245. Swedish director Roy Andersson’s sixth feature film “Om det oändliga”(About Endlessness) (2019): Providing vignettes of modern life invoking memories, theatre, cinema, painting, religion and music to force us to look inwards and outwards, to the past, the present and the future

About Endlessness won the 2019 Best Director award at the Venice film festival and the European film award for the best visual effects supervisor. It is a film that offers value for a contemplative viewer rather than a casual one. It is not a film likely to be on the best film lists of most film reviewers. All his films are based on his own original screenplays, with a distinct style of his own.

Andersson’s films offer what a Scorsese or a Tarantino film almost never offers. He creates scenes often using a building structure to underscore ideas. In a typical Andersson film, you will have characters outside a building looking at people inside it and vice versa. His films have individuals who deliver monologues at the camera (the viewer), while others, bar a few, in earshot seem to ignore the spoken words as though they are in a tableaux. These are obvious touches of the theatre of the absurd.  Sometimes in Andersson’s films (e.g., You the Living) buildings seem to move as a moving train would!

A man exclaims "It is fantastic!" when most others don't react.
In the foreground, is a dentist,(still wearing his medical overcoat)
who can't treat his patient scared of needles.

In a bar, where all customers are nursing their drinks silently, one customer exclaims “It is fantastic!” No one responds. Then the bartender asks, “What is?”  The customer looks at the snowfall outside the bar and exclaims, “Everything!” None of the other customers nursing their drinks silently with no evident sign of happiness seem to be lifted up by the snowfall outside. The elements and moods outside and inside a building are often contrasted in an Andersson film, which makes him different and yet interesting. He seems to love provoking the mind of a lazy, laidback film viewer.

In a brilliant sequence, a well-mannered waiter in restaurant patiently waits at a table occupied by a single gentleman who seems engrossed reading a newspaper. He is aware of the patient waiter who is waiting silently to serve his wine after he has approved it.  When the gentleman finally takes his eyes off the newspaper and does approve of the wine, the waiter dutifully pours the wine but does not stop pouring it even after the glass is full and the wine spills on the spotless white tablecloth much to the surprise of the gentleman (and of the viewer). The sadness, the irony, and the inner viewpoints and the unusual behaviour of the two individuals are in stark contrast with the world’s happiest populations that reside in Scandinavia, of which Sweden is a nation that comprise it.

A surrealistic scene from the film...

..the connection to Marc Chagall's famous painting
"Over the town"

Andersson’s visuals have references within and without the film that can escape a casual viewer. In About Endlessness, there is the poster sequence of a man and woman flying (like an anti-hero version of Superman without a cape holding his lover) over a bombed city (Dresden? Cologne?).  Only art enthusiasts will pick up the connection of the visual with Marc Chagall’s famous painting “Over the town.”  Are the flying man and woman, characters from the film About Endlessness? Perhaps they are. Is the reference to bombed city connected to the vignette in About Endlessness showing Hitler in his last days in the bunker with his chosen Nazi army commanders barely in a state to acknowledge him with the mandatory “Hail Hitler/Sieg Heil”? Perhaps it is. Perhaps it is also connected to the visuals of a defeated column of soldiers marching dejectedly towards their prison camp.

One of the fascinating facets of Andersson’s script is that each individual in his films might appear unconnected to the rest of the characters. Yet they are connected (appearing in later sequences with identifiable clothes) and it is for the alert viewer to connect the dots and figure out Andersson’s cinematic crossword puzzle.

A woman, who loves champagne, seems
less interested in her lover than her drink

In About Endlessness, director/scriptwriter Andersson introduces a new element to his unique brand of cinema—a chorus-like invisible female narrator who keeps saying “I saw a man..,” “I saw a woman..,” “I saw a young man...” etc. to demarcate different characters/segments in the film

The variety of subjects relating to love in any Andersson film is staggering. There are lovers, young and old.  A woman loves champagne more than her male lover doting over her. A young woman tries to attract a young man “who had not found love.”  A father kills his daughter because she has brought dishonour to his family. A set of parents with flowers seek out their progeny’s grave.

A priest who has lost his faith contemplates his predicament,
as his congregation waits for the Holy Communion

A man carries his allegorical cross (as Jesus did) in modern Sweden.

There are quaint, surreal situations in Andersson’s cinema. A prominent one in About Endlessness is of a priest who has lost his faith in his religion and seeks psychiatric help. But he refrains from quitting his vocation stating “...but it is my livelihood!” Much of Andersson’s films deal with financial stress. What does such a priest do? He gets drunk imbibing the wine he is supposed to serve to his religious flock as blessed wine in Holy Communion! Later in the film, the priest is shown carrying his wooden cross against his will re-enacting Jesus Christ path to crucifixion in modern Sweden, while some watch emotionless.

A grown-up man complains that his childhood classmate refuses to acknowledge him on the street. Has one man moved on in life with social contentment while the other has not and bogged down in pleasant age-old memories? An old couple stare at their Swedish city from a high point and comment about September, possibly the best part of the year.

The final sequence in each Andersson film is carefully chosen to reinforce the central idea of the entire film. In About Endlessness, a man drives his car that suddenly breaks down in the middle of nowhere. It does capture the human being’s lack of control on what happens to them and the quixotic attempts to salvage the situation. And the viewer gets to look at the man’s predicament from the sky (recall the final shot of Arthur Penn’s Night Moves). It is unfortunate that About Endlessness lost the Golden Lion award to Joker.

P.S.  About Endlessness is definitely a film that makes you think and a remarkable film of 2019 and deserving of the Venice Film Festival award bestowed on it. A very useful and informative video essay on Andersson's five films made before About Endlessness follows the trailer.

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219. Swedish director Ruben Östlund’s “The Square” (2017), based on his original story/script: A modern social satire on urban hypocrisy that will unsettle most viewers in different ways

 “The square is a sanctuary of trust and caring. Within it we all share equal rights and obligations” 

---Explanation written for an abstract art installation, a square ground in front of an upscale museum. The square is demarcated with white borders painted on the open cobbled space, on which pedestrians can walk

The year 2017 has thrown up three wonderful, thought-provoking films from three different countries, all receiving nominations for the Best Foreign Language film Oscar in 2018: On Body and Soul from Hungary, Loveless from Russia, and The Square from Sweden.  All three are weird movies, far removed from the style or content of a popular Hollywood blockbuster. Beyond the individual subjects of the three films, all three are tales originally conceived by their respective directors. The directors of such films need to get the status that one often gives to authors of novels, and not be restricted to the more obvious role of the director. Most of the commercial films are based on novels, plays or real events.  These are directors who deserve more respect and admiration from the public who goes to the movies. Few realize the distinction between directors who are truly originally creative and those who merely adapt existing works or build on incidents that have occurred somewhere.

The white glow of the square replaces
the conventional statue of a man on horseback
in front of the art gallery

Swedish director Ruben Östlund’s previous original screenplay and feature film Force Majeure (2014) had looked at a split-second instinctive reaction that jolts the tranquillity of a perfect nuclear family. It presented a situation that could have happened within the best of families. In Östlund’s next film The Square, the director’s carefully conceived original script is built around a white successful male named Christian. Though the film has no religious overtones—the viewers in Scandinavian countries and much of Europe will easily identify Christian as the average European,  financially secure, well-bred, courteous, politically correct and good looking. Now that’s perfect material for Östlund to use make the viewer look inwards within the familiar world of not-so-financially secure immigrants dotting the European demographic landscape. Östlund is a master of the unpredictable and makes very interesting tales/films out of unsettling yet believable situations.

"You have nothing" is the title lit up on the wall to describe
the abstract installation of heaps of gravel which gallery viewers
respectfully view from a distance

In The Square, the main characterChristian is convincingly is played by actor Danish actor Claes Bang who deservedly won the Best European actor award for his performance in this film. He is the chief executive of an upmarket art gallery with very interesting abstract installations.  One of the current installations is room full of small equal heaps of gravel placed at intervals with geometric precision. The amusing title of the abstract installation is “You have nothing.” People look at the installation with incredulous and yet respectful demeanour while gallery security are watchful that the visitors do not tamper with the heaps.  Much later in another sequence, we see the hall with the same installation being cleaned with vacuum cleaners and some of the soil from one of the heaps being inadvertently sucked into the machine. The cleaner adjusts the heap to resemble the original. No words spoken.  It is for the viewer to understand the jibe of Östlund. Östlund watchers could recall the final sequence of Force Majeure where once again no word is spoken but the silence communicates more than words.

The controversial scene from a video clip to promote the gallery
and the controversy relates to the race of the girl

The Square is a film that would strike a chord with Europeans who have accepted immigrants into their society.  These immigrants beg for alms from rich Europeans such as Christian. In a preoccupied moment, he ignores the plea for alms. In a thankful, happy frame of mind the good “Christian” offers a meal to the needy woman in a fast-food restaurant.  But then note the script of Östlund: the immigrant dictates to her benefactor what specific meal she want to have and Christian obliges.

The film is a critique of the well-meaning people of Europe. On a busy street full of pedestrians, Christian comes to the aid of a passerby who screams for help unlike many others who do not. That well-meaning man is robbed.

Aftermath of an unplanned sexual encounter: Anne (Elisabeth Moss)
confronts Christian (Claes Bang)

Not many films have scenes of unplanned sexual encounters where the male uses condoms. Christian uses one and Östlund spins off an unpredictable yet responsible and thought provoking post-coital conversation on who should be disposing it without consequences, when the woman wants to keep/dispose it.

The film has more unusual Östlund situations:  a well-to-do female Caucasian journalist who lives with a grown-up chimpanzee as a pet.  A formal fundraising dinner has an actor who terrorizes the invitees acting as a baboon and even trying to rape a scared woman invitee in public view.  People who often rush to help the needy do not rush to stop the show which has exceeded its limits.  A clever, well-meaning scheme by Christian to get the robber who stole his wallet, cufflinks and mobile phone to return the articles anonymously without the robber identifying himself/herself  or getting into trouble with the law, spins off a new collateral controversy involving an innocent, immigrant kid. A split-second decision not to review a promotional video for his art gallery cascades into controversy that costs Christian his comfortable, high-paid job again because Christian is not averse to  accepting responsibility for a video he did not make but had merely hurriedly approved.

Christian (Claes Bang) explains one of the installations in his gallery
that helps visitors to choose a route to view exhibits.
Evidently more people visiting his gallery tend to trust others.

The Square can make you laugh. Then it will make you squirm. That’s the power of Östlund. Christian in The Square may be the well-meaning Caucasian male in Europe today. It could be you, if you put yourself in Christian’s shoes. On Body and Soul from Hungary, Lovelessfrom Russia, and The Square from Sweden are examples of superb scripts and mature cinema, superior to most films made elsewhere in 2017. Holywood is waking up to this Swedish director and remakes of his films are likely to be made in USA.

P.S. The film The Square won the Golden Palm for the best feature film in competition and the Vulcain Prize for its Production Design at the Cannes Film Festival; and swept the European Film Awards winning the Best European film, best comedy film, best director, best actor, best screenwriter and best production design awards. Ruben Östlund’s previous feature film Force Majeure (2014) has been reviewed earlier on this blog. The 2017 films On Body and Soul from Hungary and Loveless from Russia have been reviewed earlier on this blog. (Click on the name of the film in this post script to access that review.) The Square is one of the top 10 films of 2017 for the author.

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218. Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev’s film “Nelyubov” (Loveless) (2017) (Russia), based on his co-scripted original screenplay with Oleg Negin: Indirectly encapsulating the state of politics in Russia from late 2012 to December 2015 and religion as practised today in that country.

On the very obvious level, Loveless is a modern tale of a middle-class family living in Moscow. Boris and Zhenya, the parents of a 12 year old schoolboy Aloysha, are on the verge of a divorce.  This might appear to be a tale of the disappearance of the anguished kid deprived of parental love—but the film is much more.  What is not so obvious in Loveless, is precisely what makes the film outstanding—as is the case of any Zvyagintsev feature film. The key to appreciating Zvyagintsev is to “suspend your belief” in the obvious and re-evaluate what was presented. And every shot of his films is loaded with silent commentary for any astute viewer to pick up and relish.

There is a special flavour that exudes from original screenplays conceived by directors in contrast to adapted screenplays based on novels, plays and historical events. That  flavour will make an erudite viewer sit up. Barring the exception of Andrey Zvyagintsev’s Banishment (built on the framework of the US novelist William Saroyan’s The Laughing Matter) all four other Zvyagintsev’s films are based on the original screenplays.  The last four of the five Zvyagintsev feature films were co-scripted with Oleg Negov. If there is one common thread that binds all the five works --it would be love and absence of love, often within the walls of a family. To the more astute viewer, there are two other common perspectives in all the five films: the political state of Russia and religion in Russia, as practised by the Russian Orthodox Church today.  These statements are explained in the paragraphs that follow.

Aloysha: at the mercy of parents who want to divorce

Zvygaintsev in an interview with Nancy Tartaglione published in Nov 2017 in www.deadline.com stated (http://deadline.com/2017/11/loveless-andrey-zvyagintsev-oscars-interview-news-1202209229/) “These events (in Loveless) take place against a very specific historical background. The film begins in October of 2012, when people were full of hope and were waiting for changes in the political climate, when they thought that the state would listen to them. But 2015 is the climax of their disappointment: The feeling that there is no hope for positive changes, the atmosphere of aggression and the militarization of society, and the feeling that they are surrounded by enemies.” This statement is further testimony to what any Zvyagintsev film enthusiast already knew; that all Zvyagintsev films’ plots can be viewed as political metaphors/allegories. Zvyagintsev’s and Negin’s Aloysha is an obvious allegory of Russia today.

Boris: the father who is more worried about keeping his job after the divorce
than looking after his son

Zhenya: the mother more interested in a richer lifestyle after the divorce

Zvyagintsev’s first film The Return was about two young boys who grew up in the apparent absence of love from their biological father and their affinity to him when he does return.  When the kids understand their father’s love, it is too late. In his second film Banishment, the focus is on love and absence of love between mother and father, as also between father and children.  When the husband ultimately appreciates his wife’s love for him, it is too late. In Zvyagintsev’s third film Elena, a rich man has a hedonistic daughter from his first marriage, a grown-up offspring whom he loves but that love is only reciprocated by her in an aloof manner. Elena, also has a biological son, daughter-in law and grandson from an earlier marriage, whom she loves and cares for financially. The focus of Elena is also on the love or the lack of love between husband and wife. In Zvyagintsev’s fourth film Leviathan, the husband forgives his erring wife and obviously intensely loves her and their son.  That film had included a sermon by a Russian Orthodox priest in the church (towards the end of the film) that stated "Love dwells not in strength but in love". Thus, love or lack of it within the family connects all the five Zvyagintsev films.

Apart from Zvyaginstev, much of the high quality of the last four films ought to be attributed to co-scriptwriter Oleg Negin. Their collaboration is akin to late career collaborations on scripts of director Andrei Konchalovsky with Elena Kiseleva, of director Krzysztof Kieslowski with Krzysztof Piesiewicz, of director Aleksandr Sokurov with Yuri Arabov, and of director Ken Loach with Paul Laverty. Each of these collaborations has been spectacular. In Loveless, the script reflects the socio-political Russia (mention of the Ukraine war on television is like a loss of a child to father Russia), partially cut trees preparing the ground for more concrete constructions, while older buildings are crumbling, uninhabited and neglected. (In doing so, they seem to be paying a silent tribute to Andrey Tarkovsky’s films Stalker and Solaris.)

Loveless may seem to be lacking in the religious fervour of the scriptwriters more obvious in the earlier works such as Leviathan and Banishment.  Is it really so? Boris and his co-worker at work talk about their boss (they refer to him as “Beardy”) as a fundamentalist Christian who wants all his employees to be happily married, if they want to keep their jobs.  Another worker, it is revealed, who was not happily married, paid someone to act as his wife and progeny at an official get together to keep his job.  Zvyagintsev revealed in an interview that the character of Beardy was built on a real Russian industrialist with a similar mindset.  Zvyagintsev is a deeply religious director who is disapproving fundamentalist religious fervour indirectly in Loveless.  Similarly, when Zhenya’s mother invokes God briefly, it is not a religious outburst but more of a reflex comment from a “Stalin in skirts,” as Boris describes his mother-in-law, invoking God.  Zvyagintsev and Negin are clearly pointing to the lack of understanding of religion of those who profess their faith but act to the contrary. Another commentary on Russia today!

When the police force gives up on locating Aloysha, social groups get into the act without any monetary reward. Even though Zvyagintsev protests that his films are universal and not social or political, it might be a strange coincidence that the age of Aloysha is precisely the number of years Putin has headed the Russian government.

The mother is more concerned with her smartphone
than looking after her biological son,
who she claims is even beginning to smell like his father

The absence of love in Loveless is not merely between a set of divorcing parents and their growing son.  There is no love lost between Zhenya and her mother, the “Stalin in skirts,” who lives alone in a fortress, hardly ever in touch with her daughter.  In the search for the missing Aloysha, the police find a body of a similar 12 year old—evidently there are other Aloyshas in Russia today. Perhaps the current generation is behaving thus because of how their parents behaved and acted religious in the past when they did not translate their belief into actions.

What are the reasons for these instances of absence of love? Loveless suggests that it could be hedonism, the love for modern smart-phones overtaking interest in their immediate family, or it could even be the pursuit of wealth and comfort.

Much of these opinions are not said overtly but effectively captured by Zvyagintsev and cinematographer Mikhail Krichman, as they did together in four of the five Zvyagintsev films. Krichman’s camera lingers to capture more than the action, he focuses on the environment that plays a silent role in the events. Krichman is emerging as a major cinematographer alive and making films today.  The best sequence of Loveless is the silent scream of Aloysha, reminiscent of actor Rod Steiger’s final anguished scream towards the end in The Pawnbroker (1964).

Zvyagintsev is also a master of using silent sequences for effect followed by pulsating minimalist music. He had used Philip Glass’ music very effective in both Elena and Leviathan. In Banishment, he had used the music of Arvo Part.  In Loveless, he asked Evgueni and Sacha Galperine, a French duo, to compose the music by merely providing the story.  They came up with “11 cycles of E” made of one note and one rhythm, which is quite similar to the soundtrack of Elena.  The Galperines won the European Film Award for Best Composer with the interesting citation that stated the intelligent piano effects made the score work like an extra character added to the unfortunate family.

The first and closing sequences of both Elena and Loveless have a similar and familiar Zvyagintsev signature: the sound/images of a hooded crow cawing on leafless trees in bleak and cold exterior shots of an urban setting. It is depressing. Yet the subjects of these five films are broadly, truly universal. 

One of the final sequences with "Russia" in bold
to reiterate the unsaid 

Is this the best work of Zvyagintsev? Though the film Lovelessis remarkable in most respects, the lengthy hedonistic scenes make the previous works of the director more palatable.Leviathan was definitely more complex than Loveless. Yet Lovelessmight prove to have more universal appeal than his other profound works.

P.S. The film Loveless won the Jury Prize award at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival and the Best Film award at the London and the Zagreb Film Festivals. It won the Silver Frog at the Cameraimage festival for its cinematographer Mikhail Krichman, who also won the best cinematographer award at the European Film Awards. Zvyagintsev won the Best Director award at the Asia Pacific Screen awards.  The four Zvyagintsev films The Return, Banishment, Elena, and Leviathan have been reviewed earlier on this blog. (Click on the name of the film in this post script to access each review). Loveless is one of the top 10 films of 2017 for the author. Zvyagintsev is one of the top 10 active film directors for the author.

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208. Belgian directors Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne’s film “Le gamin au vélo” (The Kid with a Bike) (2011) (Belgium) based on the directors’ original screenplay: Painful yet uplifting film that forces you to re-evaluate human behaviour and your own actions

"We tend to think that the closer one gets to the cup, to the hand, to the mouth whose lips are drinking, the more one will be able to feel something invisible—a dimension we want to follow and which would be otherwise less present in the film… Perhaps by filming the gesture as precisely as possible you can render apprehensible that which is not seen.” —Luc Dardenne, “Taking the Measure of Human Relationships”, Cineaste (Summer 2003)

“We don’t believe that music should come from the movie. Music is above the film actually. It will descend into the film thanks to Samantha (the character). For us, music represents everything that is missing to Cyril (the character): love, tenderness, and consolation. It’s hovering, waiting, and the audience would like to see it enter the film. We’re not against music. It’s not present in our other movies only because we didn’t see the necessity for it.” (On using music for the first time in their movies.) --Luc Dardenne’s response to interviewer Ariston Anderson in Filmmaker Magazine.

The Belgian film The Kid with a Bike (2011) is outstanding for several reasons.

The Belgian directors Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne are able to elicit an exceptional performance from young actor Thomas Doret, who plays the 12-year-old boy Cyril, abandoned by his biological parents in an orphanage of sorts. Doret brings on screen the life of Cyril, who loves and misses his father in the orphanage like facility and craves his father’s company. He brings on screen his violent and disobedient side of his character. The viewer does not like him but the director script a tale for the viewer to gradually empathize with Cyril until you begin to love the kid anew. The Dardenne brothers are adept at getting amazing performances of their lead actors: one would recall the amazing performance of Marion Cotillard in their recent work Two Days, One Night (2014). The difference is that Ms Cotillard is an adult and an experienced actress, but young Thomas Doret was an early teen making his first film appearance in The Kid with a Bike.

Cyril (Thomas Doret) with his bike, riding a bus

The second important facet is that the tale is an original script written by the directors. It is not an adaptation of an existing written work or even a true event. The script is so well crafted that you almost believe you are watching a documentary.

Thirdly, the Dardenne brothers mirror the social problems of contemporary Europe in The Kid with a Bike—the toll on the children of broken marriages the parent refuse to acknowledge, the importance a single parent gives to economic survival over parental responsibility, the knee-jerk reaction of another parent to protect a son who might have killed another, the inability to accept an apology.. The list goes on. What is amazing is that this directorial duo is able to make films that reflect contemporary problems with original scripts—film after film.

Finally, the duo makes films where the visual detail is paramount while the soundtrack records diagetic sound almost all the time. In The Kid with a Bike, for the first time, the directors use the music of Beethoven briefly.

It is, therefore, no surprise that the film won the Grand Prix of the Jury at the Cannes Film Festival and the Best Screenplay honor at the European Film Awards.

Cyril meets up with his father who tells him
 that he should not try to meet him again

Many critics have connected the film to two famous film classics: De Sica’s The Bicycle Thief and Truffaut’s 400 Blows. These are misplaced comparisons save for certain common factors. The Italian film is about a father searching for a stolen bike in the company of his son. The Kid with a Bike, on the other hand, is the son searching for a bike originally gifted by his father, then eventually sold by him, then a similar bike is purchased by a foster parent figure only to be stolen again for a while. The Italian film has an unbroken bond between father and son, which is not the case in the Belgian film. The French film likewise has a kid with a mother and a non-biological father faced with a troubled childhood as a result of the parents’ behaviour towards him.

The Kid with a Bike is thus different and unique.  Most of all it has an angelic beautician named Samantha (Cecile De France) who becomes Cyril’s foster mother—the first significant female figure in Cyril’s life. Samantha buys Cyril’s bike from her own savings. She tries to protect Cyril and even chooses a life with Cyril over a life with her existing boyfriend.

Cyril with Samantha (Cecile De France), the foster mother,
who gives up her boyfriend for bringing up Cyril

For the Dardenne brothers, the women figures seem to be important. The men are interested in their survival, but women are often shown as the caring and relatively balanced figures.

Cyril rides a bike--the symbolic connection with his father, only to realize
his father had sold it off without his knowledge.
Cinematographer Marcoen at work.

Films of the Dardenne brothers might be on troubled subjects but their effect on the viewer is generally uplifting. Like the British director Ken Loach, the Dardenne brothers primarily deal with the working class. There is no sentimentality, with minor details captured visually. There is a third important member of the Dardenne team contributing to their notable films--cinematographer Alain Marcoen, often relying on hand-held cameras--a contributor few have noticed and rarely lauded. And he is good. A fourth regular on their team is editor Marie-Helene Dozo. It is is interesting to note how the best directors today (Andrei Zvyagintsev, Andrei Konchalovsky, Ken Loach, etc.) work with a close-knit team, film after film, and their products are all award-winning films that make you think. The lovely scripts of the Dardenne brothers include hard-hitting spoken words. Very few filmmakers today make films like they do while eliciting immaculate performances, film after film, from their actors to boot. 

P.S. This critic has reviewed the Dardenne brothers 2014 film Two Days, One Night earlier on this blog.(You can access each review by clicking on the name of the film). The Dardenne brothers are among the top 15 favourite active filmmakers of the author. (The full list can be accessed at http://www.imdb.com/list/ls064262544/)

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188. Italian director Paolo Sorrentino’s second English film “Youth” (2015): Witty, cinematic, aesthetic contemplation on youth and aging—the past, the present and the future of our lives

Youth is the most rewarding film of 2015. It is not just humorous; beyond the laughs, it has a depth that any inattentive viewer is likely to miss.  It has deservedly won the Best Film, the Best Director and the Best Actor (for Michael Caine) at the European Film awards, and has predictably been bypassed at the Oscars, save for a single unsuccessful nomination for the music, for David Lang, a composer to watch out for. And, most of all, it is a fine example of delightfully composed cinematography (at a level beyond the lovely Swiss exterior shots), amazing sound effects (as opposed to music) and a clever, dense and philosophical screenplay.

The most creditable aspect of the film is the original screenplay by the director Sorrentino. Sorrentino’s films do not rely on other literary works—these are films on tales he conceives himself. He rarely employs a co-scriptwriter. Both Youth and his earlier Consequences of Love (2004) only credit Sorrentino himself as the sole author and scriptwriter. Such films deserve more respect than those that ride on the shoulders of great writers other than the film’s director since most viewers rarely note this important aspect of the credits, concentrating merely of the story rather than who was the true author and/or the scriptwriter or the originator of the tale.

The oldest look most active, the youngest most resigned
(from left to right: Paul Dano, Harvey Keitel,  Michael Caine)

Sorrentino’s four important works: Consequences of Love, This Must be the Place (2011), The Great Beauty (2013), and Youth are all inward looking existential tales—more importantly, all are original Sorrentino tales.  Each of the films is about memories, each is about human relationships, and each is about human life. In Consequences of Love, the principal character Titta overhears a girl sitting opposite him in a hotel lobby read aloud a passage from a book by Louis-Ferdinand Céline on memories, relationships and life that acts as a catalyst for his actions that follow. In The Great Beauty, the lead character Jep Gambardella, attempts to recall and resolve his life on the lines of a quote from Céline’s Journey to the End of the Night, a quote which opens the film-- “To travel is very useful, it makes the imagination work, the rest is just delusion and pain. Our journey is entirely imaginary, which is its strength.” Youth does not specifically refer to Céline’s writings but reflects on similar subjects. In Youth, retired composer/conductor Fred Ballinger (Michael Caine) with just two surviving family members--a wife  struck by dementia or Alzheimer’s disease and their daughter Lena facing a crumbling marriage--reflects  “I'm wondering what happens to your memory over time. I can't remember my family. I don't remember their faces or how they talked. Last night I was watching Lena (his grown –up, married daughter) while she was asleep. And I was thinking about all the thousands of little things that I done for her as her father. And I had done them deliberately so that she would remember them. When she grows up...in time...she won't remember a single thing.”  Those words are not far removed from another Sorrentino film with another interesting original Sorrentino script. In This Must be the Place, the lead character Cheyenne (Sean Penn) confesses on parallel thoughts “I pretended to be a kid for too long. And it is only now that I realize that a father can help and love his child. And that I have no kids makes me really, really sick.” All the four Sorrentino films provide amazing tales for a viewer to contemplate and derive pleasure for a mature, reflective mind.

Cinematographer Bigazzi conceptualizes the aging film director Boyle
recalling all the past roles of his leading ladies
in a composite dream shot.

Sorrentino’s four films discussed above are either about relationships or lack of it, in each tale. In Youth, the aging composer Ballinger visits his dementia stricken wife Melanie, who probably is not physically and mentally fit to listen to her loving husband’s soliloquy about their lives “Children don't know their parents ordeals. Sure, they know certain details, striking elements. And they know what they need to know to be on one side or the other. They don't know that I trembled the first time I ever saw you on stage. All the orchestra behind my back were laughing at my falling in love. And my unexpected fragility. They don't know that you sold of your mother's jewellery in order to help me with my second piece. When everyone else was turning me down, calling me a presumptuous, inelegant musician. They don't know that you too, and you were right, that you thought I was a presumptuous, inelegant musician at that time. And you cried so hard. Not because you sold your mother's jewellery but because you sold your mother. They don't know that we were together. You and I. Despite all the exhaustion, and the pain, and hardship. Melanie. They must never know that you and I, despite everything, liked to think of ourselves as a simple song.” That‘s great scriptwriting—“the simple song” at end of that quote is the name of Ballinger’s composition that would fetch him his knighthood in the film. The love of the old couple for each other is contrasted by Sorrentino to the fragile marriage of their young daughter and young son-in-law.

Lena Ballinger, the composer's married daughter, (Rachel Weisz):
 "..he stroked my cheek for the first time in my life!"

Sorrentino’s lovely script reverses later for Ballinger’s daughter Lena’s (Rachel Weisz) view of her father (Caine) as she confides in her father-in-law and her father’s close friend Mick Boyle (Harvey Keitel), a film director trying to work out on the filming of his swansong before retiring from active life. Lena tells Boyle about her father ”You know, sometimes when I'm asleep at night, he watches me... and last night he stroked my cheek for the first time in my life. Only I wasn't asleep... I was pretending to be asleep.” And Mick Boyle sagaciously replies: “Parents know when their children are pretending to be asleep.”  This conversation for an astute viewer is a flipside of the soliloquy of Ballinger in the room of his sick wife.

The film is equally about ageing and memories. Sorrentino’s script includes a dialogue between film director Mick Boyle (Keitel) and a young lady admirer of his work where he asks her to view the Alps through a telescope.  “Do you see that mountain over there? “ he asks her. “Yes. It looks very close,” is the reply. Again you get a response that underscores ageing and memories from Boyle, “Exactly. This is what you see when you're young. Everything seems really close. And that's the future. And now. (He reverses the telescope) And that's what you see when you're old. Everything seems really far away. That's the past.”

Boyle. the film director, (Harvey Keitel) (left) and
Ballinger, the composer, (Michael Caine)

Sorrentino’s script has two lead characters—one is a composer, the other is a film director. One is interested in music, the other the visuals—both important components of cinema. A fictional actress Brenda Morel (Jane Fonda), the muse and possibly an actress whose career was built by Boyle (Keitel), and probably a reason why Boyle's wife left him never asking him to return to her, (a clever Sorrentino contrast to the steadfast Ballingers) devastates the old man by stating that his last three films were "shit" and that she would not be playing as his lead actress in his new film because she has opted for TV roles in USA instead:  “TV is the future and the present. Life goes on without all that cinema bullshit.”

The film, as any Sorrentino film would, offers dry verbal wit and visual wit in equal measure. While the elderly lead duo of composer and film director joke about their medical prostrate condition by the amount of urine they discharge each day, they need to be surrounded by young people. Ballinger  looks at a Buddhist monk meditating in the garden each day and wryly comments ,“You won't fool me. I know you can't levitate.”  Much later in the film, Sorrentino presents the monk actually levitating.  A young actor Jimmy Tree (Paul Dano) appears more exhausted than the older hotel guests such as Ballinger, Boyle and a Maradonna look-alike who can kick a tennis ball in the air as he did a football in the past. A statement is made towards the end of the film “You say emotions are overrated. That’s bullshit. Emotions are all that we have.” That leads to a suicide. That’s Sorrentino.

Bigazzi's magic

Boyle literally puts his head together with younger minds
in search of a great script for his last film

Cinematographer Luca Bigazzi was responsible for all the four Sorrentino films and his exterior shots are always a treat to watch a she contributes to the surreal humour of the script visually, whether it is the Buddhist monk, the Maradonna kick of a tennis ball, the array of Boyle’s leading lady characters of his past films on the imaginary Swiss countryside or grazing cows with cowbells that bring out memories of composing music in the past for Ballinger. Bigazzi is brilliant in Youth beginning with the introductory close-up of Keitel’s face (just as he dramatically, visually introduced Jep in The Great Beauty) and ending with close-ups of Ballinger conducting “The Simple Song” to the British royalty, prior to being knighted. Every shot of the film is composed carefully with a twinkle in the eye. Bigazzi and Sorrentino make a fine duo.

The most important aspect of the film was the sound management of the film (as opposed to the music) which adds to the surreal humour of the script. When the emissaries of the British monarchy visit Ballinger in the hotel, the viewer “hears” Ballinger’s true response by the sound of candy wrapper being rubbed in silence. The hotel masseuse responds to comments with silence and the sounds of massaging. The cuckoo clocks seem to have a view of their own.  An aged couple who sit at the hotel table by themselves never uttering a word our sound, meal after meal, much to the amazement of other guests are discovered having loud sex in the woods! Youth was top notch in sound management from start to finish and entertains in subtle ways.

Caine gives his best performance to date as the aging composer,
with a resemblance to Jep and Titta,
lead characters in earlier Sorrentino's films

Youth deserved its win as the best European film of the year. Michael Caine has arguably presented his best best performance to date and deserved the Best Actor award at the European film awards. So did Sorrentino deserve his Best Director award.

P.S. The three Paolo Sorrentino films mentioned in the above review---Consequences of Love, This Must be the Place (2011), and The Great Beauty (2013)--have been reviewed earlier on this blog. Youthis on the author’s top 10 films of 2015 list. Mr Sorrentino is also one of the author's 15 favourite active filmmakers

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