Uncategorized – camille about film

Shanah Tovah

It seemed pretty fitting that I found myself sitting in a near empty cinema on Rosh Hashana waiting for the 2021 Sundance breakout sensation, CODA, to get underway. A film about new beginnings, CODA is a nuanced, uplifting coming-of-age story set in the seaside village of Gloucester, MA. Ruby Rossi, played by Emilia Jones, is a 17-year old high school senior who loves to sing. And as the only hearing person in her family of four, her parents and brother rely on her as their connection to the hearing world. When Ruby’s choir teacher suggests that she apply to the prestigious Berklee School of Music in Boston, Ruby finds herself at a crossroads. Should she leave her close knit family who sees her as a lifeline or abandon her soul’s deepest yearning and greatest joy?

Jones is exquisite in the role and takes us with her on a visceral journey as she toggles seamlessly between the hearing and deaf worlds. And Jones’ supporting actors, mom played by the luminous Marlee Matlin with Troy Kotsur and Daniel Durant as dad and brother, are also spectacular. Together, the quartet sparkles on screen and, as members of the Deaf community (Jones is the only hearing actor in the group), Matlin, Kotsur and Durant bring a rich, soulful authenticity to their characters.

It is Ruby, however, who grounds the film as she wrestles with the complexities of her unique and beautiful life. She teeters on the precipice prepared to take a leap of faith but filled with uncertainties. Her intersecting experiences bring to mind the Erin Hanson poem –

There is freedom
waiting for you,
on the breezes
of the sky
“What if I fall?”
Oh but my darling
what if you fly?

L’Shanah Tovah – to new beginnings.

“All Politics Is Local”

Legendary documentarian Frederick Wiseman has done it again with his latest film, City Hall. Shot in 2018 and 2019 in Boston, MA, the film is an entirely engaging account of the details of local government life in Boston’s City Hall. Directed and edited by Wiseman, City Hall manages to make the daily, bureautic work of municipal government captivating by showcasing the real stars of any metropolis, its citizens – young and old; black, brown and white; rich and poor.

As has become his trademark, in City Hall Wiseman continues to singularly capture the nuance and energy of America’s social and cultural institutions like no other living filmmaker. At 90 years of age, with 45 film credits to his name, Wiseman is the consummate storyteller with a gift of making the seemingly mundane feel alive and electric, like the living vibrant organism that it is.

I first encountered Wiseman in 2015 when I attended a screening of his film, In Jackson Heights, at the Toronto International Film Festival. In Jackson Heights is a masterful story about the communities of Jackson Heights, Queens, NY – one of the world’s most diverse neighborhoods where over 167 languages are spoken. With a run time of 3 hours 10 minutes, the film is a commitment. But like with all of Wiseman’s films, many of which run over three hours including City Hall, the time flies. With the viewer laughing, crying, celebrating and reflecting – all simultaneously – the whole way through.

The same can be said of Wiseman’s 2017 documentary, Ex Libris: The New York Public Library, maybe my favorite Wiseman film. In it, he goes behind the scenes of one of the most storied learning institutions in the world and, in the process of highlighting the breadth and scope of the work of the library’s 92 branches, manages to celebrate the glorious humanity in us all.

Historically in Wiseman’s films, the institution itself is often the protagonist. But in City Hall the filmmaker focuses much of his attention on Boston’s (then) Mayor, Marty Walsh (Walsh has since joined the Biden/Harris Administration as the U.S. Secretary of Labor). The consummate “every man,” Walsh is instantly likeable. But the film’s not just about Mayor Walsh; it’s about all the ways local government offices and officials work to serve the residents of a city, or not, depending on the circumstances. It’s filled with the push and pull of many competing interests – public and private, communal and individual. The film doesn’t shy away from tackling some of community’s greatest challenges – homelessness, racism, substance use, food insecurity – but it doesn’t attempt to solve all these problems either. Or suggest that a charismatic leader like Marty Walsh has all the answers. Instead, you feel the aspirational nature of municipal service when it’s operating at full throttle.

Truth be told, some of my favorite scenes in the film are of Boston City Hall itself – a fortress of a building – and of the adjacent Faneuil Hall, where I spent much time during university. Not only do these scenes fondly remind me of days gone by, they also provide a still punctuation throughout the film that allows the viewer to take a breath and reflect on the nuance of what they’re bearing witness to.

I can’t say enough good things about City Hall. Here’s hoping you’re able to carve out some time to savor this delightful film.

Hidden In Plain Sight

Filmmaker Tirtza Even is a keen observer of people, place and the unspoken, and she brings these insights to bear in her mesmerizing experimental documentary feature, Land Mine, (2019) a film about love, loss, memory and war. Having grown up in Jerusalem in the mid-60’s in a small apartment building where nine families lived together commune-style, Ms. Even returns to Jerusalem to interview past and present inhabitants of the building. The intimacies they reveal are both fraught and tender but, in all ways, expertly woven together to form a rich tapestry of collective memories.

Divided into ten “chapters,” the film covers a lot of ground centering much of its focus on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and Israel’s military presence in the region. This discord is at the heart of many of the stories shared by the film’s subjects and is metaphorically reflected in its captivating landscape shots. The vast, arid desert and lush, verdant fields commingle on the screen in a surreal way almost as natural world representatives of the contrasting, and sometimes irreconcilable, expanses that can exist in our interior and exterior lives. The shifting and repairing Earth as metaphor for shifting, repairing souls in a time of strife.

Along the way we also learn about Ms. Even’s father, Yosuf Even, a literature scholar who studied the work of Hebrew-language author, Y.H. Brenner. Mr. Even is remembered fondly as a teacher able to “give people tools, lay the ground for them, so they won’t walk through an unseen land, through obstacles.” In similar fashion, Ms. Even’s cinematic style leads her viewers on a journey through often difficult emotional and political terrain with great understanding and compassion; a fitting tribute to her father, and a wonderful gift to us all.

Nine Lives

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Husband and wife directorial team, Carolina Monnerat and Theodore Collatos, bring together their rich artistic backgrounds in this illuminating, cinema verite-style documentary about larger-than-life actress, cabaret performer, sex professional and activist Luana Muniz – arguably one of Brazil’s most famous transgender personalities – and the young trans women alongside whom she lived and worked in the Lapa neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Filmed largely in the house Muniz established in Rio as a safe space for transgender sex workers, The Queen of Lapa explores the women’s day-to-day lives, quests for love, the Brazilian political climate, housemate rivalries and notions about body image all under matriarch Muniz’s watchful and guiding eye. As Founder & President of the Association of Transgender Sex Professionals, Muniz had a decades-long history of lobbying and fighting for human rights on behalf of Brazil’s LGBTQI community.

Monnerat and Collatos began filming during the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Brazil, and through interviews with each of the women, with clips of Muniz woven throughout, they masterfully showcase the power of friendship, community, identity and acceptance that binds the women together. Vividly shot, the women’s lives unfold in a kind of glorious, muted technicolor that often operates in startling contrast to the daily struggles that define so much of their reality with Muniz playing to/with the camera as if it were a lover or a client. Her “come hither” aura thoroughly permeates the film and gives it an undeniably seductive atmosphere.

Edgy, humorous, tender and relevant in an easily effortless way, The Queen of Lapa provides a rare glimpse into a community that many think they know, but few actually do. Told with incredible grace and humanity, this film is one that’s not to be missed.

2018 Toronto International Film Festival

Widows is incredible, just incredible. My hands down, without question, absolute most favorite film coming out of TIFF this year. A nuanced, subversive, near pitch perfect heist film. It’s everything and nothing you’d expect. And Viola…there aren’t enough words. Except to say that McQueen has placed her in her rightful role as THE actress of our time. Brava.

"Behind me is what we call society—what we see in our everyday, and what we have on screen." — director Steve McQueen at the #TIFF18 premiere of WIDOWS pic.twitter.com/co6q958uaO

— TIFF (@TIFF_NET) September 11, 2018

The Politics of Faith

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“Why do people believe what they believe?” “What does it mean to believe?” “How can belief inspire change?” These questions form the heart of Lenny Feinberg’s fascinating documentary feature, Father’s Kingdom, a film about Maryland-born evangelist, Father Divine. Born George Baker in 1877 in a small black ghetto of Rockville derogatorily referred to as “Monkey Run,” Father Divine was a self-professed messiah who rose to prominence in the 1930s as the leader of the International Kingdom of Peace Mission, a multi-racial celibate order of devoted religious followers. Stalwart champions of
interracial living and early integrationists, Father, his wife Mother Divine, and his fellow believers challenged segregation during the Jim Crow era by promoting large-scale communal living in a number of U.S. cities and at Woodmont, Father’s 73-acre estate in Gladwyne, PA.

Decried in his day as a fraud and a charlatan, Father is now regarded by many as an early pioneer of the Civil Rights Movement. Falling somewhere between Marcus Garvey and Martin Luther King, Jr., his group chipped away at the social, political, and psychological chains of racism and fostered black enterprise. Steadfastly committed to race equity, Father made justice and compassion cornerstones of his work and preaching. Ironically, it is likely the very prejudice and intolerance that Father railed against all his life that has largely kept him out of the history books. Until now.

Feinberg’s nuanced, intimate portrayal of Father and his worldwide congregation shines a spotlight on the organization’s significant contributions to promoting equality in America at a time when the country was intensely divided over the issue of race. The film also expertly pulls back the curtain on the handful of Father’s followers who remain, living and working together at Woodmont, devoted to preserving their leader’s legacy and way of life.

A deeply satisfying film, Father’s Kingdom leaves us with lessons as relevant today as they were a century ago.

A Love Supreme

Before Russell Harbaugh’s (2017) and Diane Kurys’ (1992) Love After Love films, there were St. Lucian-born Poet Laureate Derek Walcott’s “Love after Love” words –

“LOVE AFTER LOVE

The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.

You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.

Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.

Sit. Feast on your life.”

Each a gift, yes, but the West Indian poet/playwright’s words have my heart.

“Love after Love” by Derek Walcott

a poem by Derek Walcott read by Tom Hiddleston

YOUTUBE.COM

Story, Story, In All Its Glory

Story. It’s what people are talking about. In fact, it may be all they’re talking about. As in, “Tell me your story.” or “We have to be true to the story.” Or, as is so often heard in this unsettling political climate,”What’s the real story here?” Even I, in realizing it’s been some months since my last entry, wondered, “What story to tell about why I’ve been away so long?” It feels like “story” is everywhere. Case in point – just last week New York Times reporter Patricia Cohen interviewed actor Sarah Jessica Parker – of Sex and the City fame – about her new HBO series, Divorce. During the talk, SJP spoke of her characters’ unconventional, sometimes unlikeable, life choices and noted that “that is what makes story interesting and real. That is when story draws in people…because it’s human.” See the full interview here:

Needless to say in filmmaking, as in television, there’s no less emphasis on story. On drawing people in and reflecting back something that touches them or resembles their life experiences or evidences our universal humanity. And “story” was on full display at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival. It showed up guns blazing and ready for action. And of the 300+ stories told, there were two that really knocked my socks off and reminded me, again, of the power and poetry of cinema.

The first – Barry Jenkins’ feature film, Moonlight, based on Tarell Alvin McCraney’s play In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue. Told in three acts, Moonlight is the coming-of-age story of Chiron, a boy growing up in gritty, urban, impoverished Liberty City whose sole blood relation is a mother steadily becoming more and more addicted to crack cocaine during the height of Miami’s cocaine epidemic. Chiron is left largely alone to navigate the mean city streets and grapple with some of life’s biggest questions – “Who am I?” and “Where do I belong?”. Under the loving gaze of Juan and his girlfriend Teresa, a young couple who take Chiron in and provide much needed constancy and stability, he begins to examine notions of identity and sexuality in a milieu where there exists far more questions than answers. And in Jenkins’ ever-so-capable hands with aid from cinematographer James Laxton and a stellar cast, Chiron’s story unfolds in ways that are nothing short of transcendent – intimately, lovingly, and beautifully told with a glorious hue that washes over everything, viewer included. Moonlight is, quite simply, a masterpiece. Filmmaking at its very, very best.

Next, Blue Jay, a film directed by Alex Lehmann and exec. produced by Mark and Jay Duplass. Blue Jay tells the tale of former high-school sweethearts Jim and Amanda who run into each other back in their hometown after 20 years apart. They chat for a while, decide to catch up more over coffee and beers, followed by dinner at Jim’s childhood home. They flirt, they reminisce, they talk about their lives and loves. We learn that Amanda has married, but Jim has not. We learn that each is at a crossroads. We begin to wonder what would have happened if Jim and Amanda had stayed together. They wonder it, too. And there it is – the story, the source, the root of everything – what would your life look like if you’d made different choices? Quit your job, left your marriage, followed your passion? Would you be more happy or less? Fulfilled or not? I’m such a fan of this movie, in part, because of the universal question it asks us all to consider – what if we’d traveled “the road not taken?” How would our lives look? Shot in black and white, which floods the film with familiar feelings of nostalgia and melancholy, and masterfully acted by Sarah Paulson and Mark Duplass, Blue Jay is one that reaches down to the core and resonates deeply. A must-see.

HE HATED PIGEONS (2015)

HeHatedPigeons

Nothing undoes us more than heartbreak. Nothing. And in the days and weeks that follow, we look desperately for signs that everything’s going to be alright. People, places, things – anything to fill the void and tend the soul so that we can get back to life among the living. But what if there isn’t any relief in sight, what then? Prolific Canadian filmmaker Ingrid Veninger explores the implications of lost love in this deeply felt film about Elias, a man who sets out on an emotionally charged road trip soon after the untimely death of his lover, Sebastien. The trip, traversing Chile from north to south, involves long stretches of highway with only Elias’ memories to keep him company. These flashbacks offer a glimpse into his life with Sebastien and reveal the depth of his grief and pain. But while the journey seems lonely and full of sorrow, the diverse and exquisite landscape of Chile is a constant match for Elias’ state of mind with its varied scenery serving as perfect backdrop. And along the way, Elias encounters fellow travelers with whom he shares brief moments reminding him of the gifts and mysteries of existence.

He Hated Pigeons is an unhurried, meditative examination of loss, and a film that you won’t soon forget. In Spanish with English subtitles and also in English.

The You In Us

I’ve been on a bit of a figurative “bender” lately. Since September, in fact, when I was in Toronto for the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival and caught a glimpse of Gael Garcia Bernal. It was the world premiere of his film, Desierto, and he, along with director Jonas Cuaron, was in attendance. Desierto is a thriller about a group of Mexicans whose dreams of entering the United States become nightmares when they’re hunted, like animals, by a self-proclaimed defender of the American border. The film is a nail-biter from start to finish and showcases Garcia Bernal in a near pitch perfect performance. Whether interacting with his fellow migrants or facing the deranged vigilante (convincingly played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan) mano a mano, Garcia Bernal manages to skillfully capture, through his physical and emotional performances, the thoughts and actions of a man who’s risked everything for an unknown future.

Needless to say, after Desierto I had Bernal on the brain. In what could I see him next? Streaming on Amazon Video, of course, where he stars in the serial comedy, Mozart in the Jungle. In MITJ, Garcia Bernal plays Rodrigo de Souza, rock star conductor of the New York Symphony. In its second season, the series is a hilarious romp through the world of professional classical music, and each episode is a treat. Both expansive and intimate, Garcia Bernal’s ability to entirely inhabit the role of de Souza and imbue it with thoughtfulness, grace and sensitivity is to watch him at his best (and the regular tight shots of his ruggedly handsome face and salt and pepper beard don’t hurt, I can’t lie).

You can imagine what came next . . . a MIJT binge-watching fest, of course. At the end of which, surely I’d had my fill . . . . Alas no, I wanted more (dare I say needed more?) and so found myself going back in time to some of Garcia Bernal’s earlier work. A treasure trove of options presented themselves, where to begin?With his break out film, Amores Perros (2001) or maybe his film that followed, Y Tu Mama Tambien (also 2001)? Or possibly the 2004 young Che Guevara biopic, The Motorcycle Diaries? No, I decided; I wanted something a bit more lyrical and more recent. So I started with Julia Loktev’s 2011 film, The Loneliest Planet, starring Garcia Bernal (Alex), Hani Furstenberg (Nica), and Bidzina Gujabidze (Dato) as three hikers making their way across the breathtaking Caucasus mountains of Georgia. It is a film in stark contrast to Desierto and a testament to Garcia Bernal’s rarefied acting chops. theloneliestplanet

In the film newly engaged lovers Alex and Nica set out to hike the lush mountains with aid of their guide Dato. Dato is a native Georgian and, by all accounts, a true mountain man. And in the beginning all seems well as Alex and Nica appear deeply connected and madly in love. The film’s screenplay is intentionally minimalistic, so we’re forced to intuit what is happening on screen. And the tenderness between Alex and Nica speaks volumes. Until it doesn’t when an incident on the trail forces the lovers to reevaluate themselves, their notions of love and, ultimately, what it means to be “in relationship” with another human being.

The Loneliest Planet is, at first, a bit of a tough go. Slow to develop with many, many (too many?) shots that linger, we feel every aching minute as we lie in wait for something to happen. A loaded glance, perhaps. A cryptic exchange of words. Robber barons descending from the west, anything. But nothing comes so we are forced to wait. And wait, and wait. And you might catch yourself nodding off, lulled by the occasional swoon of the film’s soundtrack, but do so at your own peril. Because the payoff lies in the waiting. In the unexpected turn of events that shifts the slow-moving story to Shakespearean heights. Be careful because if you blink, you just might miss it. I almost did.

In some respects, The Loneliest Planet reminds me a bit of the 2014 Swedish film, Force Majeure, with its keen focus on marital (or near marital) relations and the expectations that derive therefrom. And while it’s not a film for the fairweather filmgoer, The Loneliest Planet is, in the end, very much worth the price of admission. If for no other reason than its capacity to make us slow way down and think about the fundamental meaning of humanity – ours and everybody else’s. And it’s this very practice of looking at our own “humanness,” turning it over in our heads, that Garcia Bernal does so well. He’s the consummate visceral actor. An actor for the ages. And I can’t wait to see what he does next.