Not everything I write winds up on this blog. Here are a few quick opinions which I published on Letterboxd in February 2018.
Brawl in Cell Block 99 (2017, S. Craig Zahler)
7/10
Not my kind of thing. The slow burn imbues this with a lot of suspense and tragedy, and there's a lot of interesting nuances around the edges, but while there's a visceral kick to be gotten from the gruesome violence, it's rather empty and joyless, and I found myself largely just depressed by the end. So many choices here are intelligent and progressive, but this isn't about anything, and I don't find anything here at all fun. But there's still something bleakly gripping about how this constantly delays gratification, so I was able to distantly admire this a great deal. So much of what's going on here is distinctive and idiosyncratic, and that's all fascinating enough to overcome the fact that, again, I get zero joy from this. That the protagonist is violent yet also quiet and respectful is a pleasant surprise, there are some interesting twists to be found, and Vince Vaugn is a revelation. If you have patience and a strong stomach, this is at least worth checking out, even if you have the same reaction as me.
A Fantastic Woman (2017, Sebastián Lelio)
8/10
This just looks and sounds stunning. It opens with the title emerging hazily from a shimmering waterfall, and while much of it is more mundane, there's still a bunch of gorgeous framing and really powerful audiovisual combinations. As a story, it's another one of those dramas about an underprivileged character going through heaps of abuse to make a somewhat broad social point, but the specificity of the conceit here distinguishes it a little, and it's a very well executed example of that. This character's life, and all the little corners of it we're introduced to, are written in great detail, and of course the protagonist herself is wonderful, staying strong even when she's being literally excluded from her own trauma. It's mostly that conceit and the audiovisual style of this which elevates it beyond a standard-fare issue drama, and Marina is so well-realized that this succeeds as a character study on top of that. All the abuse gets ever-so-slightly repetitive after a point, but most of these incidents are different enough from each other to feel worth showing, and they all tie into Marina's deeply sympathetic character arc. Daniela Vega's performance is stunning, and that final shot gives a portrait of moving on and even thriving beyond oppression and hardship. Very powerful stuff.
On Body and Soul (2017, Ildikó Enyedi)
5/10
Really nice aesthetic, really nice performances, leads have chemistry, characters are unusual in a sort of interesting way, but there's a lot of stuff here which I found deeply silly, to the extent that I had a really difficult time taking most of what happened here seriously. Which might have been one thing were the tone not pulling in a hundred directions at once, jarringly shifting halfway through from vaguely unnerving, opaque art-film to warm, ludicrous melodrama. The characters, especially the female lead, have these weird quirks which the movie keeps calling attention to but never does anything with. It all feels like overheated window dressing. But it's just weird enough that I wasn't bored, and there's an enigmatic feel to it which keeps the proceedings pretty interesting even when the leaden symbolism and goofy narrative go entirely off the rails near the end. I mean, it kept my attention, and that's more than I can say for, say, The Post, even though that's probably a better movie.
Brawl in Cell Block 99 (2017, S. Craig Zahler)
7/10
Not my kind of thing. The slow burn imbues this with a lot of suspense and tragedy, and there's a lot of interesting nuances around the edges, but while there's a visceral kick to be gotten from the gruesome violence, it's rather empty and joyless, and I found myself largely just depressed by the end. So many choices here are intelligent and progressive, but this isn't about anything, and I don't find anything here at all fun. But there's still something bleakly gripping about how this constantly delays gratification, so I was able to distantly admire this a great deal. So much of what's going on here is distinctive and idiosyncratic, and that's all fascinating enough to overcome the fact that, again, I get zero joy from this. That the protagonist is violent yet also quiet and respectful is a pleasant surprise, there are some interesting twists to be found, and Vince Vaugn is a revelation. If you have patience and a strong stomach, this is at least worth checking out, even if you have the same reaction as me.
A Fantastic Woman (2017, Sebastián Lelio)
8/10
This just looks and sounds stunning. It opens with the title emerging hazily from a shimmering waterfall, and while much of it is more mundane, there's still a bunch of gorgeous framing and really powerful audiovisual combinations. As a story, it's another one of those dramas about an underprivileged character going through heaps of abuse to make a somewhat broad social point, but the specificity of the conceit here distinguishes it a little, and it's a very well executed example of that. This character's life, and all the little corners of it we're introduced to, are written in great detail, and of course the protagonist herself is wonderful, staying strong even when she's being literally excluded from her own trauma. It's mostly that conceit and the audiovisual style of this which elevates it beyond a standard-fare issue drama, and Marina is so well-realized that this succeeds as a character study on top of that. All the abuse gets ever-so-slightly repetitive after a point, but most of these incidents are different enough from each other to feel worth showing, and they all tie into Marina's deeply sympathetic character arc. Daniela Vega's performance is stunning, and that final shot gives a portrait of moving on and even thriving beyond oppression and hardship. Very powerful stuff.
On Body and Soul (2017, Ildikó Enyedi)
5/10
Really nice aesthetic, really nice performances, leads have chemistry, characters are unusual in a sort of interesting way, but there's a lot of stuff here which I found deeply silly, to the extent that I had a really difficult time taking most of what happened here seriously. Which might have been one thing were the tone not pulling in a hundred directions at once, jarringly shifting halfway through from vaguely unnerving, opaque art-film to warm, ludicrous melodrama. The characters, especially the female lead, have these weird quirks which the movie keeps calling attention to but never does anything with. It all feels like overheated window dressing. But it's just weird enough that I wasn't bored, and there's an enigmatic feel to it which keeps the proceedings pretty interesting even when the leaden symbolism and goofy narrative go entirely off the rails near the end. I mean, it kept my attention, and that's more than I can say for, say, The Post, even though that's probably a better movie.
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