292. US film director Jim Jarmusch's 15th feature film "Father Mother Sister Brother" (2025), based on yet another of his original witty, thoughtful screenplays, this time focusing on contemporary grown-up family relationships

 

Can you toast with tea, though?

 --the film's character Jeff (Adam Driver) playing the role of a son, following a toast by his father raising three glasses of water, some with ice cubes (geographical location: New Jersey, USA)

Can you toast with coffee?

--the film's character Billy (Luka Sabbat) another son of another father in the film asks his sister (geographical location: Paris, France)

In the third and final segment, the act of drinking water is described wistfully by the siblings as native Indian medicine, a symbolic cure to transcend their personal grief and move forward 

There are three top-notch living US film directors who fall in the category of independent filmmakers: Terrence Malick, Jim Jarmusch and John Sayles. They do not compromise with demands of the big studios and influential film producers on creativity, originality and ownership of their final products. None of these three gentlemen won an Oscar. In contrast, the first two have won major awards at the big three film festivals of Europe: Terrence Malick won the Palme d'Or (Golden Palm) for The Tree of Life at Cannes, the Golden Bear for Best Film for The Thin Red Line at Berlin, while Jim Jarmusch won the 2025 Golden Lion for the Best Film for Father Mother Sister Brother at Venice, the 2005 Grand Prize of the Jury at the Cannes festival (second best film in competition) for Broken Flowers and an award for best artistic contribution for Mystery Train at the 1989 Cannes festival; while the best work of John Sayles (in my view), Limbo, was nominated in 1999 for the Golden Palm at Cannes. 

However there are differences between the three independent US filmmakers. Malick deals with contemplative philosophy and theology--so much so that audiences were confused when The Thin Red Line replaced conventional action of war films with philosophical questions presented as voice-overs playing within the minds of soldiers depicted in the film. Further, Malick continued to replace conventional screenplays with sheafs of notes for actors as a guide for them to emote. Malick had graduated from Harvard University, almost completed his doctorate on Kierkegaard, Heidegger, and Wittgenstein at Oxford University in UK before he disagreed with his doctoral advisor, and subsequently taught philosophy at MIT. 

Jarmusch is slightly different. He focusses instead on slow and funny conversations he writes for his fictional characters that is best appreciated when audiences pay attention to details, which when stitched together can provide awesome entertainment rarely encountered in cinema. Jarmusch was a student of English language at Columbia University. His skills are considerably apparent in Father Mother Sister Brother while introducing the idiom "Bob's your uncle" which basically translates as "simple as that." A genuine reaction in the film by another character who is not familiar with the idiom is a surprised query about who is this Bob to which the response is only silence. In another segment of the film, "Bob's your uncle" is changed to "Your uncle's name is Robert" because the speaker is a more accomplished mother (Charlotte Rampling) compared to the unrelated previous parent in the earlier segment and a successful writer and thus one will note the subtle change used in the idiom, is appropriate for her social standing. Jarmusch's care for details is almost invisible but exists, nevertheless, for us to notice, if we care to concentrate. Similarly, all segments of the film have characters using the term/gag "Nowheresville," to emphasize detachment, secretiveness, aimless drifting, and/or emotional distance between family members.

Grown-up son Jeff (Adam Driver) and grown-up daughter 
Emily (Mayim Bialik) listen to their father, who they respect
but do not know sufficiently.

The reclusive father (Tom Waits), who works on "projects,"
hurriedly transforms a tidy house with a good sofa 
by covering it with a sheet as though it was hiding a bad one and  strews books
of Chomsky and others of that caliber to give an impression of a lonely,
scatterbrained senior, who can only offer water to his visiting offspring

In each of the three almost unconnected segments, the three different sets of grown-up progenies encounter young skateboarders on the road and the reactions of each progeny is in subtle ways different. Rolex watches of three different wearers in each segment are discussed, two claim they are fake (a debatable fact), and one wearer is no longer alive. 

Father Mother Sister Brother is an intelligent, carefully crafted study of contemporary distancing between parents and their grown-up progenies as social and economic issues make sons and daughters live away from their parents leading to infrequent interactions, limited often by costs and distance. All progenies care for their parents, few help them financially, others don't especially when their spouses object. They grow up often unaware of what their parents do or achieved in their lives. As Jarmusch's film suggests, the secretive lives pervade both generations equally, both suspecting the other but careful to be not too invasive of the other. In one segment it is the father, in another it is a daughter, and in yet another it is both parents who have secret lives that enable them to own Rolex watches, facts that are hidden from others in the family. In a broader sense, the film is a witty, original cinematic essay on the need for more communication within families which is increasingly difficult in the developed world. Jarmusch has proved himself to be adept at the anthology film format with his equally well-made films: Night on Earth; Coffee and Cigarettes; and Mystery Train. In Coffee and Cigarettes, just as in Father Mother Sister Brother, the beverages coffee and tea play a silent part, where all episodes have personalities drinking coffee, save one where tea is the beverage of choice. (Refer: the opening quotes of this review. In the opening episode, tea is brewed by the daughter after the father only serves water and she finds does find tea leaves in the house.) Interesting departure for an American film, where alcoholic drinks remain obscured.

Two daughters, Timothea (center; Cate Blanchett) and
Lilith (right; Vicky Krieps)
visit their successful mother (left; Charlotte Rampling)

It is quite possible that Jarmusch named one of the grown-up daughters "Lilith" with the full knowledge of the name chosen for a character in the film. In the Bible, there is only one mention of Lilith (Isaiah 34:14), implying a demonic character. However, in the medieval text The Alphabet of Ben Sira (written between 8th to 10th century CE),  Lilith was created from the same dust as Adam, had demanded equality with Adam in the Garden of Eden, specifically refusing to lie beneath Adam, and left Eden refusing to return even when God sent angels to bring her back and was eventually considered a demon, as mentioned in Isaiah. For Jarmusch, his Lilith in the second segment Mother has parallels with this aforementioned tale. The mother (Rampling) is worried about her daughter Lilith (Vicky Krieps). Lilith tells her mother candidly, "I don't know, you know, if I want to be tied to a man." It fits in with the images of Lilith's actions before that statement. She is driven to her mother's home by a close female friend, and Lilith asks her to pretend being a Uber driver with Lilith as a passenger, and moves to the rear seat from the front before reaching the destination. It is Lilith making the decisions, her female friend quietly obeys. Lilith gets her mother to order and pay for the return Uber journey, which her mother can see through, silently. More of Lilith's character is exposed when she gallantly offers to take the coat of her sister Timothea (Cate Blanchett) on her arrival at the mother's house, which Timothea accedes to. But instead of carefully hanging Timothea's coat, she casually throws it on an armchair. Then there is a conversation about Lilith's Rolex watch, which she claims is not real. This Jarmusch film is full of details waiting for the audience to note and savor.

Grieving brother Billy (Luka Sabbat) and sister (Indya Moore),
 who loved their parents who recently died in an air crash,
are surprised to find several fake IDs of their parents, including a
Rolex watch, opening up new perspectives of their parents 

Initially, Father Mother Sister Brother was offered to the 2025 Cannes film festival for its main Competition section. Strangely, the selection committee favored other films and instead offered to screen the film out of competition. The angry Jarmusch withdrew his film from Cannes and offered it to the Venice film festival that was opening a few months later. Father Mother Sister Brother not only got included in the main Competition Section at Venice but won the top prize there -- the Golden Lion. It only shows the Cannes' selection committee was looking at a gift horse in the mouth! Congratulations, Mr Jarmusch! 

It is another matter that the US Oscars never nominated Jarmusch as a director, writer or producer. Another case of a prophet never being recognized in his own land!

P.S.  Jarmusch's film Paterson (2016) has been reviewed earlier on this blog. Malick's The Thin Red Line; The Tree of Life; To the Wonder; Days of Heaven; and  Knight of Cups have also been reviewed earlier on this blog. (Click on the names of each film mentioned in the postscript to access the reviews.)  The author's ranking of all Jarmusch films that he has viewed can be accessed here The author's ranking of the best films released in 2025 can be accessed here.

 

265. Italian film director Uberto Pasolini’s third feature film “Nowhere Special” (2020) in English, based on his original script: The rare intent and ability to care for the future needs of others when you can do so

 

 

“I wanted to make a film with this title for a long time. The title is from a dialogue at the end of Mel Brooks' film  Blazing Saddles; one character asks the other, "Where are you going to go?" and the other replies,"Nowhere special", and the first person replies, "I always wanted to go there." The idea behind this choice is that there is no perfection, that you just have to live, find a place where it is good to live, simply.”

---Director Uberto Pasolini, speaking  on how he chose the title of this film for his own fictional script, written after he read a newspaper story on a similar adoption, with the adoption agency refusing to divulge details of that case to him, due to confidentiality clauses (a rough translation of his interview given to Malik Berkati at the Zurich film festival, quoted in J:Ma. Lifestyle and Citizenship) 

Film director Uberto Pasolini makes small budget films with great care and thought that demand respect of mature filmgoers worldwide. His last two films Still Life (2013) and his latest work Nowhere Special (2020) focus on realistic characters who belong to the middle class but are sensitive to the world around them, lending a helping hand to people who require help in a low-key and admirable manner. Both his works stand out among so many others because he writes original stories/screenplays alone—a very creditable distinction separating him from the bulk of other filmmakers, relying on someone else’s tale to direct.

Nowhere Special is a tale of a single father, John, who has brought up his 3 year-old-son, Michael, with earnings from his work as an independent window cleaner in Northern Ireland. John dotes on his single offspring and takes care of him as a mother would. As the film progresses, we learn that John is in advanced stages of a life-threatening illness and Michael can’t be in his care for long. He approaches an adoption agency and they arrange for John and Michael to meet prospective foster parents for Michael in order for John to decide on Michael’s future family.

The single father John (James Norton)
goes shopping with his son
Michael (Daniel Lamont) 

Pasolini’s amazing ability is in presenting the relationship of father and son in the absence of a mother. John provides all he can, within his financial limitations, which include providing toys and trips to fairs for his intelligent, responsive son. The conversations are minimal and the performances of the first-time child actor Daniel Lamont under the tutelage of Pasolini reminds you of Charles Chaplin directing Jackie Coogan in The Kid (1921) and perhaps even of Vittorio de Sica directing a relatively older Enzo Staiola in Bicycle Thieves (1948). Pasolini’s direction of James Norton as the father John, repressing anger, and alternating frustration with patience in Nowhere Special results in an amazingly controlled outcome. Pasolini had achieved a similar feat with Eddie Marsan in his earlier remarkable film, Still Life.

Are there similar patterns between Nowhere Special and Still Life? Both films study men’s actions in this life and the events after death. Death is the fulcrum of both films, philosophically. In Nowhere Special, John introduces the concept of death to his 3-year-old son by getting him to read about death of dinosaurs. The audience sees some manifestation of his son’s understanding that his father is tired/sick when the boy covers his sleeping father with the blanket that has partially fallen, possibly mimicking what his father would have done for him. Both films of Pasolini are a treat to study for colorful details that the director infuses into the narrative, one example being of John looking at the side mirror of his car to observe an older schoolboy with his bag walking back home, to imagine what Michael would be like when he grows up.  

The single father's treasure notices the tattoo,
which he tries to copy on his own hand

In bits and pieces of conversation in the film, we learn that John was an orphan and therefore is all the more interested that Michael has a good family to take care of him. In Still Life, the colorless bureaucrat, Mr. May, goes the extra mile to contact dead persons' relatives and friends and informs them of the death of their forgotten kith and kin. In Nowhere Special, it is a dying father worried about the future of his son if he hands him over to the wrong foster parents. “This is the most important decision of my life. How will I know if I got it right?” John bursts out his frustration at the quiet adoption agency staffer, who reminds him that the clock is ticking for him to make a decision about Michael. There is no obvious manifestation of his deteriorating health except for a bout of vomiting  (thankfully less repulsive realism than John Cassavetes’ 1970 film Husbands) and a sudden decision to stop working after having climbed a tall ladder to clean a window. I admire Pasolini’s ability to add small details in both his films that say a lot without spoken words. One example is saving John’s wife’s/spouse’s mitten left in the dashboard of his car (which he is now selling to evidently augment his purse as he has decided to stop working) to be included in a box of memorabilia for Michael, when he grows up, along with John’s photographs with Michael.  

Breaking the concept of time to his toddler
with 34 candles on John's birthday cake

It is important to compare and contrast Nowhere Special with Naomi Kawase’s Japanese film True Mothers—both films about adoption made the same year in different parts of the world. True Mothers is a film made by a lady director about real mothers and foster mothers of orphans in the contemporary world. In both films, the single parent is giving up their biological child for foster care out of extreme necessity. Both are remarkably well-made films. While religion is absent in the Japanese film, for Pasolini this is important in Nowhere Special as it was in Still Life. John teaches Michael to pray before he goes to sleep and John has a silent thought of his impending future as he stops his car at a red signal, and he  views a closed church with a cemetery, ending the short car halt with a smile, possibly indicating that he is now well prepared for the inevitable. Compared to Still Life, Nowhere Special has a muted dose of religion. 

John looking at the closed church and cemetery

John drives on with a telling smile

The final incredibly mature goodbye of a 3-year old

Unfortunately, compared to Still Life, Nowhere Special lacks the musical contribution of Pasolini’s wife, composer Rachel Portman, which had enriched the earlier work. Even without Ms Portman’s musical flourishes, Nowhere Special is a very rewarding viewing experience for viewers who are not mesmerized by escapist and unreal tales. Mr Pasolini, the late film maestro Luchino Visconti will be proud of you as his nephew putting so much care and thought into the films you make to entertain discerning viewers!

 

 

P.S.  Nowhere Special has won the Best Film award at the Pula (Croatia) film festival, and the Audience awards at the Warsaw (Poland) and the Valladolid (Spain) international film festivals. The director’s earlier film Still Life (2013), winner of the Best Film award in the Venice film festival’s Horizons section, and 18 other awards worldwide, has been reviewed earlier on this blog.  The other  Japanese film by director Naomi Kawase’s True Mothers discussed in the above review also has been reviewed earlier on this blog. (Click on the colored names of the films in the post-script to access the reviews.) Both Nowhere Special (2020) and True Mothers (2020) are included in the author’s list of best films of 2021.  

225. British director Peter Brook’s film “Meetings with Remarkable Men” (1979) (UK): George Gurdjieff’s philosophical quest for life's answers presented on screen using snakes, sandstorms, and musical competitions conducted on open hillsides as metaphors.

“When I realized that (ancient wisdom)... had been handed down...from generation to generation for thousands of years, and yet had reached our day almost unchanged...I...regretted having begun too late to give the legends of antiquity the immense significance that I now understand that they really have” --- George Ivanovich Gurdjieff  (www.ggurdjieff.com)  (1876/7-1949)

Director Peter Brook’s film is an adaptation of George Ivanovich Gurdjieff’s multi-volume book of the same name Meetings with Remarkable Men, specifically focussing on the second volume . For those who have not come across the author of the book, Gurdjieff was a spiritual teacher, originally from Armenia, born to a Christian family, exposed to a “multi-ethnic, multi-confessional” population that respected mystics and holy men. In a life seeking philosophical quest for answers, Gurdjieff travelled to several parts of Central Asia, Egypt, India, Tibet and Italy. His significant interactions were with dervishes, fakirs, the Yazidis (of Iraq and Syria who bore the brunt of the ISIS onslaught in recent times) and finally with the Surmoung Brotherhood, which in turn was influenced by the Naqshbandi Sufi tradition of Islam. Gurdjieff propounded “the Fourth Way” blending the fakir, the monk and the yogi. Various intellectuals, such as P D Ouspensky, artist Alexandre de Salzmann, photographer Rene Zuber, writer/philosopher Colin Wilson, editor Alfred Orage (The New Age), mathematician John Bennett and the eminent New Zealander short-story writer Katherine Mansfield  found solace in his distilled knowledge. His funeral took place in the Russian Orthodox Cathedral in Paris and is buried there.

Peter Brook made the film after he was approached by Jeanne de Salzmann (wife of artist Alexandre de Salzmann, and mother of one of the six Gurdjieff offspring) and there is evidence that Brook himself is a follower of Gurdjieff.   Brook and his production manager Jean Claude Lubtchansky chose to film in Afghanistan before Taliban and other fundamentalist force crippled it. The result is an interesting product that promotes Gurdjieff’s writings and his life’s quest for spiritual wisdom.

Now Peter Brook may not be a major filmmaker comparable to the likes of Tarkovsky, Malick or Welles but he is awesome as a director dealing with dramatic situations, possibly because of his extensive experience with British stage theatre and handling major stage actors. This comes through in spurts throughout his film Meetings with Remarkable Men with some fascinating sequences that unfortunately seem disconnected in time but appear as beads of an unusual necklace.

A strange musical competition on the hills of  Central Asia,
where the judge is not a human being but the hills around the venue

Who are the remarkable men? One could be Gurdjieff’s father who wishes his son could become a Christian priest, but young Gurdjieff expresses interest in science. His father counsels him to study medicine as “body and soul depend on one another.”  He even sagaciously advises “Become yourself—then God and Devil don’t matter” A snake is found indoors and Gurdjieff’s father asks his scared son to buckle up courage and to pick it up, which he does. Those familiar with Christian and Jewish religious texts will see the connection of the snake and the Devil; others might not. Anecdotes like this, pepper the film.  For those inclined towards philosophy, this film is indeed an important film—not for others. It all distils into a single quest for Gurdjieff—“I want to know why I am here.”

An early episode in the film has young witnessing a competition of musicians with only one winner being able to get the hilly environs to respond unlike others with echoes that defeat logic. But music does become important to Gurdjieff as he grows up and encounters sages and religious personalities of varied hues across Central Asia, Iran, Egypt, India, and the Gobi Desert.  The Sufi dances and chants are indeed uplifting for any viewer (provided by Laurence Rosenthal adapting the compositions of Thomas de Hartmann, a student of Gurdjieff).

Sufi dances and music (composed by de Hartmann,
adapted by Rosenthal)

Not all of the film is heavy spirituality and metaphysics. Consider this interesting truism spoken by Gurdjieff partly in jest to a young friend intending to be a priest “My father used to say, if you want to lose your faith, make friends with a priest.”

There are sequences in the film that provoke the viewer to sift belief in religion from sham—such as the Yazidi child who seems imprisoned in a chalk circle with an invisible cage above it. It takes a rationalist Gurdjieff to erase a section of the circle and child walks out free of the imaginary bars. In another sequence, a village population is unnerved when they find a dead man who they thought was dead and buried, lying on a cot in the centre of the village. A village elder emerges, slits the throat of the dead body, and the village population is subsequently shown relieved and happy.  Is the village elder, one of the remarkable men in Gurdjieff’s life?

What the film does definitely indicates as remarkable men include the Prince Lubovedsky (Terrence Stamp), dervishes, a certain Father Giovanni, and a spiritual stranger who tells the Prince in the company of Gurdjieff “I advise you to die, consciously, of the life you led up to now and go where I shall indicate.” Gurdjieff does interact again with the Prince much later in time who by then has apparently found his spiritual answers in a secluded monastery with Sufi life-styles, dances, and strict regimen.

Brook’s film includes a sandstorm from which Gurdjieff and his friends survive by standing on stilts while animals and all life forms below their feet are swept away.  More than a sandstorm it is a metaphor for a contemplative viewer to absorb all the rich symbols in the film. Towards the end of the film, there is a risky high-elevation bridge crossing—another metaphor captured by Brook with some theatrical elan.

Mind games: A risky high-elevation rope-bridge crossing by Gurdjieff
(Dragan Maksimovic), with no barriers of support on the sides

A character called Father Giovanni (played by Tom Fleming, who had played a similar priest in the 1971 film Mary, Queen of Scots) counsels Gurdjieff thus “Faith cannot be given to me. Faith is not the result of thinking. It comes with direct knowledge. Thinking and knowing are quite different.”

For Brook and for Gurdjieff, remarkable men are quite diverse. Some are obvious, some are not. It is quite possible for viewers of Brook’s Meetings with Remarkable Men to wonder in retrospect, who the remarkable men could have been.  For this critic, they were all remarkable: a musician who could make hills respond, a village chieftain who could slit the throat of a dead man and a stranger who knew intimate facts of a Prince’s life.  A strange film with a stranger central figure.  Yet, a rewarding viewing for a reflective viewer.

P.S. The author saw the film at the 1980 Bangalore Filmotsav sitting next to the legendary former Indian Cricket Team Captain, the late Nawab of Pataudi, Jr (Mansour Ali Khan Pataudi), who to the best of the author’s knowledge only watched this particular film at the festival and apparently had prior knowledge of the subject of the film, having travelled from New Delhi to far away Bengaluru (former Bangalore). The author attended a lecture by Mr Brook on his views on theatre given to a select audience in Delhi in 1981, which resulted in a long article by the author, published in The Hindustan Times. The film Meetings with Remarkable Men competed at the 1979 Berlin Film Festival but did not win any award.

210. The late Chilean maestro Raoul Ruiz’ European film “Klimt” (2006) (Austria/France/Germany/UK): Outstanding cinematic exploration of the complex mind of an artistic genius, dying from syphilis

“Who art thou? “asked the guardian of the night. 

” From crystal purity I come,” was my reply.” And great my thirst, Persephone. Yet heeding thy decree I take to flight and turn, and turn again. Forever right I spurn the pallid cypress tree. Seek no refreshment at its sylvan spring but hasten on toward the rustling river of Mnemosyne wherein I drink to sweet satiety. And there, dipping my palms between the knots and loopings of its mazy stream I see again, as in a drowning swimmers dream--all the strange sights I ever saw. And even stranger sights no man has ever seen.” 

---End lines spoken by Klimt (played by John Malkovich) in Raoul Ruiz’ film Klimt.

Klimt has been dismissed by most critics and viewers as difficult and silly. Klimt is difficult but not silly. Klimt, the film, is a heady cocktail of two brilliant minds: Gustav Klimt the painter, and Ruiz the filmmaker. It is a delicious cocktail to be enjoyed by intelligent and patient viewers.

Take the enigmatic end lines—the flowery words would have little impact beyond the oratory of Malkovich, if the viewer had no idea of who Persephone and Mnemosyne are. They are two important figures of the ancient Greek Eleusinian mysteries associated with agriculture (in particular, Persephone) and afterlife in Hades. It is likely that these lines were written/chosen by Ruiz (as he is the original screenplay writer of the film) rather than attribute it to unlikely historical words spoken by Klimt the artist in real life. Mnemosyne, according to the Eleusinian mysteries, conceived nine Muses after sleeping with Zeus. Mnemosyne presided over a pool (or the river of memory) from which dead souls drank from. Memory is crucial for both Klimt the artist and Ruiz the filmmaker, during their respective creative lives.

Klimt (Malkovich) experimenting with glass and syrup, to visualize
his future paintings such as "The Kiss"

Klimt views flying golden paper in his studio--a crucial element
that would eventually be a stamp of his famous paintings

The artist Klimt is fascinated by flowers (many of his paintings are in fact flower related) and by mirrors. The Klimt on screen is a creative individual whose memories constantly flirt with mirrors. And why is Ruiz emphasizing mirrors? Because Ruiz himself is constantly battling his own memories of Chile, the homeland he fled, a recurring facet in all his films made after he left Chile.

Like Terrence Malick, Ruiz is a very well-read filmmaker and all his films bear testimony to this. Ruiz in Klimt is thus able to connect Klimt’s licentious life that led to his syphilis with the world of Mnemosyne and her Muses. On the fictional death-bed scene (early in the film) that Ruiz lovingly presents—Klimt utters the words “Flowers” as enigmatically as Citizen (Charles Foster) Kane utters “Rosebud” in Welles’ film. Ruiz’ film does not give much importance to Klimt’s paintings of flowers as much as he does to his nudes. When Egon Schiele (played by Nikolai Kinski, son of actor Klaus Kinski) hears the words “Flowers” spoken by Klimt, he rushes to the mirror facing the dying Klimt in the hospital room. Schiele knew the connection—which is why Ruiz’ film is emphasizing the role of mirrors at several levels in the film—see-through mirrors, broken mirrors, anamorphic mirror images et al. (One wonders if Sukurov’s film Faust (2011) was influenced by the ideas of Ruiz utilized in Klimt.)

An important factor while viewing the movie Klimt is to separate the genius of the artist Klimt from the brilliance of Ruiz the director. Take for instance the sequence that precedes the scene where an angry Klimt smears the face of an irritating individual in a restaurant with a cake. As the gentleman speaks the camera seems to spin. Pay more attention: the camera and the table on which Klimt is sitting both revolve while the outer periphery, where the speaker is standing, is static! It is the director’s clever method to get viewer inside Klimt’s mind at that time and what action follows can be anticipated by the viewer. Most other directors would have chosen the easier option of a mere spinning/revolving camera. Klimt’s actions fascinate you, but the filming is perhaps even more fascinating.

The two Leas (Saffron Burrows) and the enigmatic/metaphoric/psychological
"mirror" confront the creative Klimt (Malkovich)

Then there is the script of Ruiz. Here’s is an example of an unforgettable line: “The real one is not as real as the false one.” This, of course, is reference at the more obvious level of Klimt’s muse Lea de Castro and imagined/false Lea. With actress Saffron Burrows playing both Leas, Ruiz presents the diseased mind of a syphilitic Klimt who imbibes mercury, the only known partial cure before the advent of penicillin. Can Ruiz make film without a swipe at military rulers of Chile? In Klimt, a character pontificates: “They say that you have to stand outside of history. This history is a nightmare. And that there's absolutely nothing else to be said about it. They sound like philosophers. Except they say philosophy is rubbish.” The parallels will not be lost on those viewers who know Chile’s history and Ruiz’ relationship with Chile.

A dream sequence when Klimt confronts his young daughter,
with two crucial ladies--Midi and Lea-- in his life
standing in separate doorways. Note
the lighting is only on the father and daughter,
in an otherwise darkened dream sequence

Ruiz’s cinema has several layers that can be missed by a casual viewer. Lea and the false Lea are just one example. The two doorways in the dream (“take the left and then the left” Klimt is advised, the recurrence of coins in the film (tossed and then a coin rubbed against the bed linen), the Austrian government coin to honour Klimt, and the cats are there in the film with a purpose. Klimt painted cats as much as he painted flowers. But if the viewer is not aware of this fact, the presence of cats in reality and in the dream sequence would seem odd.

Klimt tries to touch Lea's projected image,
created by Georges Melies

Ruiz doffs his cap at the silent movie director and inventor Georges Melies in the film Klimt. It is debatable whether Klimt and Melies actually met but in the film Melies states that he admires Klimt, when he meets him. In the film, Melies projects a film of Klimt and Lea, during the projection of which Klimt attempts to touch Lea’s projected image. Thus, the film goes beyond Klimt with Ruiz’ script—it is an attempt to honour film history as well.

There are overhead shots in Klimt that Ruiz would continue to dazzle us with in his later film, Mysteries of Lisbon. The collaboration of Ruiz with Argentinian cinematographer Ricardo Aronovich is magical. Aronovich (who had worked earlier with Malle, Truffaut and Costa-Gavras) must have been a major party to the startling anamorphic images in the film Klimt.

"The Kiss" the painting that is never
shown in the film but the process of creation
of which is suggested throughout the film

The famous Klimt painting “The Kiss” is never shown in the film but the seeds of the imagery of the famous painting being sown in the mind of the painter are cleverly shown over two separate sequences in the film. First, you see Klimt viewing nudes through a glass sheet over which he has thrown a translucent syrupy liquid which merely reveals the face of the model. Klimt is shown to be happy with that perspective. Much later in the film, Klimt works with gold coloured paper cut up into small rectangles that are thrown up by either by accident or purpose. Klimt looks up at the floating gold coloured paper. For those familiar with the famous painting, the sequences fall into place. The problem with Ruiz (as in the case of Malick) is that he made films for an audience that he assumed was equally well-informed as he was. Ruiz is certainly not a director who spoon feeds the lazy viewer. In this very sequence, the mysterious junior diplomatic secretary arrives at the door of Klimt's studio unannounced petting Klimt’s cat. In the film Klimt, Ruiz is not showing the viewers the cat paintings or the flower paintings or even “The Kiss.” He is showing us the mind of the painter at work.

Now there are at least two versions of the film Klimt. There is a 97 minute producer’s version and a 131 minute director’s version. It is the latter version that matters. The former version is the one that was widely released and seen. The latter version would be a delight for viewers familiar with the paintings of Klimt and the filmmaking style of Ruiz. For those viewers, this Ruiz film ought to rank among his very best.

Klimt (Malkovich) and Midi (Veronica Ferres),
an intimate lady friend who promoted his paintings
and knew his mind

Another fact that would delight the viewers is the choice of actors that Ruiz consciously and carefully made. John Malkovich does resemble Klimt if we compare Klimt’s photographs that survive. Similarly, Nikolai Kinski does have unmistakable resemblance to Egon Schiele. The choice of the four lead actresses by Ruiz is another remarkable one—Saffron Burrows as the two Leas who serve as his Eleusinian Muse, Veronica Ferres and Sandra Ceccarelli as his well-meaning promoters of his paintings and finally Aglaia Szyszkowitz as his Jewish lover who gave birth to his daughter.

Ruiz’ Klimt will remain one of the best films on a painter and how the mind of the painter worked, even when the painter was battling syphilis and genetic madness (his mother and sister were mad, as indicated directly and indirectly in the film). Kudos to Ruiz for his well-designed original screenplay that squeezed in all these details!

P.S. This critic has reviewed Ruiz’s films That Day (2003) and Mysteries of Lisbon (2010) earlier on this blog. (You can access each review by clicking on the name of the films).

200. British director Ken Loach’s film “I, Daniel Blake” (2016) (UK): Portrait of an aging, honest, well meaning, elderly citizen forced to retire by a health condition, “nothing more, nothing less”

Several directors in Europe have in recent years made outstanding award-winning films on the subject of working class bread-winners losing their jobs and trying their best to claw back to a life of normalcy by finding another.  The processes are devastating in each case. Foremost award-winning examples are Stephen Brize’s Measure of a Man (2015, France) and the Dardennes bothers’ Two Days, One Night (2014, Belgium). I, Daniel Blake continues to lead the viewer along the same paths of the  films but with a difference—the film underscores the inhuman apathy of government employment systems for those suddenly forced out of work. All three films have a common thread—when you are out of work and cannot find another—a sudden camaraderie develops between the unemployed and others who have faced similar situations.

I, Daniel Blake is an outstanding film of 2016.  It is a film that combines good direction (by the 80 year old veteran filmmaker Ken Loach who returned from retirement to make this film), a marvellous and credible screenplay by Paul Laverty (Loach’s colleague for the past dozen films), good editing,  and two very creditable performances by the main players.  It is not surprising that the film was bestowed the Golden Palm (Palme d'Or), the top honour at the year’s Cannes film festival, to Loach for the second time in 10 years.

There no room for a missed appointment for a single mother, with two kids
and little or no money, at the Department of Work and Pensions, because she
boarded the wrong bus to get there. The emotions on all the faces are so real!

What makes I, Daniel Blake stand out among the three films is Paul Laverty’s ability to infuse wry humour in the carefully chosen words spoken by its characters. Words matter in this film. The film opens with a dark screen.  Then you hear a telephone conversation –a conversation between Daniel Blake, a 59-year-old carpenter who had a recent heart attack or a cardiac event, resulting in a near fall while working on a scaffolding and medically advised not to resume work, and an anonymous employee from the British Department of Work and Pensions quizzing him about all his physical conditions except his ailing heart condition only to file a report on Blake that is obviously and quixotically incomplete and misleading.  This conversation sets the mood of what follows—the apathetic world of bureaucracy that does not believe in empathy for those suffering from a medical condition that prohibits working in their chosen trade.

The good carpenter is good with his hands and quite literate. But he is not computer literate. The British Department of Work and Pensions works on-line, on telephone, and very rarely face to face.  How does Laverty put it into words? Here is a fine example. The British Department staff tells Blake “We are digital by default.” Blake, who has had a rough time posting his applications on-line answers the bureaucrat sardonically, “I am a pencil by default.” Carpenters work considerably with pencils. This is not flowery writing—the script is socially loaded beyond the obvious repartee.

The audience can only agree with Laverty and Loach when Blake calls the Department a “monumental farce.” One is reminded of the Cuban masterpiece Death of a Bureaucrat (1966) directed by Tomas Gutierrez Alea, in which a widow of a dead bureaucrat cannot access her widow’s pension and benefits because a critical identity card was buried with her husband’s body in the coffin and the Communist bureaucrats refuse to process her benefits without it.

Both Laverty and Loach teams up film after film to present us individuals who struggle to survive in a social world that sweeps them away because of incidents that they cannot control or intended to face.  The Cannes’ Palme d’Or winner The Wind that Shakes the Barley (2006) where the main character joins the IRA after he clearly made up his mind not to do that after witnessing a life changing incident involving British troops or the comedy The Angels’ Share (2012) where a young Glaswegian narrowly escapes prison sentencing and subsequent troubles by a chance visit to a Scotch whisky distillery which ultimately leads to a well paid permanent job. In Tickets (2005), a group of well-meaning football-crazy Glaswegians on a train journey in Europe find one of them have lost their ticket, possibly stolen and suddenly have to grapple with future consequences of that situation that makes them more socially responsible.  The dozen films of Loach and Laverty build on Loach’s Kes (1969) written not by Laverty but by a book by Barry Hines, where a young middle class school kid, given little sympathy at home and in school takes interest in training a pet kestrel by reading a book that he steals from a bookstore.  Pre-Laverty and with Laverty, Loach has dealt with characters whose lives change by events that were not planned.

What Laverty brought on Loach’s table was spoken language that seemed to have a visual power beyond that of the camera.  “A pencil by default” is not something that you capture by the camera; the viewer has to figure out the connection between a pencil and the world of the carpenter. Apparently the film's script was prepared with help on inputs from real jobless urban poor who had to seek financial and food assistance in the UK and their experiences. The brilliance of Laverty’s screenplay writing comes towards the end of the film, when the curriculum vitae that he was forced to learn to write for getting a Job-Seekers’ Allowance is read out at his “pauper’s funeral.” What is read out, are words that we never could have guessed were written on the pieces of paper Blake was handing out to prospective employers. And at least one did respond positively.  What is written by Blake is Laverty’s magic that no camera could have captured. Daniel Blake is, as stated in his own words in his CV read out at his funeral “a citizen—nothing more, nothing less.”

Daniel Blake (Dave Jones) and Katie (Hayley Squires) during one of the most
gut-wrenching scenes set in a food bank for the urban poor:
"You have nothing to be ashamed of. You are all alone with two kids. You are amazing."

I, Daniel Blake does not belong exclusively to director Loach and scriptwriter Laverty. It belongs to two other talented individuals chosen by Loach—actor Dave Johns who plays the character Daniel Blake and actress Hayley Squires who plays who plays Katie, who accidently crosses the path of Daniel at the British Department of Work and Pensions facilities. Now Katie is single mother of two kids. She has been uprooted from London to Daniel’s town and arrives at the office late because she boarded the wrong bus. Laverty’s magic allows both these two wonderful human beings to meet when there being knocked around by the unfeeling bureaucrats, by a "Laverty" accident. It is not surprising that Ms Squires has been nominated for a BAFTA award but it is surprising that Dave Jones has not been nominated for the restrained power of the performance, his first in a feature film. But then one needs to congratulate Loach for picking these two main actors.

Director Loach has a team that he works with on his recent films beyond the talented Laverty. A major team member is film editor Jonathan Morris who has worked with Loach longer than Laverty.  The editing in I, Daniel Blake, does not grab your attention until the ultimate “pauper’s funeral.”  Another member of the Loach team is the cinematographer Robbie Ryan who worked on the three last Loach films I, Daniel Blake, Jimmy’s Hall, and The Angels’ Share. It only shows that the Loach team has constantly evolved but the best of them tried and tested stay with Loach.

I, Daniel Blake is undoubtedly the best work of Loach and deserved the Cannes honor. 

P.S. I, Daniel Blake and Paradise are two outstanding works included in the author’s top 10 films of 2016. Loach’s The Angel’s Share (2012) and Tickets (2005) were reviewed earlier on this blog and the former is one of the author’s top 10 films of 2012. Two other films mentioned in this review The Measure of a Man (2015, France) and Two Days,One Night (2014, Belgium) were also reviewed earlier on this blog. Mr Loach is also one of the author's 15 favourite active filmmakers.

188. Italian director Paolo Sorrentino’s second English film “Youth” (2015): Witty, cinematic, aesthetic contemplation on youth and aging—the past, the present and the future of our lives

Youth is the most rewarding film of 2015. It is not just humorous; beyond the laughs, it has a depth that any inattentive viewer is likely to miss.  It has deservedly won the Best Film, the Best Director and the Best Actor (for Michael Caine) at the European Film awards, and has predictably been bypassed at the Oscars, save for a single unsuccessful nomination for the music, for David Lang, a composer to watch out for. And, most of all, it is a fine example of delightfully composed cinematography (at a level beyond the lovely Swiss exterior shots), amazing sound effects (as opposed to music) and a clever, dense and philosophical screenplay.

The most creditable aspect of the film is the original screenplay by the director Sorrentino. Sorrentino’s films do not rely on other literary works—these are films on tales he conceives himself. He rarely employs a co-scriptwriter. Both Youth and his earlier Consequences of Love (2004) only credit Sorrentino himself as the sole author and scriptwriter. Such films deserve more respect than those that ride on the shoulders of great writers other than the film’s director since most viewers rarely note this important aspect of the credits, concentrating merely of the story rather than who was the true author and/or the scriptwriter or the originator of the tale.

The oldest look most active, the youngest most resigned
(from left to right: Paul Dano, Harvey Keitel,  Michael Caine)

Sorrentino’s four important works: Consequences of Love, This Must be the Place (2011), The Great Beauty (2013), and Youth are all inward looking existential tales—more importantly, all are original Sorrentino tales.  Each of the films is about memories, each is about human relationships, and each is about human life. In Consequences of Love, the principal character Titta overhears a girl sitting opposite him in a hotel lobby read aloud a passage from a book by Louis-Ferdinand Céline on memories, relationships and life that acts as a catalyst for his actions that follow. In The Great Beauty, the lead character Jep Gambardella, attempts to recall and resolve his life on the lines of a quote from Céline’s Journey to the End of the Night, a quote which opens the film-- “To travel is very useful, it makes the imagination work, the rest is just delusion and pain. Our journey is entirely imaginary, which is its strength.” Youth does not specifically refer to Céline’s writings but reflects on similar subjects. In Youth, retired composer/conductor Fred Ballinger (Michael Caine) with just two surviving family members--a wife  struck by dementia or Alzheimer’s disease and their daughter Lena facing a crumbling marriage--reflects  “I'm wondering what happens to your memory over time. I can't remember my family. I don't remember their faces or how they talked. Last night I was watching Lena (his grown –up, married daughter) while she was asleep. And I was thinking about all the thousands of little things that I done for her as her father. And I had done them deliberately so that she would remember them. When she grows up...in time...she won't remember a single thing.”  Those words are not far removed from another Sorrentino film with another interesting original Sorrentino script. In This Must be the Place, the lead character Cheyenne (Sean Penn) confesses on parallel thoughts “I pretended to be a kid for too long. And it is only now that I realize that a father can help and love his child. And that I have no kids makes me really, really sick.” All the four Sorrentino films provide amazing tales for a viewer to contemplate and derive pleasure for a mature, reflective mind.

Cinematographer Bigazzi conceptualizes the aging film director Boyle
recalling all the past roles of his leading ladies
in a composite dream shot.

Sorrentino’s four films discussed above are either about relationships or lack of it, in each tale. In Youth, the aging composer Ballinger visits his dementia stricken wife Melanie, who probably is not physically and mentally fit to listen to her loving husband’s soliloquy about their lives “Children don't know their parents ordeals. Sure, they know certain details, striking elements. And they know what they need to know to be on one side or the other. They don't know that I trembled the first time I ever saw you on stage. All the orchestra behind my back were laughing at my falling in love. And my unexpected fragility. They don't know that you sold of your mother's jewellery in order to help me with my second piece. When everyone else was turning me down, calling me a presumptuous, inelegant musician. They don't know that you too, and you were right, that you thought I was a presumptuous, inelegant musician at that time. And you cried so hard. Not because you sold your mother's jewellery but because you sold your mother. They don't know that we were together. You and I. Despite all the exhaustion, and the pain, and hardship. Melanie. They must never know that you and I, despite everything, liked to think of ourselves as a simple song.” That‘s great scriptwriting—“the simple song” at end of that quote is the name of Ballinger’s composition that would fetch him his knighthood in the film. The love of the old couple for each other is contrasted by Sorrentino to the fragile marriage of their young daughter and young son-in-law.

Lena Ballinger, the composer's married daughter, (Rachel Weisz):
 "..he stroked my cheek for the first time in my life!"

Sorrentino’s lovely script reverses later for Ballinger’s daughter Lena’s (Rachel Weisz) view of her father (Caine) as she confides in her father-in-law and her father’s close friend Mick Boyle (Harvey Keitel), a film director trying to work out on the filming of his swansong before retiring from active life. Lena tells Boyle about her father ”You know, sometimes when I'm asleep at night, he watches me... and last night he stroked my cheek for the first time in my life. Only I wasn't asleep... I was pretending to be asleep.” And Mick Boyle sagaciously replies: “Parents know when their children are pretending to be asleep.”  This conversation for an astute viewer is a flipside of the soliloquy of Ballinger in the room of his sick wife.

The film is equally about ageing and memories. Sorrentino’s script includes a dialogue between film director Mick Boyle (Keitel) and a young lady admirer of his work where he asks her to view the Alps through a telescope.  “Do you see that mountain over there? “ he asks her. “Yes. It looks very close,” is the reply. Again you get a response that underscores ageing and memories from Boyle, “Exactly. This is what you see when you're young. Everything seems really close. And that's the future. And now. (He reverses the telescope) And that's what you see when you're old. Everything seems really far away. That's the past.”

Boyle. the film director, (Harvey Keitel) (left) and
Ballinger, the composer, (Michael Caine)

Sorrentino’s script has two lead characters—one is a composer, the other is a film director. One is interested in music, the other the visuals—both important components of cinema. A fictional actress Brenda Morel (Jane Fonda), the muse and possibly an actress whose career was built by Boyle (Keitel), and probably a reason why Boyle's wife left him never asking him to return to her, (a clever Sorrentino contrast to the steadfast Ballingers) devastates the old man by stating that his last three films were "shit" and that she would not be playing as his lead actress in his new film because she has opted for TV roles in USA instead:  “TV is the future and the present. Life goes on without all that cinema bullshit.”

The film, as any Sorrentino film would, offers dry verbal wit and visual wit in equal measure. While the elderly lead duo of composer and film director joke about their medical prostrate condition by the amount of urine they discharge each day, they need to be surrounded by young people. Ballinger  looks at a Buddhist monk meditating in the garden each day and wryly comments ,“You won't fool me. I know you can't levitate.”  Much later in the film, Sorrentino presents the monk actually levitating.  A young actor Jimmy Tree (Paul Dano) appears more exhausted than the older hotel guests such as Ballinger, Boyle and a Maradonna look-alike who can kick a tennis ball in the air as he did a football in the past. A statement is made towards the end of the film “You say emotions are overrated. That’s bullshit. Emotions are all that we have.” That leads to a suicide. That’s Sorrentino.

Bigazzi's magic

Boyle literally puts his head together with younger minds
in search of a great script for his last film

Cinematographer Luca Bigazzi was responsible for all the four Sorrentino films and his exterior shots are always a treat to watch a she contributes to the surreal humour of the script visually, whether it is the Buddhist monk, the Maradonna kick of a tennis ball, the array of Boyle’s leading lady characters of his past films on the imaginary Swiss countryside or grazing cows with cowbells that bring out memories of composing music in the past for Ballinger. Bigazzi is brilliant in Youth beginning with the introductory close-up of Keitel’s face (just as he dramatically, visually introduced Jep in The Great Beauty) and ending with close-ups of Ballinger conducting “The Simple Song” to the British royalty, prior to being knighted. Every shot of the film is composed carefully with a twinkle in the eye. Bigazzi and Sorrentino make a fine duo.

The most important aspect of the film was the sound management of the film (as opposed to the music) which adds to the surreal humour of the script. When the emissaries of the British monarchy visit Ballinger in the hotel, the viewer “hears” Ballinger’s true response by the sound of candy wrapper being rubbed in silence. The hotel masseuse responds to comments with silence and the sounds of massaging. The cuckoo clocks seem to have a view of their own.  An aged couple who sit at the hotel table by themselves never uttering a word our sound, meal after meal, much to the amazement of other guests are discovered having loud sex in the woods! Youth was top notch in sound management from start to finish and entertains in subtle ways.

Caine gives his best performance to date as the aging composer,
with a resemblance to Jep and Titta,
lead characters in earlier Sorrentino's films

Youth deserved its win as the best European film of the year. Michael Caine has arguably presented his best best performance to date and deserved the Best Actor award at the European film awards. So did Sorrentino deserve his Best Director award.

P.S. The three Paolo Sorrentino films mentioned in the above review---Consequences of Love, This Must be the Place (2011), and The Great Beauty (2013)--have been reviewed earlier on this blog. Youth is on the author’s top 10 films of 2015 list. Mr Sorrentino is also one of the author's 15 favourite active filmmakers