinshū, where O-Tsune worked hard for many years to send him to school and where she still toils away in her old age. Yasujirō Ozu regards the prospect of elevating one’s status through education with great cynicism in The Only Son, and given that the Great Depression was ravaging Japan’s working class at the time, it isn’t hard to see why.
This is not to say that the destitute poverty Ozu’s characters live in lacks his typical aestheticism. His trademark pillow shots introduce us to Shinshū by way of oil lamps hanging in front of street views, and when we arrive at O-Tsune’s silk production factory, rows of spinning wheels whirl in smooth, geometric harmony. Humility begets selflessness in this quiet town, constantly grinding away to build a future for the younger generation in the naive hope that they will be granted greater privileges. After displaying immense talent in crafting the meditative melodrama of A Story of Floating Weeds, this tale of parental expectations and disappointments confirms Ozu cinematic genius, underscoring the social realities of 1930s Japan through the muted, disillusioning tension between generations.
A delicate obstruction of the frame using this hanging oil lamp, setting the scene for O-Tsune’s quiet village.Rows of spinning wheels whirl in smooth, geometric harmony – O-Tsune’s livelihood is built on the ceaseless momentum of these machines.A mother’s hopefulness and her son’s ambition feed into each other, unaware of the real world troubles which stand in the way of success.
Adding to O-Tsune’s weight of responsibility as well is her single motherhood, having been widowed shortly after Ryōsuke’s birth. Sending him to school placed a huge financial burden on her, yet thanks to advice from his elementary school teacher Ōkubo, it also seemed to guarantee him a comfortable life. When she finally visits him in Tokyo as an adult then, not only is she shocked to find that he has taken up work as a lowly night school teacher to support a wife and child, but that the once-respected Ōkubo has similarly taken a step down the social ladder and become a restaurant owner.
Ozu keeps his camera low in this shot, funnelling the classroom desks towards the front where Ryōsuke commands the students.Continuity in Ozu’s pillow shots, following his characters through the outskirts of Tokyo and exposing its dilapidation.Ozu loves applying visual patterns to his compositions, here mirroring his upright characters in the smokestacks lining the background, and choosing this as the setting for their cynical confrontation with reality.
As O-Tsune and Ryōsuke sit and talk in view of Tokyo’s towering smokestacks, he is the first to admit that this was not the life he was expecting for himself. The city is simply too competitive, and he feels terrible for all his mother’s sacrifices, yet she initially remains hopeful. His life is only beginning after all, and she claims her only disappointment is in his readiness to give up – though later that evening, it becomes apparent that her regret is far more deep-seated. As Ryōsuke stands wistfully at the window of his classroom, gazing at the blinking city lights, Ozu’s mellow editing interlaces the scene with O-Tsune’s reflective, downcast expression back home. A narrow doorway confines both of them to a narrow frame as they finally meet and continue their discussion, though this time they are unable to reach as convenient a resolution.
Mother and son in separate locations, yet Ozu’s editing binds them together in disappointment, alternating between these lonely shots.An extremely narrow frame even by Ozu’s standards, trapping O-Tsune and Ryōsuke in their shared, unresolvable tension.
“I worked hard because I wanted you to succeed,” O-Tsune laments, before finally coming clean that she has sold their house and mulberry fields for his education. “You’re all I have now in the world.” Ozu’s characteristic low placement of his camera proves particularly powerful here, levelling with them as their resilient facades drop for the first time to bare their bitterness and guilt. From the next room over, Ryōsuke’s wife Sugiko weeps, before O-Tsune and Ryōsuke join in. From there, Ozu sits in the lingering melancholy as it spreads through the house, cutting to their sleeping baby and an empty room. Within the stasis, Ozu imbues remnants of their sorrow, echoing pained, muffled cries while the unconscious child remains innocently unaware.
Sorrow and melancholy echoes through the house in these pillow shots, with each subsequent shot moving further away from its source, until we find ourselves beginning the next day.From folded to hanging laundry – Ozu finds a logical progression between shots, establishing the relaxed flow of time within and around his narrative.
In moments such as these, the precision of Ozu’s pacing and composition become piercingly clear, as his montage seamlessly transitions to the next morning through shots of folded and hanging laundry. His characters may be wounded, yet life goes on, leaving them to pick up the pieces and keep showing the sort of love they themselves need in return. There is no long-lasting resentment on Sugiko’s behalf, as she sells her kimono to take them all out while the weather is nice, and Ryōsuke is proves his altruism as well when he instead uses this money to generously pay for his neighbour’s hospital bills. Plenty may change with the passing generations, yet the benevolence which is passed from elders to children paves the way for a redemptive union of the two. Perhaps it is good her son never became rich, O-Tsune resolves, lest he should have lost that graciousness she raised him with.
With Ryōsuke finally deciding to take one more shot at getting a licence to teach high school, it seems that O-Tsune is able to return home to Shinshū with some closure, though Ozu is not one to let his family drama subside so neatly. The enormous smile she wears back at the factory is bolstered by the pride she openly expresses in her son, and convincingly hides the sadness which emerges when she is alone. As she rests for a moment on a ledge, her forehead creases with weary dejection, revealing the impermeable regret which cannot be quelled in her old age. This factory has been her entire life, and as Ozu’s conclusive pillow shots move towards its giant, steel gate keeping her in, it is apparent that it always will be. And for what, we are left to wonder? Is one life lived in poverty worth another that is only slightly better off? Like an ellipsis at the end of a sentence, The Only Son’s final montage suspends its characters in an unshakeable discontent, striving for a prosperous, hopeful future they quietly recognise may never arrive.
A heartbreaking ending, wiping the smile from O-Tsune’s face as she pauses in solitude. Ozu’s pillow shots drift farther from this weary mother and closer to the looming factory gates that seem to imprison her, quietly casting doubt on the idealistic faith society places in a lifetime of tireless, unending work.
The Only Son is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel.
The rule of law is little more than an arbitrary imposition of authority in Zero for Conduct, and it is up to no one but the roguish schoolboys of its French boarding school to restore the natural order. For Caussaut, Colin, and Bruel in particular, a revolt is sorely needed for the students to counter that titular disciplinary punishment, condemning them to detention on Sundays. As such, they spend lunchtimes plotting against their teachers, planning a mutiny for commemoration day when staff and alumni gather to celebrate the school, and hoping to reclaim their liberty in a scaled-down yet equally impassioned French Revolution.
These three students are certainly not the only disenfranchised members of their cohort though. It is only natural that boys this age should seek to satiate their curiosity through play and pushing boundaries, so Jean Vigo often gathers them into what Sergei Eisenstein once labelled a ‘monistic ensemble’ – a sense of group identity achieved through complete visual unity. High angles are often used here to frame them in systematic formations, lined up along their dormitory beds or sitting at classroom desks, but so too do these same shots often capture them running through amok with gleeful abandon.
The high angle is Vigo’s trademark shot, often put to good use in wides that capture his ensemble.Visual form in the high angle of the dormitory, mirroring order and chaos among the students.This comparison is a running motif for Vigo, studying how the boys’ wild urges are restrained by authority.
Together, these children pass time with pranks and games, only really pulling themselves into line when ordered. Even then though, little can truly quell that stubborn streak of independence which interprets commands as challenges. When the oddly affectionate science teacher questions Tabard on why he isn’t taking notes, the student viciously bites back, and the arrival of a spirited class supervisor who does Charlie Chaplin impressions certainly doesn’t help to keep them under control.
Chaplin impressions from class supervisor Huguet, sympathising with the children’s playful spirit.
It isn’t too difficult to imagine how Vigo might have flourished during the French New Wave some 30 years later, though given the impact that Zero for Conduct bears upon François Truffaut, perhaps this would also defeat the point of its influence. The young director is evidently far ahead of his time, crafting a coming-of-age featurette which revels in its carefree naturalism and youthful outlook. Its brevity matters little with a director who knows exactly how long his story needs, and Vigo is economical indeed with his nonchalant pacing, smoothly shifting between vignettes that progressively mount a rising disenchantment.
Vigo does not focus on individual characters so much as he does the group identity, blocking them as a single unit in his high angles looking down from above.
This is not even to mention the form-shattering irreverence that comes with Zero for Conduct’s brief dip into animation, bringing to life a caricature the childlike supervisor Huguet draws while performing a handstand to impress the students. Its resemblance to the their tall, moustachioed teacher is no mistake, entertaining the children for a short time before its subject arrives and discovers the drawing. Taken by surprise, the lanky cartoon leaps into the air, before transforming before our eyes into a stout, potbellied figure of Napoleon. Vigo is harsh in his comparison of the school staff to iconic tyrants, though given the role these students have taken as revolutionaries, his political metaphor falls cleanly into place.
Mischief and irreverence as this caricature leaps to animated life, satirising the tyrants who rule this school.
Especially once we reach the boys’ day of emancipation, it is impossible to deny that their rebellion is anything other than a repeat of history. “Liberty or death!” they cry in their dormitory, raising flags and declaring war on the staff. Those glorious high angles return as the young insurgents form a procession, before launching an assault on their teacher using bed frames, blankets, and pillows. In this moment of euphoric anarchy, Vigo also initiates one of cinema’s earliest and greatest displays of slow-motion, revelling in the joyous mutiny. Feathers float through the air as the children carry their leader out on a chair, their elation blissfully stretched out in time and spurring them on to the next phase of their revolution.
Pure elation as the boys prepare for war and Vigo captures it all in slow-motion, spurring them on to the next phase of their revolution.
From atop the roof, the boys pelt guests visiting the school for its commemoration day with junk, much to the staff’s humiliation and displeasure. With the pomp and circumstance dissipating and Huguet cheering them on below, it is apparent that Vigo cares little for whatever consequences should arrive after Zero for Conduct’s final shot of the boys victoriously reaching the top of the roof, finally earning a heroic low angle. Their voices sing a proud anthem as the screen fades to black, and in this single, fleeting moment of their stifled youth, the taste of freedom is the purest they will ever know.
A heroic low angle as the boys joyously proclaim victory, standing atop the school building.
Zero for Conduct is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel.
Ossessione’s derelict inns, sweaty singlets, and messy kitchens are far removed from the glamour of Hollywood’s film noirs, yet its forbidding tale of lust, murder, and fatalism nevertheless runs parallel to those expressionistic fables. When Gino’s hitchhiking lands him in a roadside tavern, the contempt that its co-owner Giovanna holds for her husband and business partner Giuseppe is revealed to be as strong as her attraction towards this new visitor. From there, an affair that maliciously seeks to remove Giuseppe from the picture unravels, revealing the dark hearts of those involved. Luchino Visconti’s camerawork is elegant here, navigating this conspiracy with intrigue as it turns towards a mirror during their nefarious plotting, and wanders through lives bars where secrets lurk between lovers.
With that said, Ossessione’s narrative is also impossible to remove from the social context it was made in. With Italy still under Fascist occupation in 1943, the hardships of the working class were at an all-time high, significantly deteriorating the nation’s sense of cultural identity and moral clarity. Neorealism was not yet a full-fledged movement, yet Visconti is thoughtfully sowing its seeds here, offering an unrelenting window into the life of the poor and the extremes to which they go simply for a taste of pleasure. His location shooting along provincial roads and in the seaside city of Ancona serves to underscore that authenticity as well, even as the narrative veers beyond the mundane and into gritty crime drama.
A crane shot lifting us above the truck, and introducing us to the roadside tavern where love and resentment will equally bloom.A murder conspiracy unfolds in this reflection, catching Gino and Giovanna’s doubles as they sink to new, nefarious depths.
Still, Visconti’s merging of naturalism and fatalism was not exactly unheard of before his remarkable directorial debut. France’s poetic realism gracefully merged the two in the 1930s, seeing directors like Jean Renoir and Marcel Carné navigate tales of moral corruption with a floating visual style that no doubt influences Visconti here. Meanwhile, the fact that the film is based on the 1934 novel The Postman Always Rings Twice binds its roots close to American noirs, even as it introduces a devious femme fatale whose screen presence is far removed from the allure of Barbara Stanwyck or Mary Astor. Clara Calamai is no doubt a beautiful actress, but Visconti does not shroud her in soft lighting and trendy outfits. Giovanna’s lonely dinners in a grimy kitchen reveal a far sadder existence than her Hollywood counterparts, surrounding her with towers of dirty dishes as she reads from a newspaper and eats a bowl of pasta.
An early progenitor of Italian neorealism, using stone streets and buildings to imbue this tale with an unrelenting authenticity.Visconti using the littered ground as his mise-en-scène in this high angle, composing a sparse yet messy shot.Poverty encompasses Giovanna on every side with these stacked dishes and bottles – a beautifully crowded shot.
When two young, attractive people such as Gino and Giovanna fall into each other’s orbit then, it is plain to see just how easily their dreams of escape escalate into destructive delusion. After initial talks of murder lead to their first breakup, destiny seems to draw them back together in a bar, coaxing the lovers to believe in a greater force at play. “Before, the world seemed a big place. Now, there is only your shop,” Gino romantically murmurs as an oblivious Giuseppe performs onstage. Putting off their plans any further seems pointless – the time to strike presents itself when all three drive home together, and the two conspirators ultimately find the perfect opportunity to stage a deadly car accident.
Visconti’s camera is truly free as it drifts through this lively bar.A secret affair hiding in plain sight, drowned out by drunken crowds and live singing.Darkness wraps around the murderous lovers and their oblivious victim as they approach the point of no return.
Upon Gino and Giovanna’s return to the tavern, its atmosphere is more unwelcoming than ever, as if recognising the violence that has been inflicted upon its owner. It is dark and quiet inside, resurfacing Gino’s feelings of guilt as he realises what he has done. Giovanna’s desire to reopen shop with him is met with harsh rejection, which is only aggravated further by the discovery that she took out a life insurance policy before the murder. The more distance he places between them though, the greater her jealousy becomes, and Visconti’s camera soaks up the emotional drama as we follow her stalking him through streets. When Gino goes even further and confesses a heavy conscience to his new lover Anita, he is visually trapped behind his bed’s mesh netting in one aptly framed shot, effectively caught in Giovanna’s web while the police close in.
The tavern is dark and lifeless upon their return, the chairs stacked upon tables and visually imposing upon this shot.The camera attaches to Giovanna as she stalks Gino through the streets, obsessively tracking his movements.Mesh netting suffocating Gino as he begins to feel the consequences of his actions.
Clearly Gino is not the sort of man to learn from his mistakes though. When Giovanna comes forward with news of her pregnancy, he reconsiders their future together at an empty, overcast beach where they ultimately reconcile. As shallow pools of water catch their upside-down reflections, Visconti composes a scene of meagre romance in this lifeless locale, and even Giuseppe Rosati’s score continues its tense, foreboding melody. Giovanna may finally agree that leaving town is the best course of action, but they are fools to believe that they can simply start a new life together after all they have been through. Besides, that wicked hand of fate isn’t quite done with them yet, drawing Ossessione closer than ever to its film noir contemporaries.
Bleak, miserable romance on this wet beach, the lovers’ reflections caught in its shallow puddles.
The moment these lovers hit the road, we see inevitable tragedy take ironic shape and finally solidify when Gino tries to overtake a truck passing by an embankment. Just as Giovanna killed her husband by veering his car off-road, so too does her own story end at the hands of another driver, nudging her vehicle down a steep drop and into the water below. That the police should arrive a few moments later as Gino pulls Giovanna’s limp body from the wreckage only twists the knife deeper, delivering a far more degrading punishment to the man who blatantly ignored his own conscience on multiple occasions. Redemption is a luxury that the poor cannot afford in Ossessione, and through Visconti’s unvarnished, cynical naturalism, he adeptly delivers a solemn condemnation of moral decrepitude that cannot be swayed by fleeting hopes or half-hearted regrets.
Bitter justice is served twice over, both by the police and the invisible hand of fate.
When expecting father Justin Kemp hit something on a dark road roughly a year ago, he had no reason to believe it was anything other than a deer. He spent the night up to that point drinking alone at the local bar, relapsing into old habits to deal with the grief over a recent miscarriage, though it is a concerned text from his wife Allison which ultimately distracts him from the road. He exits the car to check on the potential casualty, but after scanning the bridge and river below, it appears that whatever he hit has disappeared into the darkness.
As such, the eerie alignment between details of the criminal case he has been summoned to serve as jury for and his own accident that cold, rainy night seems like a cruel twist of fate. Clint Eastwood’s parallel editing deftly plays out his realisation via flashback, initially through the attorneys’ opening remarks which lay out James Sythe’s alleged murder of his girlfriend Kendall, before revealing that Justin was at the bar during the violent public breakup that preceded it. After James forced her to walk home in the rain, Justin left in his car shortly after – and the later discovery of her body next to the bridge where he supposedly hit a deer appears to confirm his culpability. With the camera hanging on Nicholas Hoult’s face in close-up, moral turmoil begins to stir his conscience, and it is this inner conflict which Juror #2 teases out in its study of stifled, agonising guilt.
It has been many years since Eastwood directed an instant classic like Unforgiven, but the fact that he is still creating quality films is nevertheless a feat for a man going strong in his 90s. Juror #2 thrilling treads that line between honesty and self-preservation, setting up enormous stakes whichever way Justin chooses to go. Should he come clean, he would almost certainly suffer dire legal consequences and lose the chance to be part of his child’s life. Should he stay quiet, he would bear the lifelong burden of knowing an innocent man has suffered in his place. Immense power has been placed in his hands, and with the discerning minds of fellow jurors prying deeper into the truth as well, the matter becomes increasingly complex.
Driven by a feeble moral imperative, Justin is initially the only holdout among his peers to advocate for James’ innocence, despite being unable to openly justify his verdict. Still, the reasonable doubt he instils in others’ minds is enough raise questions, particularly from J.K. Simmons’ fellow juror Harold. When this former homicide detective decides to breach court rules and investigate the crime scene himself, his resolution to find James guilty begins to waver, and is ultimately replaced by an intuitive, cynical suspicion. Although Justin smartly gets him disqualified, the seeds of doubt which he initially planted have sprouted among other jurors, condemning him to reap their poisoned fruits should they be allowed to grow.
Eastwood gathers a talented cast here, integrating their respective talents to drive up the dramatic irony of Justin’s secret. Much like Simmons, Toni Collette possesses a bold screen presence as Faith, the prosecutor whose determination to win this case falters when fresh evidence comes to light. Her interrogation of Allison late in the film sees her come dangerously close to the truth, yet Eastwood wields superb narrative suspense as he resists crossing that line. In the jury room too, what could have been an inert discussion of ideas becomes an active exercise in hypothesising, with the blocking often separating a nervously agitated Justin from his peers.
Although Hoult is largely recognised as a character actor specialising in pompous male egos, Juror #2 proves his ability to slot seamlessly into a leading role, adopting an American accent and raw vulnerability. Beyond the interspersed flashbacks to that fateful night, he continues to unravel Justin’s backstory, revealing a previous car collision that pushed him to his lowest point yet spurred him to start taking responsibility for his actions. As he finds himself trying to cover up his guilt in the present day, his principles are arduously tested, undermining the very integrity he soon plans to model as a father. Freedom and redemption are mutually exclusive within this moral quandary, but as pressures from all sides mount with grim, inexorable foreboding, Eastwood rivetingly raises the question of whether either are truly attainable at all.
Juror #2 is currently available to rent or buy on Apple TV, YouTube, and Amazon Video.
Tormented by a lack of answers to his perpetual misfortune, Jewish physics professor Larry Gopnik meets with three rabbis in A Serious Man. The first is a young optimist fresh out of college, naively suggesting that Larry simply needs to shift his disposition. “The parking lot here. Not much to see,” he ponders, staring out his office window. “But if you imagine yourself a visitor, somebody who isn’t familiar with these autos and such. Somebody still with a capacity for wonder. Someone with a fresh… perspective.” Larry’s frustration with his frivolous metaphor is plain to see.
The second rabbi chooses to share an anecdote from a member of his synagogue – a dentist bewildered by the Hebrew scripture he finds engraved on the teeth of a non-Jewish patient. Driven to uncover what this could mean and how it got there, the dentist pursued the mystery to all ends, and eventually approached the rabbi to hear his insight. “So what did you tell him?” Larry eagerly asks, only to be met with curt indifference.
“Is it relevant?”
Still searching for a shred of guidance, Larry does not even make it all the way into the office of the final and most senior rabbi. He is busy, the secretary tells him, despite our view of the clearly unoccupied old man sitting at his desk.
The first rabbi – a young, naive optimist with nothing to offer but shallow metaphors.The second rabbi – a spinner of yarns who sees life’s mystery, yet lacks the curiosity to pursue answers.The third rabbi – a shrivelled old man whose potential wisdom remains just out of reach.
The fact that this seems like the run-up to a joke with no punchline is absolutely intentional on the Coen Brothers’ behalf, typifying their darkly ironic sense of humour. In these three rabbis, we find three answers that religion commonly gives to tough philosophical questions, including one total non-response. There is no grand revelation that inspires or consoles us. Instead, we find a mirror to the long, elaborate setup that is Larry’s life, prompting us to similarly ask – what is all this leading to? Is there a guiding hand behind the breakdown of his marriage to Judith, his brother’s legal woes, and his son’s troubles at Hebrew school? And if so, why must this suffering be inflicted on a man who by most accounts is a relatively good person?
Surrounded by books in the mise-en-scène, and yet none of these volumes can answer Larry’s burning spiritual questions.A magnificent frame – Larry is quite literally overwhelmed by figures and vharts in his attempt to understand the cosmos. He is a man of science, yet he remains deeply unsatisfied by his worldly knowledge.
That Larry makes a career out of searching for meaning through numbers certainly complements this existential character study too, and is perfectly distilled in his lecture on the Schrödinger’s cat thought experiment, suggesting that two conflicting states of being may simultaneously exist until they are observed. He is a man of both science and faith, and as far as he is aware, God both exists and does not. The mise-en-scène surrounds him with books in his attorney’s office and shrinks him beneath a colossal blackboard of equations, but all the information in the world cannot point to a simple yes or no answer.
The film as a whole is no great cinematographic triumph from Roger Deakins, yet in moments like these he draws a clean minimalism through Larry’s cookie-cutter neighbourhood and local synagogue, then every so often tips it off balance with canted angles, hazy drug trips, and surreal nightmares that bleed into reality. The discomfort is pervasive, eroding our trust in the security of Larry’s day-to-day existence, and prompting us to adopt his tentative doubt. Perhaps it would be comforting to believe in God, but then why is he being punished so cruelly? If there really is no sense to it all, how can he reckon with the random whims of pure chaos?
Oblique shots and high angles in the local synagogue, tipping the clean, orderly setting off-balance.Much like his son, Larry turns to drugs, and Deakins’ visuals hazily shift with his reality.
Although Larry’s journey from one tribulation to the next is not difficult to follow, the formal intricacies and allusions to the Book of Job place A Serious Man among the Coen Brothers’ most profoundly enigmatic works. We are condemned to the same ungratifying search for answers as our protagonist, so the decision to set the first scene of his story far outside his perspective is a bold one indeed. This prologue grounds the film in 19th century Jewish folklore, recounting the tale of a married couple faced with a terrifying uncertainty. Is the man they have invited into their house truly human, or rather a dybbuk – that is, an evil spirit in disguise? After the wife stabs the visitor, he wanders outside into the snow, leaving this question frighteningly ambiguous. If these are Larry’s ancestors and the old man was indeed a dybbuk, then perhaps this is the source of the curse which would ruin his life over a century later. If the visitor was a living being, maybe our protagonist is just a very unlucky man.
The Coen Brothers’ haunting prologue plays out an ambiguous fable foreshadowing Larry’s spiritual uncertainty, as well as his incredible misfortune.
From there, the Coen Brothers weave a tapestry of subplots through A Serious Man that mirror Larry’s identity in others. In his wife’s lover, Sy, he finds the well-respected “serious man” he wishes he could be – albeit one who coincidentally perishes in a road accident at the exact moment Larry crashes his own car. In his brother Arthur, he sees an even more broken version of himself, to whom he offers the same impractical guidance that others try to give him. As for his son Danny who struggles to fit in at school, there the Coen Brothers model a smaller scale version of his own ethical dilemmas. Is Larry justified in sleeping with his neighbour and experimenting with marijuana, now that he has split from his wife? What about accepting a monetary bribe from another student in exchange for a passing grade? If he is already being unjustly chastened by God, surely crossing these moral boundaries won’t make difference – and if God doesn’t exist, then who really cares?
Arthur’s brokenness reveals the true depths of Larry’s despair, as well as his inability to help either himself or his brother.Danny wanders through adolescence without moral certainty or guidance, and as we see in his father, answers don’t come easily with age.
It is along this line of thinking though that Larry lets his sense of accountability gradually wear away in A Serious Man, spurred on by a helpless passivity. Danny’s subscription to the Columbia Record Club under his father’s name isn’t exactly fair, yet Larry is still responsible for making the overdue payments anyway. He reasons that he shouldn’t be punished for not doing anything, but since new vinyls are automatically mailed without customer intervention, it is precisely his inaction that has landed him in this situation.
The more we begin to recognise this dysfunctional trait in Larry, the more we see how his inclination to dwell in self-pity is at least partly responsible for many of his other problems too. He did not need to move out of his family home without standing his ground, and neither did he need to give into the pressure of paying for Sy’s funeral. Michael Stuhlbarg’s sheepish demeanour embodies every bit of this unassertive meekness, barely pushing his soft, reedy voice past a moderate speaking volume even when he shouts. Instead, he focuses all his anger at a God whose old-fashioned retribution seems ill-fitting to his upstanding lifestyle, and who conveniently isn’t present to verbally retaliate.
A Serious Man put Michael Stuhlbarg on the map, playing to his strengths as an immensely introspective actor who can communicate entire thought processes through a simple facial expression.
If there is a divine message to be found anywhere in A Serious Man, then it is ironic that it should come from the reclusive senior rabbi who previously declined a meeting with Larry. Instead, it is Danny who is chosen to receive his cryptic wisdom, delivered in the form of song lyrics.
“When the truth is found to be lies,
And all the hope within you dies… then what?”
Even those who aren’t familiar with ‘Somebody to Love’ by Jefferson Airplane would recognise these words from the film’s recurring musical motif. Its urgent rhythms accompany Larry’s philosophical journey with a raw, driving intensity, yet still he overlooks his life’s missing purpose hidden plainly in the song’s very title. As if to answer the question he has posed Danny, the rabbi ends their brief meeting with a simple yet valuable instruction.
“Be a good boy.”
Finally, we hear the esoteric wisdom from the third rabbi – though Larry is not the one to receive it, and its meaning is far from apparent.
Living with such uncertainty, is this moral imperative not the best we can do? If every one of Larry’s trials has been a test of his integrity, then has he succeeded? The Coen Brothers rarely give us the endings we expect to their films, yet with the mighty coincidence that turns up at Larry’s doorstep the moment he takes his first truly sinful action, they once again prove why they are among their generation’s best screenwriters. Drowning in legal fees, the bribe his student left on his desk begins to look very attractive, and no more than a second after he decides to give into temptation does the phone ring with dire news on the other end.
A turning point for Larry as he transgresses his own moral boundaries – pain, desperation, and self-loathing in his expression.
The tornado which simultaneously approaches Danny’s school only compounds our suspicion that Larry is being punished for a relatively minor transgression, once again suggesting a visitation of the father’s sins upon his children, and referencing the Book of Job where God appeared to his tormented follower as a whirlwind. The Coen Brothers’ parallel editing evocatively binds both the fatal disease and natural disaster together as a chilling, fateful condemnation, yet still we must question – isn’t this totally disproportionate to the sin that was committed? Must Larry now endure the ultimate catastrophe for cutting a moral corner that anyone under similar duress would also disregard?
Biblical symbolism as a whirlwind threatens to end the life of Larry’s offspring – retribution sent from the heavens.
Or is this merely a convenient explanation we would like to apply to the chaotic winds of chance? After all, those with who listen closely may pick up on the phone’s muffled ring first sounding immediately before Larry changes his student’s grade, even though the sharp interruption of the second ring is the one we consciously notice. It seems a minor difference, but if we are considering cause and effect in broad ontological terms, then it bears incredible weight on how we view the universe. Maybe Larry was always going to meet this unremarkable end, and maybe living a moral life won’t save any of us from what’s coming. Without any firm assurances though, the Coen Brothers simply leave us to dwell in A Serious Man’s eerie, senseless ambiguity. When all is said and done, perhaps being a “good boy” is the best we can do with what little we’ve got.
A Serious Man currently available to rent or buy on Apple TV, YouTube, Amazon Video.
Early in Queer, we delve into writer William Lee’s nightmare of his friends in prison, an abandoned baby, and a naked woman bisected along her torso. The symbolism opaquely hints at the guilt harboured by William Burroughs, the real-life novelist who based this troubled character off himself, though it is his response to this woman questioning his sexuality which articulates the film’s most layered metaphor.
“I’m not queer. I’m disembodied.”
The separation between Lee’s self-loathing thoughts and pleasure-seeking instincts drives a wedge into the core of his identity as a gay man, and is further reflected in Luca Guadagnino’s dissociative direction, often letting the writer’s mind escape his physical being. Early in his relationship with the much younger Eugene, Lee’s yearning is often rendered as a transparent, ghostly version of himself reaching out to caress his face or lean on his shoulder, though it also manifests even more darkly in his indulgent vices. Drugs and alcohol offer easy escapes from the shame of his sexuality, and even sex too ironically satiates that desire for euphoric sensation as it simultaneously feeds that underlying guilt.
Guadagnino calls back to silent cinema techniques with his double exposure effects, ethereally manifesting Lee’s longing.
The 1950s was not a particularly hospitable time for the gay community, yet there was also a certain level of privilege that came with living as a white man in Mexico City which Lee and his similarly ostracised friends use as a social counterbalance. This circle of outsiders is relatively insular, so when Eugene arrives at their local bar flirting with both men and women, Lee is instantly drawn to his mysterious allure. This is a man who hides his emotions so well that others question whether he really is gay, striking an intense contrast against our verbose protagonist’s overbearing tendency to persistently chase interactions. When Lee leans in, Eugene often hesitantly pulls away, making the few moments of organic connection between all the more valuable.
Vibrant set designs lifted a layer from the real world, saturated with colour yet often underscoring Lee’s loneliness.
There was never any doubting Daniel Craig’s talents during his time as James Bond, though the performance he delivers here as the eloquently eccentric Lee is his most layered yet, leaning into the weariness of a middle-aged man whose existential insecurities are only amplified by his ageing. He inhabits a world that is one level removed from our reality, filling in the malaise with the bold, bright colours that often decorate Pedro Almodóvar’s melodramas. Within the lush purple and red lighting of a hotel bedroom and the yellow décor of his apartment, his inner life is given passionate outward expression, though Guadagnino’s stylistic achievement does not end there either. From a distance, the city is often whimsically rendered through miniatures, making cars look like toys and buildings like dollhouses. In an ending that thoughtfully borrows from the final act of 2001: A Space Odyssey, this visual motif pays off when Lee hallucinates another version of himself inside a diorama of the hotel where he is staying, further splitting his mind and his body between entirely different realms.
Guadagnino’s use of miniatures feeds into Lee’s feeling of disembodiment – the world doesn’t seem quite right, driving a wedge between his mind and reality.A dream sequence inspired by 2001: A Space Odyssey with multiple versions of Lee occupying the same space.Inside the surreal dollhouse hotel, drenched in deep red.
The height of Queer’s surrealism though arrives when Lee and Eugene venture into the deep jungles of South America, seeking a plant which is said to grant telepathic abilities. It is no wonder why Lee should be so obsessed with such a prospect – if the rumours are true, then perhaps this higher form of communication is a treatment for his emotional isolation, allowing a union of souls which regular conversation and sex cannot attain.
A search for enlightenment through experimentation with hallucinogens, transcending the restraints of the physical world.
Although Guadagnino largely maintains the novella’s literary quality through his chapter breaks, he takes creative liberties in departing from its depiction of the drug trip here. Where the source material saw Lee disappointed by its underwhelming effects, the film submits to the psychedelia, having him and Eugene literally vomit out their hearts before exposing their truest feelings. “I’m not queer,” Eugene asserts, formally echoing Lee’s earlier words as his body fades from view during their hallucinogenic drug trip. “I’m just disembodied.” Indeed, these two men have never been more detached from their physical beings, and have never been more in synchrony as their bodies grotesquely merge into one. Limbs move beneath fused skin as they dance, and for one precious night, Lee truly escapes his shame and transcends his loneliness.
Body horror and surrealism as Lee and Eugene merge into a single being, making a euphoric yet fleeting connection between divided souls.
This drug is not some portal into some other place though, their dealer Dr. Cotter is sure to warn them. It is a mirror into one’s soul, offering a glimpse at whatever desires and fears lurk beneath their consciousness. Its euphoria is short-lived, particularly for Eugene who wakes up the next morning anxious and eager to leave. It is a terrifying thing losing a part of oneself to another person, and when faced with the truth of his relationship with Lee, he sees its toxicity for what it is.
The recurring centipede is one of Guadagnino’s more cryptic symbols in Queer, and its unsettling appearance in Lee’s dream of Eugene many years after their breakup continues to hold him in an unresolved state of suspension. Just as it first appeared around the neck of a one-night stand, the centipede now marks Eugene as another fleeting lover, manifesting the real-life Burroughs’ self-confessed fear and cherished literary motif. Lee’s story is unfinished in Guadagnino’s eyes, leaving him a half-complete man torn between dualities – shame and indulgence, connection and independence, mind and body. As long as he strives to separate rather than reconcile these parts of his identity, he will continue to live in a world of dissociative nightmares, spiritually and psychologically divorced from himself. Through the colourful, eerie patterns that Guadagnino consequently uncovers in Lee’s character, Queer delivers an unflinching fever dream that denies easy answers to his internal contradictions, constantly unravelling his capacity for love by his fear of being seen.
Guadagnino’s narrative is brimming with symbolic motifs, particularly borrowing the unsettling centipede from Burrough’s own works as a manifestation of Lee’s insecurity.
Queer is currently available to rent or buy on Apple TV and Amazon Video.
Prison inmate Divine G may not have committed the crime he was found guilty of, but the shame and atonement which Sing Sing interrogates has nothing to do with the eyes of the law. Not once do we even learn what the other incarcerated participants of Divine G’s theatre program did to wind up here. Their rehabilitation is purely a matter of the soul, placing each on the same level regardless of their past. “We’re here to become human again,” one of them explains to the troupe’s newest member, Divine Eye, justifying the playful whimsy with which they conduct themselves in this safe space. “To put on nice clothes and dance around and enjoy the things that is not in our reality.”
So sincere is Greg Kwedar in humanising these inmates that many are played by the actual men of the story this film is based on. Not only did the Rehabilitation Through the Arts program at Sing Sing Maximum Security Prison provide them a means of self-expression, a supportive community of fellow Black men, and a path forward – it also honed their talent enough for them to effectively fill in the ensemble of this character-driven prison drama. Through the act of performance, Divine G and his troupe find realer versions of themselves beyond a criminal record or their public infamy. Emotional wounds are revealed beneath outward displays of anger, and in the case of the kind, intelligent Divine G, flashes of bitterness escape his sensitive resolve.
Among the few professional actors in this cast, Colman Domingo leads Sing Sing with calm composure, acting as the unofficial leader of his troupe. When Divine G isn’t leading productions of Shakespeare, he is writing original scripts and modelling emotional maturity as a mentor for his fellow inmates. He passes no judgement, and neither do his fellow actors, until the arrival of Divine Eye threatens the community he has carefully cultivated. Their theatre exercises are goofy, Divine Eye remarks, and Divine G’s dreary dramas are far from exciting – so why not consider a zany time travel comedy for their next show?
While most of the troupe supportively rallies around Divine Eye’s suggestion, Divine G can’t help but feel threatened by this shifting power dynamic. His theatre group is his life, and Divine Eye’s inability to take any of this seriously cuts to his core. As such, the friction between both personalities takes centre stage in Sing Sing, with both Domingo and the real Divine Eye thoughtfully navigating a pair of intertwined character arcs. Kwedar does not fare so well in letting us feel the span of time spent with these men, but the bumpy road they travel towards a lifelong friendship is nevertheless a compelling one, seeing both step in for each other at different points when they are at their lowest.
For Divine G, this support is delivered through the conquest of his own ego, understanding Divine Eye’s desperate need for someone to help him articulate deeply buried emotions. Bit by bit, we see his development as an actor, bringing intonation to monologues rather than falling back on the anger and aloofness that he knows too well. For Divine Eye on the other hand, it is that newfound ability to relate with others which motivates him to reach out to his demoralised friend. After all Divine G’s hard work building the theatre group, we can feel his frustration when it is barely considered in his clemency hearing, and instead gives them ammunition for their harshest, most insulting question.
“So are you acting at all during this interview?”
That Divine G’s appeal should be rejected when Divine Eye is granted release seems totally unfair, and very gradually, we begin to see both men’s attitudes cross over. Where the mentor once guided the troublemaker into a welcoming community, he now rejects the brotherhood with biting resentment, broken by a system that is fundamentally rigged against Black people. Clearly Divine G is not immune to the repressed anger that so many of these incarcerated men reckon with, and the raw despair in Domingo’s performance makes for a particularly bleak contrast against his earlier self-assuredness. Nevertheless, the seeds that he spent years sowing into the community have finally sprouted, and in a rehabilitated Divine Eye, he finds his own compassion and wisdom reflected right back at him.
Each of these prisoners are fighting their own internal battles, and Divine G is no exception, learning to accept his place among peers despite his lawful innocence. What Kwedar lacks in visual style, he makes up for with delicate attention to character detail, demonstrating an inspired approach to casting which blurs truth and representation. Through this metafictional angle, Sing Sing merges its sensitive consideration of art’s healing power with its very form, producing a fresh, nuanced understanding of those disenfranchised by an institution specifically designed to break them down.
“Evening is my favourite time of day,” Anu’s secret boyfriend Shiaz remarks one night as they wander Mumbai’s bustling markets. “In my village, this was the time to stop playing football and go home. But here, it feels like the day has just begun.” Indeed, there is a soothing liberation which comes with the setting of the sun in All We Imagine as Light, particularly for Anu whose controversial relationship with a Muslim man may only be conducted under the cover of darkness. Payal Kapadia relishes the delicate beauty of these scenes, blending the cool blues in her production design with the soft illumination of city lights, indoor ambience, and cloudy evening skies, while piano riffs tinkle away in the background. In this nocturnal urban environment, love flourishes without judgement, connecting souls in moments of sweet, uninhibited honesty.
For Anu’s roommate and fellow nurse Prabha, these warm Mumbai nights are not so comfortable. Her husband lives far away in Germany, and it has been over a year since they have even had any contact. Their arranged marriage is considered socially acceptable, yet unlike Anu, she is left to deal with total emotional isolation. When a German rice cooker is unexpectedly delivered to their flat one day, she becomes fully convinced that it was sent from her husband, even curling up with it in a tight hug one evening as though it were a lover. As she reads from his diary with nothing but a phone light, soaking up whatever private thoughts she has been denied, it is apparent that her nights do not signify a break from the pressures of ordinary life. In the darkness, her loneliness is felt even deeper, feeding a melancholy which intensifies with the fading light.
Kapadia’s narrative flows between these two women’s stories with lyrical grace, not only seeking to understand their interior lives, but also the friction in their own relationship to each other. To Anu, the prospect of marrying a total stranger is an unappealing and foreign concept, while Prabha observes her flatmate’s secret relationship from afar with quiet judgement. This is not to say her own eye never wanders, as there are visible sparks of attraction between her and a male doctor, yet her husband’s total withdrawal keeps her clinging to a hopeless fantasy of marriage.
All We Imagine as Light does not merely confine us to these two perspectives though, as Anu and Prabha’s friend Parvati offers a counterpoint to both women in her own subplot. After being ousted from Mumbai due to ruthless property developers, both these flatmates help her move back to her seaside hometown where she grew up. Here, the city’s bustling nightlife gives way to the calmness and clarity of a village where residents relax by the beach, indulge in the local fishing scene, and revel in the daylight. It is still no paradise, as the women quickly discover that Parvati’s new home does not even have electricity yet, but the change in scenery is nevertheless refreshing for these overworked nurses seeking a momentary escape.
Here, Anu freely explores the local mangroves and caves with Shiaz, making love in the daytime for once even as she continues trying to shield their relationship from Prabhy. Her concerns about potentially being forced into an arranged marriage by her parents don’t quite subside, but at least in this moment, she is afforded the freedom to openly express her love.
As for Prabhy, closure arrives unexpectedly one evening after saving a drowning stranger at the beach. Before leaning in to deliver mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, she hesitates for a brief second, perhaps realising this is the first time in years that she has been so close to a man. Later as she washes his body, she also seems to absorb another woman’s mistaken belief that he is her husband, turning that into a meaningful conversation with an imagined proxy. Returning to the melancholy blues of Mumbai’s nights, Kapadia delves deeper than ever into Prabhy’s lonely mind, filtering this world through a magical realist lens where identities are as malleable as plastic and long-awaited discussions may finally unfold between disconnected partners.
Kapadia fully understands the visual potency of her final scene, softly illuminating the beach shack where all three women gather under neon pink and green fairy lights. It is here where one narrow definition of love is finally relinquished, and where a broader understanding of its many versatile forms is born, nurturing a surrogate family that fills emotional gaps left by stringent parents and distant spouses. Through such quiet epiphanies as these, All We Imagine as Light delicately confronts the harsh realities of modern companionship, finding solace not in certainty, but rather the enduring resilience of mutual, unspoken solidarity.
All We Imagine as Light is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel, and is available to rent or buy on Apple TV, YouTube, and Amazon Video.
When a stubborn iconoclast is forced into the rigid confines of celebrity culture, it is inevitable that one will eventually break the other. When that rebel is Bob Dylan and the entertainment industry that he inherits specifically elevates stars with clearly defined images, the friction is enough to instigate a social turning point, confronting the inherent uncertainty within modern art, philosophy, and politics. As such, there is a challenge that comes with fitting his unorthodox story into a genre which often falls too easily into a ‘Greatest Hits’ playlist, appealing more to cheap nostalgia than thoughtful re-examination of an icon’s legacy.
A Complete Unknown is not as boldly experimental asTodd Haynes’ I’m Not There, which offers a far more compelling insight into Dylan’s multitude of identities, yet James Mangold also fortunately saves it from the flavourless banality of Bohemian Rhapsody. Focusing on those first few years of the musician’s career at least grants the film some leeway, catching him at a point in time when the question of who he would be still hangs in the air – though truthfully, this mystery has never quite been settled. Ironically, Dylan’s most distinguishing feature may very well be his elusiveness, and it is there where Mangold’s biopic effectively captures the countercultural icon’s inscrutable essence.
The quiet depth that Timothee Chalamet brings to the role certainly pierces some of that obscurity, offering greater insight into those romantic and professional relationships which shaped his early career, yet never does he completely bare his soul. Not even his girlfriend Sylvie is quite able to figure him out, lamenting the strange gaps in his story that keep others at a distance, but we can also see that he feels just as much an outsider to himself. Instead, music and experimentation pave the path to self-awareness, and as his profile grows, he is quick to defy those who keep him from satiating his curiosity.
Chalamet hits all the right notes here in his interpretation of Dylan, striking a fine resemblance in his recreation of the musician’s drawling mumble, yet also building on his persona in a manner that transcends mere mimicry. This Dylan can be both deeply contemplative and abrasively blunt in his own aloof way, drawing out an affair with singer Joan Baez while continuing to live with Sylvie. Later he walks offstage mid-performance when he feels pressured to sing his most popular songs, and when he introduces his new, electronic sound Newport Folk Festival, he stubbornly persists through the jeers of the audience.
Mangold plays loose with his dramatisation of Dylan’s story, at worst exaggerating the committee’s rush to pull the plug on this pivotal performance, and elsewhere undercutting a breakup scene with an awkward metaphor about spinning plates. After all, a certain level of sensationalism is unfortunately needed in bringing a story like this to the mainstream. For the most part though, A Complete Unknown smooths over these contrivances for the sake of its character work, drawing tension from Dylan’s peculiar, incongruous standing in American pop culture.
The vintage aesthetic that absorbs Chalamet in a world of smoky bars and spotlights also offers some authenticity here, replicating the fashion of 1960s Greenwich Village where bohemian counterculture thrived. With acoustic guitars and soulful vocals filling these spaces too, notes of Inside Llewyn Davis are felt strongly, though Dylan’s tale is not one of existential malaise. Instead, there is an impassioned energy in Mangold’s moving camera and abundant lens flares, blearily underscoring this rise to stardom in an era of artistic revolution.
For the disillusioned audiences of mid-century America, no longer are the glamorous, untouchable idols of Hollywood enough to earn their attention and reverence. News reports of the Cuban Missile Crisis and JFK’s death anchor Mangold’s film to a specific, turbulent point in time, embedding them just as much in Dylan’s character as he is ingrained in the culture at large. The unity of art and politics was not exactly a new concept in the 60s, but to invent a new brand of celebrity that can be both radically outspoken and mysteriously private is a feat which inspires absolute awe in A Complete Unknown. There in the unresolved and unexplained, true artistry is born, and Mangold leaves us entranced by its confounding, extraordinary contradictions.
A Complete Unknown is currently playing in cinemas.
