drama

Southpaw (2015)

/ swampflix / 1 Comment

EPSON MFP image

twohalfstar
The advertisements for Southpaw have been driving me mad every time I go to the movies lately. No matter how I timed my entrance at the theater it seemed I was always just doomed to hear Eminem echo “I am PHENOMENAL PHENOMENAL PHENOMENAL” in an embarrassing fashion & I’d find myself cringing again. Much of the film’s trailer had me interested in Jake Gyllenhaal’s follow-up to his nightmarish turn in Nightcrawler, but Eminem was regrettably featured so prominently in Southpaw‘s trailer that I was expecting to take at least a half-star off my rating every time one his songs played on the soundtrack. Although Eminem’s voice is only heard twice during the film (once during a clueless in tone training montage & once during the end credits) his prominence in the trailer does point to a lack of self-awareness that prevents Southpaw from being anything too fresh or special.

It would be one thing if Eminem were something Gyellehaal’s punch drunk protagonist Billy Hope blasted in headphones to get pumped up before his boxing bouts. A down on his luck, white brute foster home survivor with a drinking problem certainly sounds like the kind of dude who might be a huge fan of the Detroit rapper, who knows a thing or two about being a down on his luck white brute with a troubled upbringing. Instead, though, Eminem’s contribution to the film amounts to little more than a business deal soundtrack tie-in, complete with an official music video. It feels like an ancient practice, dead for at least a decade, that’s much better suited for already-cynical corporate cash grabs like Juicy J’s contribution to the Ninja Turtles soundtrack or Waka Flocka Flame’s (laughably awful) collaboration with Good Charlotte meant to promote the latest Adam Sandler stinker Pixels. Instead of helping detail the character of its protagonist, Eminem’s involvement instead details the character of the film itself.

Southpaw is a mediocre film. It’s passable as a redemption story melodrama, but rarely memorable as a unique work. Even die-hard fans of boxing films in general are likely to find it difficult to distinguish its individual charms from much more distinctive examples of the genre. The story it tells is pretty easy to call from beginning to end within the first fifteen minutes or so, complete with a couple tearjerker character deaths solely meant to give Billy Hope’s inevitable final triumph some sense of meaning or purpose. Without a unique narrative or any visual touches to distinguish Southpaw (outside maybe a couple interesting 1st person POV shots in the ring), all that’s left then is the quality of the acting, which varies from Impressive, But Not Nightcrawler Impressive (Gyllenhall) to Decent (Forest Whitaker) to I’m Wearing A Hat! (Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson). It’s not a terrible viewing experience (besides maybe the sequence where it tries to use an Eminem song for misguided cool points), but Gyllenhaal’s performance is the sole element in play that approaches anything near PHENOMENAL PHENOMENAL PHENOMENAL and that’s far from enough to save the whole ordeal from mediocrity. I hope the actor continues this recent trend of playing scary that started with films like Nightcrawler & Enemy, but I’d like to also like to see that talent put to much more interesting use with far fewer Enimem songs stinking up the joint.

-Brandon Ledet

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (2015)

/ swampflix / 7 Comments

EPSON MFP image

onestar

It’s been interesting to see lately how teen movies are shifting away from the raunchy, American Pie type of sex comedies that have been prevalent since the late 90s towards a more serious, “grown-up” sensibility that hasn’t been very popular since the 80s era of films like Say Anything . . . & The Breakfast Club (or anything by John Hughes, really). Newer films like Dope, White Bird in a Blizzard, and an endless list of John Green adaptations have all reached for a more emotionally resonant, less detached brand of teen media, all with varying degrees of success. The recent Sundance-favorite Me & Earl & the Dying Girl is painfully aware of this trend and attempts to both play along with & subvert serious teen movie earnestness. It fails on both counts. By pretending to be above the emotional vulnerability of John Green adaptations while dabbling in the very same overreaching narcissism & sentimentality, Me & Earl & The Dying Girl creates an all new kind of inflammatory teen movie monster, one with both unique & clichéd reasons to be derided.

If Me & Earl & The Dying Girl is trying to interact with its earnest teen cinema pedigree in any deliberate way, it’s at the very least echoing elements of the John Green cancer-romance drama The Fault in Our Stars. As opposed to the John Green aesthetic where Everything Means Everything & teens struggle with the overwhelming significance of everyday existence, Me & Earl & The Dying Girl  shrugs off the emotional weight of a teen dying of leukemia and proposes that nothing means anything at all. It’s not endearing. The film’s protagonist, the titular Me, drifts through life without any concern for anything outside himself. An all-star navel gazer, Me (often referred to as “Greg” for some reason) finds zero significance in any of life’s little ups or downs and tries to keep it all very casual, unless of course the subject at hand is himself, in which case it’s of the upmost importance. This could be an interesting character trait if the movie surrounding him didn’t have the exact same fascination with Me, despite the wide range of infinitely more fascinating characters surrounding him.

The level of self-absorption in Me & Earl & The Dying Girl (alternately titled Me, Me, Me & Me) is so out of control that the central conflict is not whether or not The Dying Girl survives leukemia, but whether or not Me gets to go to college. The least interesting character in this film gets the first, middle, and last word, steamrolling any possible character development outside himself with his overbearingly bland omnipresence. There’s a scene late in the film where Me discovers that his Dying Girl friend has an artistic side she neglected to express to him directly. According to Me’s (& the movie’s) logic this is because Dying Girl was intentionally keeping her artistry private. The truth is, of course, that Me never shut up about himself for two consecutive minutes, so Dying Girl never had a chance to get a word in edgewise. Along with Me’s depressed stoner dad, Dying Girl’s white wine enthusiast mother, the titties & Criterion Collection obsessed Earl of the title, and a selfless former bad boy history teacher, Dying Girl is just one of many fascinating characters that are shamefully allowed to fade into the background while Me blathers on about Me, Me, Me & Me. The best scene in the film (& one of Dying Girl’s most prized memories) is a glorious, but all too brief stretch where Me finally shuts up because he is high & eating a popsicle.

This Is The Part Where I Explain That The Movie Is Not Only Narratively Bankrupt, But Also Stylistically Horrendous. Me, Me, Me & Me is broken up by annoying chapter titles similar to the first sentence of this paragraph and that’s far from the only instance of its stylistic overreaching. The film mostly borrows from familiar visual sources like Wes Anderson & Michel Gondry, often deviating into stop motion animation & Be Kind Rewind-style “Sweded” versions of Criterion Collection films. One of the worst mistakes Me, Me, Me, & Me makes is constantly reminding you of better media you could be filling your time with: The 400 Blows, The Red Shoes, Modest Mouse, etc. The movie does find its own visual language & metaphorical exploration in objects like scissors, pillows, and hand-drawn, Criterion-themed DVD covers, but their significance amounts to little more than inside jokes. Most of what the film accomplishes visually has been done before, better & many times over.

Like when I saw b I of course got the nagging feeling that no matter how much enjoyment I could pull from this movie, there was going to be a very specific target audience who connected to it even more. The difference is that Dope was at the very least entertaining to an outsider, while this film will only be entertaining to Me and all the Me’s in the audience, whoever they are. All I can say at this point is that I didn’t particularly care whether or not Me got into college, which seemed to be the main point of the film, so I guess it was a failure overall & I very much look forward to never spending any more time or energy on Me in the future. Hats off to the other characters & members of the audience who have more patience for Me’s incessant pondering on the nature of Me. I just didn’t have it in me.

-Brandon Ledet

My Mistress (2015)

/ swampflix / 1 Comment

EPSON MFP image
three star
campstamp

One of the most unexpected genre revivals I’ve noticed recently is the return of the 90s style erotic thriller. From major releases like 50 Shades of Grey to trashier fare like The Boy Next Door, there seems to be a veritable resurgence of erotic thriller media. This might be a little disheartening to defenders of good taste & decency, but for cinematic trash dwellers like myself, it’s a godsend. Bring on the expensive-looking echoes of crap that used to play at 2am on Showtime & Cinemax, I say. Bring it on, ya garbage peddlers.

It’s with that attitude that I welcome, without a safe word even, the arrival of My Mistress to Netflix’s Recently Added stockpile. An Australian film that grapples with questions about grief, maternal love, and the therapeutic powers of BDSM play, My Mistress doesn’t quite match the campy heights of fare like The Boy Next Door, but it also doesn’t try to. Although its story about a dominatrix who becomes involved with her teenage neighbor sounds adventurous, the film mostly plays it safe. It’s at heart a pleasant, but low key melodrama about two people who’ve been badly hurt & find solace in each other’s company. This kind of melancholy ambition doesn’t do much for the film’s erotic thriller appeal, admittedly. If it were to be a true addition to the genre one of the two love birds would have to flip out and start threatening to murder the other, but that’s just not the kind of story told here.

That’s not to say that there aren’t trashy elements at play. My Mistress may be hinged on the devastating grief suffered by two lonely souls, but it knows exactly how tawdry the erotic elements of its BDSM subject are. While the movie never gets overly kinky outside a couple whippings, there’s enough leather bullet bras & doggy costumes to give the whole thing a campy undertone. Watching a teen boy try to seduce a grown woman by smoking cigarettes and playing tough with lines like “I’m bad. Really bad. Evil sometimes,” is the kind of playfulness the movie tries to get away with while still dealing full-on with the more tragic plot developments. There’s also some uncomfortable, Oedipal vibes in the contrast between the two central mother-son relationships that the film is smart not to push too hard, but it still adds an extra layer of tawdriness to the affair.

My Mistress is not likely to be a movie that’s going to change anyone’s life. At best, it might help you fill up an afternoon. Its worst fault might be that it somewhat plays into the typical BDSM Folks Just Need to Meet Someone Sweet to Lower Their Defenses triteness you usually encounter in these kinds of films, but that only adds to its trashy charms in some ways. It’s a pleasant movie that finds a way to have it both ways, playing with titillating 90s Skinemax erotica and exploring the sad nuance of romance & grief. I liked the balance it struck, even if it didn’t push its worst impulses into deliciously over-the-top JLo territory.

-Brandon Ledet

The Sisterhood of Night (2015)

/ swampflix / Leave a comment

witch twohalfstar The ads for The Sisterhood of Night got me all riled up for nothing. The movie’s trailer promised that there would be some in-the-woods witchcraft silliness (that would be somewhat buried under some over the top courtroom drama, but still) mostly like a millennial The Craft in nature. Or at least that’s what I hoped for when I saw the trailer. My persistent thirst for witchy media may have blinded me from seeing what was truly being advertised: an afterschool special/Lifetime Original Movie type tyrade against the dangers of online bullying. The Sisterhood of Night did feature brief flashes of witchy vibes & media frenzy nonsense, but it was mostly a simple tale about how teen girls should be nicer to each other online. It’s a nice sentiment, but not exactly a profound or captivating one.

Self-described as having “an atmosphere of furious accusation and hysterical rumor”, The Sisterhood of Night warns of the dangers of telling a lie to gain more attention online, especially when it’s at the expense of your peers’ reputations. When a few teenage girls decide to go offline (delete their blogs & Facebook accounts, basically) and start forming a more personal, intimate community in the woods, their return to nature is approached by outsiders with rampant suspicion. A jealous girl who was not invited throws some wild accusations at their secret goings on in order to get some sweet blog clicks and the whole thing spirals out of control in a way that teaches everyone involved lessons about empathy, trust, privacy, and how absolutely fucking tough it is to be a teenage girl. Again, the intent of the movie is admirable, but there just isn’t a whole lot going on that will leave any impression at all, positive or negative, on most viewers.

I was wrong to assume so much about The Sisterhood of Night’s plot before I had seen the actual film. The one time someone actually delivers what I wanted and shouts, “I’m a witch & The Sisterhood is a cult!” it was a sarcastic exchange. I’m not sure how much this false assumption colored my response to the film, but I doubt I would have watched it at all otherwise. There’s some interesting ideas at play here about why a modern teen would decide to “go offline” and the ways both adults & kids alike can be really shitty to teens for no reason other than they want a private space to be themselves. The execution never felt that more adept than a decent made-for-TV movie, though, so the message feels a little flat, no matter how admirable. After finding an unexpected wealth of enjoyment in both Unfriended & The DUFF, The Sisterhood of Night is the third anti-online bullying film I’ve seen released in 2015 and the least memorable of its kind. If only they had worked those ideas into a story about actual witches, I might have changed my tune.

-Brandon Ledet

Small Sacrifices (1989)

/ swampflix / Leave a comment

EPSON MFP image

three star

In 80s cinema, Farrah Fawcett was best known for her performances as revenge-hungry victims in films such as The Burning Bed and Extremities. However, in the made-for-TV biopic, Small Sacrifices, Fawcett transforms from a victim to a straight-up killer by taking on the role of the infamous Diane Downs. In the early 80s, Downs made headlines after being accused of shooting her 3 children in the backseat of her car. A few years after the incident in 1988, true crime writer Anne Rule published Small Sacrifices, which (obviously) the movie was heavily based on. The film has definitely made its share of appearances on the Lifetime channel throughout the years, so it’s easy for it to blend in with all the other made-for-TV dramas. The only thing that really sets it apart from the rest is Fawcett’s phenomenal performance. She’s really good a playing a bad mom. As horrible as that may sound, I mean it in the best way possible.

With her fluffy blonde hair, cute Southern accent, and all-American smile, Fawcett perfected the innocent image of Downs. How could this sweet single mother of 3 kill her children? Well, she was disturbingly obsessed with a married man (and fellow postal worker) Lew Lewiston, and during one of their rendezvous, he mentioned to her that he was not interested in having children. Interestingly, Ryan O’Neal played the role of Lew, and at the time, he and Fawcett were in an iconic relationship. Lew ended his relationship with Downs to go back to his wife, but Downs wasn’t having it. She completely lost her mind and took her children on a late night car ride, and while Duran Duran’s “Hungry Like the Wolf” was blaring in the background, she shot them all. Of course, she created an elaborate story about being attacked by a stranger that was hanging out on the deserted road, but she really sucked at keeping her story straight. Little by little, she transformed from being a grieving mother to a terrifying psychopath. I can’t even imagine how difficult it was to portray someone so mentally unstable, but Fawcett nailed it. She was so good that I had a difficult time separating her from her character, and that’s not something I come across very often.

Lifetime junkies, true crime lovers, and everyone in between, Small Sacrifices is an absolute must-see. The movie is about 3 hours long, so be prepared to spend a good bit of time with this one.

-Britnee Lombas

Maggie (2015)

/ swampflix / 2 Comments

EPSON MFP image

twostar

When the basic concept of Maggie was first released in the press, it felt like a godsend. Since Arnold Schwarzenegger has returned to acting (after an infamously shaky stint as a politician), he’s been landing a lot of roles that attempt to revive his action movies heyday, including Terminator & Extendable sequels as well as the surprisingly-fun throwback Last Stand. Maggie promised to be something new for Arnold entirely. A somber drama in which Arnold plays a family man struggling to keep his life together in the wake of a zombie apocalypse felt like an opportunity for the old dog to learn new tricks, to show his fans a side of his talent that they’ve never seen before. We were finally going to see Arnold in a role far outside his normal mode as a murderous, wise-cracking pile of muscles.

Unfortunately, the means by which Arnold attempts to establish acting chops in Maggie is a huge letdown. Borrowing a page from Ryan Gosling’s book, Schwarzenegger attempts to gain respectability mostly through aggressive, pensive silence. This sometimes works in more eccentrically shot films, but Maggie doesn’t have nearly enough going on visually or thematically to fill the void left by the absence of his usual charisma. The story the movie tells is somberly thin, focusing on Arnold’s caretaking of his teenage daughter as she slowly turns into a flesh-eating zombie. There’s some metaphors at work there about the real life scenario of a parent cairng for their child during a life-ending illness, but that’s about it. The movie grimly coasts along on scenario alone, without much else to say or get excited about along the way.

The messed up part about my reaction here is that I had the exact opposite one with the recent zombie comedy Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead. With Wyrmwood, I found myself asking if the world really needed another straight-forward zombie apocalypse movie. With Maggie, I found myself wishing that we did have another straightforward zombie pic. Some of the movie’s best moments were when Arnold was killing zombies in hand-to-hand combat in a public restroom or confronting creepy undead children in the woods. Some of his interactions with his ailing daughter were interesting in concept, but felt more like a starting point for a journey that the film wasn’t interested in going on instead of a complete work. I’m not saying that Arnold should stick to hamming it up in mindless action flicks for the rest of his career (though I do greatly appreciate those); I just don’t think Maggie gave him nearly enough to do in the way of proving that he can do anything else. In fact, I don’t think Maggie gave anyone much of anything.

-Brandon Ledet

Faults (2015)

/ swampflix / 3 Comments

fourstar

There’s a dividing line in Faults (a fault line, if you will) where the film goes from bitterly funny to something truly special. The first half of the film feels like a low-key, character-driven comedy inspired by the golden age of the Coen brothers. It’s manages a delicate balance between funny & depressing in its depictions of a once-famed cult deprogrammer pathetically milking what he can out of a complimentary hotel stay & a desperate, elderly couple who just want their daughter back. It’s an engaging slow burn of building tension, but there’s not much to conclude from this first half other than a general feeling that “This guy sucks.” As he delves deeper into his latest deprogramming case, however, Faults shifts gears and becomes an ambitiously deranged power struggle that transcends the low-key stakes of the first half of the film, but wouldn’t feel the same without them. It’s a deliberate shift that shakes the audience violently, snapping them out of the melancholy haze of the first half like a real life deprogramming.

The central power struggle between cult member & deprogrammer at the heart of Faults raises a lot more questions than answers, but the questions prove themselves more satisfying being left open ended. By the time we’ve followed the down-on-his luck deprogrammer, Ansel, as he shills a book no one wants & attempts half-assed modes of suicide, the cult member who supposedly needs saving, Claire, seems rather well adjusted. Sure, Claire makes ludicrous claims that she had sex with God or that she can make herself invisible, but she seems way better off than a once-famous man who now has to resort to stealing ketchup & 9 volt batteries to make ends meet. Claire has no problem discussing her past, saying that she was once “weak & stupid,” but has since grown as a person (and a divine being). Ansel, on the other hand, refuses to talk about his past, which is haunted by an outstanding debt & a former cult member he failed to “save”. In comparison to the rock bottom lifestyle Ansel is barely holding together, Claire’s religious organization Faults (which follows a single god, recognizes no individual leader, and encourages meditation) feels like a viable, or even preferable, way of living.

What’s most surprising about Faults is that it doesn’t allow itself to stop there. The contrasting lives lead by Ansel & Claire are merely a launching pad for the much stranger, more unnerving territory that their power struggle leads to. The conflict between the depressingly mundane and the divinely transcendent is apparent even in the movie’s sets, where strange, haunting lights invade wood paneling motel rooms & cheap diners. Words like “clear”, “free”, and “levels” make the film’s fictional cult Faults feel somewhat reminiscent of the real-life cult Scientology, but that comparison fades to reveal something much stranger in the second half as well. There’s something strange going on in Faults’ cult member vs deprogrammer power struggle that refuses to be fully understood or pigeonholed as it pushes through the expected territory of where that plot should lead and reaches for something more extraordinary. As an audience member you start to feel like the film has you sleep deprived, questioning your free will, and breaking down your personal identity just as you’d expect in a deprogramming. It’s wickedly funny in the way it manipulates you into feeling unease, but that humor does little to soften just how strange everything begins to feel once the conflict comes to a head.

-Brandon Ledet

X/Y (2015)

/ swampflix / 1 Comment

EPSON MFP image

three star

It’s not the film’s fault, but I had a hard time appreciating X/Y after seeing a similar backdrop & story played out so excellently in the recent break-up drama Appropriate Behavior. The two movies aren’t even that much alike. They do both begin at the end of a relationship between a young couple in NYC, but while Appropriate Behavior closely follows the emotional fallout of a single protagonist, X/Y tracks the ripples of the dissolution in a series of vignettes that details how four friends’ lives are affected by the change. In light of their disparate structural differences, it’s far from fair of me to compare the two films, but there’s just something really special about Appropriate Behavior that makes X/Y feel inessential in its wake. The lack of a connection between the film’s free-floating segments (each named after the character they follow) didn’t help either.

“Mark”: The first segment concerns Mark as he deals with his recent break-up with Sylvia by flirting with strangers, working out, and drinking to excess. We also follow him to a business meeting where he’s trying to sell a script to a major film studio and his agent provides him the advice, “Don’t fuck it up with this ‘I went to film school so I have to make art’ bullshit.” We’re most likely supposed to identify with Mark in this moment (who I guess is a stand-in for writer/director Ryan Piers Williams?) but at the same time it’s easy to see how X/Y could’ve benefited from the same advice.

“Jen”: The “free spirit” of the group, Jen is the only character in the film not in an emotional tailspin from a recent break-up, but instead suffers from the emptiness of single life. Jen is currently between jobs, between romantic flings, and between moments of knowing what to do with herself while she’s alone. As she stares wistfully into her own city-life isolation while a Chromatics song gradually gets louder on the soundtrack, we start to get a clear picture of what the movie is aiming for.

“Jake”: Jake is the thematic bridge between Jen’s free spirit sadness & the Mark/Sylvia break-up. He’s a fashion model/EDM DJ/aspiring photographer/casual sex magnet that seems to “have it all” but is just as miserable as everyone else profiled here, as he struggles with both a less-recent break-up of a long term relationship and a quest for a solid personal identity. When Mark angrily asks him, “Who are you? You’re like five different people,” it feels like his entire character in a nutshell.

“Sylvia”: Sylvia is dealing with her break-up very similarly to Mark (alcohol, flirtation, exercise) except that she’s getting laid a lot more frequently. Her segment adds the least thematically to the movie, but instead is a sort of callback to the original conflict that’s supposed to tie everything together.

So, there you have it. Four NYC sad sacks drift in & out of each other’s days while all nursing broken hearts, a lonely sounding Chromatics song playing in the background to help flesh out their big city sense of isolation. It’s by no means a terrible film; it’s pleasant enough in its small scale ambitions & comfortably sullen character studies. It’s just not an especially essential film either. I feel like a real piece of shit for saying this, because the comparison is mostly unwarranted, but if you’re going to see one post-break-up NYC drama this year, make it Appropriate Behavior. That one is a real doozy & X/Y mostly just is.

-Brandon Ledet

The Duke of Burgundy (2015)

/ swampflix / 24 Comments

EPSON MFP image

fivestar

It’s difficult to explain in print exactly why, but Peter Strickland’s The Duke of Burgundy may be the most uncommercial film about a BDSM-leaning lesbian relationship possible. Although Strickland’s film has sensuality to spare, it deliberately strays from being exploitative, choosing to explore the central couple’s universally relatable struggles with selflessness & compromise instead of engaging in typical blank leering. There’s a sexual element at play in nearly every scene, but the film is more romantic than voyeuristic. The Duke of Burgundy is a portrait of a long-term relationship’s struggling to find balance, with the more unique elements of the role playing games shared by its same sex partners functioning more as a detail that provides specificity than as an overwhelming fetishistic obsession. Strickland has found a balance here that threatens to tip in a disastrous direction at almost every turn, but instead holds steady, much like the romantic balance found within the film’s central relationship.

It’s not only the refusal to perv out that will keep The Duke of Burgundy from reaching a mass scale audience. It’s also a deliberately “artsy” film that luxuriates in its own gorgeous images & atmosphere, like a sex-tinged The Spirit of the Beehive. Strickland carves out a natural world here (as he did before in last year’s Bjork concert film, Biophilia Live), filling the frame with running water, wriggling insects, rustling tree limbs, and beating wings of moths & butterflies. So much of the film is composed of nature, books, lingerie, and women (I don’t think a single man appears on-screen), that a distinctly insular vibe is achieved, as if the entire film takes place within a cocoon. It attempts more of a preciously delicate visual aesthetic than it does a traditional, straight-forward narrative.

The Duke of Burgundy’s varied shots of a butterfly & moth filled specimen room sets a tone for how the film operates. It’s a narrative that relies on repetition & ritual, much like the repetition of a specific butterfly specimen is repeated within the display cases. Similarly, each image is tacked to the wall, hovering to be appreciated like a precious, organic object. Strickland finds emotional resonance in the film’s central relationship, but he also spends inordinate amounts of time reveling in the textures of the world that surrounds them. Filming the couple through mirrors, fringes, and fabrics, Strickland finds the same reverence for the sense of touch here that he did for sound in his 2013 ode to giallo, Berberian Sound Studio. It’s a challenging prospect for viewers, but the rewards are glorious.

Warnings of tasteful sensuality & highfaluting cinematography aside, The Duke of Burgundy is a lot more playful than you would expect from art house fare of its caliber. Sure, the film has a stuffy, old-fashioned vibe with interiors that are far more likely to conjure the words “parlor” & “boudoir” rather than “living room” & “bedroom”, but it also lets on that it’s self-aware of that vibe as early as the opening credits when it provides a title card that reads “Perfume by Je Suis Gizella.” Also, although the film’s central BDSM relationship has a serious issue at the heart of its struggles with power balance , the movie finds plenty lot of effortless humor in that conflict. The emotional tug of war at the heart of the film’s romantic conflict reminded me a lot of a poem deceased artist Bob Flanagan reads in the documentary Sick that starts, “Smart-Ass Masochists: Those are masochists who can take anything– can take anything they tell you to do. Anything I tell you to do I’ll do it just for you.” The power dynamics of a BDSM relationship are more complicated than they may first appear to an outsider and The Duke of Burgundy has a lot of fun playing that aspect for both humor and emotional resonance.

It’s incredible that The Duke of Burgundy never loses its balance. It’s an affecting story about true love, but it also sports piss jokes. It’s a movie that features kaleidoscopic cunnilingus, but it never approaches being salacious. It values strong, isolated images over plot & pacing, but never feels like a slog. It’s a well-made, satisfying film that simultaneously stimulates the intellect and entertains on a simple, surface-pleasures level. In short, it’s a fantastic, must-see film that will find you saying “Thank you so much. This is all I ever wanted,” even before one of the protagonists gets to say it first.

-Brandon Ledet

Appropriate Behavior (2015)

/ swampflix / 13 Comments

EPSON MFP image

fourhalfstar

It’s difficult to describe Appropriate Behavior without using titles like Broad City & Obvious Child as reference points, but those comparisons truly do the film a disservice, as it’s much more emotionally satisfying than either of those titles (both of which I like very much). True, Appropriate Behavior is yet another raunchy, sex-obsessed comedy-drama centered on a New York City woman-child struggling to figure her shit out, but there’s something uniquely direct & honest about its approach to this aesthetic that distinguishes it from its peers. Its authenticity might have a lot to do with the overall strength of the writer/director/actress Desiree Akhavan, who delivers the material as if she’s lived it before, but what’s really arresting is the crippling, all-too-common sadness that anchors the story. The details of the protagonist’s Shirin’s lifestyle & personality may be specific, but her heartache is universal & familiar.

Shirin is a young, bisexual Brooklynite party girl with a journalism degree & Persian heritage. Not everyone is going to relate to certain aspects of her sex life, such as safe-words, strap-ons, group play and hiding her sexuality from her Iranian-born parents.  However, the film’s central romantic conflict is an about as universal as they come. Appropriate Behavior details the depressing, gradual detangling of two people exiting a long term relationship. The film thankfully doesn’t dwell solely on the couple’s post break-up gloom, but instead adopts a flashback structure that allows it to show the former couple in better times, like in a flirtatious exchange when the first meet where Shirin says, “I find your anger incredibly sexy. I hate so many things too.” When the broken relationship Shirin’s mourning is first detailed it looks too toxic to be worth the heartache. The flashbacks reveal that it was at one time something playful, something worth saving. It allows the film to run through the entire cycle of a romantic tryst from first meeting to fucking to fighting to eventual dissolution.

Although the universal relatability of this cycle is what makes the film affecting, it’s the specificity of Shirin’s world that makes it special. The film’s Brooklyn setting provides a lot of room for lampooning of ludicrous personalities like social justice comedians, Kickstarter gurus, pothead businessmen, and absurdly pretentious performance artists. Shirin’s open, playful sexuality is an invitation into a world of group sex, kink play, and drag queens. Her Persian heritage is a window into both the culture’s familial intimacy & rituals as well as its malignant homophobia. At the center of this Venn diagram is a very relatable Shirin. She calls Brooklyn hipsters out on their nonsense, asking  “What is up with your placid disinterest in everything?” She laughs in the faces of people who take their kink play seriously and finds a way to reconcile her sexuality with her family in a somewhat disheartening “don’t ask, don’t tell” type of equilibrium.  A lot of Shirin’s life goals amount to “a good time”, which is more than understandable for a woman in her twenties.

It’s incredible how much Shirin’s zest for fun shines through when Appropriate Behavior finds her in such a dark time. It’s a familiar balance to anyone who’s experienced true heartbreak: trying to party away the pain like it doesn’t matter, but the superficial hedonism always feeling empty. She pretends like she doesn’t care, but she continuously ends up alone & hurt after the high. No matter your relation to the specifics of Shirin’s background & lifestyle, it’s easy to see yourself in her sadness when she curls up in a ball and says, “I’m going to lie here and forget what it feels like to be loved. Could you please turn off the light?” It’s a sadness that feels like it’s never going to fade, but it always does . . . eventually. Shirin can’t move past it until she gets wrapped up in her own project, a distraction that finally allows her to let go of the past. The thing that saves her? An elaborate fart joke. That’s the exact kind of clash between emotional devastation & goofball irreverence that makes Desiree Akhavan’s debut such a strong, relatable film, even for those worlds apart from her protagonist’s exact circumstances.

-Brandon Ledet