ScreenFish

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Salma Hayek

The Hummingbird Project: High-Speed Slow Down

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The Hummingbird Project follows Vincent (Jesse Eisenberg) and Anton (Alexander Skarsgard), two cousins who are players in the lucrative world of high-frequency stock trading. Looking for any advantage, their dream is to build a straight fiber-optic cable line between Kansas and New Jersey in the hopes that the extra milliseconds will make them rich. While Anton may be the brains, Vincent is the hustler and, as a team, they believe they can change the world (and their fortunes). However, when their vicious former employer Eva Torres (Salma Hayek) discovers their plans, she sets out on a mission to not only bring them down but also to crush their dreams.

Written and directed by Kim Nguyen (Rebelle, Two Lovers and a Bear), The Hummingbird Project is an engaging film that combines character drama with an intense race against time (and progress). While Hayek and Eisenberg’s performances are solid, it’s Skarsgard that steals the film as the anxiously-afflicted genius, Anton. As Anton, Skarsgard imbues the film with a charismatic strength that plays well off of Vincent’s wildly, erratic nature. Though both battling internal struggles, the two men have solid chemistry onscreen as both fight to protect one another from mounting pressures from the outside.

Focusing on the high-stakes world of stock trading, it would be unsurprising to many that The Hummingbird Project is incredibly interested in speed. Whether it’s the speed of out-selling the competition or attempting to outrun the speed of progress, the film exists in a world where a matter of milliseconds feels like days. However, it’s in the midst of these brief milliseconds that Nguyen emphasizes the need for space to slow down. Though tasked with shaving a mere millisecond off their download time, Anton gradually begins to lose touch with his own family. Meanwhile, obsessed with securing the land rights and the multi-million dollar contract that lies before him, Vincent completely ignores his own personal issues, putting his life at risk in the process.

Believing themselves to be digital Davids poised to bring down the Goliath of Wall Street, the two men fight tirelessly to stay ahead of the game in their efforts to find fiber-optic fortune. In the process, however, they run the risk of losing their souls. (Incidentally, the use of the term ‘soul’ is absolutely intentional here as the film bookends this notion beautifully through their interactions with a local Amish community that ‘stands in their way’.) While taking on Wall Street seems like the path to both financial and personal freedom, is the cost to Anton and Vincent too high?

Does David really need to slay Goliath to prove his worth?

Skillful direction anchored by strong performances from its stars, The Hummingbird Project   is an entertaining and sometimes intense look at what it means to take on the world—and whether or not it’s worth the risk.

The Hummingbird Project is in theatres on March 15th, 2019

For full audio of our interview with director Kim Nguyen, click here.

Dialing Up to High-Speed: 1on1 with Kim Nguyen (THE HUMMINGBIRD PROJECT)

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Directed by Kim Nguyen (Rebelle), The Hummingbird Project follows Vincent (Jesse Eisenberg) and Anton (Alexander Skarsgard), two cousins who are players in the lucrative world of high-frequency stock trading. Looking for any advantage, their dream is to build a straight fiber-optic cable line between Kansas and New Jersey in the hopes that the extra milliseconds will make them rich. However, when their vicious former employer Eva Torres (Salma Hayek) discovers their plans, she sets out on a plan to not only bring them down but also crush their dreams. Having previously written films set in Africa and the North Pole, Nguyen wanted to direct a film that examined the failings of our financial systems.

“I wanted to talk about the financial world, but I didn’t know how to do a movie that wouldn’t be stale,” he recalls. “We already have a lot of films that take place inside of a trader’s room and there [have been] some great successes. (Margin Call was one of them.) At the same time, I felt there was an urgency reading up on high frequency trading to talk about how we are being scammed [while] people giving themselves commissions off of weird transactions, which is a very complex thing to understand. So, then I read up on people who were digging these weird tunnels to gain a couple of microseconds off their transactions and making billions off of that process. I thought that was just mad and the one thing I thought was just cool as a filmmaker is that you literally had people digging in the dirt, swamps and across mountains to insert a wire that is not much thicker than a single hair. All of the madness of our financial system is represented through that tableau so I wanted to write about that.”

Since Hummingbird is such a character-driven story, casting the right actors in the key roles became even more crucial to the film’s success. While stars Jesse Eisenberg and Salma Hayek are up to the challenge (as usual), it’s Alexander Skarsgard’s Anton who steals the film. During the casting process, Nguyen says that it was Skarsgard’s ability to disappear into the role that convinced him that he was making the right choice.

“[My agents were] talking to me about Alexander and that he wanted to explore more of his range and I had seen his work on Big Little Lies[where] I really liked this work,” he remembers. “The one thing that convinced me [though] was that he made a movie called The Diary of a Teenage Girl. He had a small role [in it] but nobody knows that it’s him. He’s literally unrecognizable but he does a great job of doing this character. It just shows his range because it’s totally not the Alexander Skarsgard that we’re used to seeing.”

“The biggest surprise working with Alex was [that] I didn’t realize how much height difference there was between those two… I was so happy that Jesse and Alexander were open to, instead of trying to balance that out, to make it almost like an homage to Of Mice and Men. You have that big guy hovering over Jesse. Alexander worked a lot on his posture to make it feel like a he was a little bit introverted and doesn’t have a lot of contact with the rest of the world.”

Though set in the world of high-frequency stock trading, it’s the parallel journeys of Vincent and Anton that provide the film’s emotional core. As the two men race against time (and technology) to achieve their goal, they also experience an emotional crisis of sorts that causes them to re-examine what matters most to them.

“It’s a little bit complicated, but, when I started production, one of my colleagues who read the script said that this is a script that had double irony, meaning that their initial purpose (or what they think their initial purpose is) is wrong,” Nguyen explains. “Then eventually, throughout the film, the real quest is about them determining what they need to do in life and what is their real purpose. So, I hope that comes out in the film. There’s a big turn of events in the middle of the film that changes everything. In the end, I think what’s important is that what they thought was the real purpose wasn’t their real purpose. [In other words,] what they thought would make them strive and be successful is not exactly what they thought it was.”

In one of the film’s more unexpected twists, one of the greatest obstacles standing between Vincent and Anton and their financial future is… the Amish. Asked why he opted to give such prominence to this particular group, Nguyen claims that it stems directly from the film’s geographical landscapes.

“A lot of people asked my why it’s not based on a true story because it feels like a true story,” he says. “There was a lot of research into the movie to make it feel real and maybe that’s why people ask me that sometimes. We did a road movie from around Kansas in a straight line as if we were digging a tunnel all the way to New York. Looking at what kind of landmark and scenery we see and what kind of geography there was, because we didn’t know it if we were going to film it literally in Pennsylvania. So, the Amish came up and it was interesting because, in the end, give somebody who has unlimited financial means and put them in front of somebody who just has convictions and owns his own land and there you go. You’ve got the biggest conflict there because you know, money can’t buy happiness from time to time. Or maybe, it does.” (Laughs)

With this in mind, Hummingbird provides a fascinating contrast between the high-speed world of technology and the conflict that occurs when we’re called to slow down.

“At a certain point, when you’re making a movie, you talk about subjects and need to kind of find things that you relate to,” Nguyen emphasizes. “[Personally,] I relate to the elasticity of time. Things are accelerating so much and we think that we’re doing more things but, in a way, we’re getting away from doing the real things that… make a difference in our lives… For me, there is that important discussion [that] time is accelerating but are we really doing more things? Or are we kind of like moving away from what needs to be done and from the important usage of time?”

However, given the amount of time it takes to write and produce a film and the speed at which technology changes, one might also expect that it would provide a challenge to spin a narrative that still feels relevant and current. For Nguyen, this challenge was overcome by telling a story that occurs at a fixed moment in our history.

According to Nguyen, “This is a period piece. We’re actually placed in 2012 so that was one of our solutions [because] technology nowadays compared to what it was years ago can is completely transformed. Where technology is at the end of the movie is where we are right now. They’re now using lasers to transfer information to the stock market and they’re also exploring neutrino cannons to try to bombard information [as well].”

With the success of films such as Rebelle (War Witch), and Two Lovers and a Bear, Nguyen continues to carve out a career that’s worth watching. With The Hummingbird Projectnow in the rearview mirror, Nguyen is already looking to his next projects and beginning to discern which story he’d like to pursue first.

“Well, I haven’t decided yet on which film I’m going to do next, but I am working on a couple of scripts,” he admits. “I was offered a couple of superhero movies, which is kind of like every director gets offered a couple of superhero movies (laughs) which is interesting. I’ve got a couple of scripts that are circulating in LA. So, it’s weird because, this week, I’m kind of exhausted of writing and trying to find what is the right version. Sometimes, you’re writing and you’re trying to figure out when it’s time to go back to the very first draft, which was the best draft. Then, how do I just bring bits and pieces bits and pieces of the other drafts to the first draft.”

 The Hummingbird Project will be in theatres on Friday, March 22nd, 2019.

For full audio of our interview with director Kim Nguyen, click here.

Beatriz at Dinner – Visions of the American Dream

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F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote, “Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me.” That pretty well sums up the thesis of Beatriz at Dinner. I’ve read some reviewers who call this the first film to deal with the Trump era. There are certainly elements of the film that make it applicable to today’s political situation, but this film’s social commentary is really much more about the divisions that exist in society and the visions that compete for the soul of our culture.

Beatriz (Salma Hayak) is a holistic healer who spends most of her time dealing with sick and dying patients. One afternoon she drives a significant distance for an appointment with Cathy (Connie Britton), the mother of a patient Beatriz had worked with in the past to give a massage. When Beatriz’s car breaks down, Cathy invites her to stay for dinner, even though it is a business dinner at which her husband is hosting Doug Strutt (John Lithgow), a very wealthy developer who is starting a new project that has taken some political manipulation to gain approval.

While there are others at the dinner (all in the upper one percent), the real conflict is between Beatriz and Doug. They represent very different ways of seeing the world and how we are to relate to it. Beatriz is a very spiritual person, in a New Age manner; Doug is the embodiment of materialism. Beatriz views the world as needing healing; Doug feels comfortable destroying environments for his own gain or pleasure. Doug represents all the privilege that the wealth represents. Beatriz came to the U.S. as a child, in large part because a new resort displaced her family from their beautiful seaside town.

One might think this set up is destined to be a comedy, especially since director Miguel Arteta and writer Mike White are known for comedies (and it is listed as a comedy on IMDB). However, this is so dark that the term ‘comedy’ hardly seems to fit. It is uncomfortable to watch at times because the nerves of this film are so close to the surface. Beatriz is something of an empath and brings the suffering of all the people and animals she has comforted into the mix. Doug’s smugness seems to make him immune from any criticism.

This is really a film about the American Dream and two different ideas of what that means. For Doug (and the others who depend on him for their own fortunes), the American Dream is about the accumulation of wealth and being able to enjoy all the pleasures that wealth can afford. But for Beatriz, the American Dream means the ability to bring goodness into a world that is filled with pain and suffering. This American Dream is seen in her relationship to the goats she keeps (one of which was killed by a neighbor). It is about connections and care.

The election of Donald Trump did not create this conflict in our culture, but it certainly has brought it to the fore and perhaps even exacerbated the differences. This film is clearly on the side of Beatriz’s vision of the Dream. But Doug and the others are not just straw men set up as targets. Cathy in particular seems to want to be a good person, but is at a loss trying to understand what is bothering Beatriz. This is after all her dream life, how can others not want the same? That is really the crux of our societal struggle: how can others not see the American Dream as we see it? Beatriz at Dinner provides us a chance to think about the Dream and how we should bring it to reality—and for whom.

Septembers of Shiraz – Revolutionary Backlash

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“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there.” (Jalal ad-Din Rumi)

Revolutions can bring great advancement, but they often bring pain and chaos in their wake. Septembers of Shiraz is the story of an Iranian Jewish family that must cope with the uproar of the Iranian Revolution. The film opens with a wonderful celebration of family and friends shortly before the Revolution. Isaac (Adrien Brody), the patriarch, is a prosperous jeweler. They are preparing to send their son to America to boarding school. Soon, however, the situation deteriorates. One day Isaac is arrested and taken to prison where he is questioned, tortured, and held without trial. His family has no idea if he is alive or not. His wife Farnez (Salma Hayek) must protect herself and her daughter. In time the family must sacrifice all they have to escape from Iran. (So, of course, there is a tense mad dash to get to the border.)

While we often think of the cruelty of these events as tied in some way to Islam, what we see is not based in religion. Rather it is class warfare. That plays out a bit in the relationship between Farnez and her housekeeper (Shohreh Aghdashloo). Farnez has considered their relationship to be one of friendship, but we see that the role of servant is not the same as a friend. The persecution Isaac faces is not because he is a Jew, but because he has prospered in the system under the Shah that has been done away with.

I think it needs to be noted that this is not an Iranian film. This is a film made by American filmmakers about a country with which we have a history of trouble. That is not to say I think the film sets Iran in a bad light. What struck me in the film is not how barbarous the Iranian Revolution was, but how similar it was to so many other revolutions. The ones that especially came to mind were the Russian and French Revolutions. In both, after deposing the ruler, it soon devolved into a kind of mob rule which took on the trappings of equality. In France, everyone was “Citizen”; in Russia, “Comrade”. Here everyone is addressed as “Brother” whether they are oppressor or victim. The goal here (and I think this is true of the French and Russian Revolutions as well) isn’t some ideological standard, but vengeance for past inequality—punishing those who profited from past oppression, even if they were not an active participant.

Always these kinds of revolutions claim to be acting in the name of justice. Yet often the new order, as it tries to right past wrongs, ends up creating its own injustices. Perhaps that is why the filmmakers open the film with the quotation from Rumi above. It is calling up to look beyond those things we believe are right or wrong (or even of righting wrongs) and meet not in a battle, but as community.