Rey Barceló – The Stanford Daily https://stanforddaily.com Breaking news from the Farm since 1892 Wed, 15 Apr 2020 04:13:10 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 https://stanforddaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/cropped-DailyIcon-CardinalRed.png?w=32 Rey Barceló – The Stanford Daily https://stanforddaily.com 32 32 204779320 ‘The Green Fog’ is a dizzying Hitchcock homage https://stanforddaily.com/2018/01/16/the-green-fog-is-a-dizzying-hitchcock-homage/ https://stanforddaily.com/2018/01/16/the-green-fog-is-a-dizzying-hitchcock-homage/#respond Wed, 17 Jan 2018 03:09:10 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1134969 Alfred Hitchcock’s “Vertigo” is the ultimate re-watch movie. Film critics prescribe this movie like Tylenol: If you’re in love, see “Vertigo”; if you’re depressed, see “Vertigo”; if you just saw “Vertigo,” see “Vertigo” again. (Director and cinephile Chris Marker boasted that he’d seen the film 19 times.) And the critics have a point, mostly. “Vertigo” is […]

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'The Green Fog' is a dizzying Hitchcock homage
Courtesy of SFFILM

Alfred Hitchcock’s “Vertigo” is the ultimate re-watch movie. Film critics prescribe this movie like Tylenol: If you’re in love, see “Vertigo”; if you’re depressed, see “Vertigo”; if you just saw “Vertigo,” see “Vertigo” again. (Director and cinephile Chris Marker boasted that he’d seen the film 19 times.) And the critics have a point, mostly. “Vertigo” is a film about a man obsessively pursuing a woman until she cannot live up to the image he has created of her. To that end, to watch “Vertigo” is to live “Vertigo.” See it enough times and you’ll have your own “Vertigo,” a movie in your mind that says more about your psyche than that of Hitchcock’s.

Enter Guy Maddin, experimental filmmaker and admitted “Vertigo” obsessive. Maddin’s style is a cool combination of kitsch and confessional. His pseudo-documentary “My Winnipeg” dealt with his childhood in Winnipeg, Canada using extracts from silent film, while his film “The Saddest Music in the World” was a musical with a legless protagonist. He holds cinema as the most hallowed and the silliest of all the arts, and this tension between reverence and parody underlies his entire work.

Maddin’s latest film, “The Green Fog,” is both a loving and a deeply goofy remake of “Vertigo,” but it not really about the “Vertigo.” It’s about your “Vertigo.” In the film, Maddin splices together footage from hundreds of films and TV shows set in San Francisco in order to retell the central story of “Vertigo.” The callbacks are subtle but immediately resonant; Maddin need only show a bouquet of flowers, a tombstone or a man falling in order for you to remember its analogous function in the original film. Watching “The Green Fog” is like having two films playing side by side. There’s “The Green Fog” on the screen in front of you, and then there’s the memory of “Vertigo” playing in your head.

If “Vertigo” is a film about obsession, then “The Green Fog” is about obsessives. It’s not a parody of “Vertigo” so much as a parody of the people who watch it. Indeed, the film features a framing device where the main story is interrupted by cutaways of people watching the film itself. The film is an ode to watching and re-watching, to the films that exist not on screen but in our minds.

I suggest you see it at once. Then see it again.

“The Green Fog” is playing at the Roxie Theater on Jan. 9, 10 and 14. Learn more about it here.

 

Contact Rey Barceló at rbarcelo ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Danny Boyle talks with The Daily on ‘T2 Trainspotting’ https://stanforddaily.com/2017/03/26/boyle-interview-stanford-daily/ https://stanforddaily.com/2017/03/26/boyle-interview-stanford-daily/#respond Sun, 26 Mar 2017 21:30:20 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1125130 Danny Boyle is the director of “Trainspotting,” “28 Days Later,” “Steve Jobs” and “Slumdog Millionaire,” which garnered him an Academy Award for Best Director. For his latest film, “T2 Trainspotting” – which follows the cast of “Trainspotting” as they confront old rivalries, old vices and growing old – Boyle sat down with The Daily to talk friendship, drugs and […]

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Danny Boyle is the director of “Trainspotting,” “28 Days Later,” “Steve Jobs” and “Slumdog Millionaire,” which garnered him an Academy Award for Best Director. For his latest film, “T2 Trainspotting” – which follows the cast of “Trainspotting” as they confront old rivalries, old vices and growing old – Boyle sat down with The Daily to talk friendship, drugs and his love for Hannibal Lecter.

The Stanford Daily (TSD): It’s a fortunate (or perhaps unfortunate) time to release “T2 Trainspotting,” because heroin usage was such a key component of the first film. As you know, the U.S. is in the middle of a serious opioid epidemic, which means that your film could become a testament to our generation’s relationship with drugs. Did you feel this responsibility to portray drug usage (especially heroin) in a certain way?

Danny Boyle (DB): No, because films are so slow to come out. This one was quick; we started shooting it nine months ago and began working on it a year ago. So that’s slow. So if you’re going to address a public health issue like that, you’ve got to make a documentary and be prepared to work quickly.

Drama stories are different. Their application to what’s going on in the world is sometimes coincidental, and sometimes inappropriate. It’s impossible to guess, really. People talked about the first film being about drugs – and there are a lot of drugs in the first film, not so many in this film – but really, [the original “Trainspotting”] is about friendship, and about energy and youth. You can read it as a social documentary about Edinburgh’s drug problem, which was huge at the time and still is, but I would argue that these kind of movies are important because our relationship with heroin is an ongoing one. It will come and go, but it will always be there because it always has [been]. No one’s found a way of eradicating it, partly because we medically depend on it. If you’re ever in terrible pain, either through an accident or if you’re close to death, you’ll be administered morphine. And that is partly responsible for America’s opioid problem at the moment, partially because the opioids are actually prescribed and are leading to people’s dependency on these painkillers.

The reason it’s interesting is people use it for emotional pain as well, which is how we apply it in the film. When painful memories resurface, [Ewan McGregor’s character] Rent Boy goes back to heroin, because he has this emotional load he can’t deal with. That’s why people need help with dependency, because they’re not trash. They’re not victims. They’re just us, and they can’t cope, and they need help. So I couldn’t claim that “T2 Trainspotting” addresses the opioid epidemic, except to say that it’s sympathetic to [those] people who are mostly drawn unsympathetically: heroin addicts.

TSD: Your characters deviate somewhat from [“Trainspotting” novelist] Irving Welsh’s original intentions. How did you decide where these characters would end up now, 21 years after the original film was released?

DB: It’s a mixture of me, [screenwriter] John Hodge and the actors – who bring their own perspective to the characters with their bodies and spirits. In the book, they’re probably even more unpleasant! But even though they’re unpleasant, you don’t think that, because film generally tends to make you sympathetic to the characters [you’re] looking at. Even villains like Hannibal Lecter – film has a tendency to make you like them. Even Begby, who’s an appalling person, you actually quite like him.

We see elements of ourselves in the characters we see on screen. They may be extreme versions of ourselves, but you can still recognize them. So with respect to the characters of “Trainspotting,” the cast and I follow our path and Welsh follows his, and they run in parallel. I wish Welsh had written the characters of [“Trainspotting” novel sequel] “Porno” to be more like the ones in our movie, but maybe he wished our characters had been more like the ones in his books. So our characters are harmonious, but not overlapping.

 

Contact Carlos Valladares at cvall96 ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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‘T2 Trainspotting’ shows the dark side of choosing life https://stanforddaily.com/2017/03/26/t2trainspotting-review/ https://stanforddaily.com/2017/03/26/t2trainspotting-review/#respond Sun, 26 Mar 2017 21:22:53 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1125128 How do you spend a life you didn’t ask for? If you have an answer, please inform the characters in “T2 Trainspotting.” They’d really like to know. When we last saw these raucous Scots in the original “Trainspotting,” they knew they were living on borrowed time. It was 1996, and a combination of HIV/AIDS, heroin […]

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How do you spend a life you didn’t ask for? If you have an answer, please inform the characters in “T2 Trainspotting.” They’d really like to know.

When we last saw these raucous Scots in the original “Trainspotting,” they knew they were living on borrowed time. It was 1996, and a combination of HIV/AIDS, heroin addiction and adolescent rage all but guaranteed they would die young – and they preferred it that way. When Ewan McGregor’s Rent Boy told us to “choose life,” he was being sarcastic. Everyone remembers “choose life,” but fewer remember Renton proclaiming “I chose not to choose life. I choose something else.”

Flash forward 21 years, where every one of them has survived to a middle age they never wanted. Renton (Ewan McGregor) has gone from junkie to corporate lackey. Sick Boy (Jonny Lee Miller) runs a mediocre bar. Spud (Ewan Bremner) still uses heroin for lack of anything better to do. They didn’t choose life so much as allow life to make the choices for them.

Their emptiness turns each of them to the only escape more dangerous than heroin: nostalgia. In an effort to recreate the “good old days,” the former enemies forgive old wrongdoings and team up once again. They get roped into singing karaoke in the middle of a robbery. They turn to old vices. They use a lot of Scottish curse words you’ve probably never heard before. So far, so predictable.

But although their childish antics make for good entertainment, it’s impossible to ignore the current of dissatisfaction underneath them. They’re not reliving the past so much as trying to recreate it. Maybe, just maybe, if they live every day like they’re 25, they can be 25 again.

Director Danny Boyle uses his typically maximalist style to subversive effect here, with his manic energy becoming the visual manifestation of his characters’ midlife crisis. Whereas his techniques in the original “Trainspotting” (bizarre camera angles, impossibly constructed sets and projected images onto walls) made the film feel full of life, his use of similar techniques here seems deliberately self-parodying. He plays three hard rock songs at once and it’s really loud! He attaches a GoPro to a microphone and Ewan McGregor’s face looks kind of funny! Aren’t we having fun?

Well, yes and no. “T2 Trainspotting” is fun in the same way the Titanic was a pleasure cruise: It is until it isn’t. But it’s also what you choose to make of it. If you want to overlook the ennui and read “T2 Trainspotting” as a playful remembrance of things past, go right ahead. It can be a wildly entertaining film if you want it to be. (I realize that, having been born after the original “Trainspotting” was released, I don’t have the same emotional attachment to it that others might have.) But if you want a film that fights against its own existence – a rare sequel that definitively states that things are worse for their characters than they used to be – I invite you to examine “T2 Trainspotting” a little closer.

 

Contact Rey Barcelo at rbarcelo ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Worst films of 2016: ‘Nocturnal Animals’ is fashion without sense https://stanforddaily.com/2017/03/02/worst-films-of-2016-nocturnal-animals-is-fashion-without-sense/ https://stanforddaily.com/2017/03/02/worst-films-of-2016-nocturnal-animals-is-fashion-without-sense/#respond Thu, 02 Mar 2017 16:27:53 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1124133 Last week might have been the Oscars, but let’s be honest – not all the films from 2016 were winners. In fact, some were just plain awful. Which is why during the month of March, we here at The Daily’s film section are going to be looking back, with love, at some of our least […]

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Last week might have been the Oscars, but let’s be honest – not all the films from 2016 were winners. In fact, some were just plain awful. Which is why during the month of March, we here at The Daily’s film section are going to be looking back, with love, at some of our least favorite films from 2016. This week, we will be reviewing the Academy Award nominated “Nocturnal Animals,” which our critic Rey Barcelo found not only overrated, but downright toxic.

“Nocturnal Animals”

“Nocturnal Animals” is to film what knockoff handbags are to the fashion industry – it looks glamorous, but on closer inspection, it’s just a cheap imitation of the real thing. Make no mistake: “Nocturnal Animals,” the sophomore feature from fashion designer Tom Ford, is every bit as glamorous as Ford’s clothing line. But in transitioning from fashion to film, he fails to understand that great films, unlike great clothing, have something underneath them.

“Nocturnal Animals” is not a film so much as a two-hour fashion show in which vapid elites strike hollow poses in luxurious settings. His characters strut and fret their hour on the screen, but their sound and fury signifies less than nothing.

Case in point: Amy Adams plays Susan Morrow, a VERY UNHAPPY gallery owner who sulks her way around LA’s art scene with her eye candy of a second husband (Armie Hammer). As if her entire performance weren’t enough to convince us of her unhappiness, every line she speaks is literally taken from the DSM’s chapter on depression: “I’m unhappy. I’m just really, really unhappy,” she says. (Tom Ford, in his brilliance, wrote the screenplay as well. Most likely on the back of a napkin.)

Susan’s unhappiness gives way to EVEN MORE UNHAPPINESS when she receives a novel called “Nocturnal Animals” from her ex-husband (Jake Gyllenhaal). The novel’s protagonist (also played by Jake Gyllenhaal) is driving with his wife and daughter through a New Yorker’s idea of Texas when his car is stopped by a group of redneck stereotypes. If you thought “I’m just really, really unhappy” was stellar writing, you’ll be blown away by this confrontation, which takes up 16 goddamn pages of a 110-page script and features taunts like “Hey, vagina boy! Vagina boy!”

Up until this point, “Nocturnal Animals” is tolerable. Not great, not even good, but not reprehensible. But Ford, not content to just make a bad film, decides to make an unconscionable one. He carelessly tosses in violence against women, rape and abortion as if they were merely adornments on one of his dresses. I don’t want to summarize the rest of the film, partially because it’s so meaningless and poorly done that summary serves no purpose, but mostly because I don’t want to give Ford a platform. Misogyny, even when perpetrated accidentally and dressed in the finest clothing, is still misogyny.

To be fair to Ford, I don’t think he’s a misogynist. I just think he’s an idiot. In striving to make his film as moody as possible, he mistakes suffering for sensuality, and his women pay the price of this error. In Fordland, women who obtain abortions deserve to be hunted down by their ex-husbands. In Fordland, mothers and daughters serve no purpose except to be raped and slaughtered – and objectified even after their deaths.

If that’s the way Ford thinks, then count me out. I’ll take a director who actually cares for and understands women (Almodovar, Bergman, Haynes and Demy come to mind) over Ford and his feeble femmes fatales any day. To Amy Adams and Jake Gyllenhaal: I recommend you get a better agent. And to you, Mr. Ford, I recommend you stop objectifying women on screen and return to the world of fashion, where you can objectify them on the runway.

 

Contact Rey Barcelo at rbarcelo ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Flashback Friday: ‘Symbiopsychotaxiplasm’ is a film even stranger than it sounds https://stanforddaily.com/2017/02/16/flashback-friday-symbiopsychotaxiplasm-is-a-film-even-stranger-than-it-sounds/ https://stanforddaily.com/2017/02/16/flashback-friday-symbiopsychotaxiplasm-is-a-film-even-stranger-than-it-sounds/#respond Fri, 17 Feb 2017 03:17:13 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1123195 Welcome to Flashback Friday – for when you just can’t get enough of Throwback Thursday. This week, we are reviewing the bizarre, aggressively-meta 1968 comedy “Symbiopsychotaxiplasm,” playing at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive as part of their multi-month-long event “Hippie Modernism: Cinema and Counterculture.” Our critic Rey Barcelo highly recommends you see it, if […]

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Welcome to Flashback Friday – for when you just can’t get enough of Throwback Thursday. This week, we are reviewing the bizarre, aggressively-meta 1968 comedy “Symbiopsychotaxiplasm,” playing at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive as part of their multi-month-long event “Hippie Modernism: Cinema and Counterculture.” Our critic Rey Barcelo highly recommends you see it, if you get the chance. 

“Symbiopsychotaxiplasm”

“Over the Cliff” is a film too awful to exist. The acting is stilted, the camerawork is unfocused and the script is so abominable that it makes Adam Sandler’s “Bedtime Stories” look like “Tokyo Story.” Thankfully, it is not my task to review “Over the Cliff,” because “Over the Cliff” is not a real film. It exists in no form and every form, a sort of eternal recurrence in which different actors play out the same scenario ad infinitum.

Confused? Welcome to the mind-bending meta-musings of William Greaves’s “Symbiopsychotaxiplasm,” which you can see this Friday at the Pacific Film Archive. The 1968 film is part of the Archive’s series entitled “Hippie Modernism: Cinema and Counterculture,” where its place among hippie counter-culture is rightly earned. Loaded with self-referential humor, sexual innuendo and political outrage, “Symbiopsychotaxiplasm” is hippie modernism at its weirdest, cleverest and – dare I say it – symbiopsychotaxiplasmic.

The plot (if there is one): Director William Greaves and his film crew wander through Central Park day after day, shooting the same scene of their nonexistent film – “Over the Cliff” – in every possible permutation of actors, settings and dialogue. While one set of cameras focuses on the performances, another camera crew records the filmmaking process itself; the two images are often presented in split-screen. At the center of this maelstrom is Greaves, who presides over his set with such incompetence that he pushes his crew to the brink of mutiny. In a final self-referential twist, the crew holes itself up in a back room (sans Greaves) to debate the meaning of the film itself. They agree that “Over the Cliff” is a disaster, but can’t decide whether Greaves is simply making a bad film or if he’s actually making a film about a bad film – in other words, “Symbiopsychotaxiplasm” itself.

At this point, perhaps it’s necessary to distinguish between Greaves-as-director and Greaves-as-actor-playing-director. His first lines in the film are “Don’t take me seriously,” and the most fruitful reading of his film involves following that advice. For all of his onscreen antics, the William Greaves in the editing room is nothing like the one mumbling instructions in Central Park. The film comes across as a taut, delightfully funny and surprisingly introspective inquiry into filmmaking itself. In his production notes, Greaves cited jazz as a major influence, and his benevolent choice to include his own crew’s rebellion shows him willing to engage in a collaborative process that gives all voices equal weight.

Despite its weighty themes, “Symbiopsychotaxiplasm” is an accessible, genuinely entertaining film that can be enjoyed for its camp value alone. You don’t need a degree in philosophy to enjoy the pathetic antics of the lead actors both on-screen and off; my favorite so-bad-they’re-good lines include “You’re damn right I am sick; I am sick of you!” and “Come on sport, give me a chance!” In fact, I have a confession to make: If “Over the Cliff” were a real film, I’d be watching the hell out of it right now.

Symbiopsychotaxiplasm has no definition in the Oxford English Dictionary, so I’d like to offer up my own: Symbiopsychotaxiplasm (n), the infectious combination of hippie humor and Escheresque self-referentiality that produces chronic laughter if left untreated.

The revolution will not be televised, but it will be playing this Friday at Pacific Film Archive. Bring a bud – and a friend.

Symbiopsychotaxiplasm will be playing this Friday, the 17th, at 7:30 p.m. at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive.

Contact Rey Barcelo at rbarcelo ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Throwback Thursday: ‘Blow Out’ is a knockout https://stanforddaily.com/2017/01/26/throwback-thursday-blow-out-is-a-knockout/ https://stanforddaily.com/2017/01/26/throwback-thursday-blow-out-is-a-knockout/#respond Thu, 26 Jan 2017 22:00:51 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1121933 Welcome to “Throwback Thursdays,” a new film feature at the Stanford Daily. Every Thursday (hopefully), the Arts & Life section will publish reviews highlighting older or more obscure works — sometimes both — that are currently not playing in traditional theaters. This week, we’ll be focusing on Brian De Palma’s 1981 cult classic “Blow Out,” which […]

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Welcome to “Throwback Thursdays,” a new film feature at the Stanford Daily. Every Thursday (hopefully), the Arts & Life section will publish reviews highlighting older or more obscure works — sometimes both — that are currently not playing in traditional theaters. This week, we’ll be focusing on Brian De Palma’s 1981 cult classic “Blow Out,” which our critic Rey Barcelo argues has taken on new relevancy in our post-truth era. “Blow Out” can be purchased online or rented for free at Stanford’s own Media & Microtext Center, located in the basement of Green Library.

“Blow Out”

2016 was the year conspiracy theories went mainstream. From Pizzagate to the golden shower, from poll fraud to inauguration attendance, stories of questionable authenticity have swept into popular culture and taken the truth hostage along with them. Rebranded with catchy titles like “alternative facts” (for those untruths we’d like to be true) or “fake news” (for those truths we’d like to be false), these conspiracies and falsehoods have thoroughly burrowed themselves within modern life.

And amid this flood of uncertainty, I recommend watching “Blow Out,” Brian De Palma’s 1981 paranoid manifesto about how conspiracies are made and how those conspiracies make us. John Travolta stars as Jack, a sound technician for pornographic exploitation films who is in pursuit of two realistic sounds: wind and a female scream. In pursuit of the former, he heads to a park at night, where he hopes to pick up the sound of rustling breeze. Instead, he witnesses a car hurtle off a bridge and fall into a creek. Jack dives in after it, managing to save a woman trapped inside (Nancy Allen), but leaving a dead man behind. He soon discovers that the dead man in the car was a presidential candidate and that the young woman was the candidate’s escort. Revisiting his audio of the night, Jack is shocked to hear a gunshot just before the crash. Was the candidate murdered? And if so, can Jack prove it?

“Blow Out” quickly becomes a raging storm of paranoia and conspiracy — with Jack and his tape at the storm’s epicenter. In a slyly self-referential sequence, Jack assembles his own conspiracy film from his audio and bystander footage, but the film only leaves him with more unanswered questions. As his film grows in infamy, he is followed, secretly recorded and manipulated, though the exact identities of his assailants are unclear. And each encounter leaves Jack more bewildered than the last.

De Palma’s direction matches the script’s circular logic with flourishes that left me dazed. In one scene, Jack obsessively replays his tape while the camera continuously pans around the room. In each rotation, Jack appears momentarily, before being lost to the swiveling frame. Like our frustrated protagonist, we are traveling in circles. In an equally bizarre sequence where unstable hitman Burke (John Lithgow) speaks with his boss through a phone booth, the camera pans endlessly around the booth as its walls distort the scene behind him. Faces in the background expand and twist as if being held under a magnifying glass. The closer we look, the less we recognize what we see.

Well-read cinephiles will remember that “Blow Out” is an informal remake of Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1966 “Blow-Up,” in which a fashion photographer accidentally photographs a murder. While the protagonist of “Blow-Up” finds hidden truth from continually enlarging (“blowing up”) his photograph, Jack uncovers his conspiracy by assembling a film from his tapes and an eyewitness video. Both movies probe the connection between truth and evidence, but De Palma wisely updates Antonioni’s film for a post-Watergate era by steeping his questions in layer after layer of conspiracy. If Jack’s tapes are erased, is the past erased as well? What makes his recording any more real than the sound he synthesizes for his exploitation films? And is evidence the only difference between a paranoid man and an insane one? “Blow Out” poses all of these questions but answers few of them.

These questions have become even more urgent since “Blow Out”’s initial release. Nowadays, anyone can be a home-brewed conspiracy theorist. Trust in the media is at an all-time low, “fake news” sites peddle lies as fact, and our President utters easily provable falsehoods without blinking an eye. By today’s standards, the paranoid world of “Blow Out” looks positively tame. While watching it, one almost pines for the days when an audiotape was enough to derail a presidential campaign. These days, Jack could have released his video on Youtube, and it would be promptly filed next to footage of Hillary Clinton’s alien baby.

Yet, the film’s seeming datedness actually helps establish it as a benchmark with which to compare our own “post-truth” society. When we begin to recognize ourselves in John Travolta’s frenetic truth-seeker, we’re fucked. As the eloquent Trump surrogate Scottie Nell Hughes recently put it, “There’s no such thing anymore, unfortunately, as facts.” After watching “Blow Out,” I think she may actually be right.

Contact Rey Barcelo at rbarcelo ‘at’ stanford.edu.

 

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‘Toni Erdmann’ is as hilarious as it is horrifying https://stanforddaily.com/2017/01/18/dark-deutsch-farce/ https://stanforddaily.com/2017/01/18/dark-deutsch-farce/#respond Wed, 18 Jan 2017 17:45:02 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1121505 Germans aren’t generally known for their sense of humor. Understandably, the country that produced Nietzche, the Third Reich, and Krampus the Christmas demon is too concerned with the horrors of humanity to laugh at itself. When they dare to venture into comedic territory, the results tend toward bleak absurdism: The famous German satire “Even Dwarfs […]

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Germans aren’t generally known for their sense of humor. Understandably, the country that produced Nietzche, the Third Reich, and Krampus the Christmas demon is too concerned with the horrors of humanity to laugh at itself. When they dare to venture into comedic territory, the results tend toward bleak absurdism: The famous German satire “Even Dwarfs Started Small” features a cast composed of dwarves who rebel (rather pathetically) against their captors. The joke, of course, is that humans exist in a world as inaccessible and alien to them as everyday objects appear to dwarves. Cue the laugh track.

And yet, just as I was willing to write off German comedy, along came “Toni Erdmann” to get the last laugh. An admittedly bizarre choice for Germany to submit for their Best Foreign Language Film at this year’s Academy Awards, “Toni Erdmann” is as absurd, scandalous and dark as anything the Germans have ever produced. But for once, it just doesn’t feel sick to laugh at the macabre humor. Not only will you cackle at the depravity and guffaw at the nihilism in “Toni Erdmann,” but the laughter will also feel oh so very right.

Consider the following scene from the beginning of the film. Winfried Conradi (Peter Simonischek), an aging piano teacher, is in the middle of a confusing exchange with a package deliveryman. After asserting that the package isn’t his, but rather his brother’s, Winfried deadpans that his brother was recently released from prison. His crime? Mailing bombs.

We quickly come to realize that every action Winfried takes is a twisted joke, and every sentence he speaks is a punchline – often one lacking in setup. He inexplicably paints his students’ faces (and his own) to resemble skulls, then instructs them to perform a song that suggests a retiring teacher is about to die. After the abortive performance, Winfried looks unfazed, musing that his grotesque face paint will allow him to easily euthanize the members of a nearby retirement home.

Winfried eventually finds an audience for his oddball humor in his estranged daughter Ines (radiantly played by Sandra Hüller). Unbeknownst to Ines, Winfried travels to her nightmarish workplace in Romania and discovers that her world is one of humorless pleasantries and casual misogyny. Her anguish occasionally manifests itself in sadistic one-liners that, like her father’s jests, conceals something much darker. Before a massage, she instructs the secretary to “Bring someone who beats me up.” Her smile suggests levity, but her steely eyes say otherwise. Despite her inner pain, she shrugs off her father’s concern, deflecting a question about her well-being by rhetorically asking him “What do you find worth living for?” Neither father nor daughter appears to have an answer.

Hoping to inject some levity into Ines’s dismal life (and quite possibly his own), Winfried sets out to surprise his daughter at every turn with bizarre pranks. To this end, he creates and acts out the character of Toni Erdmann, a life coach with false teeth and a penchant for inappropriate questions. He handcuffs himself to her in jest, but misplaces the key. He speaks at great lengths to her business associates about the burial of a turtle. As the apotheosis of his mischief, he corners her into performing Whitney Houston’s “Greatest Love of All” before a crowd of strangers.

Though Ines is initially revolted by her father’s antics, she becomes touched by his commitment to making her smile. His humor begins to manifest itself in her as she makes startling displays of dominance over her male coworkers – all under the guise of comedy. Winfried, too, seems changed by his daughter; his ambiguous punchlines soon find a subject to satirize (her abominable coworkers) and a context (his compassion for her). Have father and daughter given each other something to live for?

Despite its familiar plot, “Toni Erdmann” is anything but a Lifetime feel-good family comedy. Director Maren Ade performs a cinematic juggling act between the film’s riskier elements (drug abuse, depression, sexual perversion) and its screwball comedy, finding a balance that emphasizes comedy’s necessity in overcoming pain. Leads Peter Simonischek and Sandra Hüller also deserve praise for handling the film’s tonal shifts, as their performances often turn from lighthearted to despondent on a moment’s notice.

My most salient issue with the film is its length (nearly three hours); the second act is somewhat overstuffed with comedic set pieces, the aggregation of which leads to diminishing returns. Yet, just when the film’s silliness starts to wear itself out, Ade throws in a salacious climax so hilarious, so cathartic and – you guessed it – so deliciously fucked up that the film instantly redeems itself. You’ll leave “Toni Erdmann” amused, ponderous and disturbed – but honestly, what else did you expect from the Germans?

 

Contact Rey Barcelo at rbarcelo ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Rey Barcelo’s top five films of 2016 https://stanforddaily.com/2017/01/10/rey-barcelo-top-5/ https://stanforddaily.com/2017/01/10/rey-barcelo-top-5/#respond Wed, 11 Jan 2017 06:31:34 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1121257 5. “Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World” At first glance, German eccentric and self-professed technophobe Werner Herzog may seem an inappropriate choice to direct a documentary about the internet. Yet Herzog’s inexperience is the film’s strongest asset, since he seeks out subjects that most filmmakers would ignore. Traveling from Stanford engineering labs to […]

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5. “Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World”

At first glance, German eccentric and self-professed technophobe Werner Herzog may seem an inappropriate choice to direct a documentary about the internet. Yet Herzog’s inexperience is the film’s strongest asset, since he seeks out subjects that most filmmakers would ignore. Traveling from Stanford engineering labs to technology-free mountaintop resorts populated with tinfoil hat-wearing Luddites, “Lo and Behold” is an open-minded and ultimately hilarious look at all those affected by the technology. By the time Herzog awkwardly asks Elon Musk to reserve him a spaceship to Mars, you’ll know you’re in good hands.

4. “The Lobster”

In this dystopian dark comedy, Colin Farrell plays a pathetically single sad-sack who must quickly find a mate. The catch: if he fails to do so after a month, he will be turned into the animal of his choice. Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos’s penchant for painfully awkward social satire is not for everyone, but those willing to laugh at the futility of relationships will find comedic gold in “The Lobster.” A word of caution: don’t see it with your significant other (unless you want that person to become your ex).

3. “La La Land”

Don’t be fooled by the candy-colored, musical romance: Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling will sing and dance their way into your hearts, but then they are going to rip them out. Stone plays an aspiring actress who finds support in an equally unsuccessful jazz pianist (played by Gosling), as the two try to share their art with a seemingly indifferent audience. Director Damien Chazelle, fresh off the success of “Whiplash,” explores artistic ambition, nostalgia and sacrifice in a fluid symphony with surprising bite.

2. “The Handmaiden”

In less capable hands, this lesbian period piece could have become a pulpy exploitation flick gone wrong. But director Park Chan-Wook (famous for “Oldboy”) tells this tale of deception between a Korean con woman and a Japanese heiress with the suspenseful pacing of Hitchcock and the gruesome exuberance of Tarantino, all while managing to squeeze in a passionate queer subplot a la Todd Haynes. To lovers of psychological thrillers, old school blood and gore, or badass female leads, “The Handmaiden” is a must-see.

1. “Moonlight”

You’ve likely heard of “Moonlight” as intersectional “Boyhood” or some variant, but no simple explanation can do this film credit. Director Barry Jenkins tells the tale of Liberty City resident Chiron’s struggles with his sexuality and race with poetic dialogue, vivid cinematography and an epic score. Chiron is played by three actors as he ages, but supporting players Mahershala Ali (of “House of Cards”) and Naomie Harris (of “Skyfall”) are the real show-stoppers. Both deserve Academy Awards for their roles as Chiron’s father figure and addict mother, respectively. “Moonlight” may not be easy viewing, but it is more urgent and emotionally complex than any film that you’ll see this year.

 

Contact Rey Barcelo at rbarcelo ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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Jeff Nichols’ ‘Loving’ Is As Tender As It Is Timely https://stanforddaily.com/2016/11/16/loving-is-as-tender-as-it-is-timely/ https://stanforddaily.com/2016/11/16/loving-is-as-tender-as-it-is-timely/#respond Wed, 16 Nov 2016 21:56:15 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1119967 “We may lose the small battles but win the big war,” says Ruth Negga’s character in “Loving,” the latest film from American independent director Jeff Nichols. Could any quote possibly be more appropriate for our time? “Loving” recounts the true story of Richard and Mildred Loving, an interracial couple initially sentenced to prison in their […]

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“We may lose the small battles but win the big war,” says Ruth Negga’s character in “Loving,” the latest film from American independent director Jeff Nichols. Could any quote possibly be more appropriate for our time?

“Loving” recounts the true story of Richard and Mildred Loving, an interracial couple initially sentenced to prison in their home state of Virginia under the state’s anti-miscegenation laws. But over the course of 10 years, they fight their way to the Supreme Court, which rules in 1967 that their marriage is valid — thus striking down all laws prohibiting interracial marriage.

Though the case is almost 50 years old, “Loving” teems with urgency. It shows that society progresses not through sweeping advances but through gradual changes. It is a film of quiet revelations, free from any typical prestige-picture melodrama but instead full of earned delicacy. Nichols grounds the film by keeping his camera on the Lovings at all time; their love comes first. All else is background noise.

Every role in the film is immaculately cast — Joel Edgerton (“Zero Dark Thirty,” “The Great Gatsby”) portrays Richard Loving as a Hemingway character full of bucolic poetry, while Ruth Negga (AMC’s “Preacher”) acts out Mildred’s evolution from a passive farm girl to an emboldened champion of racial equality. Edgerton and Negga’s chemistry allows them to wordlessly communicate their love; a single glance between them can reveal their shared frustration or mutual joy.

And as can be expected, frustration is far more abundant than joy in “Loving.” The film documents, with painstaking patience, the 10 long years of setbacks the Lovings face on their path to marriage equality. They are jailed. They are harassed. They face opposition from within their own families. By the time their case is finally settled in the Supreme Court, both Richard and Mildred have grey hair. Their progress is hard-fought and long-awaited, and well-earned.

It is this careful attention to the gritty reality of social progress that is exactly why “Loving” is an epochal film for 2016. It shows that progress is not simply achieved with a tweet but through the tireless efforts of those committed to making it happen. It understands that change is not immediate, but hard fought for. Last Tuesday night, countless Americans felt like they had lost the battle. As the Lovings have shown, they may well go on to win the war.

 

Contact Rey Barcelo at rbarcelo@stanford.edu.

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Interview: ‘Tower’ director Keith Maitland talks his unique documentary https://stanforddaily.com/2016/11/11/tower-director-keith-meithland-talks-his-unique-documentary/ https://stanforddaily.com/2016/11/11/tower-director-keith-meithland-talks-his-unique-documentary/#respond Fri, 11 Nov 2016 18:57:57 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1119581 Director Keith Maitland shocked audiences at South By Southwest this year with the premiere of his critically acclaimed and incredibly unique semi-documentary “Tower.” Using both archival footage and animation, the story attempts to capture 1966 shootings at the University of Texas at Austin — one of the first mass school shootings in American history. And […]

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Director Keith Maitland shocked audiences at South By Southwest this year with the premiere of his critically acclaimed and incredibly unique semi-documentary “Tower.” Using both archival footage and animation, the story attempts to capture 1966 shootings at the University of Texas at Austin — one of the first mass school shootings in American history.

And after being floored by his powerful film, the Stanford Daily had the opportunity to interview Mr. Maitland about his stunning feature, now playing in local theaters.

The Stanford Daily (TDS): Why did you choose to use rotoscopic animation, which involves animators actually tracing over motion picture footage frame by frame? And how did you decide when to use animation and when to use archival footage?

Keith Maitland (KS): I knew there was really incredible archival footage, which was shot by handheld 16mm camera operators who rushed to campus from the local news — I had seen it and was aware that those photographers had captured the chaos and frenetic energy of the day through long shots and wide angled shots. But what was missing was close-ups and medium shots that let individual characters emerge. So I designed a structure that would allow us to use the archival as a framework and build out whatever was visually missing though animation. I love working with rotoscopic animation because under the incredible handpainted artwork are real actors and real human performances. Craig Staggs and his team at Minnow Mountain really captured the essence of the actors’ portrayals, exceeding my expectations.

TDS: What drew you to the story initially?

KS: Growing up in Texas, this is a story that I had heard about from time to time and I was waiting for someone to make the film that would fill in the blanks and offer our community (I live in Austin) a chance to heal. We still needed that, all these years later.

TDS: How do you feel the cultural landscape around mass shootings has changed since the UT Austin shootings?

KS: I’m not one to say that the world is an entirely different place then versus now. But there are significant differences. Austin has grown. It’s not a sleepy little town — it’s a mid-sized city with police officers who are now trained and given special assignments in these kind of events. So the institutional approach would definitely be different.

TDS: What surprised you the most over the course of your research and interviews?

KS: The most surprising element was hearing how multiple people risked everything to rescue Claire and to aid other fallen students. This silence was pervasive, and it frustrated our efforts, but it also invited us to push beyond the standard doc formats into a place where we can tell these stories in an artful way. That, and it was surprising to realize that there was a near universal reaction from each of our interviewees, saying “we never talked about it.”

 

Contact Rey Barcelo at rbarcelo@stanford.edu.

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Film review: ‘Tower’ finds humanity amidst tragedy https://stanforddaily.com/2016/11/04/tower/ https://stanforddaily.com/2016/11/04/tower/#respond Sat, 05 Nov 2016 00:34:16 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1119203 The reporting of mass shootings, like the coverage of sports scores or the weather forecast, has become a routine. With each new incident, we see an anxious reporter standing in front of a tangle of caution tape, illuminated by a chiaroscuro of flashing police lights. A stretcher is wheeled away in the background, and then several […]

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The reporting of mass shootings, like the coverage of sports scores or the weather forecast, has become a routine. With each new incident, we see an anxious reporter standing in front of a tangle of caution tape, illuminated by a chiaroscuro of flashing police lights. A stretcher is wheeled away in the background, and then several more, and then we hear the running total of fatalities. We understand the pain of what we are seeing, but the familiarity of the experience has dulled our ability to empathize with the victims.

In reporting the 1966 University of Texas shootings, the documentary “Tower could have repeated this formula. It could easily have told, via disinterested voiceover, how a 25-year-old gunman mounted the clock tower at UT Austin and killed 17 people. While the camera panned over grainy black-and-white photos of the destruction, the narrator could have informed us that this was the deadliest mass shooting until the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre, thus cementing the shooting as historical curiosity and not an actual experience in which real people lost their lives.

“Tower” succeeds by doing none of these things. Unlike other reportings of tragedy — which discredit their subject by placing a pane of glass between their audience and their victims — “Tower” presents the shooting in a vibrant, visceral style achieved through animation. This allows us to see the tragedy not through the cold, clinical detachment of a reporter or historian but through the startled eyes of those who lived through the experience. The animation (technically rotoscoping, in which animators trace over film footage for a surreal effect) gives its story a sense of subjectivity: Colors dim as characters become more afraid, shootings are shown in striking silhouette, and the tower looms (often impossibly) in the background of nearly every shot.

Though the film’s subjectivity makes it more harrowing than most, “Tower”’s defining feature is actually its humanity. Director Keith Maitland wisely interrupts scenes of carnage with moments of sentimentality, such as a rose-tinted flashback of a central character’s romantic past and a tender moment of solidarity between a victim and a bystander. Most moving, however, is a moment near the film’s end, where a surviving victim is asked if she can forgive the shooter. “How can I hate?” she replies. “How can I not forgive? I’ve been forgiven so much.”

Ultimately, “Tower” proves a sober viewing that looks beyond the cynicism of mass shootings and asks the audience to consider the lives affected. It’s a disquieting film, but one that should be required viewing for those who feel numb to the unceasing reports of tragedy in this day and age. It is often said that today’s cultural landscape has desensitized violence, but “Tower”’s sensitivity may begin to reverse this trend. At the very least, it pushes past the caution tape cordoning off disaster and implores its viewer to think carefully about the lives being lived inside.

Contact Rey Barcelo at rbarcelo ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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‘Oldboy’ director’s ‘The Handmaiden’ is a tough, smart watch https://stanforddaily.com/2016/10/28/handmaiden-2/ https://stanforddaily.com/2016/10/28/handmaiden-2/#respond Fri, 28 Oct 2016 08:40:59 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1118781 Halfway through “The Handmaiden,” I had to ask myself, “What kind of film is this?” Is it a love story? An erotic thriller? A political period piece? Now that I’ve seen it, I can only say that “The Handmaiden” is all of the above. The latest film from Korean director Park Chan-wook (best known for his […]

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Halfway through “The Handmaiden, I had to ask myself, “What kind of film is this?” Is it a love story? An erotic thriller? A political period piece? Now that I’ve seen it, I can only say that “The Handmaiden” is all of the above.

The latest film from Korean director Park Chan-wook (best known for his bloody revenge thriller “Oldboy”) is a sumptuous clash of influences. Take, for example, the script: An adaptation of Sarah Waters’s novel “Fingersmith,” but with the book’s setting of Victorian England swapped out for Japanese-occupied Korea. This modified background gives the film an undercurrent of cultural tension as characters switch between speaking Japanese and Korean in order to seduce, to clarify or (most frequently) to deceive.

Deception abounds in “The Handmaiden,” which pits its cast in a cat-and-mouse game of lies where no one (especially not the audience) ever knows the full story. Here’s the partial narrative: A shrewd pickpocket named Sook-hee teams up with a con man posing as a Count to rob the delicate Lady Hideko of her fortune. With Sook-hee posing as a handmaiden to Lady Hideko and the counterfeit Count playing her suitor, the duo plan to ingratiate themselves to the Lady before declaring her mentally ill, banishing her to an asylum and claiming her wealth for themselves.

The plan disintegrates quickly, however, when a romance blossoms between Hideko and Sook-hee instead. As the two become more and more intimate, Sook-hee has second thoughts about her plot and begins to quarrel with the Count.

This is only the film’s first 45 minutes, but if I shared any more I’d have to update most of the plot I’ve already laid down. “The Handmaiden” is presented in three labeled acts, each adopting the perspective of a different character to allow hidden truths to come to light. The first act is told from Sook-hee’s point of view, and the second largely retells the same story as seen from Lady Hideko’s eyes. She’s not as naive as she once seemed, nor is Sook-hee’s and the Count’s plan quite as foolproof.

Though I won’t spoil any more of the plot, I must warn the faint of heart: “The Handmaiden” is full of explicit sex, mutilated appendages and a comically large octopus. Your reaction to the previous sentence should give you a good indication of whether you’ll enjoy the film.

Unsurprisingly, the movie’s intensity is its most controversial feature. Its frequent depiction of female sexuality has spawned a good deal of debate, prompting some critics to claim that the film sexualizes its actresses. There is a valid argument to be made here: Any film in which the women undress substantially more than the males has a tenuous claim to a feminist agenda. However, I believe that the net total of the film’s erotic moments is not a reflection of the male gaze, but a subversion of it.

Midway through the story, Lady Hideko is objectified by a group of men — but the scene is more nuanced than it sounds. Park Chan-wook wisely builds up to this moment by showing the harrowing training Hideko is forced to undergo beforehand, making the resulting scene horrifying rather than sexualized. This weaponization of female sexuality for the pleasure of men stands in contrast with the love scenes between the Lady and her handmaiden, which are genuinely tender and offer a reprieve from the rest of the film’s deception.

This romance is the film’s moral core, proving that despite the labyrinth of traps these characters set for each other, some of them are still capable of love. This masterful conflict between duplicity and genuine affection is the film’s strongest point and sets it apart from the average psychological thriller. Provided you can tolerate the intensity of “The Handmaiden,” you will find yourself immersed in the tale of love and lies, from its bombastic start to an ending that is climactic in more ways than you might expect.

 

Contact Rey Barcelo at rbarcelo ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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