Category: Psychological

Saltburn

GoMovieReviews Rating: ★★★★☆ (4.3/5)

Rated: MA15+Saltburn

Directed by: Emerald Fennell

Written by: Emerald Fennell

Produced by: LuckyChap

Director of Photography: Linus Sandgren

Editor: Victoria Boydell

Starring: Barry Keoghan, Jacob Elordi, Rosamund Pike, Richard E. Gran, Alison Oliver, Archie Madekwe, Carey Mulligan.

‘I loved him.  But was I in love with him?’

The chaos of the first day at college sees Oliver Quick (Barry Keoghan) wandering through the Oxford crowd with his tie and jacket – ‘Hey, cool jacket,’ says a fellow student.  Not in a good way.

Oliver’s a ‘Norman with no mates.’

He spies Felix (Jacob Elordi) through the crowd – happy, popular, beautiful.

Oliver watches him.  It’s creepy, but kinda sweet because he’s so polite about it.  The scholarship boy infatuated.

Felix feels sorry for him.

He invites Oliver to stay with his family at Saltburn for the summer:

‘If you get sick of us, you can leave.  Promise.’

There’s an immediate immersion into the story, irresistible and fun with a dark humour, where college professors care more about who your parents are then if you’ve read the recommended reading list – who reads the St Jame’s Bible the summer before starting college?

The storyline is reminiscent of a modern day, The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) – the studious and brilliant boy trying to get ahead in life infatuated with the charming rich, seemingly unattainable.  The invitation to stay.  The inevitable dead bodies.

But Saltburn is also funny and visceral with vomit and spit and menstrual blood. Not off-putting, not sexy even.  It made the unreality of the setting feel more authentic.

Barry Keoghan as Oliver, is quite frankly, a revelation.

And there’s a perfect balance of characters – writer and director, Emerald Fennell (Promising Young Woman (2021)– directorial and screenplay debut) drawing everything into the camera so the film edges up to the right side of the absurd, keeping the story more mystery and erotic thriller rather than delving into fantasy because the fantasy is the setting and Oliver’s desire, with no holding back.

Oliver’s willingness to be All, to give all, is weirdly endearing while knowingly manipulative.  The audience’s perception twisted like the storyline.

Fennell uses reflections to see the shadow of self, of Oliver only realised later because the reflection of water and the face in a table surface also looks beautiful, disguising what lies underneath.

The use of shadows to add definition.  Those close shots of Oliver’s eyes looking into another – the damaged younger sister, Venetia Catton (Alison Oliver) and smug family friend, rich because of the Catton’s guilt, so basically part of the family, Farleigh (Archie Madekwe) – hypnotise with the wilfulness of Oli.

And seeing Carey Mulligan as ‘Poor Dear Pamela’ does not disappoint.

Can you tell I liked this movie?

Those dark humorous moments are pure gold, Rosamund Pike as Elspeth Catton (ex-model and mother who can’t stand ugliness), stating, ‘the police keep getting lost in the maze.’ You can imagine the hilarity of the moment because it shouldn’t be funny but it just is.

It’s also the pauses from the characters, the individual nuances in body language that delight, the idiocy of the classic English denial played so well by Richard E. Gran as the patriarch, Sir James Catton.

Each performance is outstanding, the character roles perfectly balanced.

Then the humour edges towards the callous changing the mood as the story turns so there’s another layer under the surface: there’s a fine line between dark humour and callousness like there’s a fine line between love and hate.

Saltburn is inviting, surprising, edgy and a pleasure, like a guilty indulgence, to watch on the big screen.

This is the second powerhouse film from Emerald Fennell and I’m very much looking forward to seeing what comes next.

 

Oppenheimer

GoMovieReviews Rating: ★★★★☆ (4.3/5)Oppenheimer

Directed by: Christopher Nolan

Written for the Screen by: Christopher Nolan

Based on the Book: American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and Martine J. Sherwin

Produced by: Emma Thomas p.g.a, Charles Roven p.g.a, Christopher Nolan p.g.a.

Starring: Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, Matt Damo, Robert Downey Jr., Florence Pugh, Josh Hartnett, Casey Affleck with Rami Malek and Kenneth Branagh.

‘The most important thing to happen in the history of the world.’

When a film opens with a quote about Prometheus stealing fire from the gods and giving it to mankind to then be punished forever in hell, you know you’re in for a heavy ride.

And in the 3 hours of viewing, there was a lot to unpack; the foundation, however, of the film is a character study of J.  Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy): the father of the atomic bomb.

There are different threads in the story of the film, as the narrative follows main character Oppenheimer through his introduction, a flash forward in time, then back to his original research and forging of friendships and collaborators such Isidor Rabi (David Krumholtz), Niels Bohr (Kenneth Branagh) and yes, Albert Einstein (Tom Conti) (and kind of amazing to think of Einstein still alive less than 100 years ago).

At first the film is about the science, about Oppenheimer’s research into quantum mechanics and the idea of a star dying, cooling, the density getting greater and greater creating a gravitational pull so strong that it sucks in everything, even light.

This was the second wave of physicists exploring relativity after Einstein published his theory.

‘Algebra is like sheet music, can you hear the music?’

And Oppenheimer, overseas, absorbed all he could from the universities of England to Germany; he wanted to explore it all, then bring it back to America – no one was researching quantum mechanics in America.

He meets a girl, Jean Tatlock (Florence Pugh) – a member of the Communist party.  His brother’s a member too.  His personal life is something that is called into question later, the later referenced in black and white, so there’s another layer to the story, like the love life of Oppenheimer is another layer to his personality.  His personal life with, later, wife Kitty (Emily Blunt) and children another story added to his life.

Then, World War II breaks out.  The atom has been successfully split.  Rumours of the Germans working on an atom bomb reach America.  They’re already two years ahead.

What choice do they have but to try to beat the Germans because if they don’t, the war, the world is ended.

This is where the suspense ramps up.

OPPENHEIMER

It’s the time of creation, collaboration, to experiment and research, the pressure to beat the Germans, while keeping the research secret from the Russians, the threat of spies and suspicion, so the thought of using the bomb is lost in the science of successfully making the weapon.

Then, it’s time for Trinity: the first ignition of the atom bomb’s power.

The way the explosion is captured on screen was like watching rage unfold over and over.

Nolan comes through loud and clear with the way he handles the suspense of the countdown to the explosion and the aftermath literally a tremor in the background of Oppenheimer’s world.

The play of sound and silence and the crackle and vibration all combine like Oppenheimer’s mind has just been set on fire.

There’s the image of many feet stomping and the world softening at the edges to let through a little bit of crazy.

And it feels like this is the end of the story.

But from the beginning, there’s the flash forwards to a time where Oppenheimer is being questioned about his part in the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  And about his connections to the Communist Party and the suspicion of information leaked to the Russians.

As hinted in the opening of the film, there’s the stealing of fire, then there’s the punishment.

In the film, it feels like the aftermath.

Here is the exploration of guilt.

And there’s a distinct change in feeling as Nolan explores Oppenheimer’s character, showing his exposure as the image of him sitting naked – he layers the feeling.

There’s more to the story than the science and the suspense, Oppenheimer is also about the psychology of a world that now has the capacity to end it – the film continues, and yes it feels long, but the full circle of understanding Oppenheimer and the world’s response to the galactic event of the atom bomb being unleashed needed time to get the full extent of the very human response of the politicians, the scientists who helped create the atom bomb and Oppenheimer.

It’s complicated, suspenseful, political, scientific and psychological.  It’s a lot.

But that raging fire and those blurred edges and uncertainty around Oppenheimer’s character to then reveal the truth of all those involved in the creation of the bomb added up to a sophisticated film that demanded full attention.

Somehow, Nolan has captured an aberration using Oppenheimer as a voice.  And that takes brilliance.

 

The Innocents

Rated: TBAThe Innocents

Directed by: Eskil Vogt

Screenplay Written by: Eskil Vogt

Produced by: Maria Ekerhovd

Executive Producer: Axel Helgeland, Dave Bishop, Céline Dornier

Starring: Rakel Lenora Fløttum, Alva Brynsmo Ramstad, Mina Yasmin Bremseth Asheim, Sam Ashraf, Ellen Dorrit Pedersen, Morten Svartveit, Kadra Yusuf, Lisa Tønne.

Norwegian with English subtitles.

‘What do you do when someone’s mean?’

A sleeping child

Is the picture of innocence.

The shot is close.

Ida (Rakel Lenora Fløttum) has freckles on her nose.

She has an autistic sister, Anna (Alva Brynsmo Ramstad).  Anna’s non-verbal.  She can’t even feel a pinch.

Ida is nine years old, yet it doesn’t feel like innocence when she pinches her sister, spits from the balcony and stomps on a worm.

When writer and director, Eskil Vogt (also screenwriter of, The Worst Person in the World, ‘In Competition – Feature Films’ 2021, Festival De Cannes. See review here) was asked about the idea behind the film’s title (The Innocents) he responds,

“I think kids are beyond good and evil or rather before good and evil. But I don’t think children are little angels, that people are born pure. I think children are born without any sense of empathy or morals, we have to teach them that. That’s why I think it’s interesting to see a child doing something that we would call evil in an adult. The moral aspect is more complex since they aren’t fully formed yet.”

Ida’s family has moved, her mother (Ellen Dorrit Pedersen) tells her it’s a new school, new friends.

Ida lies back on a swing and looks at the world up-side-down.

She meets Ben (Sam Ashraf).

He’s moved around a lot.

He has a bruise on his chest.

He can also move things with his mind.

I wasn’t sure what I was getting myself into at the beginning of this film – children doing mean things is confronting.

Yet, as the film continues, the characters, the children get complicated.

The Innocents is a horror with children as the main characters, with the parents on the outside, not knowing or understanding.

It’s a film about forgotten kids, who suddenly find they have powers.

Aisha (Mina Yasmin Bremseth Asheim) who lives in the building complex, finds Anna with her mind, the film following her mind like flying through the mist of the outside.

She can hear Anna even though Anna can’t speak.

‘I’m talking to someone who isn’t here,’ Aisha tells her mother (Kadra Yusuf).

Her mother cries in secret.

When the four children are together, Ida, Ben, Anna and Aisha – they become more powerful.

But rather than focussing on the supernatural, the film is about the children exploring their new powers and how each reacts to having power, therefore revealing the truth of who they are and why.

I was haunted by this film, the power shown in the ripples of water, by the wind in the trees.  Like the audience is invited into this secret world of the children as they pick scabs and dig in a sandbox, the boredom, the exploring, the violence – I believed all of it, the children the driving force of the film, shown in careful detail by cinematographer, Sturla Brandth Grøvlen.

A quietly menacing film that’s riveting, shocking and unique.

Little Joe

Rated: MLittle Joe

Directed and Screenplay by: Jessica Hausner

Produced by: Bruno Wagner, Bertrand Faivre, Philippe Bober Martin Gschlacht, Jessica Hausner, Gerardine O’Flynn

Cinematography: Martin Gschlacht

Starring: Emily Beecham, Ben Wishaw, Kerry Fox, Kit Connor, David Wilmot, Phénix Brossard, Sebastian Hülk and Lindsay Duncan.

Plant breeder, Alice (Emily Beecham) has genetically engineered a plant that releases a scent to make its owner happy.

She names the mood lifting plant after her son: Little Joe.

Alice has a good relationship with Joe (Kit Connor); a typical teenager, ‘Yep, whatever.’

Until he breathes in the scent of the happy plant.  Because once you breath in the scent of Little Joe, you become infected.  You become, a different person.

That’s what Bella (Kerry Fox) says.  A plant breeder for over twenty years.

But she’s crazy.  She has to be crazy to think a plant can change someone.

The premise of the film, superficially, seems a stretch.  But the way the story unfolds leads with the spacious feeling of a secret.  I wasn’t sure where I was being led but there were a lot of red flags.  Literally: the red font in the opening credits, the red diffuse light, the red hair, red car, red cherry, all leading back to the red flower of the plant named, Little Joe.

That feeling of a secret, of a quiet other world is enhanced by the soundtrack, the music written by Japanese composer, Teiji Ito.  There’s this high-pitched whistle, like the plants are communicating amongst the sound of a flute floating, building with drums that flourish, marking steps in the story that are guided by science.

The strangeness of the idea works because the characters are scientists talking about science – the genetically engineered plants created using virus vectors that release oxytocin.

Bella makes the point that because the plant is sterile – has to be made sterile, because it’s genetically engineered and there’s a risk of the plant running wild in nature, and of course the commercial aspect – it’s natural for the plant to want to reproduce.  So, imagine a plant where a virus vector mutates to not only cause happiness, but to work towards reproducing itself.

Oxytocin, is otherwise known as the mother hormone because it’s released into the blood stream in response to love and childbirth, to create a bond.

You look after the plant, you feed it, keep it warm, talk to it, and Little Joe rewards you with happiness.

‘Knock on wood.’

Says Alice during a therapy session.

‘What worries you?’ asks her psychotherapist (Lindsay Duncan).

Knock on wood.

Which of your children will you choose?

The film follows Alice as she navigates her desire to work versus the love she has for Joe, her feelings towards fellow scientist, Chris (Ben Wishaw) and her fear that the plant she’s created is in fact changing people.

Is it fear that distorts how she sees the world?  Or is she finally able to see what she’s really afraid of?

What is it that she secretly wishes for?

The film scratches at those secret desires using those feelings as a vehicle to hide the agenda of the story.  Like the agenda of a new entity that wants to reproduce but can’t, so uses the happy hormone to replicate, to be cared for.

It’s clever.  But the tone of film isn’t about being clever; it’s just different.  And interesting, with a subtle flavour of the disconcerting.

 

White Lie

Directed and Written by: Yoah Lewis, Calvin ThomasWhite Lie

Produced by: Yonah Lewis, Calvin Thomas, Katie Nolan, Karen Harnisch, Lindsay Tapscott

Starring: Kacey Rohl, Amber Anderson, Martin Donovan and Connor Jessup.

TIFF-nominated

White lie is the story of a girl who fakes having cancer.  A story that sounds familiar, the unfortunate truth the basis of the film – see article: directors (Yoah Lewis, Calvin Thomas) on the real scams behind their film here.

I was bracing myself, wondering if I could be in the mood to watch, White Lies, but from the opening scene of Katherine (Kacey Rohl) with a ‘K’, shaving her head, I was absorbed.

Immediately we know something’s not right.

She’s on posters, she’s on the cover of a magazine, she’s the lead of a dance group.

People give her money.

People watch her and smile.

She’s the centre of attention.

Everything is going fine for Katherine, until she needs to produce her medical records.

I could not look away from the amazing performance of Kacey Rohl as the character Katherine lies to cover lies, to cover herself and see just how far this girl will go to keep her secret.

Does her girlfriend (Amber Anderson) know?  I wonder as pillow talk turns to articles and donations.

Does her father (Martin Donovan) know?

How far can she take it?

That’s what kept me watching.  Waiting to see the unravelling.  Wondering what would drive someone to lie about having cancer.  Wondering if that’s all it takes to fool people: a young, sad girl holding her nerve, allowing people to see what they want to see.

Not able to believe someone could lie but the suspicion once raised a trauma of seeing and not seeing.

Another story for the media.  Another Facebook Page.  Another sad story to believe and charity to donate to.

But rather than get bogged down in the sensationalism, the film directs a clinical eye to record the misdeeds of lie and cover-up, the seamless unfeeling fantasy underlined with the warped scratch of strings, the soundtrack the indication of a broken mind because watching Katherine, she seems fine.

But she’s not OK because she will never see the wrong in what she’s doing.

It’s like the audience is allowed a window to see the truth while those around her are thoroughly fooled.  So instead of an unsettling fear like I expected, the film became a fascination.

Instead of another warning about social media, White Lie is an absorbing psychological thriller.  A film simply told so the complication of an unsound mind becomes a watch that’s both subtle and revealing.

Midsommar

Rated: R18+Midsommar

Written and Directed by: Ari Aster

Produced by: Patrik Andersson, Lars Knudsen

Director of Photography: Pawel Pogorzelski

Editor: Lucian Johnston

Music by: Bobby Krilic

Starring: Florence Pugh, Jack Reynor, Will Poulter, William Jackson Harper, Vilhelm Blomgren, Archie Madekwe, Ellora Torchia, Hampus Hallberg, Gunnel Fred, Isabelle Grill, Lars Väringer, Henrik Norlén, Anders Beckman.

‘I’m sure it was just a miscommunication.’

Following the success of his debut feature, Hereditary (2018), director and writer, Ari Aster shares the same attention to the discord of strange ritual in a modern time.

The more ritual involved, it seems, the darker the deed.

Midsommar focuses on the pagan celebration and nine-day feast the small community of the Hårga partake in every ninety years: the purification ritual.

Before we’re introduced to the slow corruption (purification) of the idyllic village in Hälsingland, filled with wildflowers, people tending gardens, getting high on magic mushrooms and dancing around in white tunics, we see a relationship falling apart.  We see Dani (Florence Pugh) clinging to the only stability left in her life after a family tragedy, Christian: her boyfriend who’s been thinking of breaking off the relationship for a year.

Christian’s mates don’t understand why he’s still with her.

All the boys want to do is live the life of students, go to Sweden to sleep with as many Swedish chicks as possible, while Pelle (Vilhelm Blomgren) shares the unique ritual of his home, a once-in-a-life-time experience with his friends while Josh (William Jackson Harper) writes his thesis about the celebration of the Summer Solstice.

So when Christian invites the distraught Dani to come along on the trip, the awkward tension of the relationship becomes the undercurrent of a journey that unravels like a bad trip.  A trip that keeps getting darker played-out in the constant sunshine and reassurance of the Hårga explaining this is what we’ve always done.  This is our tradition.

It’s the out-of-control pull of the constant bizarre behaviour of these villagers, that twists the perception, to see the warp of reality as the visitors are seduced into a culture so different to their own, to be swept along into the trance, helpless to stop what comes next.

It’s the subtle details that drew me into this new world, Aster and his creative team piecing together the culture of the Hårga based on James George Frazer’s The Golden Bough, paganism and the spiritual traditions of philosophers such as Rudolf Steiner.  The team created a culture with its own language, history, mythology, and traditions.  Bizarre and violent traditions with the added trip of seeing grass grow through feet, to see the trees breath; to see flowers open and close in time with a heartbeat.

There’s brutality and beauty, like the extreme of long nights and never-ending days.  The beauty cloys.  Like blood clotting.  It’s too bright.  The flowers are too pretty.

Yet, the ritual makes the violence seem natural.

‘It does no good, darling, looking back at the inevitable.  It corrupts the spirit.’

The many shades of darkness and light are used like a theme through the film, like a reflection of the person telling a lie, the truth shown in the focus of foreground.  Showing the shades of Dani and Christian’s relationship is these subtleties is the genius of the film for me – the deliberate pulling away, the discord when Dani tells Christian, ‘That was just really weird.’

And Christian replying, ‘Was it?’

Then there’s the artwork and paintings and symbols hinting of what’s to come in the story, making me wonder how dark the film will get.

However, I didn’t find the film too confronting, the film not horrific because the senses have been saturated with sunlight and flowers and flutes and song; like the characters, I felt a little drugged by the grassy fields, lulled into the natural progression of the wrongness because the village becomes closed-off, the modern world, shut-out.

Without the outside world to compare the behaviour, the ritual becomes embraced, so the violence doesn’t hit as hard.  I guess making it all the more disturbing.  But for me, more thought-provoking because eventually, all those subtleties add up to show an interesting truth of human nature.

Parasite

Rated: MA15+Parasite

Directed by: Bong Joon-Ho

Story by: Bong Joon Ho

Screenplay by: Bong Joon Ho, Han Jin Won

Produced by: Kwak Sin Ae, Moon Yang Kwon

Executive Producer: Miky Lee

Starring: SONG Kang Ho, LEE Sun Kyun, CHO Yeo Jeong, CHOI Woo Shik, PARK So Dam, CHANG Hyae Jin, JUNG ZISO, JUNG Hyeon Jun, LEE Jung Eun.

Winner d’Or Cannes Film Festival

Official Competition Sydney Film Festival

Director and writer Bong Joon-Ho describes Parasite as, ‘a comedy without clowns, a tragedy without villains.’

And Joon-Ho has certainly captured a film with a difference here, where the story starts off one way, then evolves into something else so the film’s like a journey into a way of thinking or a thought that creeps up.

Parasite starts off about a struggling family, living in a sub-basement where they contemplate putting up a sign, ‘No urinating’ because of the drunk that is forever pissing outside their window.

The father, Ki-Taek (Song, Kang Ho) has no job after several failed business ventures; the mother, Chung-Sook (Chang Hyae Jin) is a former national medallist in the hammer throw who keeps house as best she can amongst the stink beetles and cardboard pizza boxes the family assemble to at least have some money coming in.

Getting cut-off from the wi-fi because the neighbour has changed their password, son, Ki-Woo (Choi Woo Shik) and daughter, Ki-Jung (Park So Dam) wave their phones around, trying to find a connection, waving past a fan cover with socks hanging, eventually finding connection up on the raised toilet.

It’s desperate times, but the family struggles together.

Until Ki-Woo gets an opportunity to tutor a rich kid.

Posing as a college graduate, Ki-Woo burrows into the life of the Park family, also a family of four, with Mr. Park (Lee Sun Kyun) CEO of a global IT firm and young wife Yeon-Kyo (Cho Yeo Jeong) who stays at home with their two young children.

Ki-Woo plans and manipulates this rich family to keep his family together – to get them jobs as well, despite the fact all the positions are already filled.  And it’s easy.  The family are so nice.  But they can be nice.  They’re rich.

There’s so much more to this film than the concept of the haves and have-nots.  Yet, this is the central idea shown with symbolism like flood water running down steps – from the beauty and green grass and clean lines of a house built by an architect to catch the sun, running down to the squalor of the streets below, flooded with raw sewage.

There’s a line – Mr. Park even stating, ‘I can’t stand people who cross the line’ – and as the film progresses the more stark the difference between those above and those below.

I can see why this film is winning awards.  There’s so much thought and layering in the story, carefully unveiled.

From light humour capturing how families are, to the horror of a class divide that keeps getting deeper shown with the revelation of ignorance and the fight to protect family; the individual fights against circumstance until the eventual learned behaviour: with no plan, nothing can go wrong.

The portrayal of what feels like a true-to-life tragedy is made to feel authentic because of the lightness and brevity of the family on the edge of starvation; the desperation turning relatable, intelligent people into something else.

Like the film is saying: it’s not like people who are desperate don’t know they’re desperate.

So there’s more than the class divide growing wider and the actions the desperate make trying to survive, there’s self-reflection.

The Guilty

Directed by: Gustav Möller

Screenplay by: Gustav Möller & Emil Nygaard Albertsen

Produced by: Lina Flint

Starring: Jakob Cedergren, Johan Olsen, Jessica Dinnage, Omar Shargawi, Jacob Hauberg Lohmann, Katinka Evers-Jahnsen.

2018 Sundance Film Festival

WINNER: World Cinema Dramatic – Audience Award

Opening on a blank screen, the phone rings.

Asgar (Jakob Cedergren) answers, ‘Emergency Services.’

Set entirely in the room housing the work spaces for those answering and directing the urgent calls incoming, the film focuses on the mysterious Asgar as he shows the classic signs of burn-out: a short temper, the wringing of hands as he attempts to help yet another drunk and abusive caller.

When he receives the call from Iben (Jessica Dinnage) he soon realises she’s been kidnaped, as she pretends to be calling her young daughter while Asgar attempts to find out where she is to send help.

The jaded Asgar comes to life as the tension rises – he makes a promise to Iben’s daughter he’ll get her mother home, even if he has to go off-book to help her.

But there’s something not right with Asgar.

He says he’s a protector, ‘We protect people who need help.’

He’s also a mystery.

The Guilty is a tense psychological thriller as we’re taken down a dark road of murder, fear and the frustration of being on the end of the phone trying to get to the person on the other side.

Director Gustav Möller states, ‘I believe that the strongest images in film, the ones that stay with you the longest; they are the ones, you don’t see.’

Möller has used this concept to build the suspense and mystery as Asgar tries to piece together the crime unfolding on the other end of the line.

We don’t see the crime; what we see is the warning of a red light switching on when the call is taken; the staring into space as aspirin dissolves into bubbles; the ringing of hands as they shake.

The silence is broken by the phone ringing, the soundtrack of the film, as the mystery of the caller and Asgar are revealed like, ‘A big blue silence.’

This is a gripping film that’s more a character-driven story who’s mystery is revealed in the suspense of solving a crime we can’t see.  What we hear is the fear in a voice, a knocking on a door, the traffic in the background and the sound of tyres on a road taking the unwilling somewhere Asgar needs to find out if he’s going to save the person on the other side of the call.

Greta

Rated: MA15+Greta

Directed by: Neil Jordan

Written by: Neil Jordan, Ray Wright

Produced by: James Flynn, Lawrence Bender, John Penotti

Starring: Isabelle Huppert, Chlöe Grace Moretz, Maika Monroe.

Like the ominous drone of a train running through the tunnels of the New York City subway, Greta is all about the darkness that runs beneath the surface.

Frances (Chlöe Grace Moretz) has that newly-arrived innocence.  She hasn’t been bitten by the nasty of New York.  Originally from Boston, she lives with her best friend Erica (Maika Monroe (It Follows (2015)) in her loft.

Frances still believes in doing the right thing.  Until she meets Greta (Isabelle Huppert).

Greta has thought of the perfect ruse, preying on the kindness of ‘suckers’: she leaves a green leather bag on the train with an identity card, amongst other convincing paraphernalia, noting her address.

So when Frances finds the bag (and Lost and Found is closed – but would they be closed all the time?  I wasn’t entirely convinced…), she takes the bag back to the rightful owner – much to the disgrace of Erica: ‘This city’s going to eat you alive’.

A telling statement for what’s to come.

The kindness of the older French woman, Greta, seems to fill a hole in Frances’ life; to become the mother figure that’s missing after the death of her mother the year before.

But Greta is sticky.

And as the worldly-wise Erica says, The more persistent, the more crazy.

Writer and director Neil Jordan, ‘saw GRETA as a story about obsession. Every friendship begins with a promise of sorts, he believes: “‘I’ll be your friend if you’ll be mine. We’ll share things. I’ll tell you about my life, if you tell me about yours.’ If those little gestures are used in a malevolent way it becomes kind of terrifying.’

Greta feels like a classic style of psychological thriller, such as the stalking films, Misery (1990) and Fatal Attraction (1987); but with the older crazy woman being the seductress of a young girl.  Greta invades the life of Frances, demanding everything like an obsessed lover.

Isabelle Huppert, ‘interpreted the script as an ambiguous love story.’

And the closeup camerawork make the most of Chlöe Graces’ (as Frances) pretty face that adds to that strange dynamic of: Surrogate daughter? Friend? Lover?

But I’m not sure why this dynamic didn’t quite resonate with me – the idea of the trap is clever.

As is the splicing and camerawork of the descent of Frances’ capture.

There’s this strange brevity from Isabelle Huppert as Greta, her clever euphemisms and light dancing of stockinged feet giving Greta more dimension than just crazy.

I believed the kindness and intelligence more than the psychopathic nature of her character.

And I think this is because the depth of psychology or explanation wasn’t explored – why was Greta crazy?

And what happened to her husband?

Not the psychological thriller I was hoping for but there’s some clever here with some tense and surprising moments.

Backtrack Boys

Rated: MA15+Backtrack Boys

Directed, Produced and Written by: Catherine Scott

Consultant Producer: Madeleine Hetherton

Cinematographer: Catherine Scott

Composers: Kristin Rule, Jonathan Zwartz.

Audience Award for Best Documentary, Sydney Film Festival

Audience Award for Best Documentary, Melbourne International Film Festival

Filmed over two years, Backtrack Boys is an observational documentary about Founder and CEO, Bernie Shakeshaft and his unique outreach program to help young kids to:

Stay alive

Stay out of jail

And to chase their hopes and dreams.

I was thoroughly charmed by this film – writer, director and cinematographer Catherine Scott allowing the story to speak for itself.

Growing up in the Northern Territory, Bernie was taught how to track dingos by Indigenous trackers from Tennent Creek.

Rather than tracking dingos from behind, chasing them, they taught Bernie to backtrack, to observe their behaviour to see where they’d been to see where they’d be tomorrow.

Bernie reckons they weren’t teaching him how to catch wild dogs but how to catch wild kids.

His outreach program is unique in that it’s all about giving board to young people, who’ve had trouble with the law and at home, to stay and train the many dogs on his property to become dog jumpers.  Each kid is given a dog to train, or rather, the dog picks them: dogs don’t judge, they just keep coming back again and again.

I would have thought the group of mischievous kids would have hammed it up for the camera, unable to handle being filmed.  But there’s a genuine insight captured here that tells of a level of comfort and openness with film maker, Catherine Scott, that allows us to see into this fragile world of rehabilitation as the kids open their hearts to Bernie and the volunteers; to struggle with anger and hurt and disappointments, and the consequences of lashing out.

Although the film could be used for teaching youth workers, I didn’t feel like I was under instruction – it was all about meeting the kids: Zac, Russell, Alfie, Sindi.  And to be taken on a journey as they figure out their path in life.

Gentle and matter-of-fact Bernie, who states, ‘I’ve spent so much time with dogs that I think more like a dog than I think like a person’, is able to calm the kids to see reason so we’re shown moments like Zac sharing as they’re sitting around the camp fire that he wants to leave the world with no regrets; no hate in his heart.

We’re taken from the out-skirts of Armidale in New South Wales where Backtrack Boys is set-up surrounded by green paddocks with grazing sheep and horses, to country shows including the Wellington show where the boys show off the dogs’ jumping skills, and their own.  To the detention centre where Tyrson’s waiting to get out and back on track again; to parliament and putting on a show at Government House; to Russell’s fear of going to court to face charges and the uncertainty of whether he’ll walk out again.

Seemingly simple, the film is a series of moments, as we’re shown what the quiet observer sees – the rewards of Bernie’s hard work with Rusty, wild and swearing and chewing gum in the morning to him later organising the bathroom and noting the need for more toothpaste after brushing his teeth.

It’s a sad and realistic documentary, making any break-through and win all the more sweet.

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