La Haine is a true masterclass of character-driven storytelling. A gritty look into the suburbs of France during police brutality protests shows us not only a rich, and relentless environment but characters that are larger than the film itself. Vinz, Saïd, and Hubert Each bring a perspective to the situation which, when combined, creates a masterpiece.
We are introduced to Vinz, an impulsive, angry young man with an eye for an eye mentality. Saïd and Hubert have a different approach. Hubert is a more mature and experienced older brother figure who gave up a criminal lifestyle for a better life. He can see the path that Vinz is on will ultimately destroy him. Saïd, the most agreeable of the three, is diplomatic, intelligent, and sympathetic despite being the least mature. As an Arab, Saïd has struggled with prejudice his entire life but he faces this hatred through peace and togetherness.
These three characters contribute to a plot steered by their decision-making. On a first watch it might feel loose and directionless, but Filmmaker Mathieu Kassovitz had a crystal clear vision for La Haine. La Haine masters this structure by focusing on one central conflict and two secondary conflicts, each affecting the three main characters in different ways. The primary conflict is introduced at the very beginning of the film. The fourth member of their crew, Abdel is in a coma in the hospital suffering life-threatening injuries from a police beating during the riots. The film unfolds as they wait to find out if he will survive. Vinz deals with this conflict by deciding that if Abdel dies, he will kill a cop in return. Hubert tries to reason with his logic. Hubert: “If Abdel dies, we lose a friend” “If a cop dies, do all cops go away?”
The secondary conflict is intertwined with the primary conflict, which is their relationship with the police. Throughout the film, Vinz, Saïd, and Hubert are forced to interact with the authorities while tensions between police and civilians are at an all-time high. While the majority of these interactions are hateful and violent, a senior cop named Samir acts as a mediator between the two parties. Samir’s character challenges Vinz’s views of police and sheds light on some of Hubert and Saïd’s ideologies. Hubert and Saïd are adamantly anti-police, but they can recognize that good cops do exist and that killing one out of spite is not an appropriate response. Hubert tries, with little prevail to lift Vinz and share lessons he has learned. “Hate breeds hate.” But ultimately, Hubert is dragged down by Vinz and his reckless behavior.
The third conflict is the gun that Vinz finds during the police riot. The gun throws a wrench in the world of our main characters. It creates internal conflict, greed, and death. To Vinz, the gun represents power and revenge for his friend Abdel but to Hubert, the gun represents problems and violence. This causes the two to butt heads while Saïd does his best to unite them as he believes in togetherness.
Limbo (2021)
Disgusting Gorgeous
Limbo, the Chinese film by Soi Cheang, drew me in as soon as I saw the poster; a visual punch of trash and humans creating a disgustingly beautiful scene. I went into the film expecting to have a bad time because of how violent and horrific the trailer led the movie to be, but I left thoroughly satisfied. From start to finish, Limbo is a visual masterpiece. Each individual shot gives the audience a hundred things to look at while leading your eyes where they need to be. Cheang is a master of texture in film in a way that makes Wes Anderson shots and set designs look easy. Not once did I feel as though his style was overwhelming or too heavy-handed, his shot selection, set design, and locations felt very natural while being completely unique.
This film wouldn’t have worked without incredible performances from of Ka-Tung Lam, Mason Lee, and above all, Yase Liu. Liu’s character, Wong To takes a beating unlike anything I’ve ever seen in film. I don’t know if her performance was just THAT good or if she was truly getting the shit beaten out of her constantly throughout the movie because it did not feel like any punches were being held. I typically prioritize character development and an audience’s ability to connect with characters in a film, which is not something that Limbo seems to be actively seeking out. I wish we got to know more about Cham’s character, but I do not fault the film because of how it was still able to have me fully invested from start to finish. The characters were simple and relatively one-dimensional, but the action, frame-perfect shots, and emotional performances kept me locked into Limbo and wherever it took me.
The action was extremely impressive. Watching Wong To fight for her life had me on the edge of my seat. During one particular scene where Wong To is running from a group of criminals that all want her dead, she ends up in a car crawling from the front to the back while the criminals smash out each window of the car to get to her while she slashes at them with a knife she pulled from a civilians kitchen. Even though I can’t compare her to Uma Thurman in “Kill Bill” because she’s being hunted rather being the hunter as Beatrix is in “Kill Bill,” I was just as thrilled to see her fuck some people up.
Limbo is a film that I will never forget, executing certain aspects of filmmaking at the highest possible level. Every second felt intentional, not a wasted word of dialogue or a scene that dragged on too long. The final action scene felt like it was trying to live up to the big mid-movie action sequence which, in my opinion, could not be topped. The plot was simple; it didn’t have too many crazy twists and turns that you might expect from a murder mystery, but Limbo is so visually complex that I think the simple plot complements the experience very well.
Aftersun, Written and Directed by Charlotte Wells
February 6, 2023
The film Aftersun, written and directed by Charlotte Wells was released in 2022 and has received overwhelmingly positive feedback. Starring Paul Mescal, and Frankie Corio, it is impossible to know what you are getting yourself into with this film. Aftersun is an explosion of personal expression that personifies the pain and effects of depression better than any film I have ever seen.
The film is about a young divorced father named Calum taking his 11-year-old daughter on a vacation to a resort in Turkey in the early 2000s. The audience sees portions of the film through a tape camera that Calum uses to document the trip. During my first viewing of the film, I was drawn in by their relationship and expected to be told a story of a young girl coming of age and her father coming to terms with his 30th birthday. Although it is apparent that there is an underlying tension present throughout Aftersun, it isn’t clear until the end the magnitude of Charlotte Well’s debut masterpiece.
The first scene that caught my attention and gave me a glimpse into Calum’s mental state is after he puts Sophie to bed and goes out onto the deck for a cigarette. Calum waves his arms and slowly dances in the night, glancing back to Sophie to make sure she is asleep. This resonated with me as a sign of personal struggle and the feeling of being lost in the world or lost in your own life. It isn’t immediately obvious that this is what Calum is experiencing, but after finishing Aftersun, it is moments like these that paint the picture of Calum’s internal mental state.
It is clear that Calum loves Sophie, and Sophie loves her dad very much. She is a very intelligent girl who is beginning to enter a new stage of life. Calum can feel Sophie beginning to leave his side for the first time and it scares him, but he doesn’t fight it. He wants her to be happy. Sophie is a very perceptive girl and notices her father’s behaviors, but isn’t equipped to understand what they mean.
Throughout Aftersun, we are reminded of the darkness that lies underneath the surface by a scene that is intercut through various points in the film. We see a dark room that flashes light for split seconds to reveal a crowd of people, but a woman’s face specifically is illuminated as well as Calum’s. It is an experimental sequence that exudes pain and fear with images fleeting like a lost memory. It doesn’t become clear until the end of the film that the woman is Sophie as an adult and the sequence is meant to represent Sophie’s memories of her father. Aftersun ends with Sophie at her father’s age at the time of the vacation watching footage of their time together. The vacation in Turkey was the last time that they spent together and Sophie now has a much deeper understanding of what her father was experiencing during this time, and it is implied that she is experiencing the same emotional struggles.
When Aftersun comes its final 20 minutes or so, you anticipate the tragic end of Calum’s life. The way Charlotte Wells portrays Calum’s suicide is far more poignant than I could have ever expected. We watch tape footage of Calum waving goodbye to his daughter at the airport with the footage freezing on a frame of Sophie waving goodbye. The camera pans revealing that we are watching a tv playing the footage in which adult Sophie is viewing the footage on. The camera continues to pan back to Calum who is holding the camera in the airport. He walks down the hallway to doors that open to the dark rave that represents Sophie’s memories of him. The film speaks for itself. It has been extremely difficult for me to articulate the emotional weight of this ending. Not only do you feel the pain of Sophie reminiscing on memories of her father, but you are also hit with the dozens of moments throughout the film that foreshadows his suicide.
The moment that affected me the most was when Calum took Sophie to a Persian rug shop where he became infatuated with one of the rugs. He asks Sophie if she likes it. She does. Calum asks for the price of the rug and is told 850 pounds, which is far out of his price range. Calum comes back to the rug shop by himself and we see him leaning up against a stack of rugs looking down at the one that he likes. The owner comes in and gives him a receipt for it. This purchase signifies Calum’s intention of ending his life. Later in the film, we see the rug in adult Sophie’s apartment. It was Calum’s final gift to Sophie.
With attention to detail, masterful performances, and beautiful camera work, Aftersun is an explosion of emotional expression through film.
P.S.
As time has passed and I have recommended this film to my friends, It has been interesting to hear other people’s opinions and takeaways on the film. I have gotten texts along the lines of, “I enjoyed it, but what happens to Calum?” If it isn’t clear to the viewer that Calum commits suicide after their trip to Turkey, Aftersun will not have the same impact. Other friends have felt the same impact of Paul Mescals’ performance and were fascinated by it as much as I was. My friend Andy said he saw it with his mom and she didn’t get it, the same way that my father didn’t. I think this might be due to our generation being more familiar with and sensitive to signs of depression, as subtle as they might be.
Rodriguez
September 28, 2023
Rodriguez is an artist who has an unbelievable story. One that has stuck with me ever since I reluctantly watched the documentary “Searching for Sugar Man” with my dad half a decade ago. Sixto Rodriguez, from Detroit Michigan, is a folk rock artist who created two albums in the early 70’s that went absolutely nowhere, at least to his knowledge. In the United States, Rodriguez worked construction for very little, completely unaware that his music was massively popular across the world in Australia and South Africa. Rodriguez wrote about the working people and was a champion of anti-establishment ideals which resonated with the people of South Africa who were fighting apartheid.
Rodriguez had albums regarded as highly as the Beatles “Abbey Road” in countries he had never been to while living in Detroit moving on from what he thought was a failed music career. You would think that these countries would reach out to Rodriguez to schedule a tour, or at least a single concert, but to them Rodriguez was dead. No one was sure of how he died but stories floated of drugs or a dramatic suicide. The most popular theory was that during a performance in which he felt disrespected, Rodriguez pulled out a gun and shot himself on stage.
These stories proved to be far from true when the documentary filmmakers of “Searching for Sugar Man” found Rodriguez alive and well in Detroit. It begs the question of how and why the rumor spread of his death and whether or not he was involved in creating them. Rodriguez is soft-spoken and exudes the wisdom of an artist whose purpose is to create without asking for anything in return. The documentary tells an incredible story, but the substance of his music and lyricism effectively paints an even larger painting. The type of painting that hangs in a museum alone, is a large painting but with simple subjects, allowing anyone to take something away from it.
Songs of heartbreak, struggle, curiosity, and humanity keep me rotating his two albums, “Cold Fact” and “Coming From Reality,” finding a new lyric every day that sticks with me. Some of which fill me with emotion that makes me understand why entire countries rejoiced upon the announcement that he was alive and well.
Here are some lyrics to my favorite Rodriguez song, “I Think Of You”
Just a song we shared, I'll hear
Brings memories back when you were here
Of your smile, your easy laughter
Of your kiss, those moments after
I think of you
And think of you
And think of you
Of the dreams we dreamt together
Of the love we vowed would never
Melt like snowflakes in the sun
My days now end as they began
With thoughts of you
And I think of you
And think of you
Down the streets I walked with you
Seeing others doing things we do
Now these thoughts are haunting me
Of how complete I used to be
And in these times that we're apart
I'll hear this song that breaks my heart
And think of you
Rodriguez passed away this year on August 8th, which happens to be my birthday. I wonder if he still lives.
“I’m fucking going to bet all this money on you tonight, KG. You’re here to win, KG. These fuckers don’t know. Them out fucking west? Do you think they fucking know you? They don’t know you. They don’t know us. It’s about fucking winning.”- Howard Ratner, “Uncut Gems.”
Uncut Gems, Written and Directed by the Safdie brothers
February 13, 2020If you have ever placed a bet with your own money, whether on a sports team winning or in a casino, you have experienced the heart-racing adrenaline that takes over your body and conscience. Hands sweating, body chills, and the consequences of losing looming over you. Yet the chance of winning is too exciting to pass on.
“Uncut Gems,” directed by brothers Josh and Bennie Safdie, successfully put me into an anxiety-induced trance driven by a potential payoff that was completely fictional. I truly felt as though it was my money was on the line and I was invested in every bet Howard Ratner, played by Adam Sandler, made. Placing its audience on a rollercoaster of suspense and chaos, “Uncut Gems” retains a comprehensive plotline that is intense yet emotional.
Sandler, typically defined by his goofy roles in movies such as “Happy Gilmore” and “Grown Ups,” delivers an unparalleled performance. Sandler embodies a character that I did not expect; a functioning lunatic who has no ability to quit. Howard Ratner (Sandler) is an obsessive diamond dealer with an uncontrollable gambling addiction. I found myself questioning whether I should root for Howard or not as he recklessly juggles his business, his affair and his gambling problem. He is in constant motion attempting to repair the damage he is actively inflicting. It’s clear that he has been causing problems far before the film’s start. Watching Howard navigate his overly complicated life, you begin to understand the true power money can have over people.
Sandler is not the only one with an outstanding performance. Kevin Garnett plays himself and is an unexpected talent. Garnett becomes obsessed with an opal that is the epicenter of both the plot and Howard's life. After using it for good luck to win games, Garnett refuses to give it up which causes tension between himself and Howard. Garnett's performance is convincing and genuine even with no prior acting experience. Lakeith Stanfield is another person I was very happy to see. With amazing performances in “Knives Out,” “Sorry to Bother You” and “Get Out,” Stanfield has been taking over Hollywood. He plays Howard's friend who turns on him after Howard takes things too far. There is no shortage of talent in “Uncut Gems” even from Julia Fox who made her big-screen debut as Julia De Fiore, Howard's secret girlfriend.
The Safdie brothers do an incredible job packing a lifetime of terrible decisions into two hours and fifteen minutes. There are countless moments in the film where something is set up to go wrong, leaving the audience with the gas pedal taped to the floor and no steering wheel. When Howard is attacked by the mob and thrown into a fountain. He gets up, the opal that is his entire lifeline has fallen out of his pocket. Yet it is discovered floating in the fountain behind him. The audience is set up to assume the worst and tricked to believe Howard is going to lose the opal in the fountain, but he doesn't. This is a tactic that the Safdie brothers have perfected to keep the audience clueless about their next move. The Safdie brothers are masters of building suspense and retaining complete control of their audience's emotions. These may seem like unnecessary details, but I believe this is what makes “Uncut Gems” such an unpredictable masterpiece.
Despite things going Howard's way on occasion, he ultimately ends up with a bullet in his head. The ending of “Uncut Gems” is perfect. Howard has placed a bet on Kevin Garnett's game with the money that he owes to a couple of mobsters. Howard has locked them in the entryway of his diamond shop while he watches Garnett’s game on the TV. As his bet is falling in place, the mobsters sit in the entryway fuming with anger. One of the mobsters, played by Keith Williams Richards, is visibly sweating and has zero interest in the outcome of the basketball game. Radiating pure anger from Howard's antics and being locked in a glass box, the emotional juxtaposition between him and Howard is jarring. Both actors are cranked up to eleven and the climax of “Uncut Gems” occurs as soon as Richards' character is released from the box and immediately shoots Howard in the head. As an audience member, I felt like I had been holding my breath for the entire movie and was finally able to exhale.
Shot predominantly on 35mm film, “Uncut Gems” is gritty yet lively with an attractive color palette that fits the feel of the film. I love this decision even though it might seem out of place for a story set in 2012. I am a sucker for movies shot on film so this may be a personal preference, but the aesthetic of Uncut Gems is spot on. On the topic of looks, costume design was fantastic which is noteworthy since I typically don't pay much attention to the character’s attire.
One of my favorite movies of 2019, “Uncut Gems” was robbed of an Oscar nomination and deserves far more recognition. It is a risky move for an actor like Sandler to leave his comfort zone and take on a character that people are not used to. Unlike anything I have ever seen, “Uncut Gem”s is a movie that I hope gets the star treatment it deserves.
Over the Garden Wall
October 17, 2019Before I had access to the internet, my entertainment came from my family's 11-inch television that I shared with my parents and my dog. Whenever I had the chance, I would switch channels to Nickelodeon and disconnect from the world around me for as long as my parents would allow. Cartoons have always given me a strong sense of comfort because of their bold colors and lighthearted themes. As I got older, I began to watch these cartoons more intently and started to pick up on a lot of themes that I missed when I was a child. The Cartoon Network original show “Over the Garden Wall” is a fantastic example of a show that has an audience that could range from young children to adults. It is a show I know I would have been very entertained by as a child, but get so much more out of it now that I thoroughly understand it.
The world in which the show takes place has an immersive autumn aesthetic that takes advantage of the dark and earthy tones that fall inspires. A majority of the show is set in the woods, far from the character's home. It is always cold, and the climate increasingly worsens as the episodes go on. Another artistic choice that was made is its unique style of animation, especially for a “children's show.” There are strong shadows and muddied colors. The backdrops for the scenes were all hand-painted, and the animation was 2D cell animation which gives it a very artistic look. Characters usually have some sort of quirk to them, and many of the characters are animals. It is offset from reality by a couple of degrees, but it encapsulates the feeling of autumn extremely well. No show has ever made me want to curl up in bed with a cup of hot apple cider more than this one. Another artistic aspect of the show is its fantastic soundtrack. The music is typically folk or jazz which creates a soothing, yet haunting feeling. There are also a few musical numbers sung by Greg and Wirt which are far more upbeat and remind the audience of their wholesome quest.
The show begins with no context in the middle of a forest, which is referred to as “the unknown”, featuring two children who are lost. Wirt and Greg are brothers, but we are given no information as to why they are there, or where they are coming from. The tone is set by dead trees, owl eyes, and moonlight that is just bright enough to illuminate the children. There is quick comedic relief from Greg, the younger brother, who wears a teapot on his hat and carries around a frog that he found. Greg always has something to say that contradicts Wirt’s negative comments. Wirt is roughly 14 or 15 years old and is very pessimistic about most things, making him an interesting foil to his upbeat younger brother. Wirt frequently becomes very fed up with Greg’s shenanigans and unsuccessfully tries to push him away. The dynamic of these two is what drives them to continue exploring and meeting new characters.
Although the majority of the show is silly and lighthearted, a chilling undertone is set in the first episode when Wirt and Greg encounter a man alone in the woods chopping down trees with an axe. The time and location of the encounter seem to portend something dangerous. The man warns them of a beast that lives in the woods. Without having any other options, Wirt and Greg follow the woodsman back to his cabin. He explains that he chops down trees from the forest to keep his lantern burning. At this point in the show, there is not much to think about the woodsman or the forest. This sequence is simply setting up future events in their adventure. There is a lot of anticipation built, and an expectation of something scary going to happen is created. The element of horror is introduced by the reappearing essence of the beast who tells the woodsman what to do. We find out this beast is not a physical creature, but something far worse.
Later in the first episode, Greg finds a bird that talks to them named Beatrice. Greg frees Beatrice from a bush she is stuck in, so Beatrice offers him one favor. This seems odd, but not odd enough that I caught it on my first watch. There is no reason to be suspicious of Beatrice since she is very friendly. She offers to take them to a woman named Adelaide’s house who will help them get home. Wirt and Greg trust this bird and continue on their quest home. Beatrice becomes more and more upset for an unknown reason as time goes on. We find out it is because she is planning on deceiving them, and the more time she spends with them, the less she wants to do it.
Arriving at Adelaide’s, Beatrice tries to steer them away. It is revealed that Adelaide had turned Beatrice into a bird and she would only turn her back into a human if she brought her children to be her servant. It is too late when Wirt and Greg show up to Adelaide’s. Adelaide traps them and says she will do as the beast commands. It becomes clear that the Beast has total control over everyone in “the unknown” and is using them to capture more children. This is extremely haunting especially because the audience still does not know of the beast's real motives. Greg and Wirt are in the Beast’s world and they cannot escape. This is the first time in the show that Greg and Wirt are in any real danger of being trapped in “the unknown”.
In episode nine out of ten, we get our first look at Wirt and Greg before they are lost in the forest. We learn that it is Halloween, and Wirt is planning on making a move on his crush, Sara. Wirt follows her to a graveyard with Greg and spies on her behind some tombstones. After being chased out of the graveyard by police, Wirt and Greg jump over the graveyard wall and end up on train tracks. They are forced to fall down a large hill and are knocked unconscious into a lake. The episode cuts to the current time of Wirt is back in the forest. This flashback gives a lot of context as to how they got to the unknown but does not answer all our questions.
Greg and Wirt encounter several spirits of many kinds that seem to be controlled by the beast. But why does the beast want Greg and Wirt? What is his motivation? In the last episode, Greg is separated from Wirt and has been singled out by the beast who begins to grow a tree around him. The woodsman finds Greg and becomes very angry because he realizes that all the trees he chops down to power his lantern contain the souls of lost children. He had been so determined to keep the lantern alive since it kept the soul of his daughter. When he learns of the source of the power of his lantern, he decides to let it die. The beast becomes very angry and tries to convince him to keep his daughters soul alive. Wirt comes across Greg dying in the tree and finds the woodsman’s lantern. When the beast comes after Wirt for the lantern, he offers Wirt a deal to put Greg's soul into the lantern. Wirt makes a bold decision for the first time in the series and announces that the lantern really contains the soul of the beast and not the woodsman's daughter. The beast is immediately enraged that Wirt has discovered his secret. The beast was unable to manipulate Wirt as he had with the woodsman.
Over the Garden Wall starts as a simple adventure between two brothers. It slowly becomes apparent that there is far more to it. There are dozens of theories as to where they really were, and what it all actually meant. What the audience does know is that Wirt and Greg ended up in “the unknown” after falling down a hill and into a lake. We also know that they escaped “the unknown” after they were pulled out of the lake and woke up in the hospital. We don’t know where “the unknown” is or even if it is a real place leaving this completely up to the audience.
Since it is clear that everything that happened in the show occurred while Greg and Wirt’s physical bodies were unconscious in the lake, there are a lot of theories as to where “the unknown” actually is. A lot of evidence points towards some sort of spiritual quest. It is possible that “The Unknown” is the place where your soul goes before you die, or while you are on the verge of death. Some may call this place purgatory. A lot of evidence points towards this theory including one significant detail that was very easy to miss. In the episode where Wirt is caught hiding in the graveyard to spy on Sara, One of the gravestones has the name “Quincy Endicott” on it. Quincy Endicott was a character from a previous episode that took place in the future. This of course raises the question of how he is part of Greg and Wirt’s adventure if he is dead. “Quincy Endicott” is the definition of a lost soul. He is an older man that lives in a mansion and seems to be going crazy because he can’t find the woman he fell in love with. This is an example of a spirit being stuck in purgatory and unable to move on to the afterlife. Wirt and Greg are also lost souls who are fighting to escape purgatory.
The beast who lurks in “the unknown” is potentially a representation of the devil attempting to consume lost souls. The Beast has the entire “unknown” in his control for the entirety of the show until Wirt realizes he could destroy him. We see a bit of the after-effect of the beast’s death. The woodsman is at his house with his real daughter, Beatrice is a human again with her family, and Quincy Endicott is with his lost wife. Without the beast, all these characters are no longer lost in the “unknown”.
If I watched this show as a young child, I would’ve enjoyed it because of how quirky it was and its comedic elements, but I would not have understood any of its other dark layers. Watching the show now, I was completely immersed in the many layers “Over the Garden Wall” had to offer. I was entertained by Greg’s silly attitude, but I was also fearful for his life. It is an interesting concept to take these childish cartoon characters and put them into a dark twisted fantasy world, especially when concepts of purgatory and the devil are incorporated.