Freaks is a radical diversity statement

While the concept of diversity is a modern concoction intimately connected to the Civil Rights Movement in the US, LGBT rights activism and the New Left agenda of the 1970s in many countries, the notion that the should embrace the different is, of course, much older. Tod Browning’s Freaks, which was made nearly a century ago in 1932, is an early champion of diversity, despite the fact that the American filmmaker himself never knew the concept. Remarkably, Freaks remains the most audacious and thought-provoking statement for diversity in film in the relatively short history of cinema. Diversity includes race, religion, gender, class and also disability, the latter being the subject of the film in question.

In Freaks, eponymous characters were played by people who worked as carnival sideshow performers and had real deformities and medical conditions. This includes the Bearded Lady, the Stork Woman, the Half-Boy Johnny Eck, the conjoined twins Daisy and Violet, the Human Torso, the Armless Wonder as well as various sufferers of the Virchow-Seckel Syndrome (which gives humans a bird-like appearance with a narrow face and pointy nose). The central plot is around an able-bodied trapeze artist called Cleopatra, who deduces and marries the sideshow midget Hans upon finding out about his large inheritance. She attempts to persuade the circus strongman Hercules to kill Hans so that both can have his wealth.

The able-bodied woman is the wholy corrupt and ugly character in Freaks, while the “freaks” are profoundly integral and beautiful. The message within the film is as bright as daylight: ugly is beautiful, and you should never judge people by their appearance. And ultimately: the freakier your body, the bigger your heart.

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The original poster for Tod Browning’s controversial masterpiece of diversity

People reject the different

Despite its very noble intentions, the movie backfired. Society just wasn’t ready for such candidness. Society didn’t want diversity. As a result, the film was heavily edited down to just 62 minutes (from the original 98 minutes). Still, viewers convulsed, vomited and left the cinema in droves. And a woman allegedly had a miscarriage while watching it.

So, how would audiences react to Freaks if it was made now? We would neither throw up nor lose an unborn baby. We have now adapted to the most absurd shapes and forms in cinema, as grotesque and repulsive as one can imagine, from frothing aliens to roaring zombies. Yet most of us would feel extremely uncomfortable with the realism of the film, and many people would indeed walk out of the movie theatre. We have grown accustomed to a visually sanitised cinema with unachievable beauty standards, plus a tedious celebrity culture consistently imposed on us. Most of us want people to look pretty on the silver screen. We are happy to see freaky monsters created with the help of special effects and computer animation, but we decry real and graphic images of the imperfect human body. We often describe those as either “unnecessary” or “sheer bad taste”.

While many of us have embraced diversity and become more used to nudity in cinema, we’ve also learnt to sanitise the different so that it becomes more palatable. No film has ever portrayed people with deformities in a way as candid and straightforward and with a message of inclusion as crystal-clear as Freaks.

The controversy surrounding Freaks helped to trigger the Motion Picture Production Code, which vouched for “decency” in American cinema for many decades to come. The moral guidelines of the Code may have been removed since, but its impact on the industry still lingers, as the market naturally rejects anything that’s too “crude” with the human body. The commercial failure of David Cronenberg’s Crash is a shining testament of our inability to embrace the imperfect human body.

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Cleopatra (pictured in the centre) is the ugliest character in Tod Browning’s Freaks

Television versus cinema

To be fair, the UK government and British television have gone to great lengths in order to make people more comfortable with the least usual aspects of our pathology. Channel 4’s Embarrassing Bodies certainly does that, as do most of the TV shows featuring the charismatic Adam Pearson – who has neurofibromatosis and has been involved in outreach programmes to prevent bullying associated with deformities. Under New Labour, I also remember seeing street adverts showing people with facial disfigurement and urging the population to engage with them – sadly those have now vanished.

Strangely, remarkably little has been done in British cinema. London does have its annual Disability Film Festival, yet more mainstream cinema practices either reject or sanitise people with disabilities. There has never been a film like Freaks in this country and perhaps there will never be. Maybe we simply don’t want to see disabled and disfigured people exactly as they are.

In a nutshell, I still think that Americans and Brits alike are not comfortable with the fact that the human body isn’t always pretty and proportionate. Grotesque doesn’t mean unnatural. Grotesque IS natural. Once we are sophisticated enough to understand this, then perhaps we’ll be prepared to embrace diversity more wholeheartedly.

Moonlight and intersectionality

Do you know what “intersectionality” means?

The concept refers to the overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage, in terms of race, class, gender/sexuality. For example: “female Latin”, “transgender Asian “and “gay Black” are intersectional subgroups. But don’t worry in case you have never come across this clunky 17-letter word and tongue-twister. I had never seen it myself until a couple of days ago, when a very angry readers confronted me just on Twitter about my review of Moonlight (Barry Jenkins), which received the Best Picture Oscar last night.

In my piece about the upset Oscar-winning movie about a gay Black in Florida (click here in order to accede to the review page) I did not acknowledge intersectionality. Instead, I addressed gay rights and black rights separately. This infuriated a couple of readers, which described the piece as offensive and irresponsible. One of them went one step further and questioned whether DMovies had any black gay writers because he believe that “intersectionality is key”. I replied that we have one gay black writer, plus several gay and black writers (I’m a gay male myself). Not a bad achievement for a nascent and small organisation, I opined.

Diversity is of course a very loose term, used to describe anything vaguely multicultural, international or anti-discriminatory. It is therefore necessary to qualify it, and intersectionality is a fitting answer to that. It enables us to describe the demographics of diversity in minute detail. I’m a gay Latin, it seems. Although I would personally shun the attribute: I think it’s too granular and limiting.

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Scene from 2017 Best Picture Oscar winner Moonlight

A weapon can backfire

Intersectionality (or intersectionability, as some pundits prefer) has plenty of benefits to offer to liberals. It improves public awareness of groups hitherto invisible and voiceless, pushing their requirements up a government’s agenda. But intersectionality also has at least two major problems which could backfire. So we need to think about it a little before ranting and demanding intersectionality in every sphere of our society.

Firstly, just like diversity, intersectionality is a very vague term. Some of the subgroups already have a long history of activism as well as significant representation in film (note: significant does not mean sufficient). These include lesbians, gay men, black women, etc. London has the firmly established Images of Black Film Festival, an event taking place every year and entirely dedicated to a subgroup. On the other hand, other subgroups are much smaller and it’s borderline impossible to vouch for their representation in film: gay Black, Asian transexual, Latin intersex, and so on. Our concepts of gender and sexuality are so fluid nowadays that it would be both difficult and counterproductive to articulate these smaller groups in the same way lesbians have articulated their movement throughout the decades. One size does not fit all.

Secondly, and far more importantly, is the issue of sectarianism. I have never fully supported the quota and positive discrimination agenda. By principle, I never fill out the ethnicity forms which are conspicuous in the UK – even knowing that I would probably benefit from doing it (as I’m in a minority group). But I do recognise that quotas for black and mixed race people in universities have helped to improve equality in Brazil, the country where I come from. I confess that that I still haven’t made up my mind about the controversial topic. What I don’t approve is sectarianism.

In order to explain myself, I’ll go back to the angry reader. While I recognise that his anger has very genuine reasons and that as a black gay he is doubly vulnerable to prejudice, I do not approve of mandatory intersectionability. DMovies does in fact have a black gay writer (his name is Almiro Andrade), but what if we didn’t? As the company director, I never set out to find a black gay writer. We can’t possibly cater for representatives of all subgroups. We would need a black person for each gender, class and sexuality. Here’s a list of the 58 gender options for Facebook users, just to give you an idea of how complex and non-binary these concepts are.

Extreme demands for representation can pulverise the diversity movement and alienate your likely supporters. And we’ll end up with further segregation, not less. So my message to intersectionality champions is: pick your enemies more wisely. Intersectionality should never become intersectionihilism.

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Barry Jenkins holda his Oscar statuette

The moon shines on gay Blacks

The Best Picture Oscar for Moonlight is a tremendous achievement, and also a deeply political act. La La Land would have represented a victory of the status quo: white and hetero. With Moonlight, the Academy killed two birds with one stone: the rabid eagle of racism and the ugly vulture of homophobia. This is a direct response to the #OscarSoWhite movement from last year and to the 2006 Oscars – when Crash (Paul Haggis) received the Best Picture Award instead of the Brokeback Mountain (Ang Lee’s gay romance was the clear favourite to win the prize).

Moonlight is indeed a very good movie, but also not without flaws – such as the casting and the soundtrack (see my review). There is no doubt that its subject matter helped to catapult it to the top. And why shouldn’t it? Cinema is a powerful transformational weapon, and we should have no qualms at using it in order to make a statement and demand change. I congratulate both the filmmaker Barry Jenkins and the Oscars.

So, is Moonlight ultimately an achievement for gay blacks, for gays or for blacks? The answer is, of course, all three. More broadly, it’s also a victory for all liberals, as it’s also a statement against Donald Trump’s extremely reactionary, divisive and dangerous politics. We just have to be careful as not to alienate other liberal-thinking groups with a parochial rhetoric, thereby fueling division, plus enabling the deeply reactionary concept of reserve discrimination, and other elusive Trumpian platitudes. The alt-right is ready to seize the argument in their favour at any given opportunity, and they would love to claim that Moonlight is trying to impose a black gay dictatorship upon us. Let’s not give them the opportunity to do so.

Whether you are an enthusiastic champion of intersectionality or a disbeliever, one thing is almost certain. Get used to this strange vocab (and the alternative “intersectionability”; I gathered that both mean virtually the same). These two terms are likely to become buzzwords and conversation topics around the best dinner tables, pubs and events in this country and beyond!

Transpecos

Yes, DMovies publishes yet another review about immigration and the US-Mexico border. Yes, we insist on exposing inflammatory social-cultural themes. So if you are fed up with that, fair enough, maybe that’s not your thing. But if you still believe that cinema is a tool for change in the way we perceive the world, then go and watch Transpecos.

This film is less about building a wall and more about how border patrol agents deal with their daily tasks. It is less about pointing out who is to blame and more about understanding that there are no heroes here. The border patrol agents aren’t going to solve drug smuggling. Be it a rock or a grain of sand, in water they sink as the same.

Their routine inspection goes from tracking footprints and impeding mules to enter American territory via the Chihuahuan Desert. Transpecos starts with a very brief introduction and then it moves to a hypnotic thriller. On a remote outpost along the US-Mexican border, the lives of three border patrol agents are forever changed when a routine vehicle inspection goes awry. During the stretches between inspections, the trio – Flores (Gabriel Luna), Davis (Johnny Simmons) and Hobbs (Clifton Collins Jr) – prevent a man from crossing the border. Hobbs is shot and they soon find out that there were drugs in the car. The problem is that Davis knew it and he was supposed to let him in.

The feature presents an insidious plot, co-written by the director Greg Kwedar and writer Clint Bentley, two newcomers in the cinema production. Davis is a corrupted officer but his dilemma is that the cartel threatened him to kill his relatives. On the other hand, Flores’ dilemma is that he is a Mexican man working for American police. He is a vendido, in other words a traitor.

Transpecos is beautifully shot and you won’t get bored. It has some curious elements, such as the fact that Hobbs cannot enter a hospital. If he does, then Davis will be caught. So there is a possibility that a Mexican female healer treats him. She speaks Mayan. In the healing ritual, it becomes transparent that all three border agents are cursed. In fact, there is a hint regarding it on the opening scenes. See if you can guess it.

The point of view is the most extraordinary aspect of Transpecos. By portraying the morals and ethics of each agent, it reveals how a bureaucratic action can shape the lives of common people. It also can be applied to the US agents who are carrying out Trump’s Muslim ban at airports. The press is listening to the stories of those who are detained. It would be curious to listen to the stories of those who detain.

Transpecos was part of Glasgow Film Festival that ends today. The film will be distributed in the UK by StudioCanal. You can watch the film trailer below:

Mimosas

When it comes to religion, most of us have very strong convictions which are very difficult to challenge. Mimosas (Oliver Laxe, 2016) dares to question faith in a time when intolerance against religious people from the Middle East and North Africa is at its peak. Its main characters are crossing a desert and the only way they can do it is by having faith in God, or Allah.

The feature is a Spanish/Moroccan co-production and it won the Grand Prize at Cannes’ Semaine de la Critique last year. Although it is set in the desert, there’s a sense of familiarity running through the film, partly due to Ben Rivers’ film-within-a-film The Sky Trembles and the Earth Is Afraid (2015). The first half of Ben Rivers’ feature observes the production of Mimosas; the second half adapts the Paul Bowles’ short story ‘A Distant Episode’. If you are unfamiliar to Rivers’ and Bowles’ work, bear in mind that the narrative is a stunning spiritual journey. More than a simple parable, it talks about faith when you are being persecuted.

Mimosas opens with a woman adjusting her turban in an open desert landscape. Then, it follows a workman recruiting taxi drivers to work. Some of them are never hired, which is the case with Shakid. Instead, he is hired to replace a moribund sheikh: he has to guide a caravan of people on foot and camel into a remote medieval city. There are thieves in the group, so the film also questions honesty and trust. Who would you trust if you have to cross the desert? Would you trust the sheikh’s words or would you trust your instincts? Would you trust a stranger to guide you?

The cinematography is magnificent. The ambiguity of the desert – with very hot days and very cold nights – says it all. Desolation, though, is not a question of location. It is a human condition instead. And that is Laxe’s message to us.

When the sheikh finally dies, his wife’s wishes to bury him in Sigilmesa, an ancient city once located close to what’s now the Spanish city of Ceuta. Apparently the film blends different periods: it shows contemporary taxis and mentions a city that doesn’t exist anymore. Shakid accepts this challenge, though he doesn’t know the way to the city. For the thieves and other caravan men, the sheikh’s final burial ground does not make any difference. But soon Shakid starts to illuminate their preconceived ideas. Faith is not a matter of choice. It is a survival tool. It is an ethical compromise.

Cinema here is not only universal; it is also an aesthetic experience. The use of music, for instance, is efficient. There is hardly any soundtrack at all for one reason: when the characters are feeling desolated, no music can comfort or inspire them. When a sound eventually becomes distinguishable, it comes in at the right time, and it gives the scene a transcendental aura.

Mimosas also speaks to women. There is a mute girl accompanied by her father in the caravan, when the journey suddenly takes an unexpected turn. The role of the woman who cannot speak assumes a powerful symbolism in the narrative. Women are the reason why men change and fight.

The feature showed at the Glasgow Film Festival, when this piece was originally written. It is out in cinemas across the UK on Friday, August 25th,

This is how I made it to Netflix

It has been less than a month since the new Austin Indie author Macon Blair received his award at Sundance. His debut movie I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore won the U.S. Dramatic Competition Grand Jury Prize (click here for our exclusive review of the film). Before that, the young Blair’s face was seen in two films in which he worked as an actor: Blue Ruin (2013) and Green Room (2015), both by his close friend Jeremy Saulnier.

Traditionally films that are shown in Park City take a long time to reach a wider audience. Last year Sundance sensation, Manchester By The Sea was released in the UK a year later, and it is still running for big prizes in the international circuit. But people don’t like to wait. So the market search for a solution to this problem, rendering anxious movie-lovers happy and satisfied. Netflix was the first company to nail it.

Blair’s feature is out worldwide this Friday at Netflix. The American entertainment company has invested massively in cinema production and has acquired 14 titles of Sundance Festival this year. (You can check the list of films here.) By simultaneously broadcasting to 93 million members in 190 countries, Netflix is changing the way films are distributed. But does it affect the voice of creative and independent filmmakers?

DMovies writer Maysa Monção chatted with Macon Blair via Skype about such industry tactics, the creative process, Donald Trumpo, the UK and much more. The director is pictured at the top with a carrot which he grew in his own garden. As far as we are aware, this vegetable has not made it to the movie, and it has no connection whatsoever to the film industry.

Maysa Monção – You worked as an actor and as a writer. How did you become a filmmaker? Did Jeremy Saulnier inspire you?

Macon Blair – Very much so, yeah. He has been my friend for a long time, almost my whole life. I always knew that I’d like to direct something of my own. I didn’t know exactly when. I was always looking at Jeremy, just watching him work and trying to learn everything I could from him, because he is so good. He is so talented and I feel very fortunate to have worked with him.

MM – You casted Elijah Wood for your debut. How does a well-known actor contribute to an independent movie?

MB – Certainly he has so many fans, because he has been in those larger movies [including Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit in 2012], and this brings attention to the movie. Not that they would like it or not based on what he has done before but it certainly helps. Elijah is attracted to what he likes in movies and he responded to this script. He did me a huge service by agreeing to work in this movie. Very early on he joined us as well as Melanie Lynskey [who plays the main female role].

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Elijah Wood is one of the protagonists in Macon Blair’s debut

MM – I watched your movie during a midnight session at Sundance. I almost gave up because I was very tired, but I am so glad I went! But that’s one thing: I noticed that nobody could remember the title of your movie…

MB – I know. That’s my fault. I picked a bad title. It made a lot of sense to me. We tried to come up with another title but I couldn’t think of another one that I liked as much. The producers originally wanted something different but they changed their mind. By the end they realised that we should go back to the original idea.

MM – How was working with Netflix? Did they influence the creative process in any way?

MB – No! Netflix is the only reason why this movie got made. Because they were willing to go with the script that I wanted to make. They were very supportive with all the cast that I wanted to work with. And they were willing to finance at the right level. Once they got on board, they would call just to say “hello”. They did not interfere with the creative side of the filmmaking. They were very “hands off”. They also gave us a huge amount of space.

MM – But let’s imagine that your film was made for a theatrical release. Would you have done anything different?

MB – I don’t think I would and the reason is that I was trying to figure out how to do it at all. It is my first film. I didn’t have the luxury of being able to target it to a specific audience or a specific demographic. I was just trying to make it not suck. Hopefully people would watch it at some point…

MM – I will be watching everything you make.

MB – Oh thank you. The review you guys did was just amazing; I loved what you guys wrote. But if it had been theatrical, it probably would have opened in a small number of theaters. It wouldn’t be there out for very long, and it wouldn’t be seen by as many people as it will on Netflix. It goes worldwide. It can stay there indefinitely. It can work as a word-of-mouth. That is the best case scenario for this type of movie.

MM – What was the most ludrical thing that happened on the set?

MB – [he laughs] I think one of the funniest scenes was when everybody was together yelling at each other [he refers to a moment in which all cast is in a house, and there is some gun shooting]. It was the first time we had all the cast together in one room. But for the rest of us the funniest thing was when Melanie had the vomit apparatus attached to her face.

MM – I don’t know if I can tell this!

MB – For her it was not funny but we were all laughing at the monitor. I felt a little guilty.

MM – Was it only one take?

MB – It took a while. There were takes from different angles. It was probably not very pleasant for her.

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A very cheerful Melanie contemplates some food, still devoid of her vomit machine

MM – If you could cast Donald Trump for a scene in your movie, what use would you make of him?

MB – Oh.. [very disappointed]. I would quit moviemaking. I don’t know.

At this point the Skype call mysteriously disconnects. I must have been Donald Trump snooping on DMovies. Eventually Maysa manages to get in touch again and continues the interview.

MB – I had some time to think better my answer. I would make a sequel of The Human Centipede (Tom Six, 2010).

MM – I don’t get it. Can you explain?

MB – Hummm. This guy plans to surgically join his victims by sewing together their mouths and anuses, all in a row.

MM – You live in Austin but your film was shot in Portland, Oregon. Would you film in the UK? Your black sense of humour is quite British, with a touch of sarcasm.

MB – I would looove to film in the UK. Yeah, probably I would. And now that you mentioned I will try hard.

MM – Finally, do you feel your next movie will be easier or do you feel the pressure of a Sundance winner?

MB – Oh, I haven’t even thought of that. I believe it helps that people are aware of who you are. I don’t have to convince them as much but I would not say that it is easy. I still have to justify the expense of everything and build the team!

Muito Romântico

Take an emotional trip from Brazil to Berlin with two young Brazilian filmmakers Gustavo Jahn and Melissa Dullius. Muito Romântico is a multi-stop journey into the heart of Europe, and a very imaginative piece of experimental cinema, with elements of video art. It feels almost like a film from German filmmaker Alexander Kluge in its deeply fragmented montage approach, but instead from a transatlantic perspective. The movie is a collage of moving images, stills, shreds of imagination and slivers of allegory. The narrative is fluid and organic: many viewers will rearrange the story and make sense of it according to their own experience.

The film sets off the two partners cross the Atlantic on a red cargo ship. The Ocean is a watershed, as the immigrants embrace a new life in the old continent. The story is then inundated with literature from Goethe, Alfred Doeblin, DH Lawrence, as well as music of all sorts (the title of the film was taken from the eponymous song by the legendary Brazilian musician Caetano Veloso). The couple also venture into the music territory, and the movie wraps up with a melancholic bedroom performance. The most intimate living space is often where creativity flourishes.

But the waters of the Atlantic are not the only symbol of change. There are also plenty of construction sites in Berlin, and – despite their apparent inaction and stillness – they are a fitting metaphor for transition. The German capital is a city in perpetual movement, and the two directors examine such phenomenon by observing the urban architecture. There are plenty of contrasts, with the old being destroyed in order to make room for the new. Yet the “new” is often barren and soulless, while the “old” is teeming with nostalgia. Which raises the question: why do we constantly need to embrace change?

Spoken in various languages, Muito Romântico will explores a plethora of themes, always from a very idiosyncratic perspective. The movie delves with the identity of Brazilians in Europe, the longing for home (both as in your residence and as in your homeland), the fear of disease, the relation between time and space, and much more. The film is dotted with a wealth of both intelligeable and non-intelligeable, visual and sensorial anecdotes. Muito Romântico is a plesant and soothing experience, if reserved to those more used to alternative cinema practices.

Muito Romântico is currently showing in festivals around Europe and the world. Click here for more information about film distribution and exhibition.

The film trailer can be viewed here:

Patriot’s Day

Three people were killed, dozens injured and the city’s wider community felt the impact of the terrorist attacks of the 2013 Boston Marathon. Eschewing a straight documentary approach for a dramatic one, Patriot’s Day portrays numerous real characters while Mark Wahlberg’s character combines several police officers into one. Propelled by Wahlberg’s serving one last day in uniform patrolling the Marathon to please the powers that be, the opening is skilfully set against the backdrop of the day’s festivities. The authorities make routine crowd control preparations, people make their way through the crowds to find a good vantage point. Unbeknown to either, two men take rucksacks containing bombs through the crowd to leave them where they can cause maximum damage.

As in real life, the actual blast sequences occur and are over very quickly. Even though the audience knows these are coming and is on some level prepared for them, they are still a shock when they come. Berg brilliantly captures the sense of both ordinary people’s confusion and the authorities trying to work out what just happened and what they need to do about it.

The attention to detail impresses. For example, rather than close off the scene of the bombing, the FBI recreates it in a warehouse combining the intimate location knowledge of officers (i.e. Wahlberg) with objects taken from the scene.

To portray the wider tapestry of events, separate storylines follow characters such as Dun ‘Danny’ Meng (Jimmy O. Yang), a Chinese-American tech worker who later in the narrative is carjacked at gunpoint by the bombers in his beloved SUV, a frightening ordeal to which it’s pretty easy to relate. This brief and effectively understated episode succinctly documents his moments of self-preservation and ordinary heroism.

The same is true of a shootout between the two bombers and local cops in the sleepy Boston suburb of Watertown, graced by J.K.Simmons’ edge of the seat performance as Sergeant Jeffrey Pugliese who ends up wrestling one of the suspects to the ground.

It’s not that these two performances are better than any others – there are many, many bit parts boasting good performances subservient to the wider narrative canvas.

The dozens of stories on display range from pivotal figures played by big stars (John Goodman as the Police Commissioner, Kevin Bacon as the FBI’s man in charge) to Christopher O’Shea and Rachel Brosnahan as the two newlyweds Patrick Downes and Jessica Kensky who lose their legs in the blast. Even the bombers are portrayed as complex, nuanced characters although the film rightly does nothing to condone their actions. Both behind and in front of the camera, you feel that everyone involved, be they film professionals or regular Bostonians pitching in, did everything they could to accurately represent the experiences and events portrayed here. The results are compelling.

Patriot’s Days was out in the UK on Thursday in February, and it was made available on iTunes in June.

We are X

The story of legendary post-punk Japanese band X Japan straddles three decades of exhilarating performances, acrimonious relationships, and countless fallings-out between band members. Set against the background of the group’s 2014 reunion gig at Madison Square Garden, We Are X aims to shine a light on the cult status of the band, especially its enigmatic virtuoso drummer-turned-pianist-turned-composer, Yoshiki.

Formed in 1982 by childhood school-friends Yoshiki and Toshi, X Japan were heralded as national heroes by their Japanese fans, but have until recently remained largely unknown by mainstream music fans. After initial success amongst its mostly teenage followers, the band found itself locked in countless petty arguments. Especially bassist Taiji, who would eventually be sacked by Yoshiki. But it was the fallout between Toshi and the rest of the band, after he joined a religious cult, which eventually resulted in the disbanding of X Japan in 1990s.

Kijak uses footage of the band’s most memorable performances, featuring elaborate pyrotechnics, screaming fans and not to mention Yoshiki’s dramatic antics on stage. The film capitalises on the band’s singular visual aspect and androgynous punk aesthetics, plus the Beatles-esque mayhem of screaming and fainting fangirls and boys at the height of their fame. Added to that, there are a series of talking-head interviews, mostly with Yoshiki – who is either melodramatic or evasive about what happened to the band behind closed doors.

Some viewers might question Kijak’s decision to make Yoshiki into the film protagonist can for a number of reasons: his refusal to elaborate on the many tragic accounts surrounding the suicide of two band members, and his cageyness around his own private life. That said, a subplot centring around Yoshiki’s own childhood and the suicide of his father adds a touch of mystique to the proceedings.

As rockumentaries go, We Are X is rather formulaic in its narrative, and not a particularly dirty movie. It’s the band that makes the film stand out from the crowd, plus the empathy you will feel towards these people. On the other hand, We Are X is very neatly put together film, and also a very touching piece of filmmaking. Kijak extrapolates beyond the curiosity towards this exotic outfit; he also manages to highlight the amount of love and respect that the band gets from their fans.

One of the most touching moments of the film is a series of sequences of fans from every corner of the the world queuing outside venues to see them. They come from every continent, and they are of every colour and creed. It would have been interesting to delve a little more into this aspect of fandom and hero worship directed at Yoshiki in particular. On the whole, We Are X isn’t without its faults – there are some serious narrative gaps, and a lot of questions surrounding other members of the band remain unanswered. But it does exactly what it set out to do. It manages to entertain, thrill and inspire its audience, and ultimately might even result in the band gaining more fans as the awe and fascination towards them grows.

The movie was produced By John Battsek, Diane Becker, Jonathan McHugh and Jonathan Platt, and edited by Mako Kamitsuna and John Maringouin. The cinematography belongs to Sean Kirby and John Maringouin, and the music score was composed By Yoshiki himself.

We are X was out in cinemas in February. The Steelbook and DVD were made available on May 22nd.

Elle

In Paul Verhoeven’s twisted world, dysfunction in the norm. His latest morbid sex thriller is a strangely tasteful return to his famous 1992 classic Basic Instinct. This time, instead of young Sharon Stone he picked the 64-year-old French actress Isabelle Huppert, best known for her seedy and disturbing movie characters (such as the sadomasochistic Erika in Michael Haneke’s The Piano Teacher, 2001). The outcome in explosive.

Here she plays Michèle Leblanc, the director of a gaming business and the daughter of serial killer. She still resents her divorce, and she also has a very difficult relationship with her son and daughter-in-law. Plus, she slams her mother for wanting to marry a rent boy decades her junior. At work, she is loathed for her assertive and obstinate demeanour. Oh, and she has an affair with her best friend’s husband. Everyone around Michèle seems to have equally unorthodox relations. Betrayal, voyerism and abuse are the fuel for love and romance. And everyone seems to be happy about that.

Michèle is raped by an assailant wearing a ski mask in her own home repeated times, but she decides against calling the police. Despite the fact that she resists her rapist, there’s always the suggestion and she is finding pleasure in the violation. Viewers will wonder whether this is merely a dirty seduction game. Some feminists are certain to cringe at this film, at the idea that some women secretly wish to be raped. Does Michèle enjoy when the stranger enters her house? And does she enjoy it when he enters her body? The scenes are very erotic, and there’s even a quick vulva flash, very much à la Sharon Stone. Huppert is a very fit and sexy sexagenarian. Let’s just hope at least the director asked for the actress’ consent this time!

Feminists don’t have a cosy relationship with the Dutch filmmaker since Basic Instinct. That’s not just because of the vulva, but also due to the negative portrayal of a lesbian – depicted as a confident sexual predator. The lewd, voyeristic and heterosexual male gaze is prevalent in both Basic Instinct and Elle, but this doesn’t make them misogynous. Everyone in the film is either a perpetrator or a blithe accomplice of erratic sexual behaviour and dalliances. Verhoeven’s gaze is so twisted that it’s hardly human; it’s instead an allegory of the absurd, served with an exquisitely charming finish.

The film is also a natural fit for the French actress. Michèle here is a proactive sadist, just like Erika (Huppert’s character in The Piano Teacher). But instead of placing broken glass in the coat pocket of a talented student, here she crashes into her ex’s car and places a toothpick into the food of his new lover. It’s almost as if Verhoeven created the role specially for Isabelle Huppert after watching Haneke’s film.

Elle is a gutural experience. There’s blood everywhere: on the head, on the leg, inside a syringe or the bath tub. Blood here is doubly representative: it’s both the pathology (as in being ill with a disease or giving birth) and the violence. At one point, Michèle suffers a car accident and has to walk around with a leg brace, but that doesn’t stop her being raped again. Michèle and her assailant have a libido akin to the characters of Crash (David Cronenberg, 1996), with the car wrecks et all.

Strangely enough, the surviving characters find redemption at the end of the movie. Someone says: “he was a good man, with a tortured soul” (we won’t reveal who as not to spoil the film), while donning the perfect smile, despite the horrific events that has just taken place. Indeed, people here seem to find happiness and closure under the most tragic circumstances. No one is bad, they just have a tormented existence. So let’s rejoice and celebrate our dirtiest fetishes and desires. Hip hip hooray!

Elle was out in UK cinemas in March, when this piece was originally written. It was made available on BFI Player in September.

Bones of Contention

In less than three decades, Spain morphed from a deeply reactionary dictatorship that violently persecuted the LBGT community into the forefront of equality rights. Spaniards more than any other country in the world now believe that homosexuality is morally acceptable, a recent piece of research shows. But there’s still plenty of homework to be done, as the country attempts to reconcile its socially progressive present with its brutal past, and to dissociate amnesty from amnesia.

This clear and concise doc explores the historical memory of Spain using the human remains (the bones in the title) of victims of the Spanish Civil War (1936-39) and the subsequent Franco dictatorship (1939-75) as a symbol of oppression and possible rapprochement with history. The openly homosexual writer Federico García Lorca (pictured above, in the centre) is the most prominent of the 500,000 victims of the dictator, and his body is still in an unidentified mass grave alongside with 120,000 others, the film reveals. Lorca’s writings punctuate the narrative, which is tribute to all of those who died under the oppressive brunt of the Caudillo.

Gay men and transvestites were routinely beaten and arrested during Franco’s Regime, which also subjugated women and violently chastised political opponents and defectors of any type. All with the enthusiastic support of the freedom-loving US, the film also alleges. Upon release from prison, these gay men and transvestites would not be able to reintegrate, and most either committed suicide or resorted to prostitution. Lesbian suffered less oppression simply because the Regime couldn’t even conceive that two women could have sex. They were simply ignored and forgotten, a very different but also painful predicament.

The movie wraps up with a point of contention. While an interviewee thinks that reclaiming bones is a crucial step at making amends with the past (he has located his grandfather’s and reburied them next to his grandmother), García Lorca’s surviving niece Laura thinks that this is disrespectful to other people and to the memory of the site of execution. She believes that these bones – including her uncle’s – should be left to rest where they are.

The famous Spanish actor Miguel Ángel Muñoz narrates the film in both Spanish and English, with his deep, masculine and very Latin voice and accent.

Bones of Contention is showing as part of the 67th Berlin Film Festival, which comes to and end today. DMovies has been following all the action live and in loco, and bringing the dirtiest film firsthand and exclusively for you. Just click here for more information.

And don’t forget to watch the film teaser trailer, too:

Vazante

QUICK SNAP: LIVE FROM BERLIN

The photography of Vazante is extraordinary enough to make the late French photographer Pierre Verger and Brazilian Sebastião Salgado impressed 24 times per second. Daniela Thomas’s first solo major is major aesthetic, ethnographic and anthropological achievement. The sharp and crisp black and white images will transport you to colonial Brazil in the year 1821, shortly before the country’s Independence.

The Brazilian director spent 14 years making the movie, and hwer attention to detail is crystal clear. The mountains and the plateaus of the Serro Region in Southeastern Brazil acquire a texture somewhere between craggy and veiny, wrapped up in clouds often dark and threatening. For the first time in my life Brazil reminded me of Iceland. Vazante does indeed have a cold and bleak feel to it, mostly supported by terse action and laconic dialogues. Images communicate far more than words. The costumes and the props are also very convincing, as are the decorative scars and the sweat on the face of the slaves.

The movie tells the story of mine owner Antônio (Adriano Carvalho), who has given up digging up the increasingly scarse gold in favour of cattle ranching. He recently lost his wife and heir at childbirth, and so he marries his late wife’s 12-year-old niece Beatriz (Luana Nastas), who still plays with dolls. He owns a number of slaves, and many are constantly chained up like animals. They are dehumanised, much like the Jews during World War. Antônio’s cruelty is entirely banalised, in the Hannah Arendt sense of the word.

Vazante is a doubly subversive movie, revealing a country where deep-seated race and gender inadequacies reign. The final minute of the 116-minute-long feature is guaranteed to leave you speechless, as the director blends these prejudices in one ultimate and deeply symbolic gesture. This could have only come from a female director fine-tuned with the history of her homeland, plus the roots of modern cordial racism and misogyny.

Some newly-arrived slaves in the ranch speak a language which no one can identify. They have something to say, but no one can understands what it is. It’s as if these people where living inside a soundproof bubble. The director revealed that the actors are refugees from Mali living in Brazil and that they spoke Bamana (a language which wasn’t spoken in colonial Brazil). Very interestingly, not even the director knew what they were saying. This is a very significant and clever artistic twist, a meaningful gesture connecting fiction to reality, past to present, and Brazil to Africa.

The only shortcoming of the film is a convoluted plot that due to the laconic quality of the narrative is sometimes difficult to follow. As a result, you might find yourself a little lost sometimes halfway through the movie, but this will not affect your overall experience. This is a must-see experience for anyone interested in Brazilian history, female and black representation in cinema.

Vazante is showing as part of the Panorama Section of the 67th Berlin Film Festival taking place right now, but such a mature and accomplished movie should be instead in the event’s Official Competition. DMovies is following the action live – just click here for more information.

Get a taste of the film with the excerpt below: