She battled a dictatorial regime

 

   In 1970, Brazil was in the midst of a military dictatorship that would continue for another 15 years. Director Walter Salles (Central Station) revisits that time to tell a story in which the unprincipled and murderous exercise of power upends the life of a family. 

   I'm Still Here, Salles's Oscar-nominated movie, offers a deeply moving account of damages wrought by a regime that brooked no opposition.

   When the movie opens, life for the Paiva family seems to be unfolding normally. Mom (Fernanda Torres) floats in the waters at a Rio beach.  Her kids play in the sand. Mom, Dad, and their five children seem to have escaped the worst effects of state-sponsored oppression. It's the Christmas season of 1970.

    Despite some ominous forebodings, these early scenes brim with the warmth and energy of a well-educated family. As he should, Salles encourages us to hope that we're about to embark on an irresistible story about a household made lively by visitors and genial byplay.

     That hope shatters when thugs arrest Dad, a former legislator who's suspected of aiding rebellious dissidents. Mom's arrest and interrogation follows. Released after 12 days, Mom begins the fraught task of keeping her family together. Dad never will be seen again.

   On one level, I'm still Here can be seen as a tribute to the sacrifices and courage of Eunice Paiva, a mother who valiantly struggles against the dictatorial tide. A memorable blend of anxiety, fortitude, grit, and grief, Torres's performance qualifies as one of the year's best.

   But Salles never loses sight of the cause of the distress we're seeing. Every scene strikes at us like an alarm bell about the dangers of unchecked power.

    Viewers can debate whether Salles erred by including a late-picture scene set in 2014.  In this segment, Eunice tries to obtain official acknowledgment that her husband was murdered. 

    In an epilogue, Fernanda Montenegro, Torres's real mother and the star of Salles's much-admired Central Station, plays the aging Eunice Paiva, a nice  bit of casting that honors Salles's actresses, as well as the Paiva family.

    Though softer than earlier scenes, Salles's end-of-picture moves can't relieve the sharp pain of a disturbing story, even as he celebrates one family's capacity for maintaining its humanity while never abandoning hope that Rubens Paiva's fate, and by extension the fates of many others, will be known. 

    Marcelo Paiva, the only son in a family of daughters, wrote the memoir on which the story is based, but it's arguable that the movie's commitment and conviction received a boost from Salles's personal knowledge of a family he often visited as a teenager. 

   With an international rise in oligarchy and authoritarianism, I'm Still Here can't help but serve as a cautionary tale about the fragility of what often are perceived as inviolable rights. That's a point worth remembering: When thugs are unleashed, nothing is guaranteed. 

An Oscar postscript 

I'm Still Here received what has been called a surprise Oscar nomination in the Best Picture category. Moreover, Torres received a nomination for best actress. Some analysts argue that this year's nominations have a decidedly liberal tilt, possibly in reaction to a global tilt toward authoritarianism. Maybe, but I'm Still Here would have been a worthy choice regardless of the current political environment. It's a fine movie.

Notes: David Lynch, the Oscars

    So where was I? 

    I haven’t posted in a while, primarily because I’ve been out of the country on an important mission; i.e., avoiding movies, news, and all the other things to which I usually pay inordinate amounts of attention. 

   But I’m back and ready to roll. More or less.

   First off, David Lynch, one of cinema’s most revered image makers died at the age of 78 on January 15. Much has been written about Lynch since his passing, so I’ll refrain from contributing to the appreciation barrage. Look at any number of headlined pieces and you’ll get the gist about an artist some saw as their personal tour guide through America’s darker side.

    I discovered Lynch at a long-ago screening of Eraserhead in 1977. Footnote: The theater in which I saw the movie no longer exists. I mention this because many theaters have vanished as Lynch's generation of filmmakers wanes.

    I’ve had mixed reactions to Lynch’s movies with Mulholland Drive (2001) emerging as my runaway favorite. I understand why devotes of Blue Velvet are so ardent about that movie, but I’m not one of its fans. We can argue about that some other time.

    I met Lynch once but can’t remember much about him, other than that he smoked at a time when cigarettes were no longer easily tolerated. He also said it was OK for people -- or maybe he meant just me -- not to understand everything about his movies. He wasn't being snide or condescending; he seemed to be saying that he knew that it might not be possible to connect every dot in a Lynchian puzzle. Maybe he wanted that way. 

   Lynch began as an art student; I’ve generally regarded his movies as the work of a painter who became fascinated with moving pictures. An artist with a taste for ambiguity and mystery, Lynch had a gift for creating images that suggested more than they ever spelled out.

     When I think of Lynch, I also remember the Lady in the Radiator singing the song In Heaven in   Eraserhead. “In heaven, everything is fine,'' the lyric went. The song was both sincere, and unsettling. In Heaven teased us with hope and delusion, teetering on the edge of irony without falling into its smothering abyss.

      We’ll probably have to wait a long time before another Lynch appears. Idiosyncratic talent is rare in all fields. Lynch received an honorary Oscar for lifetime achievement in 2017, but he remained an independent voice in movies. 

      All of which brings me to this year's Oscar nominations which were announced on Thursday, Jan. 23. 

     Overall, the nominations didn’t offer much to complain about.

     I would have liked to have seen Marianne Jean-Baptiste nominated for best actress. Her performance as the massively embittered Pansy in Hard Truths was more than notable.

     I would have nominated Sebastian Stan, a best actor nominee, for his work in A Different Man, not for his portrayal of Donald Trump in The Apprentice. 

     Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor received no nomination, but her performance in Nickel Boys, though small,  gave the movie its aching heart. 

     In case you've been wondering, India’s All We Imagine as Light wasn't eligible for a foreign-language Oscar nod because it wasn't submitted by for consideration by any of its co-producing nations or by India, where the film is set.

     I shed no tears that Angelina Jolie was bypassed for her portrayal of Maria Callas in Maria or that Nicole Kidman was overlooked for playing a CEO who wanted to be sexually dominated in Babygirl.  Both actresses should continue to thrive.

     One last thought: I'm Still Here received what has been called a surprise nomination in the Best Picture category. Moreover, Fernanda Torres, as a mother trying to protect her family during the Brazilian military dictatorship of the 1970s, won a nomination for best actress. 

    Some analysts argue that this year's nominations have a decidedly liberal tilt, possibly in reaction to a Trump resurgence and European authoritarianism. Maybe, but I'm Still Here would have been a worthy choice no matter what ways the political winds are blowing.  It's a fine movie, and, by the way, it's also nominated in the best foreign-language film category.

    Enough. The Academy Awards  … to use a mildly hollow but appropriate expression — are what they are.

    It's possible that Lynch, to begin where I started, will be remembered long after many of this year's Academy Award nominees are forgotten. 

   So, remember, if your favorites aren't honored or if, you're among those who don't understand the furor over Amelia Perez, or if you think The Brutalist was too long, even with a 15-minute intermission, or if you couldn't quite adjust to the subjective camerawork of Nickel Boys, or you if you haven't seen The Apprentice, or if you puzzle about Wicked being the first film to receive 10 nominations but none for directing or writing (I read it somewhere),  or if you think Edward Berger, who directed best picture nominee Conclave, should have received a best-director nomination, console yourself, and remember these words from Eraserhead.

    “In heaven, everything is fine." Didn't David Lynch say so?

           

        

       

Covering a tragic Olympics

 

   On September 5, 1972, the Palestinian group Black September began its attack on Munich's Olympic Village. By the time the siege ended, 11 Israeli athletes had been murdered; five terrorists were killed, and one German police officer died. 

   Movies have taken note. In 1999, One Day in September won an Oscar for best documentary. In 2005, Steven Spielberg released Munich, which dealt with fallout from the attack.

   Now comes September 5, a movie focused on how ABC covered an event that presented a real-time challenge for a crew that was ready to cover Olympic competition, not a gripping international news event with life-and-death stakes.

    The strength of Swiss director Tim Fehlbaum's approach rests on the recognition that those covering the Olympics were presented with logistical and ethical challenges for which they had no real preparation. 

   How would an exhausted crew handle the first live TV  broadcast of act of terror? Might such coverage jeopardize the hostages? What standards of confirmation would be employed to ensure the accuracy of ABC's reporting?

    At one point during the 15-hour broadcast, the crew received a report that the hostages were safe. ABC broadcast the news and later aired a correction. The report was false. 

    The incident raises a key issue about journalism conducted on the fly: the conflict between the pressure to be first and the responsibility to be right.

    ABC sports chief, Roone Arledge (Peter Sarsgaard), fought to keep the story away from ABC's news division. He thought his crew was up to the task. John Magaro portrays Geoff Mason, the producer who found himself directing ABC's coverage; it was Mason's first day on the job. 

    Leonie Benesch plays Marianne Gebhardt, a German crew member who became invaluable because none of the others spoke German. Ben Chaplin plays Marvin Bader, the executive in charge of Olympic operations. 

    While tensions ripple through the control room, Arledge finds himself jockeying for satellite time. As questions about competition arise, Arledge must decide whether to give ABC's live feed to CBS when that network takes control of the satellite, which was being shared.

   Looking back on it, the events of September 5 seem more significant than the coverage, but for millions around the world, Munich became inseparable from what they saw on TV. Live coverage already had insinuated itself into news, but Munich ratified it, leaving us with a question we still haven't answered: How much do we need to see when the worst things happen? And who decides? 

    

A woman of boundless scorn

   Marianne Jean-Baptiste delivers a major performance in director Mike Leigh's Hard Truths, a piercing drama set in a British working-class milieu as seen through the lens of a Black family with Jamaican roots. Jean-Baptiste, who appeared in Leigh's Secrets & Lies (1999), provides the bitter glue that keeps Hard Truths on track.

  It's a bumpy ride, distinguished by Baptiste Pansy's biting resentment, which turns mean when directed outward. Pansy doesn't conceal her contempt for strangers, supermarket cashiers, salespeople, and, most of all, her husband (David Webber), a hard-working plumber who takes enough abuse from his wife to qualify him for sainthood. 

  Pansy's son (Tuwaine Barrett) fares no better. Addicted to video games, he's unable to kickstart a productive life. Small wonder he's stuck: Mom prefers hectoring to encouragement. 

   Fortunately, Leigh includes a counterbalance to Pansy's intractable sourness. Michele Austin plays Pansy's younger sister Chantelle, a cheerful hairdresser liked by everyone she encounters. Chantelle's two adult daughters (Ani Nelson and Sophia Brown) are equally engaging. They represent the branch of the family tree that still knows how to blossom.

   Despite her bitterness, which Leigh never fully explains, Pansy's family tries to stay even-keeled around her. They've had plenty of practice, and we feel their pain, the weight of their abidance.

   Leigh employs his usual method of story development. He invites his actors to invent characters and refines them throughout a lengthy process that results in a shooting script. The style leans heavily on character and emotional truth, overshadowing the importance of plot.

   At one point, Chantelle asks her sister to join her on Mother's Day for a visit to the cemetery where their mother is buried. The trip provides one more occasion for Pansy to rail about how life has short-changed her. 

     It's difficult to play a truly annoying character without alienating an audience. But before the movie ends, Jean-Baptiste has made it clear that Pansy's bitterness consumes her as much as it torments others.

   Like many embittered people, Pansy is driven by pain and fear, and Jean-Baptiste reveals the full measure of both. Pansy's anger is so deeply embedded, she may fear she'd vanish without it. 

    A memorable character, Pansy may remind you of someone in your family, albeit in an intensely magnified way. At least, I hope she's a heightened version of someone you might know.

   If not, you have my sympathy, as well as my respect for your ability to endure.

   

A bold refresh of a familiar genre

 Like many Americans, I knew little about Robbie Williams, a British pop star who began his ascent as a member of Take That, a boy band that scored big during the 1990s. In 1995, Williams set out on his own, scoring again as a solo act. Along the way, there were bouts with alcohol, drugs, and pop-star self-destruction.

   On the surface, Better Man -- a biopic about Williams's turbulent life -- seems depressingly generic. A driven young man is nearly ruined by fame but eventually rights his ship. So much for a story arc. 

  But Better Man does something novel to refresh a  familiar biopic approach. Evidently inspired by an acerbic Williams, who once described himself as a performing monkey, the movie depicts Williams as chimp. Ah, the burdens of being rich and famous.

   Director Michael Gracey (The Greatest Showman) employs a CGI chimpanzee, dropping the effect into a world populated by fully human actors who never react to the chimp as if there were anything unusual about him. The CGI chimp holds his own as a compelling performer, massive screw-up, and bubbling well of insecurity. (Jonno Davies does motion-capture work and dialogue. Williams does the movie's voice-over narration.)

   A four-part documentary series on Netflix offers a look at Williams in the flesh, but Better Man provides a good idea about Williams's turbulent life.

   Gracey includes lots of music and production numbers -- an extravagant performance of the number Rock DJ on London's Regent Street, for example, and another in which Williams hangs upside down over an audience. Well-staged, the musical numbers bristle with sugar-high energy.

   The movie's human cast (yes, it's a strange thing to say) includes Steve Pemberton as Williams's father, an aspiring singer who abandoned his family to pursue a career in show business. Despite some bitterness, Robbie seeks Dad's approval, never quite shedding his insecurities as a working-class kid from Stoke-on-Trent.

    Raechelle Banno portrays Nicole Appleton, a singer who steals Willams's heart. He's smitten, but problems disrupt the relationship. Appleton has an abortion, after her record company applies pressure. Motherhood evidently didn't mesh with Appleton's girl-band image.

    The movie makes no attempt to paper over Williams's bad-boy flaws, but wears them defiantly, as if patting itself on the back for honesty. 

    Before it's done Better Man goes full showbiz cornball, but it has plenty of verve and a gimmick that comes close to concealing the movie's cliches. Moreover, the movie's chimp-based ploy likely will remain unique. Can you imagine A Complete Unknown with a chimp version of Dylan? Didn't think so.

    Did the movie make me want to know more about Williams or listen to more of his music? Nah, but it made for a brisk two hours and 15 minutes, and Gracey and Williams certainly took a major risk by monkeying around with a well-worn formula. Sorry, I couldn't resist.