2022 Film Roundup, Part 1, Weekly Reel #43
Babylon, EO, Glass Onion, and The Whale round out the first list. More to come...
News of the Week: Apologies for the non-posts since November, I know it’s caused some of you extreme discomfort. I was ill the first week of December and then did my planned holiday break after. So ist das Leben! Anyway, here’s my first small collection of recently viewed 2022 films.
Note: I will not be making a top ten post for 2022. Everyone and their donkey is doing that and mine will probably look like theirs with the occasional spicy hot take.
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Babylon (2022, Damien Chazelle, USA) nearly made it to the following section after my first viewing, but then the ghost of HW haunted me into a second viewing, which converted me into a believer. True to its name, Chazelle tells the Story of Hollywood (the synecdoche, not the place), what cinema is capable of, the silent era of the nineteen-twenties, and how the industry changes over time. If La La Land was answering why cinema?, then Babylon is answering (Bazin’s original question) what is cinema? It’s somehow both the prequel and sequel to Singin’ in the Rain. Even though the film covers the ground of how silent films gave way to sound in the late nineteen-twenties, it’s the perfect statement about industry transition in the current era of covid and streaming—like Hugo back in the film to digital transition era.
Chazelle tells the story of Babylon through three main characters and two side characters. Nellie LaRoy (Margot Robbie) is a movie star looking for her big break, Jack Conrad (Brad Pitt, who speaks more Italian here than in Inglourious Basterds) is the leading silent acting star, Manny—not Manuel—Torres (Diego Calva) is an assistant/enforcer trying to find a way into the film industry, Sidney Palmer (Jovan Adepo) is a trumpet player who plays the big HW parties, and Lady Fay Zhu (Li Jun Li) is a cabaret singer and intertitle writer (or was that just for the one scene because of Nellie?). The latter two were under-utilized but still managed to achieve arcs during the one-hundred and eighty-nine minute runtime. The audience’s avatar is Manny, a fish out of water entering the film industry with wide eyes and a thick accent.
In the opening evening party filled with more nudity and drugs and sex and elephants than any other party on screen, Manny, working as an assistant to the host, meets Nellie, a flamboyant nobody from New Jersey who insists she’s already a star, and instantly falls in love. They snort coke, talk about their greater ambitions and doing something bigger than themselves, via film, then party like animals into the morning. Jack shows up, breaks up with wife (a short cameo by Olivia Wilde) in the car, and then also enjoys the party. Our two side characters perform at the party, Sidney leads the jazz band while Lady Fay performs a crisp rendition of “My Girl’s Pussy.” By the end of the twenty minutes of debauchery and character setup, Nellie receives an acting gig after an actress overdoses and Manny takes a very drunk Jack home, who likes Manny enough to make him his assistant.
Three hours later they all wake up and go to set the next day at a giant outdoor film set in Simi Valley. The next twenty minutes is total chaos as Nellie upstages her star colleague, Manny wrangles hundreds of skid row extras and speeds to Cahuenga for an extra camera after a massive battle shoot destroys the ten cameras they started with, and Jack, starring in an epic period piece directed by a volatile German director (Spike Jonze in a GOAT cameo), is getting wasted all day in his tent until his heroic closeup during sunset, which he nails.
Followed a bit later by a great scene of a crew’s first attempt at shooting a sound film, this first hour is some of the greatest filmmaking on filmmaking of all time. The editing intercuts all the action into perfectly climactic moments of cinematic jouissance that shows what kind of power filmmaking has—Chazelle, from Whiplash onwards, has always been an editor-director. The middle hour slows down the action as nineteen-twenties silent film decadence turns into the sound era of conservative decency, which tamed the wild west of HW through the Production Code. It almost slows down too much though, which relies on the actor’s more than the Spectacle in moving the action forward. But it doesn’t exactly work (for me). As opposed to Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood, which subordinated the era/action to the human relationships (also starring Pitt and Robbie), Babylon reluctantly includes those relationships, and they tend to feel more like cutouts.
The final two hours of the film are at their best when showing the gradual progression of the film industry, which makes way for the next generation. As one character states, one day, everyone in their era will be dead yet their images will live on. People, over time, will watch and re-watch their work, which will make them feel close to those on screen. This can be spread to almost any art form, but Chazelle finds something unique in the cinema’s ability at immortalizing a certain era and what came with it. In the nineteen-twenties it was silent films combined with drugs, partying, scandal, etc. But more than that, it’s an artistic medium that each generation comes around to. Where anyone can find their own stars and dreams alive. And that’s quite powerful.
Although Kenneth Anger’s Hollywood Babylon is the overt connection to the film, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Babylon Revisited is the better comparison: Fitzgerald’s thesis, published in 1930, was that the excess of the nineteen-twenties will turn the nineteen-thirties into a massive hangover. The last hour of Babylon is that nauseating delirium of “oh shit.” It gets very dark in the same way that the second half of Boogie Nights is the black dream of the first half. The biggest problem of the film occurs here though, which had begun in the second hour: the characters’ climaxes didn’t feel completely earned and predictable. But then there’s a spellbinding montage that brilliantly summarizes the thesis of the film (faith in cinema and its power over our imagination/dreams), which will turn off any non-believers. But one must see to believe…
I know I cry wolf about this too often, but this is a complete must-see-in-theaters film for many reasons. Although there’s another three hour must-see-in-theaters film dominating the market right now (whoever scheduled Babylon to go head-to-head with James Cameron should be sent to the gulags), Babylon simply can’t be viewed at home. Too many distractions, the screens aren’t big enough, the speakers will crackle too much—Justin Hurwitz outdoes himself in this era-defining soundtrack that blends big band jazz with a contemporary sensibility, much like the costume design. But most importantly, Chazelle gives you the perfect cinematic (meaning film + audience) experience. From the Lumière brothers to Avatar, filmmaking has provided a unique experience of shared revelation, shared tragedy, shared comedy, and communal gatherings in the most democratic art form possible.
Babylon isn’t a perfect film, but it’s perfect in giving us hope towards cinema in a culture gradually churning it into a Hackfleisch of hollowed content.
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EO (2022, Jerzy Skolimowski, Poland/Italy) was a surprise to me, considering the main actor of the film is a donkey (portrayed by six different irl donkeys: Ettore, Hola, Marietta, Mela, Rocco, and Tako). It’s a remake of Robert Bresson's 1966 film Au Hasard Balthazar, which follows a donkey as it trades hands between different owners. The great reveal is in showing the disparate abuses of various humans, especially towards a non-human yet sentient being. In Skolimowski’s film, EO, who’s indeed a good boy, passes between owners in his initial separation from a Polish carnival. He makes multiple escapes, whether through breaking out of his pen or when a vagrant murders his driver at a trucker stop.
In its sub-ninety minute runtime, EO manages to cover a lot of ground. Never opting for sentimental schlock, it blends the experiential process of both form and content, which Paweł Mykietyn’s electro-classical Cannes-award-winning soundtrack and Michał Dymek’s sympathetic, sometimes club-strobing, cinematography help render. It lifts the banal tracing of a donkey to a higher-order level, no joke, by hypnotizing you and placing yourself within the hooves of EO. Wandering around seems the best and only option, so that’s what he does. And what happens, happens. But it’s the way it’s told that resonates; it’s a vibe film more than a narrative adventure.
It’s difficult to talk about this film without running into spoilers or ruining the random spectacles that make it so watchable. Catch it while it’s still in theaters, otherwise EO might wander off into oblivion.
Glass Onion (2022, Rian Johnson, USA) is the tepid (Netflix) sequel to Johnson’s Knives Out, which doesn’t do anything new. (I’m hesitant even recommending it at all. But I like Johnson so I’m giving him the benefit of my doubts.) Like many sequels looking to differentiate themselves, Johnson sets the film overseas, in Greece, and brings together a group of B- and C-level actors who look slightly familiar alongside a couple of heavyweights. The film is watchable and entertaining, but it fails miserably in its Marvelesque humor and eat-the-rich critique.
The film is a traditional whodunnit set in contemporary times, dealing with contemporary issues. A tech CEO (Edward Norton) invites his five “disruptor” friends to his exclusive island along with his disgruntled former partner (Janelle Monáe), who were on trial against one another a couple of months before, and Danial Craig, returning as Benoit Blanc, the world’s greatest detective. The purpose of the trip is a fun game of who killed the host, which Johnson quickly sidesteps, as one expects, in the post-Agatha era, towards the real murder mystery. It takes place in May 2020, so lame-duck jokes about masks and social distancing litter the first fifteen minutes before Ethan Hawke’s cameo puts it out of its misery.
The cameos weren’t at the level of cringe, but I’ve never seen so many fall short for laughs in a packed theatrical audience. Only two people—maybe—noticed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, one person knew who Yo-Yo Ma was (or at least pretended to), and nobody noticed Stephen Sondheim and Angela Lansbury. When Hugh Grant appeared on screen, everyone’s mind had to work out what was happening. Did a romcom suddenly start playing by mistake? I didn’t like Notting Hill that much, but I guess I’ll watch this sequel.
Rian Johnson and his long-time producer Ram Bergman performed an old-school finesse by securing a multi-film deal—worth $450,000,000.00—by working within a formulaic genre that requires minimal updates. Although Knives Out was a great “original” work that played well in theaters, its sequel, which may break streaming records that nobody cares about, doesn’t bother lifting much weight. Even more than the first, Glass Onion is an explicit “takedown” of the rich in the lightest form possible. It’s nearly as insulting as Nomadland in its aesthetic politicizing. As opposed to Triangle of Sadness, Glass Onion makes the rich look silly but doesn’t have anything to say about the power structure underwriting class. But that’s not something Netflix or Johnson (or the American audience) cares about anyway.
Pass
The Whale (2022, Darren Aronofsky, USA) gives you a lot of reasons to hate it. (Minor spoilers following.) One can feel repulsed by the fatphobia, the Christianity, the junior high school level dramatic acting, maybe even the fact that this is Brendan Fraser’s big Return to Acting. My roast beef with the film is the family dynamic. It can be entirely stripped away, along with the Christianity. In its stead would be a haunting film about a man that commits suicide via gluttony after a traumatic incident with his partner. On top of that, he teaches online literature courses where he has his cam disabled to avoid the embarrassment. Great. This can work.
But Aronofsky, being the Aronofsky that made mother!, needed his Christian subplot and unnecessary family issues, both of which resulted in the worst acting since one of the former One Direction darlings graced our corneas. I’m not sure whether blame should be placed on Samuel D. (drop the middle initial buddy) Hunter’s script, based on his play with the same name, or Aronofsky. Either way, each will earn the official Stanley Nolan banned from filmmaking sticker, which will be enforced rigidly via the Motion Picture Association and Federal Bureau of Investigation.
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