087
Film
09
09 If Beale Street Could Talk dir: Barry Jenkins Starring: KiKi Layne, Stephan James, Regina King
Based on two different stories entitled Barn Burning, one by Haruki Murakami and one by William Faulkner, Lee Chang-dong’s latest film Burning contains multitudes. Without missing a beat, Lee and co-writer Oh Jung-mi weave together observations on class struggle, consumerism and masculinity in South Korea into a slow-burning thriller. Lee Jong-su (Yoo Ah-in), is an aimless, unambitious figure. While out performing odd jobs, he bumps into Hae-mi (Jeon Jong-seo), a childhood classmate. He goes on a date with her, they sleep together, she asks him to look after his cats while she travels to Africa. She returns with Ben (Steven Yeun), who is confident, wealthy and handsome. Where Yoo is amusingly gormless as Jongsu, Yeun is disarmingly charming as Ben, who suggests a hint of something darker with an unsettling twinkle in his eye. Ben eventually confides a strange, destructive habit, which sends Jong-su into a spiral of obsession. Through the three key characters, the film becomes a pointed look at differences in privilege between class and gender. Lee himself has described the film as a ‘dance for the meaning of life’, contrasting Jong-su’s futile search for meaning with the indulgences that Ben enjoys. He’s a Great Gatsby, minus the angst. The film’s turning point (and quite possibly its peak) occurs in one transcendent moment set at sunset on the edge of the Korean DMZ, as Hae-mi forgets about her peers and begins to dance. For one brief moment, the country falls still, the North Korean propaganda blaring over loudspeakers in the distance goes silent, and she feels unburdened. Of course, the moment is brief. Ultimately, Burning asks us whether it’s better to pursue meaning, freedom, or pleasure, while suggesting that these things probably won’t give you the answers that you seek. It’s a beguiling masterwork that resists category, and long after it’s over, the embers will linger in the mind. !
Kambole Campbell
07
Beautiful Boy dir: Felix van Groenigen Starring: Timothée Chalamet, Steve Carell, Maura Tierney Most addiction movies follow the same format: fall, nadir and redemption. There’s little room for nuance and the rigid narrative rarely reflects real life. “Relapse is a part of recovery”, we’re told in Beautiful Boy, and the heartbreaking tale of a family broken by drug abuse is a fresh take on a tired genre. Based on the best-selling memoirs of journalist David Sheff and his son Nic, Beautiful Boy recounts the latter’s descent into drug addiction and his father’s desperate (yet fruitless) attempts to intervene. Ultimately, only Nic can decide if he wants to get clean – and even then it’s unlikely to be forever. His illness isn’t something he can control and eventually, David is forced to confront his greatest fear – that he is unable to help. Brutal and tender, director Felix van Groenigen has crafted an affecting portrait of parenthood for his English language debut. Two strong leads anchor the film and awards buzz is already growing around Steve Carell and Timothée Chalamet. Narratively, Beautiful Boy sometimes stumbles: Nic is a walking cliché, frequent time-jumps grow confusing and the women in his life are somewhat ignored. At two hours, Beautiful Boy is slightly overwhelming. Not because it grows tiresome, but because 120 minutes is far too long a cry for anyone. When Carell and Chalamet go head-tohead, the results are distressing in the extreme. As a Hollywood tearjerker, this deserves its place in the pantheon of cinematic weepies alongside Requiem for a Dream, Brokeback Mountain and Stepmom (seriously). But what Beautiful Boy doesn’t do, thankfully, is reduce a serious subject to popcorn fodder. !
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Thomas Hobbs
Colette dir: Wash Westmoreland Starring: Keira Knightley, Dominic West, Fiona Shaw It’s been 17 years since Bend It Like Beckham turned Keira Knightley into a minor lesbian icon. An ice age in dyke years. Then, female queerness was verboten at the mainstream box office, and a straight romantic interest was an act three necessity. Now, we’re living through an era of abundance with Lizzie, The Favourite and now Colette all opening within weeks of each other. The latter, a biopic of French author SidonieGabrielle Colette starring Knightley is perhaps the least exciting on paper. A literary period drama set in Belle Époque Paris, well, it’s hardly the court of Queen Anne is it? But directed by Wash Westmoreland (best known for Still Alice, but worth noting he cut his teeth in queer porn and cult cinema), Colette is much more than the sum of its William Morris prints. The story opens with Colette recently married to intellectual Willy and transferred from the country into the salons on Paris. Willy (a charismatic Dominic West) is a self-styled literary entrepreneur, putting his name to reviews and novels written by a stable of put upon freelancers. Soon, his lavish lifestyle outstrips his output, and Colette is grafted in to his proto-content agency. Filling cahiers after cahiers with what will become the blockbusting Claudine series, she powers him to literary superstardom. Knightley brings a robust, naturalistic energy to the role of Colette. The film’s second half is given over to exploring her sexuality – and agency – buoyed by the queer-adjacent bohemian circles she moves in. When she falls in love with Missy, a butch Marquise (Denise Gough) – who, in a truly revolutionary step for cinema, is neither tragic nor killed off – the film addresses queer desire in a way that feels real. But Colette delights in other ways – employing trans actors to play cis characters and portrayals of dyke sex that evade the prurient and cringe. Ultimately, for all the lavish costumes and theatre, Westmoreland makes light work of scrutinising intersections of identity and relationships. An unexpected joy. !
Louise Brailey
Alex Flood
REVIEWS
Burning dir: Lee Chang-dong Starring: Yoo Ah-in, Steven Yeun, Jeon Jong-seo
Barry Jenkins has strengthened his position as one of Hollywood’s most promising filmmakers with If Beale Street Could Talk, his follow-up to the Oscar-winning Moonlight and a seismic cinematic achievement that powerfully captures how America invalidates black people. An adaptation of James Baldwin’s novel, Jenkins, aided by Nicholas Britell’s beautiful yet haunting score, captures the legendary author’s penchant for routinely shifting between tenderness and bitter anger. In a film built around a tragic romance in the early 70s, a man from Harlem, Fonny (Stephan James), is imprisoned for a crime he insists he never committed, as pregnant girlfriend Tish (KiKi Layne) does everything in her power to fight a conviction weighted on racism. Sometimes this couple’s mournful glances can get a little too heavy, but thankfully the film is able to shake things up with its uniquely dark comedic energy. This is most evident during an early, infinitely quotable, party scene where Tish and Fonny’s families venomously argue after finding out the former is pregnant. There’s a feeling of hopelessness that punctuates If Beale Street Could Talk, a sense that America, no matter the era, will do everything in its power to weaken black love and freedom. Although it’s only a small part, the nightmarish pain in the eyes of Daniel (played by Brian Tyree Henry, who you’ll recognise as Paper Boi from TV’s Atlanta), a friend of Fonny’s who has already endured the horrors of prison, will stay with you long after the picture ends. “This country doesn’t like niggers,” he says, soberly.
08
