Wednesday, April 24, 2019

High Life

“So far away” 
(from the Carole King song of the same name on her 1971 Tapestry album)
                      
Review by Ken Burke

                               High Life (Claire Denis)   rated R

“Executive Summary” (no spoilers): This is a drama set within the tropes of outer-space science-fiction (although the director insists her story’s not sci-fi, so you’ll have to make your own decision; I did, which is simply not to agree with her based on everything I know about this genre) in a future more technologically-advanced than our present when a spaceship traveling at near the speed of light is carrying a group of convicts toward a distant black hole to perform 2 crucial experiments: (1) to see if babies can be birthed in space, then survive (although the women become pregnant through artificial insemination from sperm taken from the men’s masturbations because the [mad, some might say] scientist in charge of these trials forbids direct sex among these prisoners), and (2) to see if energy can be harnessed from the black hole, possibly for use in other forms of interstellar travel.  In that we begin this film with a lone male survivor on this spaceship casting dead bodies of the others out into the void, leaving him along with a baby, the spoiler aspects of this plot involve how all the others onboard came to be deceased along with what happens to the man and child now they’re alone on this forlorn journey.  Given High Life (which has nothing to do with joyous existence or even a type of Miller beer) is in a very limited number of theaters at present (despite having been out for a few weeks) you might want to cheat a bit by reading my spoiler-filled comments just below because, even if you do eventually watch this film through DVD or downloading options, knowing what happens probably won’t actually spoil whatever enjoyment (if any) you might find in this experience (which many critics are celebrating at a much higher level than I have); in fact, knowing the plot details might help in not needing to waste your time on unraveling what can easily become narrative confusion in various places, allowing you to focus on the haunting atmosphere permeating this film, which is probably its strongest attribute. 

Here’s the trailer:  (Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge it; activate that same button on the full screen’s lower right or your “esc” keyboard key to return to normal size.)


If you can abide plot spoilers read on, but as this blog’s intended for those who’ve seen the film—or want to save some bucks—to help any of you who want to learn more details yet avoid important plot-reveals I’ll identify any give-away sentences/sentence-clusters like this: 
⇒The first and last words will be noted with arrows and red.⇐ OK, now continue on if you prefer.

What Happens: Much of what we see in High Life is actually flashbacks from the opening scene (with some voiceover-explanations of the plot’s happenings by Monte [Robert Pattinson], a voyager on the deep-space-vessel named 7); in that opening, however, Monte gathers up his 6 now-dead-crewmates, dresses them in their spacesuits (for what reason I don’t know), jettisons them into the void, then continues on his interstellar journey with a baby on board, even as they contend with inconsistent light and air within their confined space, no radio contact with Earth.  As the flashback-clarifications begin, we learn this box-shaped-ship (apparently, at the velocity it’s traveling—99% of light-speedthere’s no drag so it can be a simple form, unlike the grand designs we’ve come to expect in more action-oriented-sci-fi-movies) is headed out into the vast unknown with a group of convicts who’ve accepted this mission in lieu of Earth-bound-prison (although this ship’s not unlike a grim prison itself, except there seem to be no guards, no enforcement-weapons, no challenges to authority—mostly in the person of Dr. Dibs [Juliette Binoche]) where their scientist-as-warden is immediately concerned with learning if human reproduction is possible in such an environment, longer-term focused on reaching a distant black hole (they’re still 4 years away) to see if it can be tapped as an energy source, possibly as needed fuel for even more dramatic ventures into the cosmos.  Regarding the reproduction experiments, the male prisoners are required to enter a contraption known as The Box to ejaculate their sperm which Dr. Dibs then uses for artificial insemination on various female convicts; sadly, none of the resulting pregnancies have yet been successful, with the babies all dying from radiation poisoning.  No sex among the prisoners is allowed (I’m assuming to keep relationship bonds from forming, maybe as another means of preserving control without physical incarceration; however, Doc Dibs puts what looks like a metal dildo to use in this orgasmic-chamber, giving herself quite a ride at one point [with nude shots that almost push the R rating into NC-17 territory], leaving what appears to be a good bit of blood afterward).  Monte refuses to masturbate, though (“Chastity over indulgence.”), resulting in some taunting from Ettore (Ewan Mitchell), the certified asshole of the group, although Monte does have some personal conversations with Tcherny (André Benjamin) in the lush garden aboard the ship, likely a main source of food, along with recycled water, much of it from the collected human waste.

 One female in this group, Boyse (Mia Goth), is antagonistic toward Dr. Dibs’ ongoing reproduction experiments, angrily shouting these pregnancies are doomed to failure; she’s especially bitter when one of her fellow-voyagers, Elektra (Gloria Obianyo), dies after delivery, with the child dead too (soon the ship’s captain's also gone, from a stroke).  I’m not fully positive a brief flashback we see of young Monte (Mikolaj Gruss) also includes Boyse (although he’s with some young woman who looks like her), but he’s certainly wiling to protect her when Ettore attempts to rape Boyse, beating him to a pulp before Boyse’s roommate, Mink (Claire Tran), finishes him off.  ⇒From here on, life just gets to further states of “low,” rather than any sense of “high” this trip might have hoped to accomplish.  One night Dibs increases the sedative doses for her charges, rapes Monte as he’s unconscious, collects the sperm, inserts it into Boyse whose resulting baby becomes the miracle Dibs longed for as the child survives; others die though, first the pilot Nansen (Agata Buzek) who volunteers to steer a shuttle into a different black hole as they approach it, but Boyse kills her with a shovel, takes her place, flies into the molecular cloud surrounding the hole only to be vaporized by the forces of this powerful phenomenon.  Mink attacks Dibs, injures her, but Monte kills Mink, after which Dibs simply ejects herself into space, unsuited, for an instant death (no command of The Force to float unharmed like General Leia Organa [Carrie Fisher] in Stars Wars: The Last Jedi [Rian Johnson, 2017; review in our  December 22, 2017 posting]).  Tcherny tells Monte he can’t go on any more; in the next shot it’s clear he’s buried in the garden, maybe from suicide.  So, these events account for some of the bodies we initially see Monte dumping into space, but I counted 6 so others must have somehow expired as well (further, I'd swear there were more convicts shown in earlier scenes, but maybe not).  Over time, the baby grows into adolescent Willow (Jessie Ross), sole crew member with Dad Monte as they continue on course toward the intended black hole (yet, more than 4 years must have passed) only to encounter spaceship 9 which automatically docks with them; however, there’s no help to be found there as the only survivors are dogs from some other experiment (in another flashback we get the bitter info none on 7 were destined to return to Earth, but they—or at least, the convicts—didn’t know their fate).  All of this wraps up as Monte and Willow approach the intended black hole, decide to board another shuttle (which looks sort of like a car with no wheels) to head right into it, leaving us to ponder what might have happened to them as the screen goes from a narrow band of bright yellow light into a broader band filling the screen as yellow becomes white, the journey (at least the part we watched) coming to an unknown ending.⇐

So What? At times when I’m trying to decide what to see/review on a given weekend I have some qualms I’m skewing too often toward esoteric fare which is more aesthetically-intriguing to me than some of the current-box-office-heavyweights—now including a ghost-horror-movie, The Curse of La Llorona (Michael Chaves), made $26.3 million in its domestic (U.S.-Canada) debut, and Breakthrough (Roxann Dawson), a Christian-inspirational-story (based in real events) about a boy who falls into an icy river, revives from a coma with brain functions intact after Mom fervently prays for him (this one had a $14.8 million debut plus another $5.8 million overseas)—but then I see my choices are playing in only a few hundred (or dozen) theaters, so (despite having a wider variety to pick from in Berkeley or San Francisco) I wonder if I’m serving my mostly-silent-readership (still hovering lately at about 29,000 from around the globe) with my reviewing decisions, especially when last week’s (April 17, 2019) look at Diane (Kent Jones) and The Invisibles (Claus Räfle) has netted only about 281 unique hits so far.  However, when I looked more closely at responses to my postings over the last couple of months, while I did get noticeably more hits sometimes when I included mainstream movies (Captain Marvel [Anna Boden, Ryan Fleck; review in our March 14, 2019 posting], Us [Jordan Peele; review in our March 27, 2019 posting]) but not others (Dumbo [Tim Burton; review in our April 4, 2019 posting], Shazam! [David F. Sandberg; review in our April 10, 2019 posting]), I found many of those more-esoteric-choices also drew notable action—Never Look Away (Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, 2018; review in our February 28, 2019 posting) the best at 2,183 hits (it also got the most “reaches” [whatever they are] in reply to my announcement of it on our Two Guys Facebook page, 116, where I normally get only about 12-15, no matter what’s being reviewed).  Noting all that as background consideration, last weekend—when I knew again I had time for only 1 film because of previous plans for attending a play plus a big Easter dinner with the in-laws—once again offered me precious little (including Little [Tina Gordon]) to consider in the mainstream I hadn’t already seen, so it was time to go artsy-fartsy once more, with a choice between High Life, with a focus on masturbation in outer space, or Little Woods (Nia DaCosta), with a focus on crime among desperate citizens of North Dakota; hoping to appease our (assumed) common prurient interests, I opted for High Life, which was intriguing but confusing in places, including the implications of the title which could refer to travel away from our planet being “high” in the skies (and beyond, like with the Toy Story franchise’s Buzz Lightyear), while “life” could easy connect to Dr. Dib‘s obsession with extraterrestrial birth, but maybe Denis intended something else.

 While I see elements of High Life as resonant with aspects of 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)—human beings traveling deep into the cosmos in search of answers to questions about the nature of our immense universe and our place in it—and Solaris (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1972)—mysteries about the possible metaphysical nature of the “great beyond”—director Denis (in the press notes you can access from the film’s official site, noted below in the Related Links section of this posting*) clearly distances her vision of her work from both of these sci-fi classics; in fact she doesn’t even see this as a science-fiction film at all, despite its outer-space-setting, its easy-assumption of scientific explanations (the 7 spaceship is traveling at near-light speed, getting us into the realms of Star Wars [admittedly, more in the Fantasy genre than actual Outer Space Sci-Fi] and Star Trek), its focus on what our species will/must face in the future as conditions on our planet continue to move beyond the tipping point for survival: “But above all, and I must insist, High Life is not a science fiction film even if there are healthy doses of fiction – and science thanks to the precious participation of the astrophysicist Aurélien Barrau, specialist in astroparticle physics and black holes. The film takes place in space but it’s very grounded.”  In fact, what she seems most interested in here is how this story of a quest for survival in constantly-demanding-conditions ultimately leads us into areas of human relations that are even more “taboo” than masturbation (at least in those sex-adverse-communities most likely to offer faith-based-support for Breakthrough; considering the easy access now in our society to self-pleasuring-devices and Internet porn I doubt the warnings against such acts so prevalent in my 1960s teenage years hold much value anymore outside of Breakthrough zones), that of no-guilt-incest.  (At this point I should note I do consult with my cinema-loving [and me-loving, I’m happy to say]-wife, Nina, on what we see together each week [sometimes I catch an extra one on my own if she’s not interested], but I’ll take full responsibility for what emerges from High Life, which I also find resonant with aspects of the porno “classic” Behind the Green Door [Artie and Jim Mitchell, 1972]—Denis would likely take exception to that, or maybe not—thus, whatever raunchiness it exudes, you can absolve Nina from thinking that was a reason to see it [other aspects of raunchiness in her persona are another matter entirely {thank heaven!!}].)

*Well, no, you can’t access this, damn it!  Maybe my computer’s haunted, but when I took these quotes here and in the next paragraph from that site yesterday in preparing this review the press notes link was available; now it’s not there so you’ll just have to trust me I didn’t make all of this up!

 Denis continues:It’s the story of a man alone in space for the rest of his life, with a baby, most likely his, who will become a young woman and eventually his femme fatale, if ever he makes up his mind – this sort of knight, this Perceval, this scout of another story – to break his vow of chastity. This is what happens at the end of the film when the young woman – who has no other man on hand, who doesn’t even know that this man is handsome because she has never had anyone to compare him to – makes the first move. I wanted both of them at the end standing as if before the marriage altar. The young woman’s ‘Yes’ is like the bride’s ‘I do.’ We are approaching the forbidden planet, the absolute taboo. A girl is also a woman. Incest is the quest for the ultimate in sex, because it is forbidden. ‘We don’t need anyone else,’ the young girl says. It is a film about despair and human tenderness. About love, despite everything.”  (I can’t help but wonder—in my less-than-pious-thoughts—if Denis isn’t exploring some revised attitude toward one of the most foundational taboos in human history, which I’ve always wondered how this prohibition squares with Judeo-Christian Biblical accounts of humanity’s evolution after Adam sired Cain and Abel with Eve; the book of Genesis says Cain had a wife, just as all their later sons and daughters continued to procreate, so if it wasn’t “all in the family,” where did other non-close-relative-mates come from?  Who are these “sons of God” and “daughters of humans” noted in Genesis 6:2-4?  For that matter, Genesis 9-10 details the progeny of Noah’s sons and their wives, but who were the women these sons’ sons (only the males are noted in these texts) made new life with after the Great Flood?  I’m not really looking for rational answers here because to me it’s all myth/literature anyway rather than Divine revelation, but it does raise some interesting questions in regard to High Life’s seeming-ultimate-intentions as vaguely implied by the film’s final events, even more so with the director’s comments.)  Given Denis' extensive statements, both in those press notes and in the interviews I’ve cited in this review's next section below, High Life may indeed be more significant than I’ve initially understood it to be, yet based on what I experienced while watching it I can’t say I was all that concerned about what becomes of Monte and Willow as they venture into that unknown black hole.

Bottom Line Final Comments: In all honesty, I guess I must not be one of Denis’ die-hard-fans (she’s routinely noted in reviews I’ve read of High Life as being one of the great living filmmakers; maybe she is, but I just haven’t seen it yet, no offense intended to her actual talent), possibly because of the several works she’s previously directed I’ve seen only Let the Sunshine In (2017; review in our June 14, 2018 posting) to which I gave a lowly 2½ stars, one of the worst ratings I’ve assigned to the several hundred cinematic presentations I’ve reviewed in over 7 years of this blog’s existence, but I was out of sync with the critical community then (Rotten Tomatoes offered 85% positive reviews of Let …, Metacritic reviewers gave a high [for them] 79% average score) while High Life nets 83% RT positive responses, a 75% average MC score.  That level of support from the intended-arts-arbiters hasn’t helped much at the box-office, though, with the film only just now up to 146 domestic theaters even after 3 weeks in release so it’s taken in only about $668.7 thousand in gross sales (just to be snarky: the 2018 re-release of 2001 … pulled in $3.2 million after 2 months, playing in just 13 domestic theaters during that time while Let the Sunshine In [sometimes translated from its original French title as Bright Sunshine In] played for 3 months domestically in a maximum of 67 theaters with a gross of $866.7 thousand so High Life may slightly top that if it can hold on for a few more weeks [along with everything else awaiting the onslaught of Avengers: Endgame {Anthony and Joe Russo; opening April 26, 2019—you can rest assured I’ll be reviewing that one}]).  But, an item on which Denis and I agree is the sublime beauty of Brian Wilson’s song (co-written with Gary Usher) "In My Room,"  (on The Beach Boys 1963 Surfer Girl album; this video’s a live 1964 performance with mediocre imagery, solid audio) which she sees* as a lovely celebration of cherished isolation, the getaway-place we all desire for our needed private moments, yet an impossibility on this space voyage except when the travelers are alone in The Box, experiencing dictated-autoerotic-pleasure, but even that’s tainted by the shipboard-prohibition against actual intercourse, maintaining a level of tension in this crew unresolved except with Dr. Dibs herself whose Box experiences push the limits of physical endurance while intercourse for her is merely a crass means of gathering Monte’s assumed-superior-sperm to impregnate fierce Boyse.

*This information comes from another interview (51:46) with Denis (and Pattinson) than the one I’ve put in the Related Links section a bit farther below, which I didn’t cite there because Denis doesn’t consistently speak directly into her mic so she’s hard to understand at times, plus at about 30 min. into the video the conversation trails off into some other topics due to that audience not having seen this film yet (but you’re welcome to watch if you wish for further insights it might offer).

Here's the famous recent photo (first ever) of an actual black hole some 55 light years 
(about 330 trillion miles)
 from Earth; I don't have an image of the black hole from High Life,
but they look remarkably the same so Claire Denis did get solid scientific help with this film.
 Still, "In My Room" (with its 1960s surfer-band-connotations) isn’t fully right for my usual tactic of a Musical Metaphor to wrap all of this up, so instead I’ll go for an obvious (but more subtle when you allow yourself to meditate on it a bit) option, Elton John’s “Rocket Man (I Think It’s Going to Be a Long, Long Time)” (on his 1972 Honky Château album) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v= DtVBCG6ThDk (a YouTube-sponsored-video by Iranian filmmaker Majid Adin, which I think captures the melancholy sense of both the song and Denis’ film quite well); even though this tune is simply about a spaceship-crewman on regular runs between Earth and Mars “burning out his fuse up here alone,” the prisoners on High Life’s 7 making their way into deep space are the epitome of “And all this science I don’t understand It’s just my job five days a week [although this crew is on duty 24/7, never to return to Earth because …] it’s gonna be a long, long time ‘Til touchdown brings me ‘round again to find I’m not the man they think I am at home [… a convict, hurtling far beyond our solar system to explore black holes, with an unlikely return to the life he once knew because what he’s a part of now, so] it’s gonna be a long, long time,” with no understanding yet of what awaits within (beyond?) that looming black hole, except (back to Ms. King) it’s “so far away” where, for our lonely survivors of spaceship 7 “Traveling around sure gets me down and lonely Nothing else to do but close my mind I sure hope the road don’t come to own me There’s so many dreams I’ve yet to find.”  Therefore, Earthlings, meditate on what may exist in such a void until next we meet in the equally-mysterious/often-incomprehensible-realm we call Film Reviews from Two Guys in the Dark.
           
Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:
          
We encourage you to visit the summary of Two Guys reviews for our past posts.*  Overall notations for this blog—including Internet formatting craziness beyond our control—may be found at our Two Guys in the Dark homepage If you’d like to Like us on Facebook please visit our Facebook page. We appreciate your support whenever and however you can offer it!

*A Google software glitch causes every Two Guys posting prior to August 26, 2016 to have an inaccurate (dead) link to this Summary page; from then forward, though, this link is accurate.

Here’s more information about High Life:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9q-CnxlsoY (32:36 interview with director Claire Denis
and actor Robert Pattinson)



Please note that to Post a Comment below about our reviews you need to have either a Google account (which you can easily get at https://accounts.google.com/NewAccount if you need to sign up) or other sign-in identification from the pull-down menu below before you preview or post.

If you’d rather contact Ken directly rather than leaving a comment here please use my email address of kenburke409@gmail.com(But if you truly have too much time on your hands you might want to explore some even-longer-and-more-obtuse-than-my-film-reviews—if that even seems possible—academic articles about various cinematic topics at my website, 
https://kenburke.academia.edu, which could really give you something to talk to me about.)

By the way, if you’re ever at The Hotel California knock on my door—but you know what the check out policy is so be prepared to stay for awhile. Ken

P.S.  Just to show that I haven’t fully flushed Texas out of my system here’s an alternative destination for you, Home in a Texas Bar, with Gary P. Nunn and Jerry Jeff Walker.  But wherever the rest of my body may be my heart’s always with my longtime-companion, lover, and wife, Nina Kindblad, so here’s our favorite shared song—Neil Young’s "Harvest Moon"
—from the performance we saw at the Desert Trip concerts in Indio, CA on October 15, 2016 (as a full moon was rising over the stadium) because “I’m still in love with you,” my dearest, a never-changing-reality even as the moon waxes and wanes over the months/years to come. 
         
OUR POSTINGS PROBABLY LOOK BEST ON THE MOST CURRENT VERSIONS OF MAC OS AND THE SAFARI WEB BROWSER (although Google Chrome usually is decent also); OTHERWISE, BE FOREWARNED THE LAYOUT MAY SEEM MESSY AT TIMES.
           
Finally, for the data-oriented among you, Google stats say over the past month (which they seem to measure from right now back 30 days) the total unique hits at this site were 30,127 (while mystery-folks from that spooky Unknown Region [maybe it’s in the newly-found-black hole] continue to be our most enthusiastic supporters, I’m proud to say last week we finally got responses from the usually-silent-continent of Africa so welcome, South Africa, to our rambling-endeavor; as always, we thank all of you for your support with our hopes you’ll continue to be regular readers); below is a snapshot of where and by what means those responses have come from within the previous week:

Wednesday, April 17, 2019

Diane and Short Takes on The Invisibles

Moody “Mother Teresa” and the Meticulous Miracle-Workers
(not the name of a long-lost ‘60s psychedelic band … I hope)

Reviews by Ken Burke
                 
                                  Diane (Kent Jones)   Unrated

“Executive Summary” (no spoilers): Diane is an aging-but-still-middle-aged-woman who gives of herself so constantly to her drug-addict son, her dying cousin, the needy at the soup kitchen where she volunteers she has little conception of her own needs except she frequently lashes out in anger at those whose actions frustrate her or don’t live up to her self-imposed-standards of human responses.  As simple as that sounds, it’s the effective basis of an understated-yet-resonantly-emotional-film probing deeply, effectively into the human condition, but to get into the most impactful plot details in this exploration of extended-family-dynamics in a cold (we see snow much of the time; Diane's mood's pretty frosty also) New England setting would be violating my no spoilers pledge for this section of the posting, so either read on below at your own narrative peril or seek out this subtly-powerful-film if you can find it in its current limited-release-collection of theaters.  Even if Mary Kay Place, in the titular role, doesn’t land a Best Actress Oscar nomination in 2020 (those voters tend to have faulty memories where previous-spring-releases are concerned, except for anomalies such as Annie Hall [Woody Allen, 1977], Fargo [Ethan and Joel Coen, 1996], Get Out [Jordan Peele, 2017; review in our May 11, 2017 posting]) she certainly gives us reason here to believe she deserves such, so at the very least put this title on a video queue for later watching of a worthwhile approach to cinematic-fiction-drawn-from-life-observation by a director well-versed in the world of various human activities due to many years of making documentaries, functioning as a film critic, plus deciding if "you're in, you're out" as a NY Film Festival programmer.

Here’s the trailer:  (Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge it; activate that same button on the full screen’s lower right or your “esc” keyboard key to return to normal size.)


If you can abide plot spoilers read on, but as this blog’s intended for those who’ve seen the film—or want to save some bucks—to help any of you who want to learn more details yet avoid important plot-reveals I’ll identify any give-away sentences/sentence-clusters like this: 

⇒The first and last words will be noted with arrows and red.⇐ OK, now continue on if you prefer.

What Happens: Diane (Mary Kay Place), who's pushing the boundaries of middle age in her unnamed (to my awareness) Massachusetts town (the state wasn’t obvious either, but there were clues to figure it out), is constantly concerned about her drug-addict (seems to need another dose of intervention) son, Brian (Jack Lacy); her cousin, Donna (Deirdre O’Connell), dying in the hospital from pancreatic cancer; the clients at her local soup kitchen where she volunteers with close friend Bobbie (Andrea Martin), telling off another helper who’s trying to be too tight-fisted with the free food, even as Bobbie tries to convince Diane she needs to disengage a bit from all this trauma, find some peace for herself.  Instead, she’s further busy fixing food for friend Carol Rymanowski (Marcia Haufrecht) whose husband, Al (Ray Iannicelli), has a bum hip; doing laundry for Brian because he’s barely doing anything to care for himself despite having gone through rehab; butting heads a bit with her mother, Mary (Estelle Parsons), over the same basic concerns Bonnie has for Diane, especially the endless, frustrated energy and worry she pours into Brian who seems to treat all of her involvement in his life as just another excuse to fire up some anger toward her (with druggie-girlfriend Carla [Gabriella Rhodeen] often hovering in the background).  There are nice slow-motion-shots of Mom and son in his messy dwelling, visually reinforcing the haze his perceptions have to navigate, including his oddball proclamation at one point he wants to give birth (I had a roommate at a summer academic conference once who had the same obsession as he was in the midst of a psychotic breakdown that week—you can imagine the kind of off-the-wall-conversations we had in the evenings before the event organizers brought in some help for him—so I initially thought Brian’s problems might be more in realm of brain-imbalance-psychosis than drugs, but I suppose that all blends together at some point anyway).  About the only relief we get in the early scenes is what seems to be a usual gathering of Diane’s extended family in somebody’s kitchen when Mary tells the story (for the umpteenth time, according to Diane) about how an encyclopedia salesman came to her door years ago peddling his product; she told him he could come inside and wait for her husband to get home, but after a few hours of no-show he finally asked when the man might return, to which Mary replied (something like) “Well, he’s been gone for 7 years, but you just never know!”

 After this lengthy set-up (usefully-thorough, not tedious; the entire film’s only 95 min. but seems considerably longer, meant as a compliment because we become psychologically invested so we’re more emotionally drawn in, assuming we’ve encountered even more than we actually have), the plot’s middle events continue in similar directions: Diane’s frequently visiting Donna in the hospital; Bonnie’s still trying to convince Diane to chill out (which she does one night in a local bar, drinking margaritas, dancing by herself to favorite jukebox tunes, finally being so out of it she has to call some of those relatives to come take her to one of their homes so she can sleep it off on the couch); Brian’s uncooperative but then disappears completely driving Diane further to the brink of insanity as she’s a constant mix of tension and exhaustion yet continues to push forward in these same routines, making it feel more like self-imposed-penance than a true willingness to share herself with others for a mutual sense of satisfaction.  One visual constant through all of this is the use of numerous point-of-view-shots from Diane’s perspective looking through her windshield as she drives all over the area (along with a few views looking directly at her) to interact with those people I’ve mentioned plus many others not necessary to enumerate (without being sarcastic, after seeing all of this traveling-documentation I had a good sense I could easily find my way around this place—wherever it is—if I suddenly get transported to it).  Despite the spatial clarity of this story, though, the temporal progression’s not as clear as it may initially seem to be as we move through time fairly rapidly, the constant snow on the ground tricking us into thinking we’re still in the opening Christmas season when in fact we’re now closer to Easter.  Then events really start to interact, possibly throwing us off as to what’s the primary focus of the plot as Diane and Donna bicker in the hospital room (seems Diane stole a boyfriend from her years ago); Donna dies but Diane can’t stay with the family to mourn because Brian calls, wants to meet her at a diner to explain how he had to go off by himself to run his own type of rehab; later, Diane’s last aunt, Ina (Phyllis Somerville), dies, but the funeral we’re attending shockingly turns out to be for Bobbie.  Next, we find Diane at a Pentecostal service where she’s just observing the various Holy Spirit “visitations” around her, then she’s having dinner with newly-religious-Brian (along with his wife [!], Diana [Mary Fuller], and their friend) where Brian’s trying to convince Mom to join their congregation (whatever it is), leading to another angry-family-dispute, this one initiated by Diane, spilling out her pent-up-anger over all she denied herself in favor of caretaking her wayward son, calling him "selfish" before she storms away.

 Time continues to move on in a rapid fashion as Diane seems to be even further isolated from (or now not able to be with) those whom she cared about, even Tom (Charles Weldon) at the soup kitchen who helps mop up something she spilled, drawing an angry rebuke from Diane to which he replies with a story about how an aunt of his wrapped herself in shame, stifling her life, so we’re maybe not as surprised as we might have been earlier to see a guy in Diane’s home shooting her up with heroin, leading to a montage of rapidly-seen/seemingly-random hallucinations.  Some further time later (hard to tell at this point), Brian comes to visit one night, indicates everything’s not so rosy with his wife, apologizes for his past actions, with the conversation allowing us to realize Diane continues to carry guilt for the affair she had years ago with a guy named Jess (she still thinks about him in journal entries she’s started to make for herself, trying to understand her needs in the process) which apparently broke up her marriage, leaving Brian angry at her for years.  As events continue to roll along at an even quicker pace (mirroring how time seems to fly by more rapidly the older we gettrue, at least in my case and late-60s-to-mid-70s-friends of mine) we observe Mary having problems with dementia, then dying, Diane noticeably older, with an abrupt ending to all that’s gone before.  (Leaving us with a sense of suddenly jumping years ahead from most of what we’ve previously seen, like at the end of The Godfather Part III [Francis Ford Coppola, 1990] when, after Michael Corleone [Al Pacino] suffers his life’s most excruciating horror as daughter Mary [Sofia Coppola] is gunned down in an assassination attempt on him, the scene shifts forward to where elderly Michael [still in Sicily, the land of his ancestors] just falls over dead one day from old age.)⇐

So What? After trying to be more inclusive of big-ticket-movies in recent postings, I’m back in the land of esoterica this week because the elusive-cinematic-butterflies I was lucky enough to be able to see/review for you were so much more attractive to me than hefty-box-office-options such as Little (Tina Gordon Chism; $18.5 million worldwide in its debut weekend) or Hellboy [2019] (Neil Marshall; $12 million domestically [U.S.-Canada] for its debut).  In the case of The Invisibles (see review below), that film itself turned out to be almost invisible itself given how few theaters it’s still being screened in while Diane, after 3 weeks in release, isn’t doing much better, currently playing in only 61 domestic venues, accounting for a miserly $185.4 thousand in gross sales during that time despite extremely solid critical support (Rotten Tomatoes has 93% positive reviews; Metacritic’s average score is 87%, the highest result of anything both they and I have reviewed so far of 2019 releases; more details on these sites can be found below in Related Links), with Mary Kay Place’s performance getting accolades that could be Oscar-nomination-worthy if Academy voters can strain their memories back to April when they start filling out ballots months from now (she’s in every scene, practically in every shot, so she should certainly be commended for carrying the film although she does get fine support from the rest of the cast, especially Lacy, Martin, and Parsons).  There’s nothing you’d call innovative, revelatory, or ingenious here, just a deep probe into the life of the sort of person we’d likely never even be aware of unless she's related to us or we had occasion to encounter her in some sort of group setting (such as the soup kitchen or church services—I’m still puzzled she’d be drawn to, much less satisfied with, the Pentecostalist “inhabitations by the Holy Spirit," given the rather hard-edged/no-nonsense approach she has to the rest of her life, but that just goes to show the complexity of this person whom we can’t fully know from our outside observations, just as no one is transparent from their public life and actions as there’s always much more beneath the surface which may never be revealed except to a chosen few, if at all).  My “maiden” aunt (who may have been lesbian based on some clues I picked up—whether she or anyone else ever knew it, not that it mattered, except possibly depriving her of a fuller life) was much like this, giving over most of her years to the care of her parents until they died, serving as a dedicated worker (for no compensation, I’ll wager) for her local church, having very little life for herself beyond being a political news junkie, collecting little ceramic dogs, keeping an upbeat disposition about as much of what went on around her as possible, then dying as the result of a stroke.  Diane had much more to address in her self-constructed-complex-life, but I recognized that private sense of unfulfilled-accomplishment (even though my aunt had a prestigious job within Texas state government) in this fictional protagonist, brought vividly to life by a marvelous Mary Kay.

Bottom Line Final Comments: Diane slowly grows on you (even when you’d like to shake the protagonist by the shoulders, join Bobbie in telling her to lighten up, find some resonant happiness in her own life instead of giving every waking hour, every ounce of energy to someone else, even those resisting her efforts while accepting her material contributions), helping you see this character has dark wounds in her past that could be the impetus for her around-the-clock-humanitarianism, still trying years later to purge herself of demons of her younger days (reasonable human failings none of us should have to agonize over, although how easy is it for any of us to fully purge those memories of long-ago-mistakes that felt so seductive back when we might have been overcome by inexperience, raging hormones, or indecision based on barely-understood-but-still-conflicting-values) continuing to take their toll on her and Brian, with his own deep-rooted-problems only exacerbating Diane’s nagging guilt which she often transposes into anger, shifting her internal blame onto others, providing some sense of psychic relief.  Still, Diane’s not constructed like an emotional sledgehammer, as you’d find in any number of Ingmar Bergman classics (or even Woody Allen’s serious films which often attempt to channel those internal modes of crisis so well explored in Bergman’s Persona [1966] or Allen’s Blue Jasmine [2013; review in our August 16, 2013 posting], representing marvelous examples of this type of inner-exploration from both elder-master and later-emerged-master); rather, it’s an incrementally-expanding-understanding of all the attempts, the difficulties, the impact of the difficulties upon the attempts of finding acceptable stability in one’s life, a culture-wide-aspiration which often eludes even those of us who think we’ve found strategies to handle the chaos within/around us, only to find challenges yet to be overcome.  Thus, I arrive at my usual wrap-up-tactic for a review, a Musical Metaphor to give us a final sense of consideration about what’s gone before; regarding Diane that choice would reasonably seem to be Paul Simon’s “Slip Slidin’ Away” (from his 1977 Greatest Hits, Etc. album) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tC-ZaUDUiwc (a 2012 live performance, more bluesy than the original recording), which came to me easily when I remembered lyrics like these: “And I know a woman Became a wife These are the very words she uses to describe her life She said ‘A good day Ain’t got no end’ She said ‘A bad day’s when I lie in bed And think of things that might have been’ […] Believe we’re gliding down the highway When in fact we’re slip slidin’ away […] You know the nearer your destination The more you’re slip slidin’ away.”  The people Diane interacts actively with believe their lives are (at least in the process of coming) under control, but sometimes that’s more an illusion than we care to admit.
                
(still slip slidin’ toward true command of) SHORT TAKES 
(please note that spoilers also appear here)
                  
               The Invisibles (Claus Räfle, 2017)   Unrated

This is a fascinating documentary approach exploring the largely-unknown-attempt of some 7,000 Jews to remain hidden in Berlin during the WW II years rather than be sent to the concentration camps, focused on 4 of the roughly 1,500 survivors with their testimony from a few years ago illustrated by re-created footage as actors demonstrate the daily perils they all faced.

Here’s the trailer:


      Before reading any further, I’ll ask you to refer to the plot spoilers warning far above.

 At various times in the recent past I’ve voiced some snarky comments about the film industry’s ongoing trend of offering us a lot of product “based on fact,” wondering whether this is dictated more by audience-conditioning through the glut of cable-news/“reality” TV filling our daily air/cable-waves or by difficulties of screenwriters able to come up with enough intriguing original ideas (a glut of sequels and remakes also connect to this latter consideration).  However, as noted in my review of Green Book (Peter Farrelly, 2018; review in our November 29, 2018 posting; another note about this film farther below), I’m open to well-made-examples of such historically-grounded-narratives when they help me fill in my own gaps about something I’ve known little—or nothing—about.  The Invisibles is one such experience providing useful insight into the reality of 7,000 Jews hiding in Berlin 1941-1945, attempting to prevent deportation to the concentration camps first through such tactics as securing jobs in vital war-related industries (as seen in Schindler's List [Steven Spielberg, 1994], although set in Poland, not Berlin), soon thereafter using other strategies: falsified passports, living clandestinely in unknown places (the tactic made most famous by The Diary of Anne Frank [actual writings of this girl about her family’s lengthy hiding in Amsterdam, adapted into a play {Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, 1955}, then into a film {George Stevens, 1959}]), finding sympathizers unsupportive of Nazi policies, or even changing appearances to look more Aryan.  The Invisibles focuses on 4 of those roughly 1,500 survivors of this dangerous strategy, using interviews shot in 2009 of elderly Cioma Schönhaus, Hanni Lévy, Eugen Friede, and Ruth Arndt combined with a lot of dramatized footage of what they endured using actors (Cioma—Max Mauff, Hanni—Alice Dwyer, Eugen—Aaron Altaras, Ruth—Ruby O. Fee), along with fleeting documentary footage of general scenes of the times (city streets, etc.), to give as complete a picture as possible of this generally-little-known-situation.  However, while The Invisibles is an impactful revelation for me, reviewers as a whole—as I’ve recently taken to calling them, the Often Cranky Critics Universe—aren’t so impressed (RT offers 69% positive reviews, MC an average score of 60%; more details in Related Links), this comment from Jeannette Catsoulis of The New York Times being typical: “What results is neither fish nor fowl, but a disappointingly stilted hybrid that gathers momentum only to hit one roadblock after another. No sooner are we gripped by a character’s imminent capture than the action is paused for commentary.”   Nevertheless, Gary Goldstein of the Los Angeles Times has a response akin to my own: “More than 70 years after the Holocaust, there remain many uncommon or under-told stories of the era to be shared on film — and the docudrama 'The Invisibles' is the latest example. Although this movie’s unusual mix of first-person interviews, archival footage, voiceover narration and dramatic reenactments is a bit awkward, it still makes for a gripping, involving and affecting experience.”  (Maybe it’s just West Coast-critics-affinity, though.)

 Räfle’s use of this extensive re-enactment-process might seem somewhat reminiscent of Warren Beatty’s approach in Reds (1981)—one of those uncommon situations where an actor turns helmsman, then wins a Best Director Oscar—except Beatty’s inserted interviews with various people ("witnesses") from the era of the 1917 Russian Revolution were coupled with historical fictionalizations of events from that time whereas scenes in The Invisibles (at least purport to) simply recreate actualities that couldn’t have been put on film in the times and places where they occurred.  While these events about our 4 principals (who [I think] didn’t know each other prior to the war nor interact much while attempting to stay under the radar in this sprawling metropolis, incorrectly claimed by the Nazi propaganda machine in June, 1943 to have been fully cleared of its former Jewish population) are all based on the similar need to “hide in plain sight” rather than be incarcerated (with little knowledge at the time of what their ultimate fates were intended to be), going into too much detail about their individual circumstances would just get unnecessarily lengthy so to summarize the strategies employed by them I’ll just note Cioma worked quietly with Franz Kaufman (Robert Hunger-Bühler) to forge passports/other documentation papers helping others conceal their true identities; Hanni changed her name, died her hair blonde, spent many days in movie theaters covered by the darkness, often walked the near-empty-streets at night to avoid chance encounters with anyone who might know her; Eugen took refuge with a German communist family, often wearing their son’s military uniform when he needed to be out in public; Ruth and a close friend pretended to be war widows, then were hired as servants by a Nazi officer (whom the director—in his interview in the second listing for this film in the Related Links section below—says knew these young women were Jews but needed maids for his household, couldn’t find appropriate Germans for the job, so he went along with their ruse).  Part of Cioma’s story also showed us a strategy males could use, claiming to be soldiers about to be called up so they needed a room for only a night or 2, shifting locations frequently before they could be properly registered into the telltale-tracking-system of practically everyone in Berlin.  But even that scam had a reverse effect on Eugen’s first hidden-community, as they were ousted from their safe house (from which they had dared not emerge, like Julian Assange in London’s Ecuadorian Embassy—until his recent removal) when Gentile Germans needed new lodgings after bombing raids damaged their previous dwellings.

 A more-insidious kind of removal could occur at any moment if any of these intra-city-refugees was identified by other Jews working as informers for the Gestapo, such as Stella Goldschlag (Laila Maria Witt) who does briefly encounter a couple of our protagonists whom she knows but they just keep walking as if they’re never seen her before (in Stella’s semi-defense, these people were forced into those heinous roles in self-preservation to keep themselves and/or their families from being shipped off to the camps).  While there’s little truly functioning as spoilers here that I could mention, I will note ⇒Cioma was actually captured toward the end of the war but was suddenly released, possibly due to the immanent fall of Berlin to the Allies (although those being held with him weren’t also sent out into the streets, so I’m not sure how he was so fortunate because his whole group could have just been shot on the spot).⇐  Well, that’s about all I can say regarding The Invisibles except I’m fortunate to have seen it at all given that after 12 weeks in release it’s now down to 10 domestic theaters, having taken in a scant $388.5 thousand in ticket sales.  If you’re interested in finding it I’m sure some form of video will likely be your only hope (assuming you’re OK either with German dialogue or reading subtitles), but to help pass the time while doing your search I’ll offer you the Musical Metaphor of “You Don’t Know Me” (title and concept suggested by Eddie Arnold, written by Cindy Walker in 1955), recorded by many, most successfully by Ray Charles (on his 1962 Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music album) presented here at https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=SeD5lGIOs8s, a live performance.  As with many of my Metaphors the song's original concept is about romance—in this case, unrequited love—but it still has some lyrics (and overall attitude) appropriate for this doc: “You give your hand to me And then you say ‘Hello’ And I can hardly speak My heart is beating so And anyone can tell You think you know me well Well, you don’t know me.”  However, given there are so many versions of this song to explore (along with there being 4 main protagonists in The Invisibles) I’ll give you 3 more—providing 1 each for our primary male and female character—sung so well by Willie Nelson, Nora Jones, and Cindy Walker herself.

 In regard to Musical Metaphors, though, I can’t help thinking of Joni Mitchell’s "California" (on her 1971 Blue album) due to its opening lines of “Sitting in a park in Paris, France Reading the news and it sure looks bad” (I also relate to the “coming home aspect, even if I—like Joni—wasn’t born in the Golden State); of course, she was talking about anti-Vietnam War protests in the U.S. back then while my reference is to the current tragedy in Paris (ironically, in Holy Week leading up to Easter Sunday) of the conflagration gutting large areas of famed Notre Dame Cathedral, a major cultural icon now badly damaged after having survived various debasements including the furies of the French Revolution, 2 World Wars.  I’m fortunate to have seen it whole back in 2010; hopefully, its restoration will serve as a healing act in a country now suffering from several areas of internal strife.  Further, in regard to a mention in my last posting concerning negative comparisons made about The Best of Enemies (Robin Bissell) and Green Book in terms of both these films focusing on the White perspective in their depictions of Black and White protagonists, I offered my personal response concerning what’s shown in … Enemies (dismissed by the OCCU even more so than The Invisibles); likewise, here’s a documented response contradicting some of the primary complaints against Green Book (noted in my earlier review), for your consideration if interested.  I bring this up only because, like with the tragic damage to Norte Dame, it reminds me how we can never assume anything (or anyone) we love (or hate), admire, think we understand, or have become comfortable with will necessarily endure because either fate, expanded knowledge, or shifting attitudes can always upend those comfort zones so we just have to be prepared to go with the flow, choppy as it may be (even when our beloved sports teams—such as my Golden State Warriors basketballers—suffer an unexpected, historic loss [After being ahead by 31 points!  I guess if you’re gonna crash you might as well make it loud.] to a supposedly-inferior-team, the Los Angeles Clippers, in the ongoing NBA playoffs, while losing an All-Star, DeMarcus Cousins, to a leg injury, but, as with Notre Dame, at least nobody’s dead), to regroup, rethink, rebuild if possible, just like those brave survivors in The Invisibles.  If rebooting’s not an option (remember, about 5,500 of those clandestine Jews didn’t make it to the end of WW II), then all we can do is accept the power of the inevitable, find some alternative to what can never be again, take whatever solace there may be in the remains around us as we search for new paths to stability.  As Neil Young might say (from his "My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue)," [on the 1979 Rust Never Sleeps album]) to Diane, Cioma, Hanni, Eugen, and Ruth: “There’s more to the picture than meets the eye […] It’s better to burn out than to fade away.”  So, keep your own flames active—in a constructive manner, of course—until next we meet.
         
Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:
            
We encourage you to visit the summary of Two Guys reviews for our past posts.*  Overall notations for this blog—including Internet formatting craziness beyond our control—may be found at our Two Guys in the Dark homepage If you’d like to Like us on Facebook please visit our Facebook page. We appreciate your support whenever and however you can offer it!

*A Google software glitch causes every Two Guys posting prior to August 26, 2016 to have an inaccurate (dead) link to this Summary page; from then forward, though, this link is accurate.

Here’s more information about Diane:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jZRgJ5PKhw (37:13 interview with writer-director Kent Jones and actor Jake Lacy [begins with the film’s trailer from the above review]) and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oe2jvnewvZ8 (2:03 interview with actor Mary Kay Place [also uses a good bit of that trailer—this is pretty flimsy but it’s about all I could find with her commenting on her role except for this lengthy podcast {24:33} with Mark Thompson, a talk show host now also with KGO AM radio in my local San Francisco area])



Here’s more information about The Invisibles:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gePK7AWkhPQ (22:15 interview with director Claus Räfle [audio quality's not that great])



Please note that to Post a Comment below about our reviews you need to have either a Google account (which you can easily get at https://accounts.google.com/NewAccount if you need to sign up) or other sign-in identification from the pull-down menu below before you preview or post.

If you’d rather contact Ken directly rather than leaving a comment here please use my email address of kenburke409@gmail.com(But if you truly have too much time on your hands you might want to explore some even-longer-and-more-obtuse-than-my-film-reviews—if that even seems possible—academic articles about various cinematic topics at my website, 
https://kenburke.academia.edu, which could really give you something to talk to me about.)

By the way, if you’re ever at The Hotel California knock on my door—but you know what the check out policy is so be prepared to stay for awhile. Ken

P.S.  Just to show that I haven’t fully flushed Texas out of my system here’s an alternative destination for you, Home in a Texas Bar, with Gary P. Nunn and Jerry Jeff Walker.  But wherever the rest of my body may be my heart’s always with my longtime-companion, lover, and wife, Nina Kindblad, so here’s our favorite shared song—Neil Young’s "Harvest Moon"
—from the performance we saw at the Desert Trip concerts in Indio, CA on October 15, 2016 (as a full moon was rising over the stadium) because “I’m still in love with you,” my dearest, a never-changing-reality even as the moon waxes and wanes over the months/years to come.
           
OUR POSTINGS PROBABLY LOOK BEST ON THE MOST CURRENT VERSIONS OF MAC OS AND THE SAFARI WEB BROWSER (although Google Chrome usually is decent also); OTHERWISE, BE FOREWARNED THE LAYOUT MAY SEEM MESSY AT TIMES.
             
Finally, for the data-oriented among you, Google stats say over the past month (which they seem to measure from right now back 30 days) the total unique hits at this site were 29,969 (as always, we thank all of you for your support with our hopes you’ll continue to be regular readers); below is a snapshot of where and by what means those responses have come from within the previous week: