Catching up on some movies available on streaming...
High Life
Claire Denis' science-fiction film about a group of criminals serving as guinea pigs for experiments in space is...a lot. The film opens with a single man, Monte (Robert Pattinson), and a baby alone on a spaceship and flashes back and forth between how they got there and where they are now. Basically, Monte is part of a crew of criminals who were serving life sentences on earth and were offered the chance to go to outer space to search for a renewable source of energy as an alternative to their sentences.
What they didn't sign up for is a doctor on board (Juliette Binoche) who is obsessed with reproductive technology and is constantly impregnating the female crew against their wishes. Also, there's this thing called the "fuck box"--basically, a mastubatorium where crew go to jerk off. I have a lot of issues with the fuck box (for example, the fuck box has a dildo attached to a padded seat...and that's all. I mean, I don't judge others for how they get off, but personally, I'd be pretty disappointed if I went into a fuck box and that was all that was in there).
High Life is a weird and, in my opinion, pretty pointless movie. I guess you could make the argument that it shows how once a person has a child, they are able to face anything in spite of insurmountable odds, or that human connection is stronger than anything in the universe. But really I think this movie is just about the fuck box.
Grade: C
Lake Mungo
Lake Mungo is an inventive, Blair Witch style horror film that expertly winds the audience up, scares them, relieves them, and then scares the fuck out of them again.
Filmed in documentary style, Lake Mungo is about a 16 year old girl, Alice Palmer, who drowns during a family holiday in Australia. Not long after the girl is buried, weird things start happening around the house: noises, doors opening and closing on their own...typical spooky shit. The Palmer family believe they are being haunted by their daughter's ghost. And when they set up cameras around the house, they find what appears to be evidence of a haunting.
But of course, there's to the footage than meets the eye...
Lake Mungo genuinely scared me, which is a rare feat. There are some Paranormal Activity-type jump scares where the audience is forced to watch grainy footage *knowing* that something spooky is going to happen, but not when or in which corner of the screen. This is an incredibly effective technique because you can't look away, but you know you're about to jump out of your seat. There's a particularly effective scare near the end of the film that made me scream (which, in turn, scared the fuck outta my cat).
Lake Mungo was a wonderful little surprise and it stuck with me days after. Highly recommended for horror buffs.
Grade: A-
First Reformed
Directed by Paul Schrader, First Reformed is an incredibly powerful and beautiful film about faith, hope, and despair. Ethan Hawke, doing great work here, plays Reverend Toller, the pastor at a "tourist church" called First Reformed. Very few people actually attend services at the church, but the 250 year old building is kept open as a tourist attraction and is soon to be the location of a reconsecration ceremony overseen by the pastor of a local megachurch called Abundant Life Ministries. Cedric Kyles (better known as Cedric the Entertainer) plays Pastor Jeffers and serves as a nice contrast to Hawke's Toller. Where Toller is nearly as self-abnegating as a monk (with the exception for his fondness for booze), Jeffers is charismatic, friendly, and knows how to make money.
One day, a couple shows up at First Reformed. Mary (Amanda Seyfried) and Michael (Phillip Ettinger) are going through a tough time--Michael is an environmental activist who is losing hope in the future of the earth every day. Mary is pregnant, and Michael wants her to get an abortion because he believes it is wrong to bring a child into a world soon to be plunged into chaos. Mary urges Toller to speak to her husband, but in doing so, Toller begins to question his own faith and his own sense of right and wrong.
I'll leave it at that, though there is MUCH more to the plot. First Reformed asks a lot of questions, from the relatively small (should you support a church that receives money from possibly corrupt businessmen?) to the enormously huge (Is it a sin to bring a child into a dying world? Will God forgive us for what we've done to His creation? How does one go on when there appears to be no hope?). You don't need to be a religious person to grapple with these questions because, as Toller points out, the "blackness" within the human soul has always been there and is in us all.
First Reformed is more art than entertainment, though I found it incredibly compelling and immediately wanted to watch it a second time once it was over. Highly recommended for people who like a little existential philosophy with their movies.
Grade: A
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