Small Axe episodes 1 and 2 reviewed

 Mangrove (Steve McQueen, 2020) - 8/10

Lovers Rock (Steve McQueen, 2020) - 7/10

There’s an extent to which my opinion on this series just isn’t that important. It’s not just that I’m a white man, whereas these two films are fairly personal stories about Caribbean immigrants, it’s also that neither is entirely to my aesthetic tastes. Mangrove is a fairly conventional courtroom drama about police brutality, and Lovers Rock is a plotless series of dance numbers; in both cases I can’t muster too much criticism aside from explaining what parts of either film don’t appeal to me, and I think those issues are particularly subjective. And while my interest in either film fluctuated significantly from moment to moment, they’re both so well directed that I find myself wanting to accentuate the positives.

Mangrove is a dramatization of the true story of the Mangrove Nine, a group of Afro-Caribbean immigrants in Britain who were arrested while protesting unwarranted police raids of the Mangrove restaurant in Notting Hill. It’s neatly bisected into two halves, with the first half dedicated mostly to the attacks on the Mangrove and the second half dedicated to the trial proceedings. Neither half is particularly nuanced – this is the kind of movie about celebrating the protagonists’ victory over an oppressor – but the latter half has a little more going on than the first half, because the trial proceedings introduce difficult questions about what tactics would serve the defendants best. They mostly decide on a strategy of provoking the court, which allows for a bunch of crowd-pleasing moments. By contrast, the first half doesn’t have a whole lot going on aside from celebrating the milieu and getting outraged at police brutality; to the extent that it stands out from a billion other movies on this topic, it’s mostly down to a bunch of strong performances. Shaun Parkes is particularly impressive as put-upon restaurant owner Frank Crichlow, though the entire cast is remarkable.

This doesn’t really have the snappy pace that I prefer in this kind of movie, though it does have its moments of humour. The relationship between Crichlow and Black Panthers activist Altheia Jones-LeCointe (Letita Wright) is especially amusing in the early going. There’s also an abundance of speeches, which is indicative of the black-and-white conflict depicted here, but they are pretty consistently rousing, both due to the writing and performances. It’s also handled with enough sensitivity to not seem heavy-handed, even though we know exactly who’s good and bad from the very beginning, and even though at least one character is shown as little more than an archetypical racist. This is probably in part due to the strong performances, but it’s also down to McQueen’s direction, which emphasizes the atmosphere of the Mangrove and underscores the righteous fury of certain big moments. McQueen’s intentions seem more noble than, say, Aaron Sorkin with The Trial of the Chicago 7, but this is basically the same project of inviting viewers to feel good about being on the right side of history. But it’s also a very good one of these, and a bit more deeply felt than the usual Oscar bait.

McQueen’s direction is even more impressive in the far less formulaic Lovers Rock, which I admire immensely even though I’m biased against movies about dancing. I’m most engaged by movies where scenes develop to incorporate new information of some sort, even if it’s just small character moments or new jokes. Lovers Rock, by contrast, is a somewhat repetitive mood piece, reliant entirely on how much you are moved by the milieu of marginalized people having a night just to have fun within their own community, swaying to a killer soundtrack. Simple dancing of this sort doesn’t compel me, but this movie really does a remarkable job of capturing this atmosphere. It also differentiates its characters just enough that you can discern a lot just from looking at how they move, though not enough that the skeletal romance that suffices for a plot here works on any level other than the intuitive. Alas, love on the dance floor is not an emotion I can easily relate to, so my interest in the main couple mostly declined after a certain point. There’s a certain sensuality to the interactions between the main couple, but their chemistry is mostly rooted in the vibe of the party itself; there’s not much specificity to it otherwise.

It’s not quite accurate for me to simply dismiss it as “not for me,” however. Part of it is that its camerawork is particularly impressive, enhancing the atmosphere by sweeping through the crowd, often at eye-level; it will often linger on specific pairs before hovering over to the next, and then cutting away to some other corner of the dance floor. There is something charming about just watching these people cut loose, and my attention spiked every time the song changed; the soundtrack consists of a wide variety of great reggae, and each new song brings a new dance. Two scenes in particular stand out, and have been noted by pretty much every review of this movie – one where the music suddenly drops and the crowd starts singing acapella, and another where a character with a chip on his shoulder starts thrashing around. The former is such an intense shot of communal bliss that even I felt my jaw drop, and the latter thrills because it implies something more unpredictable and dangerous than what we see elsewhere.

That danger also pokes its head in the occasional scene of white people staring from just down the street, as well as a notable scene where a sexual assault disrupts the fun. Furthermore, the protagonist has some sort of issues in her past that she might be trying to escape, but this is never expanded upon. Mostly, it seems like all of this is there to more sharply define the mood of this party. For me, at least, the problem is that every scene – including the acapella – goes on for the entire length of the song and then some, often with the same visual ideas sustained for the entire time. But to tell the truth, I do think that’s appropriate for what this movie is trying to do. Personally, I would never go to a party like this; as such, I’m mostly here for the highlights. But if you’re into this kind of thing – that is, if communal dancing is something you cherish, or if onscreen dancing strikes you as inherently compelling – then I think this has a lot to offer.

McQueen’s intention with this project is to elevate stories from Black British history, and as such, I’m probably not the best writer to expound on its significance. Both of these films are intriguing in large part because of how they relate to that goal, and how they present scenes of triumph, resilience, and solidarity from that history. I’m not quite as in love with either of these films as many other people seem to be, but that’s not to say that I take issue with them. They’re both remarkable in their own way, and well worth seeing even if – like me – your tastes don’t necessarily align with their approach. Who knows, maybe one of the other three films in this series will be something I can really get behind.

What I saw at the 2020 Calgary International Film Festival

 

This year, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Calgary International Film Festival has employed a hybrid model, with restricted seating for the in-cinema screenings and the introduction of both drive-in screenings and streaming video for at-home audiences. Because of this, the streaming movies don’t correspond to any specific date of the festival, and in many cases I watched them before the in-cinema or drive-in screening. Personally, I watched these films entirely at home; the cinemas may be opening, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to go. Besides, the in-cinema screenings were largely sold out by the time I bought my tickets. Alas, my internet and the light levels in my apartment are both less than ideal, so the viewing experience was not up to the same standard – then again, there’s also a shortage of major festival hits this year, given that Cannes was cancelled and the fall festivals were scaled down, and the most visually striking films I saw still impressed.

Despite these conditions – or, perhaps, because of them; I have plenty of free time right now – I still managed to catch seven films at this year’s festival. Here are short reviews of each:

"Hamilton," defining a "film," and year-end qualifications

I watch a lot of video media, much of which does not qualify as a feature film. This is often a subject of debate among cinephiles, who regularly debate the merits of film vs. television, and argue over whether a miniseries or filmed performance qualifies as a "movie." I like to define the medium broadly, but if I tried to cast my net wide to encompass every form of motion picture, I would never be able to keep up with anything. I personally prefer feature films because they're self-contained, as opposed to TV shows, and popular, as opposed to short films. But with the 2020 coronavirus pandemic leading to a significant decline in film releases, movies and TV are more direct competitors for attention than ever, and some of things that generated the most hype in film circles have not been feature films in a traditional sense - the ESPN documentary series The Last Dance, for one, and more recently the recording of Lin Manuel-Miranda's musical Hamilton on Disney+.

If you ask me, the distinction isn't that big of a deal, but since video is an increasingly ubiquitous form of entertainment, I do still want to set some ground rules for my year-end lists, just so I have some limitations to work within. To explain those, I'm going to explain why certain films are disqualified.

The Good Place

I don't watch a lot of television live. The Good Place, which concluded its fourth and final season in January, was an exception, leading me to get some actual use out of my cable subscription and watch each new episode within a week of airing. That season ventured too far into series-finale sentimentality for my tastes, but its mixture of sharp sitcom writing, serialized high-stakes narrative, and irreverent philosophizing made for a consistent treat, and the show maintained a high standard of quality from start to finish. Unfortunately, with so much TV out there, I don't believe it would be fair to award the one great show I watched in a timely fashion, especially when there are highly acclaimed series like Better Call Saul out there which would require weeks to fully catch up with. For now I think I will leave TV to the TV critics.

The History of the Seattle Mariners

A miniseries like this - or The Last Dance, which I have yet to see - very much straddles the line, as it conveys a single narrative and has a consistent creative team. In the past, I included O.J.: Made in America on a top 10 list, with the excuse that all seven hours of it were screened as a whole at a film festival. At the end of the day, though, miniseries exist in a different format, and aren't necessarily different from one season of a serialized TV show. People don't necessarily watch series like this the same way they do feature films, which I think is an important distinction. But ask me again in December and this is the category I might be most willing to budge on.

This is also part of a broader YouTube series, so I will mention that I will also generally disqualify online videos because they tend to be either short in length or unscripted live events. Some fit all of the qualifications of feature films, and if I watch a particularly good one of those this year, I might consider putting it on a year-end list. But something like a video essay is part of an overcrowded, esoteric category, and probably belongs on a list of its own, and so will be disqualified.

Hamilton

This one is mostly a judgment call from me, as I don't think the recent filmed version of this is particularly interesting in and of itself; I love it, but only because it's Hamilton. Last year's Beyoncé concert film Homecoming also derived most of its value from the quality of the show being recorded, though I wasn't as concerned with that one because the distinction between performances was a little more obvious and it was interspersed with behind-the-scenes footage. In both cases I'm hesitant to praise something as one of the best films of the year just for recording a great live show. Still, I like the Disney+ Hamilton just as much for what it represents, as having this perennially sold-out show easily available through streaming has the potential to change change how Broadway conducts its business. I may still give this one an honourable mention come January.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire

I struggled with whether to put this on last year's top 10 list, and ultimately my decision is that it was better to boost it now rather than wait over a year. For the sake of convenience, I'm going to regard both the festival premiere and the wide release premiere as equally valid - the former because it's the first time the public can watch the film, and the latter because most people won't go all the way to Toronto or Sundance, and because it's when interest will be highest. I don't want to arbitrarily exclude new movies just because I saw them at a festival, but if I didn't count the wide release date, most of the movies I see for half of the year wouldn't qualify for the year-end list. So for my own sake I'm counting both.

That's not an entirely comprehensive list of exceptions, and I may need to clarify more further. I still might give each of these a special mention on the year-end list, but they won't be in the top 10. Of course, these rules aren't really relevant until December, but since Hamilton has inspired a small discourse about what counts as a "film," I thought it was relevant now. But I really only care about that distinction for year-end list purposes. I've written about TV before and I will probably do so in the future. There are differences between feature films, short films, TV shows, and filmed performances, but the similarities are even more significant, and at a time when the process of watching each is essentially the same, I only really care about the distinction for the sake of convenience. I watch a lot of feature films and am always behind on TV shows, so listing my favourite feature films of a year is what I feel most qualified to do. That's all there is to it for me. 

Game of Thrones (HBO, season 8)

(originally published May 11, 2019)

E01: "Winterfell" (David Nutter, 2019) - [7/10]

E02: "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms" (David Nutter, 2019) - [6/10]

E03: "The Long Night" (Miguel Sapochnik, 2019) - [7/10]

Last season I felt pretty comfortable endorsing the direction this show had taken after running out of book, but its increased reliance on pandering repetitions of battles and reunions, as well as the increasingly contrived invulnerability of the main characters made it still feel like a watered down version of the first few seasons. That trend has largely continued into this new season, and in particular, the first two episodes comprise a largely-interchangeable process of table-setting, first by getting everyone in Winterfell, and then by assembling nearly every possible combination of characters. Both of those episodes are comprised almost entirely of talking and consist of very little narrative momentum, and while I do truly love most of these characters, there's just so many of them now that it's hard to remain invested in every single conversation, especially in the second episode, where every conversation is bittersweet and moderately funny, but they're all bittersweet and funny in basically the same way. 

When this show tries to generate interest just by reuniting two characters who had a relationship in the past, or by trying to explore how two popular characters would interact, it feels cheap, especially since the show isn't interested in making much of these new connections. But the slow pace of the storytelling does allow it to build atmosphere, and although the show simply doesn't have a whole lot of story left to tell, it takes those scraps of story and explores all of their implications. It's a very admirable approach, and it's where much of the show's remaining integrity comes from. That's why the relatively bleak third episode is so refreshing, even if it's just another epic battle. For much longer than I thought possible these days, the show is unremittingly bleak, showcasing an extensive process of abject failure. Alas, it still comes down to a few contrivances which allow the named characters to prevail. Too often someone shows up out of nowhere, right in the nick of time, and for a show which is still so slow-paced and serious, it's immensely frustrating. 

What makes episode 3 really stand out, though, is its strange, experimental visual style, which looks like nothing else in the show. The entire episode is cloaked in the darkness of night, and at its best, this results in gorgeous images where brief flurries of motion and small pockets of torchlight pierce the fog of war. But it's clearly not optimal for viewing conditions in a bright room, and too often, the episode fixates on a barely-visible face as if the audience is supposed to see their emotions. It works far more often than it doesn't, and better yet, the battle itself is tense and carefully paced, more than making up for the sluggish first two episodes, and it really demonstrates what a gorgeous show this is, even when nothing is happening but banter. Even the CGI is particularly impressive for television. The show's storytelling has been questionable for years, but the dialogue, the characters, and the visuals have lost none of their power. 

Also, I actually liked episode 4, but I'll write about that when the season is over. We'll see how the rest unfolds. 

(originally published May 20, 2019)

E04: "The Last of the Starks" (David Nutter, 2019) - [7/10]

E05: "The Bells" (Miguel Sapochnik, 2019) - [6/10]

E06: "The Iron Throne" (David Benioff & D.B. Weiss, 2019) - [6/10]

Spoilers follow. 

How do you end a show like Game of Thrones? For whatever reason, showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss seem to have faltered in this last season, despite having set up the two prior seasons with (admittedly unwelcome) increases in sentimentality and optimism. They were putting the dark power games behind to finally confront the greater threat. But there were too many unanswered questions: What does Jon's true parentage mean? How should we feel about Daenerys? What is to be done with Cersei? Betraying the tone of the first five seasons is probably the only way to bring this story to a conclusion, but it was never easy to imagine an optimistic answer to those questions. 

Maybe that's why these final three episodes feel even more packed with contrivances and cheesy sentimentality than the previous three. "The Last of the Starks" marks a strange turning point from contrived survival to contrived deaths, but in some ways it appeared like an appealing step back towards moral ambiguity and political intrigue. But the lack of narrative momentum throughout this season was felt in the rush of "The Bells," which somehow struggles to justify character developments which had been foreshadowed for years, and contains some of the most wretchedly maudlin scenes in the show's entire run. It's at its most abstract, rather, that the show is at its most powerful; the scenes of King's Landing being destroyed have a visceral impact, even if it's unclear why Daenerys is causing them in the first place. 

And it's true that optics of her descent into villainy may leave something to be desired, and it's easy to see why a lot of people are disappointed by a man taking the throne in the end - not to mention that he then filled his council with more men. But Daenerys has always been established as unmerciful, with little patience for her enemies, and believing in part that the throne was her birthright. Those developments suffer because, for some reason, the last two episodes shift focus away from psychological complexity. It brings up the question of why these events are so rushed when so little happened in the first two episodes. Clearly this is a meatier story than the White Walkers, and yet that's where the show wasted the most time. 

What bothers me more is how cheesy those last two episodes become. Both are filled with moments of overblown sentimentality, and the last episode wraps everything up in a tidy bow that seems so much less nuanced than I know the show can be. The show didn't earn several of these moments, and it relies on overly emotive music and crummy dialogue to tell the audience how to feel. For anyone who cares about these characters, many of their endings do feel appropriate, and even those which are disappointing carry a bit of poetry or humour. None of it is necessarily out of line with the dumbed-down version of the show presented in seasons 6 and 7, and it never fully gave up on the qualities which have kept it watchable even through its biggest blunders. But that doesn't make it any less of a shame to see the show end up this way. 

Russian Doll (Netflix, season 1)

Originally published June 6, 2019

Ep. 1: "Nothing in This World is Easy" - [8/10]

Ep. 2: "The Great Escape" - [8/10]

Ep. 3: "A Warm Body" - [8/10]

Ep. 4: "Alan's Routine" - [9/10]

Ep. 5: "Superiority Complex" - [8/10]

Ep. 6: "Reflection" - [8/10]

Ep. 7: "The Way Out" - [9/10]

Ep. 8: "Ariadne" - [8/10]

Groundhog Day-esque miniseries about a woman who finds her day restarts every time she dies. It's an immaculately produced and very stylish piece of filmmaking, full of sharp dialogue and appealingly coarse performances. Only three directors worked on the show, and all three retain a gorgeously precise visual style, full of careful framing and warm colours. I think what's most remarkable about this show is how smoothly it transitions between comedy and drama, which I think it accomplishes by blending the two together: most of the comedy has a dark undercurrent, and the dramatic scenes are still given some levity by the irreverent dialogue and performances. I actually found several long sequences in this series to have a strange, hazy feel, visually expressing the characters' numerous downward spirals. It's also full of thrilling twists, and yet despite featuring a strong central mystery, it mostly just uses the reset technique as a jumping off point for its fascinating character study, as well as for a wide variety of unpredictable narrative shifts. The mechanics of time travel are never made entirely clear, but perhaps that's for the best, as such stories are best when they don't get bogged down in minutiae. Rather, it's a truly idiosyncratic and at times challenging series, and a lean one as well: a mere half hour per episode over eight episodes. All of that makes it a very compelling binge-watch, but it's also thematically layered and psychologically complex, and it's the show's dramatic integrity that truly sets it apart. 

The History of the Seattle Mariners (miniseries, SB Nation, 2020)

[9/10]

Episodes:
"This is not an endorsement of arson" - [9/10]
"Ken Griffey, Jr. and his quest to save the Mariners" - [91/0
"The Battle for Seattle" - [8/10]
"The Seattle Mariners build a death star" - [8/10]
"The Age of Ichiro" - [9/10]
"The Seattle Mariners enter the great beyond" - [8/10]

Alex Rubenstein is probably my favourite of Jon Bois' collaborators so far. Felix Biederman, who wrote SB Nation's MMA docu-series, matched Bois' attention to weird little details, but his brand of political cynicism strikes me as heavy-handed. Meanwhile, Kofie Yeobah matches Bois for personality, but their series about breaking video games lacks the human interest of Bois' other work. Rubenstein, however, is a statistics geek, which means that his and Bois' Dorktown series doubles down on the exploration on graphing historical narratives and the anomalies within. 

This Seattle Mariners miniseries is Bois' third long-form documentary, after the MMA one and a two-part trifle about athletes named Bob. What I really like about his work is how he extracts pathos from mere statistics - the visuals of his videos tend to consist entirely of minimalist slideshows full of charts and newspaper clippings, but he makes the emotional significance of those charts accessible. In The History of the Seattle Mariners, Bois and Rubenstein will crawl through the team's statistical achievements at the same time as a plebiscite determines their fate. Visually, this sequence is little more than basic graphs and lists of numbers, but combined - and in the context of the occasional personal anecdote - these two charts give each other meaning and build significant tension. Little moments like these, combined with the expected smattering of bizarre smaller stories, find Bois and Rubenstein putting their subjectivity aside and wearing their investment on their sleeve, and in the process they unearth the drama and humour of sports history. Sometimes the charts are replaced with a lengthy procession of headlines, and sometimes the two are mixed evenly, but in each case the effect is the same. 

As someone who doesn't know anything about sports and often struggles with statistics, there are stretches where I couldn't quite keep up, and on top of that Bois and Rubenstein will occasionally belabour a point for a bit too long. I ultimately prefer Bois' smaller works; his video on NFL punts is a favourite of mine. And yet the bigger picture is one of his more poignant works, and the much greater scale here is undeniably impressive. Here, he's building to a thesis about the very nature of sports fandom, explaining not only why a losing baseball team like the Seattle Mariners could attract such devotion, but how that devotion differs from fandom built on victories and World Series qualifications. It's enlightening for an outsider like myself, and resonant even outside the realm of sports. I crave this kind of opinionated take on subjects I don't understand, and this is one of the most sophisticated and accessible examples of such - but of course, that's what I expect from Bois. 

Zodiac (David Fincher, 2007)

[8/10]

This is a lengthy dramatization of the Zodiac Killer investigation of the 1970s, clocking in at over two hours and detailing every little step with extreme attention to detail. For a long while, there’s little in the way of human drama, as all is subsumed to an avalanche of facts, but it’s kept lively by way of stylish direction from David Fincher and top-tier performances from a star-studded cast. In the central roles are Jake Gyllenhaal as cartoonist Robert Graysmith and Robert Downey Jr. as crime journalist Paul Avery, both working at the same major San Francisco newspaper, as well as Mark Ruffalo as Dave Toschi, the lead detective on the Zodiac case. Gyllenhaal is intriguingly off-kilter as a well-meaning but obsessive amateur sleuth, with a few weird tics that take on a new meaning as the character is increasingly consumed by his obsession with finding the Zodiac. Downey Jr. provides the same sort of performance expected from him, essentially turning Avery into another variation on his usual role. Ruffalo reportedly does a highly effective job of imitating his real-life counterpart’s mannerisms, and elevates the role with a mixture of moderate charisma and creeping exhaustion. 

Those are the emotions that prevail across all three characters, albeit across different time frames and in different ways; this is a single-minded, detail-driven true crime story, but in doing so it makes a highly convincing case for that mountain of inconclusive evidence being the road to madness. The script ultimately falls back on archetypical scenes of troubled marriages, declining careers, and mental breakdowns, and often neglects to deepen what happens to these people beyond a broad outline. But it compensates formally: the torrent of evidence is compelling simply as a mystery, as it provides enough puzzle pieces to promise solvability. When the evidence inevitably fails to add up, that uncertainty becomes highly evocative of the mounting frustration brought on by the case. Fincher arguably dwells too long on the murders, especially in the first scene; I don’t particularly care about the personal lives of the victims, though these scenes are effective in developing an atmosphere of unease. 

Obsession with the case increasingly has a negative effect on the protagonists, and as lead after lead goes nowhere, it increasingly it becomes clear that it might be best for them to cease their pursuit.  As a consequence, the later scenes where Gyllenhaal continues his investigation can seem somewhat belaboured; it’s most likely that none of the people he runs into are going to kill him, and as his investigation grows increasingly futile, it becomes increasingly difficult to be invested in the outcome. And yet, the uncertainty still hangs over the film: suspicion falls onto a projectionist at the exact wrong time in the film for anything conclusive to come up, and yet his presence is still threatening simply because his guilt is as likely as anything else at that point. Perhaps that's why, after so extensively revealing the folly of this obsession, the film still retreats to an easy answer. 

Spoiler alert

Arthur Leigh Allen was probably not the Zodiac killer; even the closing credits admit that DNA evidence cleared him. But that, alongside the nagging lack of conclusive evidence, seem like drops in an ocean; the final image is Allen being pointed out of a lineup, and the closing credits fixate on him even after revealing he was cleared. It seems almost like he was implicated so the obsessed can be at peace. The contradictory nature of the ending, which dwells on Allen even when the evidence rules him out, is definitely provocative, but I’m not entirely sure how much the ambiguity is deliberate. The ending seems determined to paper over the nagging facts that undermine his guilt, an event which seems almost like the film backing down from the theme it had spent so much time developing. Graysmith was ultimately rewarded for his self-destruction with a factual error. But if it’s a misstep, it’s an oddly relevant misstep; if settling for a flawed answer is the consequence of obsession, then there’s something to be said of a film which is structured after that.