Yet another race and criminal justice statistic.

 The pioneering hip hop group NWA obviously had a point in 1988 when they famously rapped "Fuck the police." That song sadly remains as relevant as ever now, with violent protests erupting this week after the shooting of an unarmed African-American, Jacob Blake, by a white policeman in Wisconsin in the US. Following on from the George Floyd protests that swept across America earlier this year, these new protests are too familiar but also (whatever you think of the tactics being employed in them) all too understandable, if that's acceptable for me to say as a white Australian.

Now, yes, Blake allegedly had a criminal record, and a knife in the car he was entering when he was shot. But even if he was planning to grab and then use it, the officer shot him seven times in the back, when surely shooting him just once in a leg, or (better still) handcuffing him, would have adequately subdued him. Instead, the trigger-happy option was chosen and in front of Blake's three young children who were in the back seat, no less, and had no involvement in whatever misdeeds he's alleged to have committed.

I am not trying to tar all police here as corrupt and racist, or all POCs as criminals for that matter. To make either of those generalisations would be discriminatory and unhelpful. The media's reportage of such occurrences often exacerbates and sensationalises them, too. But as I've said many times before, just because you enforce the law does not mean you are above it, and if law enforcement authorities want these angry demonstrations to stop, they simply need to accept how often they cause them, and then find ways together to collectively overcome the attitudes and views that make them guilty.

Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #205: Everyday I Love You (2015).

 

Audrey Locsin (Liza Soberano) is an old soul young woman from the town of Silay who's dating the laidback Tristan (Gerald Anderson). It's all going blissfully until he quite suddenly falls into a coma, leaving her to pick the pieces up. Meanwhile in Manila, Ethan Alfaro (Enrique Gil) is a brash young TV producer who's staking on very thin ice with his network. Once Tristan is hospitalised there, Audrey and Ethan meet randomly and become fast friends. But of course, that's just the beginning, for while poor Tristan sleeps, Audrey finds herself conflicted as she's increasingly drawn to Ethan, who meanwhile has his own emotional demons to battle.

Beware: this Filipino romantic drama is so manipulative it could give you motion sickness. Every emotional beat and motif is invoked insistently and shamelessly: teary flashbacks, single piano notes on the score, single tears from the characters, a Mexican standoff-style argument, the lot. Soberano and Gil give it their all, but director Mae Cruz-Alviar and writers Vanessa Valdez, Kookai Labayen, Iris Lacap and Gilliann Ebreo collectively gave me the impression here they were out to conspire against restraint with no remorse and it doesn't help that the narrative, with or without that heavy-handed telling, is thoroughly predictable.  There's not even much, if any showcasing of the Philippines' spectacular wilderness to offer brief respite from all the sappiness.

But hey, if you like non-stop sappiness, obviously Everyday I Love You is the movie for you. I, however, felt like retching by the end. 4/10. 

Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #204: The English Teacher (2013).

 

Julianne Moore is Linda Sinclair, a devoted high school English teacher in small-town Pennsylvania. A hopeless romantic, none of the men in her life can match her very high standards. When her former star student Jason Sherwood (Michael Angarano) returns from New York City as a shell of his former self because he couldn't make it there as a playwright, Linda persuades him to produce his play at school as she deems it much too good to never be performed, but Jason's overbearing father Tom (Greg Kinnear), insists on him attending law school. Things become even more complicated when Linda and Jason, in a moment of creative craziness, fuck on her classroom desk. Then once the administration learns of this Linda is fired, only to be reinstated soon because the play looks set to give the school a big financial windfall. To direct it Linda recruits the drama teacher, Carl Kapinas (a part tailor-made for Nathan Lane), who's sick to death of directing Our Town and My Fair Lady year after year, but together they now face another dilemma: keeping the play's ending, which the administration has deemed too violent for a school production, or writing a new one, which Jason staunchly refuses to do.

This harmless yet relatable 2013 rom-com (yes, two in a week; that was not planned, I swear) certainly isn't perfect or ground-breaking, but it manages exactly what it sets out to manage: to be a balanced, restrained and charming look at education, art and relationships. Working from Dan and Stacy Chariton's script, director Craig Zisk tells this narrative with a stylistic approach that is artful and literary but never flamboyant. Moore quite honestly could've played this role in a coma but she nonetheless strives to give Linda a reserved and confident authority, with a suitably angsty yet fragile Angarano matching her in every scene. Lane is characteristically funny, too, but Kinnear has played practically the same character better before.

I think the soundtrack could've used a few indie music tracks to reflect Jason's attitude like the score reflects Linda's, and the photography is rather flat at times, but while it's no Dead Poets Society, The English Teacher is one whose class I enjoyed taking.

Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #203: Four Sisters and a Wedding (2013).

 

Meet the Salazar sisters: Teddie (Toni Gonzaga) is a waitress and housekeeper in Spain; Bobbie (Bea Alonzo) is a corporate communications manager in New York City; Alex (Angel Locsin) is a filmmaker; and Gabbie (Shaina Magadayao) is a teacher. When their kid brother C.J. (Enchong Dee) reveals he's getting hitched to his girlfriend Princess (Angeline Quinto), the girls return home to the Philippines at the request of their mother Grace (Connie Reyes). Then, fearing C.J. is jumping the gun and with a dislike of Princess and her family, the sisters collectively plot to stop the wedding. But while they work at that, they also have to face some long-buried conflicts and home truths with each other.

This 2013 Filipino rom-com, available on Netflix, from director Cathy Garcia-Molina and writer Vanessa Valdez begins promisingly and charmingly, but gradually becomes an overlong and predictable soap opera with very cliched characters whom the cast, while all genuinely talented, can only make engaging to a point. The standout in Toni Gonzaga, but she does have the emotionally meatiest role here by quite a margin. The dialogue's quality varies and the narrative has potential to explore romance and marriage from a specifically Filipino cultural perspective, but instead it ultimately takes the hackneyed and cloying Hollywood route. This extends to the soundtrack, with a sappy score instead of contemporary Filipino music.

Overall Four Sisters and a Wedding is (barely) tolerable, but definitely not a movie I'd suggest for an example of an alternative to a Western cinematic romance.

Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #202: The Tracker (2002).

 

It's 1922; somewhere in the Australian Outback. An Aboriginal man is accused of murdering a white woman, and three white men - the Fanatic (Gary Sweet), the Follower (Damon Gameau) and the Veteran (Grant Page) - are out to find him with the aid of an indigenous bushman, the Tracker (David Gulpilil). En route, the other three all suffer under the Fanatic's racist and violent attitude, as he is prepared to do truly anything to acquire their bounty.

This effort by Australia's art house auteur Rolf de Heer, who's made two other films about indigenous Australians (2006's Ten Canoes and 2014's Charlie's Country) is a somewhat striking but overall quite uneven experience. David Gulpilil deservedly won the 2002 Best Actor AFI Award for his beautifully dignified and authoritative turn, and Sweet and Gameau back him up solidly. De Heer's plotting of the narrative and visualisation of the landscape are respectively logical and ravishing, but his judgment has one almost fatal flaw: the music soundtrack. All throughout this film are original songs by Graham Tardiff (and sung, albeit beautifully, by Archie Roach) which are thematically entirely suitable but musically just do not fit the period setting at all; most of them have a rock or folk rock arrangement. Perhaps I'm missing the point, but I found that choice deeply jarring and slightly inappropriate.

Overall, The Tracker does have its absorbing, thought-provoking moments, and I believe de Heer's sincerity about telling Aboriginal stories (he's really a Dutch Australian), but I think his aesthetic approach here was quite miscalculated. Warwick Thornton (who is indigenous) covered similar territory far better 15 years later with Sweet Country.

Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #201: The Ash Lad - In the Hall of the Mountain King (2017).

 

Princess Kristin (Eili Harboe) is turning 18 and betrothed to be married. The wedding must happen immediately, otherwise a gruesome troll will kidnap her in the mountains. Arrogant Prince Frederick (Allan Hyde) arrives to rescue her but, rightly finding him detestable, she rejects him and runs away. After her father, King Erik (Gard B. Eidsvold), then offers a monetary reward to whoever can find and return her, the Askeladd brothers - Per (Mads Sjøgård Pettersen), Pål (Elias Holmen Sørensen) and Esken (Vebjørn Enger) - answer the call, eager to save the failing farm they live and work on with their widowed father (Thorbjørn Harr). As they get further on their journey to Kristin, however, Frederick is out to stop them the entire way.

Based on an 18th-century Norwegian fairy tale, The Ash Lad - In the Hall of the Mountain King sounds unashamedly derivative and old-fashioned and it actually is, but it's so enjoyable because it truly makes no bones about that! There's an admirable self-awareness and defiant fantasy tradition to it that somehow makes it refreshing, rollicking and charming, certainly more so than most recent Hollywood fantasies which of course have ten times the budget. Director Mikkel Brænne Sandemose and writers Aleksander Kirkwood Brown, Espen Enger all evidently loved this tale and wanted to share it with a wide audience, and they tell it thus with unquestionable exuberance. The cast also match this, with Hyde especially enjoyable as the nefarious Frederick.

The technicals are also very realistic for such a modest budget, and the score is also very fitting and sweeping. But what really makes this a treat is simply the tale itself and, once again, particularly the obvious and unabashed reverence with which it's told.

Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #200: When Marnie Was There (2017)

 

Anna Sasaki (Sara Takatsuki; Hailee Steinfeld in the English-dubbed version) is an introverted 12-year-old with low self esteem living in Sapporo, Japan with her foster parents, Yoriko (Nanako Matsushima; Geena Davis) and her unnamed husband. Suffering from severe anxiety, Anna is sent, after Yoriko seeks medical advice, to live with two of Yoriko's relatives in the nearby seaside town of Kissakibetsu. Upon moving there Anna sees a huge, abandoned mansion which, according to old fisherman Toicho (Ken Yasuda; Fred Tatasciore), was once a vacation home for affluent foreigners. Shortly later, a distressed Anna runs away into the mansion where she finds a young, blonde girl she'd been dreaming about: Marnie (Kasumi Arimura; Kiernan Shipka). They immediately bond, and as they get to know each other more, Anna discovers Marnie may just hold the secrets to Anna's ancestry.

This 2014 release by the mighty Studio Ghibli is them at the top of their game. Based on Joan G. Robinson's 1967 novel, director/co-writer Hiromasa Yonebayashi and his animation team (one of whom, Makito Futaki, sadly had her swansong with this film; she died in 2016) have realised this very fantastical family drama with evident patience, lucidity and attention to detail in every scene. The visuals are striking even by Ghibli's high standards, but even better here is how tenderly and sincerely the narrative and its themes are explored; by the end, I was on the verge of tears. But I won't elaborate on that further, for spoiler reasons.

The voice cast, in the Japanese-language version which I saw, all give realistic and effective turns, and staying briefly on the soundtrack, Takatsugu Muramatsu's score is fittingly vibrant and (in the more dramatic scenes) restrained. It is also fluidly edited and plotted. The full result was deservedly nominated for the 2014 Best Animated Feature Oscar and I'd challenge anybody after seeing it to question why; I think it could take everybody back mentally (and don't worry if you haven't seen it and thus don't get this; you will once you've seen it) to a time When Marnie Was There.