ScreenFish

where faith and film are intertwined

Wes Anderson

Greener Grass: Suburban Lies and Desperate Housewives

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In the most unique comedy of the year, Greener Grass takes the viewer into the heart of a demented yet timeless suburbia where perfection is idealized but never truly attained. The film follows the story of Jill (Jocelyn DeBoer) and Lisa (Dawn Luebbe), two soccer moms and best friends that struggle to keep up with the competitive middle-class atmosphere. Though both women are married with children and live in beautiful homes, they find themselves caught up in a world where everyone believes that they can do better.

Written and directed by Jocelyn DeBoer and Dawn Luebbe, Greener Grass is a wild comedy with the visual sensibilities of Wes Anderson and the quirkiness of David Lynch. Set in an otherworldly vision of suburbia where all the women where braces and everyone dresses in pastel colours, DeBoer and Luebbe have created a world that twists itself into knots repeatedly. Through its willingness to dive into the bizarre, the film presents a number of stereotypical storylines in the most atypical of ways. (For example, in a different twist on grieving the loss of a child, Jill struggles emotionally after she randomly gives her new baby to her friend simply because she doesn’t have one.) In Greener Grass, multiple issues ranging from coming-of-age to stalking to midlife crises all find themselves onscreen yet upended in bizarre (and often hilarious) means. 

This dream-like depiction of suburban life highlights what happens when no one is satisfied with the things that they have been blessed with. Though Jill and her husband Nick (Beck Bennett) love their son, they feel that he doesn’t live up to proper standards. Frustrated by her sex-life with her husband, best-friend Lisa yearns for Nick. (In fact, recognizing that her own life is lacking, one character is even interested in becoming one of her acquaintances.) In this world, every character is dissatisfied with their circumstances and are looking over their shoulder to find something else. However, while those around her attempt to manipulate Jill into conforming to their ideals, Jill finds herself torn between society’s standards and her own self-acceptance. In doing so, Greener Grass highlights the damage that can be done to relationships when someone becomes obsessed with their materialistic or selfish heart. While it has been said that ‘no one can serve two masters’, this is world has only one: “more”. Here, happiness comes when you have what the other person has, no matter the toll it takes on your family or your soul.

In the end, Greener Grass is a surprisingly smart comedy that revels in its bizarre sensibilities. Smartly written by DeBoer and Luebbe and visually gorgeous in its colour coordinated world, the film is absolutely self-aware and knows what it wants to say from the outset.

Greener Grass opens at the TIFF Bell Lightbox on Friday, October 18th, 2019.

Midsommer: A Nightmare Onscreen

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By Catherine Erskine

Midsommer tells the story of Dani and Christian, a young American couple with a relationship on the brink of falling apart. But after a family tragedy keeps them together, a grieving Dani invites herself to join Christian and his friends on a trip to a once-in-a-lifetime midsummer festival in a remote Swedish village. However, their carefree summer holiday takes a sinister turn when the insular villagers invite their guests to partake in festivities that are increasingly disturbing. 

Directed by Ari Aster (Hereditary), the opening scene will make you feel like you are watching the beginning of a Wes Anderson movie. Beautiful, artistic and clear in it’s intent of the perfect shots and scene set up, I was quickly won over by its use of detailed artwork and scenery. Florance Pugh does great work showing Dani’s journey through her grief and the awkwardness of being the girlfriend that no one wants crashing the “guys trip”. While the other cast members played their parts well, it’s difficult to sympathize or relate to the character of Christian (Jack Reynor). Despite his attempt to be the caring but distant boyfriend, there were few redeeming qualities about him. For that reason, its difficult to care for his situation, or theirs as a couple.

I was very much looking forward to seeing MidSommar as I felt it had a potential to be an amazing and different style of horror film. But I was nervous going into it as, from the preview, it seemed as though it also had the possibility of going off the rails. Which, sadly… I think it did in many ways. 

At its core, Midsommer speaks to a horribly awkward relationship situation to which many of us can relate. Throughout the film, Dani’s remains codependant towards Christian who is very much too chicken to end their relationship. Furthermore, he eventually finds himself “trapped” by Dani’s family tragedy and drags their relationship out further, despite the fact that neither of them believes its healthy. (Similarly, Midsommer also follows Dani’s codependent relationship with her parents and sister, into her romantic relationship and finally, into the village.)

Still, I felt that Midsommer falls quickly into every “cult” horror movie cliché, using their imagination through its incredibly graphic–but unnecessary–visuals. As a major horror film fan, I completely understand and can appreciate the gory and bloody when it adds to the tension. However, there are few moments in the movie where graphic content enhanced or added to any sense of fear. Was the excess gore because the artists put a lot of effort into these clearly fake heads being smashed? Or was it more awkwardly the belief that this would somehow be another showcase of art in horror. Either way. It just kind of makes you roll your eyes and check it off your ‘horror film cliché’ bingo card. Even the film’s graphic sexual content simply feels like an excuse to show an extended full frontal–both male and female [points for gender equality I guess]–scene that could have left more to the imagination. 

In conclusion, Midsommer allows you to feel every minute of the 147 minute run time… and not in a good way. The film had so many opportunities to be a great film yet I was sorely disappointed. While beautiful to the eyes, the film’s story, characters and “horror” will leave you wanting and bored. 

William Jackson Harper, Will Poulter, Florence Pugh, Jack Reynor

Isle of Dogs – It’s Cute, but It Has a Bite

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If you’re looking for a movie to go to for the fun of it, let me share what my wife’s comment was when we came out of Wes Anderson’s Isle of Dogs: “It made me smile all the way through.” If you want a movie that allows us to consider some important issues in our world, Isle of Dogs fulfills that desire as well. This is one of the great examples of having a film that entertains well and at the same time goads our minds into active thought. It is very much like a cross-cultural extended parable.

(From L-R): Bryan Cranston as “Chief,” Bob Balaban as “King,” Koyu Rankin as “Atari Kobayashi,” Bill Murray as “Boss,” Edward Norton as “Rex” and Jeff Goldblum as “Duke” in the film ISLE OF DOGS.

Set in the near future in the Japanese city of Megasaki, there is disease spreading among the dog population. Fearing that the disease could spread to humans, Mayor Kobayashi decrees that all dogs will be deported to Trash Island, starting with his own family dog, Spots. Six months later, a small plane crashes on the island. As a small pack of dogs check this out, they discover a 12 year old boy as the pilot. Atari Kobayashi, the mayor’s nephew and ward, has come to look find his dog. The group sets off across the island to seek Spots.

It turns out the Mayor’s family has a history of animosity towards dogs and may have engineered the entire “crisis” as an excuse to finally eliminate all the dogs from Megasaki. As Atari and the dogs begin to discover the truth, it becomes a mission to bring down the government and restore the rights and lives of the doomed dogs.

The enjoyment of the film is very much like most of Anderson’s film. It is an inventive story that was developed by Anderson, Roman Coppola, Jason Schwartzman, and Kunichi Nomura. Part of the quirkiness of the film is that the dogs speak in English, but all the human characters speak in their native language (although the Japanese is nearly always translated to English). The voices are supplied by a long list of well-known actors including Bryan Cranston, Edward Norton, Jeff Goldbloom, Greta Gerwig, Scarlett Johansson, Liev Schreiber, F. Murray Abraham, Tilda Swinton, and Ken Watanabi.

But for all the canine enjoyment the film offers, it also has a bite. In a world filled with the politics of fear, Isle of Dogs reflects the reality of life in many places. Mayor Kobayashi uses dogs as a scapegoat, and in the process promotes his own power. This is not a new strategy—it is probably nearly as old as humanity itself. (We need to keep those Neanderthals away from our good people.) Watching not only the dogs and Atari, but the developing political situation in Megasaki makes it very clear that we are seeing the kind of things that go on around the world every day. Most importantly though, we should be reflecting on the ways these dynamics are taking place within our own society.

Every time the President speaks of the rapists and drug dealers that come from Mexico, he is attempting to stoke fear. The fears do not have to be legitimate—only believed. Islamophobia, homophobia, xenophobia, and racial prejudice are all attempts to create fear so that someone else can gain a bit more power. When we allow those fears to rule the day, it means we will likely cede more power to those who claim we need protection. But, as we also see in the film, the truth and determination can eventually defeat the lies that are spread.

Photos Courtesy of Fox Searchlight Pictures. © 2018 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation All Rights Reserved

Hitchcock/Truffaut

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French New Wave director François Truffaut wrote the book on Alfred Hitchcock—literally. In 1962 he did a series of interviews (through a translator) with Hitchcock over six days with twenty seven hours of tapes discussing each of Hitchcock’s films. He later put gleanings from those interviews into one of the definitive books on filmmaking. In Hitchcock/Truffaut, filmmaker and critic Kent Jones weave together bits of the tapes, clips from many of the films, and comments by current filmmakers, including Martin Scorsese, Wes Anderson, Olivier Assayas, Richard Linklater, Richard Fincher, Peter Bogdanovich, and others, all of whom view that book as a key part of their own careers.

Truffaut at that time had only made three films; Hitchcock was finishing work on his forty-eighth feature, The Birds. So in a sense this represents a young filmmaker learning from a master late in his career (Hitchcock only made three more films after this.) But Truffaut had for many years written in Cahiers du cinéma, where he and others of the French New Wave evolved the auteur theory, championing such filmmakers as Hitchcock, John Ford, Akira Kurosawa, Howard Hawke, and several others. The idea behind auteur theory is that a film’s director is the key artistic vision (the true author) of a film. And for Truffaut, Hitchcock was one of the great artists of 20th Century cinema.

Many people may not think of Alfred Hitchcock as a great artist. Sure, he made lots of wonderful films, but weren’t they just thrillers that pulled in big audiences? He made so many films, should he be considered in such high regard? (Actually, in America at that time Hitchcock was considered just an entertainment filmmaker, not of critical concern. A main reason Truffaut wanted to do the book was to show otherwise.) Consider some of the great films Hitchcock directed: Psycho, Vertigo (named by Sight & Sound as the Greatest Film of All Time in 2012), North by Northwest, Rear Window, The Man Who Knew Too Much (twice), The 39 Steps, and those are just a few of the top films. Hitchcock had a very visual sense of storytelling and knew exactly what he wanted a scene to look like.

Truffaut.Hitchcock_Photo.by.Philippe.Halsman.Courtesyof.CohenMediaGroup.3

In the interviews that we get to hear in the film, Truffaut and Hitchcock discuss all the aspects of his style. Truffaut sets out going through each of the films to learn what Hitchcock was doing in each and sometimes even breaking things down scene by scene, and once even cut by cut within a scene. There are also some moments on the tape that raise some interesting questions. I’m especially fond of when Truffaut asks Hitchcock if he would consider himself a Catholic director. Hitchcock’s response was a firm, “Turn off the recorder.” The possibilities of the discussion between these two filmmaking icons on that subject (that was lost to the rest of the world) make my mouth water. Sometimes the things that we miss are perhaps the most important.

Hitchcock films often focused on the dark fears that fill the world. But that darkness did not arise from the supernatural world, but from the flaws and perhaps even fallen character of humankind. These are films about the evil that people do and the consequences of those acts on others. Even though he didn’t want to talk (at least on the record) about being a Catholic filmmaker, there is a focus on sin and the fight against the powers of sin that fills his work.

Certainly this is a film that film nerds (that includes me) will love, but what of others? This is a film that in some ways can open the eyes of viewers to new ways of seeing and understanding films. It points out the ways film serves as an art form. For those who dismiss Hitchcock as mere entertainment, this film will provide new perspective and may well encourage you to watch or revisit some of his top films.

Photos courtesy Cohen Media Group