Tag: Javier Bardem

The Good Boss (El Buen Patron)

Posted on by victorfraga

Blanco (Bardem) runs a successful scale business somewhere in urban Spain. The avuncular 50-something declares his profound affection for his workers: “My wife and I have no children, and you are my real family”. He dishes out hugs and smiles. A young female employee cries upon being given a pin decoration and lludly professes “I love you”. With so much passion, kindness and solidarity, what could possibly go wrong?

The nature of the business has a significant symbolism. Scales represent fairness. The business publicity boasts that the justice system are their clients. A self-righteous Blanco perceives himself as the epitome of fairness. He even named the company after himself: Basculas Blanco. But scales too can be temperamental. They aren’t always a gauge of impartiality. At times, it’s necessary to tamper with the devices, Blanco grudgingly concedes.

Gradually, Blanco begins to collapse under the weight of his own hypocrisy, revealing a toxic and fragile masculinity and a deeply unequal capitalistic system. A recently fired employee called Jose camps outside the factory with his two children. A large banner says “Blanco is a thief”, while he constantly chants anti-corporate taunts on his megaphone. The police refuse to remove the man, claiming that he has the right freedom of expression, and that the land on which he’s standing is public ground. A furious Blanco describes the officer as a “socialist”. To our protagonist’s despair, Jose is about to co-opt the factory security guard. It becomes apparent that Blanco’s “family” isn’t as loyal and subservient as he expected.\

Our family guy deserves some relaxation. Naturally, a successful businessman merits an extramarital dalliance with a woman at least half his age. Blanco makes successful advance and has a passionate sexual encounter with a marketing intern called Liliana (Almudena Amor). But the beautiful and deceptively shy woman has a big very surprise and a cunning demand in store. Pussy grabs back.

To top it all up, one of Blanco’s key employees (Manolo Solo) has a mental breakdown because his wife is having an affair. The hapless man becomes riddled with despair, thereby neglecting his most basic work duties and seriously compromising the company’s chances of receiving an excellence award. Blanco comes to his rescue, but his ill-advised reconciliation plan immediately backfires.

Bardem is delicious to watch. On the surface, he is calm and considerate. Deep inside, he is a frustrated misanthrope and control freak. He will resort to very unorthodox measures when his plans go pear-shaped, which will predictably land him in hot water. This two-hour comedy relies on common comedy tropes such awkward sexual encounters, untimely serendipities and fragile masculinity to excellent results, while also depicting social classes in conflict and making subtle political statements. A Spanish screwball comedy fitting for the 21st century.

The Good Boss showed in Competition at the 69th San Sebastian Film Festival, when this piece was originally written. In UK cinemas on Friday, July 15th. On Various VoD platforms – including Curzon Home Cinema, BFI Player and Prime Video – on Monday, August 15th.

The Roads Not Taken

Posted on by victorfraga

British director Sally Potter, supported by both the BFI and BBC Films, crossed the pond and the Channel in order to make her latest feature, a drama set between New York, Mexico and Greece. The cast is entirely non-British, as is the story, which was penned by the 71-year-old London-born and raised helmer.

Leo (Jarvier Bardem) lives in a shabby New York flat facing the railway. He barely speaks and is unable to carry out menial tasks. A carer looks after him. One day, his daughter Molly (Elle Fanning) shows up in order to take him to the dentist and optometrist. What should have been an easy and straightforward journey turns into a Herculean task, as Leo is unable to understand basic commands (such as opening his mouth and keeping his head still). His behaviour is increasingly erratic and unpredictable: he jumps off a moving car, and wanders off aimlessly barefoot.

Molly is trying to reconnect with a father that she barely knew. Leo left her as a baby because he could not reconcile fatherhood with his career as a writer. The young woman’s attempts to bond with a father who isn’t entirely there are genuinely emotional. It’s never entirely clear what Leo suffers from, but the symptoms suggest early onset Alzheimer’s. In fact, Molly never verbalises that his father is mentally impaired, speaking in euphemisms instead: “Can’t you see he’s now well?”. As a result, people often assume that Leo’s just a dangerous crook, landing him in hot water more times than one.

Parallel to his mental twilight in New York, we see Leo in Mexico with his partner Dolores (Salma Hayek) mourning the death of his son, presumably a few years earlier. We also watch him on a Greek island attempting to write and to make sense of the mistakes of his youth (such as abandoning Molly). That’s where the first symptoms of the malaise begin to show: Leo inexplicably collapses in front of two young women, about the age of his daughter.

The present-day, ill version of Leo has very short episodes of lucidity. His ailing mind is constantly attempt to reconstruct the past, but the outcome is often disastrous. He murmurs words and names, but is rarely able to string a coherent sentence together. He hugs a stranger’s dog assuming that it’s his beloved pooch Nestor, which has been dead for some time. Security are called upon him, as the animal’s owner assumes that Leo is trying to kidnap her pet.

Sally Potter’s ninth feature (and the second one to premiere in Competition at the Berlinale in just four years (after 2017’s disappointing The Party) has very convincing performances from its three leads, Bardem, Fanning and Hayek. But it’s often shallow and oversimplified. The relationship and the chemistry between Bardem’s and Hayek’s characters could have been explored in a lot more detail. The only connection examined in detail is the one between father and daughter. The many subplots have a lot of loose ends (such as Leo’s professional career, his son with Dolores, and so on). The narrative is as fragmented as Leo mind. This was likely an intentional creative choice, yet not entirely effective. This relatively short movie (with a duration of just 85 minutes) would have benefited from more character development for the secondary personages. As a consequence, The Roads Not Taken fails to achieve its full potential, and to move viewers more profoundly. Not an unpleasant ride, but Potter should have taken us all the way down the road.

The Roads Not Taken premiered in Competition at the 70th Berlin International Film Festival, when this piece was originally written. It is out in cinemas on Friday, September 11th. On VoD on Friday, January 11th.

mother!

Posted on by mjbstaging

His house burned up in a fire. Then he (Javier Bardem) found her (Jennifer Lawrence) and as he began to rebuild his life, so she began to rebuild the house. Her work is well on its way to completion. Outside the house lie tranquil, golden fields. He is an acclaimed poet and hasn’t written anything for a long time. The couple live in an hermetic bubble. At least she does.

That all changes when a stranger (Ed Harris) turns up and bonds with him. Suddenly she feels excluded. More new characters are soon to arrive – first the stranger’s attractive wife (Michelle Pfeiffer) then their two argumentative adult sons (real life siblings Domhnall and Brian Gleeson) then funeral guests.

He becomes increasingly obsessive recalling the writer in The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980). As he overrides her wishes she becomes increasingly isolated recalling paranoia from Repulsion and Rosemary’s Baby (both by Roman Polanski, 1965 and 1968 respectively). By the end, the house has been overrun by party-goers and riotous crowds behaving like the group elements from the highly controversial The Devils (Ken Russell, 1971). From the moment Ed Harris first appeared, this was obviously going to end badly.

The narrative is presented throughout in often lengthy takes from her point of view, either directly owing much to subjective camera experiment Lady In The Lake (Robert Montgomery, 1947) or through shots of her acting within/reacting to the situation as it unfolds around her. There’s something of Hitchcock here too in the way the film constantly tortures its female lead.

Leaving aside the rather too neat book ending which sidesteps the need for backstory by some sleight of hand which doesn’t work too well, the film divides neatly into three acts which could be labelled: home building, pregnancy, motherhood. Yet each section follows roughly the same path: her idyllic existence is upset as more and more people arrive and she becomes more and more agitated.

It’s a film which might be viewed differently by men and women – and by introverts and extroverts. But as it builds, you wonder whether piling more and more outsiders onto the couple’s private world can really sustain the proceedings and, sure enough, although the film starts off very well, at some point as the numbers mount it gets rather tedious. Much of the time you can’t help feeling that the writer-director could have done more with less and done it quicker.

I’m all for Aronofsky being given the chance to make the movies he wants. When he’s good, as in Pi (1998), The Wrestler (2008), Black Swan (2010), he’s very good. He can even be good when derivative, Black Swan being in all but name a remake with ballerinas of anime epic Perfect Blue (Satoshi Kon, 1997) to which film Aronofsky owned the rights. (Perfect Blue is due for rerelease in cinemas on 31st October, so you’ll have the chance to judge for yourself then.)

So I don’t complain that mother! is derivative, only that it’s overly self-indulgent. Performances, production value and everything else here are top notch. It’s an interesting experiment and while I defend the director’s right to make it, I’m not especially enthusiastic about the end result.

mother! premiered at the 74th Venice International Film Festival and is out in the UK on Friday, September 15th.