Vampires, Assassins, and Romantic Angst by the Seaside: Takoma Reviews

Your review makes that something I'd want to avoid. When I read your first sentence I thought, "Ok, this sounds like it could be interesting... just don't make this an 'end then they have to band together to survive Maguffin," and then the very next sentence about how their relationship gets a push from some supernatural antagonist in the woods or whatever, I was like, "Aw, come on, man."

It's a film that's very, very hard to talk about without spoilers, because important things happen at a fairly regular pace and I did enjoy how some of them unfolded in the first half.

I do give it a tentative recommendation, especially if you like the actors or woodsy movies. I don't think it sticks the landing (or . . . the last act), but clearly some people really do like it.

I wouldn't make it a priority, but probably worth a watch. It might really click for you. (And "band together to survive" isn't exactly the dynamic that evolves as things go on).

Young Torless, 1966

Torless (Mathieu Carriere) is a new arrival at a boarding school, where he becomes the slightly aloof member of a crew of young men. One of the students, Basini (Marian Seidowsky), has been caught stealing by his classmate, Reiting (Fred Dietz), and is forced to become Reiting’s slave. As Reiting and his friend Beineberg (Bernd Tischer) steadily ratchet up their cruel treatment of Basini, Torless studies their behavior under the guise of an impartial study.

A disquieting, tense story, this film starkly portrays both cruelty and the willingness to turn our backs on the suffering of others.

Movies are full of young people arriving at boarding schools or universities, only to become enmeshed in the cruel hierarchies of the pupils (and sometimes the faculty). There are countless films that explore the way that young people, and the adults in charge of those young people, can find ways to torment and exploit the weaker members of the herd. What sets this film apart is the incredibly clear-eyed view it takes toward both the tormentors and the bystanders who witness their cruelties.

This movie is, as it intends to be, very uncomfortable to watch. Anyone who has ever witnessed (or been part of) a bullying dynamic, abuse, etc, will immediately recognize the horrific elements at play in the escalating torment of Basini at the hands of his peers.

It’s all about power and control. The first truth that the film shows us about people like Reiting is that the different manners of abuse---extortion, humiliation, rape---are just the expressions of his desire to have someone powerless to resist him. And Basini is trapped because what Reiting needs is someone to be miserable, someone to resist just a little, but not enough to stop anything. And as Basini, out of survival, gives more and more ground to Reiting, Reiting in turn must step up the audacity of his abuse, must demand more to create that necessary friction.

But what keeps the film from devolving into boarding school torture porn is the way that it constructs the character of Torless. Torless positions himself as an objective observer. He follows along with the tormentors, telling himself that he is making a rational study of their behavior, but at times that seems like more of an excuse. While Reiting exerts control over Basini using overt abuse, Torless seems to be seeking control over his peers through “figuring them out.” As with the mathematics that so fascinate him, to understand is to claim victory.

Entering the conversation for great performances with minimal screen time is the incomparable Barbara Steele as Bozena, a local sex worker visited by Beineberg and Torless. Despite their relative power imbalance, Bozena is unflinching in her interaction with the young men. Of all the adults in the film, Bozena seems most clear eyed about the way that the young men see themselves (masters of all things, naturally, and fully deserving of all of their privilege), and thus is undaunted by them.

By far the most despiriting aspect of the film is its observation about the degree to which we, all of us, turn our backs on others who are suffering. Torless couches his inaction in the guise of objective distance and scientific method. But there are countless other students who ignore what is happening to Basini, who participate at times, or who pretend that it’s something he brought on himself. The peace of mind with which Torless writes off the suffering of another human being is unnerving, more so because I would guess almost everyone can acknowledge to themselves at least one time that they chose not to care about someone who needed help.

Now, naturally, it’s not possible to care about all of the suffering in the world. A person who tried to care for and solve all the evils and inequities of the world would soon be crazy, broke, and exhausted. But the structure of the film allows us to see that this isn’t just a critique of ignoring the wrongs of the whole world, it’s a critique of the way that we can ignore small moments of pain, ignore the suffering in our immediate surroundings, and turn our backs on people who are out of time. And the darker layer to this is that the tormentors, the abusers of power thrive on that indifference.

I don’t have any issues with the film, but I do want to note for animal lovers that there is an upsetting (and almost certainly unsimulated) sequence in which a mouse is abused and then killed.

This is a powerful, keen and uncompromising look at the symbiotic relationship between abusers and the bystanders who allow them to do their wicked deeds.

Vivarium, 2019

Gemma (Imogen Poots) and Tom (Jesse Eisenberg) are a young couple who are getting ready to take the next step of settling down and having children. One day, they are taken to a strange suburban development by a real estate agent named Martin (Jonathan Aris). Martin abandons them, and the couple find that they cannot escape the suburb. Soon, a baby is left at their doorstep, and they find themselves raising the strange child as they continue to try and get out of the eerie, abandoned neighborhood.

A decent premise is stretched paper thin and frustratingly redundant.

It’s hard to know, honestly, what the point was in making this a feature-length film. The movie gives away its premise in literally the first minute, and from there it doesn’t seem as if it has much to say in either its sci-fi or its allegorical themes.

The science fiction aspect of the film is probably the strongest. The baby left at the front door grows to adolescence in just a few months. As a boy---or a thing that looks like a boy---he delivers ear-piercing shrieks whenever he is hungry, abating only when the exact right amount of milk has been poured into his bowl. He is otherworldly, and yet he is just human enough that Gemma and Tom are unable to take decisive action against him. Intellectual reasoning tells the couple that this is not really a boy, may not be anything close to human, and yet just his physical appearance and occasional glimpses of youthful behavior provide him protection from them.

And on the allegorical front, yeesh. Being trapped in the suburbs (literally!), raising a child that drains the life out of you (literally!), being forced into unwanted domestic roles (literally!). There is something really basic and uninspired about the setting of a suburb that just goes on and on, never letting the couple escape. Everything about the presentation feels half-baked, like the movie was made from an outline of a script instead of an actual script.

The only bright spots, for me, were the performances from Poots and Senan Jennings, who plays the strange boy being raised by the couple. Poots single-handedly gives her character a bone-deep weariness haloed by contempt as a woman whose own kindness and humanity keep her trapped in a waking nightmare. Jennings is unsettling and strange as the inhuman child, switching between child-like wonder and deliberate cruelty at a moment’s notice.

File under “should have been a 15-minute short film”.

My King, 2015

Tony (Emmanuelle Bercot) is seriously injured in a skiing accident and, during her long recuperation, reflects on the turbulent relationship with her ex-husband, Georgio (Vincent Cassel). Tony and Georgio meet on a night out, and progress quickly to marriage and then to having a child together. But all the while Georgio’s selfish and impulsive actions push Tony toward an emotional breakdown. Unable to deny her attraction to Georgio, Tony finds herself again and again under his spell.

Infuriating and agonizing to watch, this is an involving look at an abusive relationship.

It was hard to finish this movie. Heck, it was hard to watch after the first thirty minutes. We don’t need to spend very long with Tony and Georgio to realize that being with him----and having a baby with him, NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!--is probably the biggest mistake that Tony will ever make in her life, and one that she will probably never escape. As the film goes on, as Tony forgives greater and greater cruelties and indignities, you find yourself wanting to grab her by the shoulders and shake some sense into her.

And that, in some ways, is a neat little trick that the film pulls. I found that more and more my animosity wasn’t directed at Georgio, but at Tony. So stupid to marry this guy! So stupid to have his baby! So stupid to let him talk his way into her bed! So stupid to laugh at the way that he ignores the boundaries that she puts in place! And that reaction as a viewer mirrors what happens in the film. While Georgio is the one who does absolutely horrible things---to Tony and to other people---Tony is the one who comes off looking unhinged. It’s a cruel reality, that the person who stays with the abuser is often the subject of more scorn than the abuser themselves.

The key, naturally, is that Georgio is totally shameless. At one point he abandons his pregnant wife because her depression is making him stressed out (poor thing!), renting himself a fancy apartment filled to the brim with nice wines and room to entertain. Naturally, he spins this as a way to preserve their wonderful marriage. What doesn’t help matters is the fact that Georgio has surrounded himself with friends who turn a blind eye to his sociopathic behavior, happy to go along with the idea that Tony is a cruel taskmaster for wanting her husband to spend a night with her and their baby. It’s a masterclass in the way that some people basically bend the world to their own desires. And Tony often finds herself too exhausted to put up a fight.

The performances here are all solid. Technically there’s not much to fuss about. I did find myself increasingly annoyed as the movie went on---it seems clear early on that Tony won’t be able to pull away from Georgio, and so the whole movie becomes a series of degrading episodes that you hope will finally get Tony to kick him to the curb (while you secretly know she never really will). My own personal inclinations do not lead me to be drawn to “bad boy” types, so watching Tony go head-over-heels for Georgio’s egomaniacal behavior had me rolling my eyes from the get-go, and then it’s a looooooooong slog to the end credits.

Recommended, but your mileage may vary depending on how much time you want to spend with a dysfunctional relationship.

Leap Year, 2010

Laura (Monica del Carmen) is a freelance writer who spends her evenings picking up men and bringing them home for often degrading one-night (or one-hour) stands. Treated with the unsexy kind of cruelty by most of them, Laura finally finds a match in Arturo (Gustavo Sanchez-Parra), who is willing to engage in both sadism and something like a relationship. But as things move toward an ominously circled date on Laura’s calendar, the leap day, the erotic scenarios acted out by the pair take on more and more dangerous elements.

A fantastic central performance and a nuanced portrayal of power differentials don’t quite get this film to where it needs to be.

If there’s one key takeaway from this film, it’s that del Carmen’s performance is absolutely amazing. I know that it’s common to look at an actor (and especially an actress) who appears in sexually explicit and/or kinky sex scenes and throw the words “brave” and “fearless” around. I do think that del Carmen’s performance is pretty great, but it’s not just down to her ability to keep tremendous presence in scenes that mix sex, violence, and degradation in uncomfortable ways. Instead I think that what’s amazing about del Carmen’s work here is the way that she portrays a woman who is beset with depression. And not just depression, but Depression. And the way that she goes from picking her nose in her drab kitchen to sexing herself up to go out and snag a hookup speaks to a very dangerous kind of unrest.

Laura is a person who is capable of feeling happiness. And not just in the moments of release when her sex partners indulge her masochism, but in her interactions with her younger brother, who comes to her for advice about girl trouble. But Laura’s baseline is sorrow. She lives in a dingy apartment, mostly working from home, and rarely leaving the house. After Laura loses her job she pursues another, but halfheartedly. As we watch Laura tell her former boss increasingly improbable lies---that she is soon moving to another country to write---a sense of dread sets in about just what Laura actually has planned.

The film isn’t shy about Laura’s issues being somehow rooted in the loss of her father and the nature of their relationship. As the film goes along, more details about their father-daughter dynamic emerge, bringing up the uncomfortable truth about the way that trauma and sexual preferences can intermingle in a distressing way.

The sex scenes are graphic, but their explicit nature always serves a purpose. Del Carmen might be the submissive/masochist in these sequences, but she dominates them character-wise. It’s the flicker of emotion in her face when a partner asks if he hurt her and her answer of “No” is laced with disappointment. We watch her nervously prepare for Arturo’s arrival, and we also witness her careful escalation of the content of those sessions. The physical nature of them lets us see that they are a release for both characters, but not enough to tide Laura over for very long.

Sanchez-Parra makes a strong counterpart as Arturo, who is obviously into the choking and the whipping and the humiliation, but is also obviously equally into the after-sex cuddles on the couch. Arturo is into domination, but his sadism has its limits and Sanchez-Parra gives us hints of Arturo’s growing discomfort as it becomes clear that Laura wants him to hurt her in ways that won’t heal in a week or two. Arturo is the most physically violent of Laura’s sexual partners, and yet he is also the partner who clearly cares the most about her as a person. Compare his interest in after-care to the man who, after having sex with Laura, rolls over and calls his wife/girlfriend, not even looking Laura in the eye as he abandons her and openly regards her with disgust.

I think there’s a lot of great stuff going on in this movie, but somehow it fell just a little short of greatness for me. Frustratingly, I can’t quite pin down why. I think it may have something to do with wanting a more developed relationship between Laura and her brother, wanting to understand more about how her own family regarded her relationship with her father. I definitely owe this one a rewatch at some point to clarify my feelings about it.

In the Fade, 2017

Katja (Diane Kruger) is married to Nuri (Numan Acar), and the two have a child named Rocco (Rafael Santana). But Katja’s life is turned upside down when Nuri and Rocco are killed in a cruel hate crime. Sliding into helplessness and drug use in the wake of her immeasurable loss, Katja finds a renewed reason to live when two suspects are arrested and brought to trial. But whether they are convicted or set free, what will Katja do when she no longer has the trial to drive her will to live?

This mix of revenge thriller and courtroom drama is elevated by a fantastic lead performance.

Diane Kruger won the best actress award at Cannes for her performance in this film, and it’s easy to see why. The film veers from family drama to courtroom suspense to thriller, sliding between genres like nobody’s business. And what could have felt like a mess or given the viewer whiplash instead works surprisingly well because Kruger is an absolute anchor, pinning the story in place with the intensity of her suffering, hatred, and despair. At one point in the film, Katja doesn’t want to live anymore, and Kruger does something special in showing the way that seeking justice for her murdered husband and son reanimates her, but that suicidal despair never really leaves her.

This movie did something really interesting for me, namely that the part I liked the most was not what I expected. I love a good revenge thriller, and I have a limited tolerance for courtroom dramas. But for me, the courtroom stuff was the best aspect of the film. I read an article years ago about a group of people who were lobbying for local news stations to rethink their use of stock footage involving violence. Specifically there was a family who had lost someone to a bicycle-car collision, and a news station frequently showed an image of the destroyed bicycle in any story about bikes, bike lanes, etc.

Losing a loved one is a very painful event, and what this film drives home is the way that seeking justice adds a whole other layer of suffering. Notoriously, there are a lot of people who don’t report crimes in part because of the agony they anticipate in having to go through the judicial process and relive their trauma. As part of the trial, Katja must listen to testimony about the specifics of how her husband and child died. There is one detail in particular that knocks her flat, almost quite literally, and is the kind of information that would haunt a person until the day they died.

In the second half of the film, Katja is not satisfied with the progress of the investigation and trial around the murders, and the story shifts more into a revenge thriller. For me, this was the less satisfying part of the film, mostly because the film has done such a fantastic and devastating job of showing us the powerlessness we feel when someone we love is hurt, and how that powerlessness is compounded when the systems of accountability turn slowly or, worse, not at all. Moving Katja from a more passive to a more active role wasn’t totally convincing to me, and it transforms the movie from a more believable story to something much more outlandish and Hollywood.

And it’s in this thriller mode that the film also lets go of any real nuance. The suspects are too obviously guilty, and the movie makes it far too easy to sort characters into “good” or “bad.” The real, hard question of how to move on after such a devastating tragedy is set to the side because where Katja chooses to go is so outlandish.

This is not to say that the second half of the film is bad. It is compelling, and the last 15 minutes or so are incredibly tense. Kudos for the film for crafting a final act where it felt that any number of outcomes were totally possible. It might feel more conventional and more Hollywood, but it’s done very, very well and I found the ending satisfying and a fitting end to the story.

Certainly worth a look.

I like In the Fade.
Kruger is decent enough in it.

I thought she did a really great job considering the way that the film pulls her character through these different genres and she somehow manages to hold the center.

I watched O Fantasma without reading about it because I vaguely thought I remembered someone praising it and that it was about a ghost.

It was not about a ghost.

I'm intrigued. I don't know what it is either.

I'll write something up in a bit. It was a very unpleasant film to watch, intentionally so, and just a lot more unsettling violence/sexual violence than I was anticipating. Also some unsimulated animal cruelty.

It took me like two hours of cricket, Project Runway episodes, and several cups of tea to chill out afterwards.

Oh. Never mind.

I feel very conflicted about it, both as a piece of art and as something I sat down and watched, if that makes sense.

There is a lot of intention to it, and I think it does have something to say about how violence can escalate in almost mundane ways.

I have to mull it over a bit.

Yeah, it sounds like it was maybe worthwhile or of worthy quality for what it was but is that what you or I want to actually watch. It doesn't sound like one for me. Sexual violence and animal cruelty are not high on my list of "must watch" characteristics of a film.

Right. It's the rare case where I wish I'd known a lot more going in. (I did check DoestheDogDie, and the note there about an animal being "pulled around" does NOT, in my opinion, adequately describe what happened to the creature in the film).

I also have some qualms about the age of the main actor (filmmaker found him when he was 17, so then they waited until he was 18 to film because of the graphic nature of the different scenes). Especially after learning that he died at the age of 29. It adds a feeling of exploitation that I don't like, on top of filming such graphic sequence with a teenager. (Yes, I know it's legal to film porn with 18 and 19 year olds---and that a whole subgenre of porn thrives on this "barely legal" category---but I don't necessarily think it's ethical). I'm not saying that the main intention of this movie was exploitation. I actually think it's pretty apparent that it isn't. But I still question whether it was right to create in this way.

The Worst Person in the World, 2021

Julie (Renate Reinsve) sets out into the world uncertain of what she wants to do with her life. While she is good at navigating social situations, she fails to find a passion and thus pursues various vocations in fits and starts. Just as quickly as she hops from job to job, she hops from one romance to another.

This is a well-acted, grounded-but-empathetic film about the dangers of always watching the horizon.

I would wager that most people who watch this film know and love at least one Julie. Heck, at some points we may ourselves have been a bit like Julie. Much in the way that Frances Ha captured the perils of delayed maturity, this film showcases what befalls those who cannot be content with what they have.

Julie’s academic and ideological carousel is what starts the film as she decides that she’s a medical student, no, sorry, a psychology student, no, wait, a photographer. Yeah, a . . . no, sorry, she’s a writer. But before long, it’s the men in her life finding themselves in a revolving door.

Julie’s main relationship is with Aksel (Anders Danielsen Lie), a famous graphic novelist who publishes provocative work. Pleased to have secured his attention and love, Julie is nonetheless haunted by her own lack of finding a passion in life. And whether she grows tired of Aksel out of jealousy or because she genuinely does not want to be with him, she soon finds her head turned by Eivind (Herbert Nordrum), a man she meets while crashing a party. That relationship is also characterized by more of a sense of competition than partnership.

This is a movie that makes two points, probably most relevant to people in their 20s and 30s, but applicable to anyone. The first is that you will never be happy if you’re busy craning your neck, looking for something better. Julie is pretty ruthless in this regard. She will cruelly drop a guy as soon as someone else turns her head with little care for the way that such a sudden decision will affect her partner.

But the idea that intrigued me more was the second one: namely that we are not always afforded a second chance. In the second half of the film, and especially in the final 20 minutes, Julie starts to learn that just because you put something down, it doesn’t mean it will just sit there waiting for you to pick it up again. Julie is incredibly self-centered and has cast herself as the grand (and only) protagonist in her life story, but the world around her does not care about this main character idea she has. As the years go on, Julie is forced to realize that she has closed doors that cannot be reopened.

Overall I liked this film. I had somewhat of a mixed response to two different fantasy sequences---one an overt daydream, the other Julie’s experience while very high on some mushrooms---they are well-done, but the fantastical elements of them didn’t totally fit for me with the nature of the rest of the movie.

It was a 4 for me, until the final act, and man, did that hit hard - pushed it to a 4.5.

Some top drawer acting too.

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Completed Extant Filmographies: Luis Buñuel, Federico Fellini, Satyajit Ray, Fritz Lang, Andrei Tarkovsky, Buster Keaton, Yasujirō Ozu - (for favorite directors who have passed or retired, 10 minimum)

Great review. I think you're right to focus on that second point, too. On the Internet they often call it "Main Character Syndrome"--the idea that so many people think of themselves as the protagonist of life, and act accordingly, in ways big and small, conscious and unconscious. A fancy, inverted way of saying someone lacks basic empathy. But subtler and more insidious, because it means even when they do, the framing is "look at the main character showing how good they are." Which means the empathy is performative, and just a facsimile of the real thing.

For me it went from a 3.5 to a 4. And I agree that the acting was great across the board. Anders Danielsen Lie is so good in everything I've seen him in. And he's also a doctor? Just one of those people who got an unfair share of talent!

Right, and I think that where the film keeps her from being too one-dimensional is in the way that we are shown how reliant she is on the way she is perceived. We can see some of the roots of this in her personal family dynamic----her dad ditching her on her birthday is very messed up---and in her restlessness when she gets her article published. There were quite a few ways that I identified with her, even if I disagreed with her actions.

I also think it's interesting to see the note on which the film ends. She is