Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #227: Strings (2004)

 

In a mythical fantasy realm of marionettes, young Hal (the voice of a then-unknown James McAvoy in the English-language version) is the son of a recently murdered ruler who leaves his comfortable home to set out on a journey to find his father's killer and avenge his death, but inevitably in the process he comes to discover the secret truth behind the longstanding feud between the two clans. Then, of course, war breaks out between them and Hal must step up and lead his people in Arthurian fashion.

Yes, that is all the narrative of Strings. It's deliberately derivative (the characters' awareness of their being marionettes notwithstanding), but that's not the point. The characters all being puppets is, and co-writer/director Anders Ronnow Klarlund deserves praise for hatching and applying that concept to it. But I'm afraid for me, like a piece of chewing gum, that concept's novelty lost its flavour quite soon, and the super-conventional plot, insipid dialogue and lack of humour only compounded my indifference once that happened. Maybe I'm simply too old for it, but I was bored for the bulk of this Danish saga. It's nowhere near as entertaining or thrilling as Norway's The Ash Lad: In the Hall of the Mountain King, which was stuffed with charm, wit, energy and an awareness of its archaicness. 

Strings does have good visual design and musical style, but for me that could not mask the storytelling shortcomings and misguided self-perception underneath. Its characters are somehow less wooden than the film containing them.

Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #226: Climax (2018).

 

It's winter 1996. An abandoned building in Paris. A group of young dance students have just finished a rehearsal and choose to throw an after-party to celebrate. The party begins harmlessly and predictably enough, until it's learned the sangria they're all drinking has been spiked with a particularly strong kind of LSD. Then, once the drug takes over, the night takes a turn for the horrifying. For everybody.

And that's literally all the plot there is in writer-director (and co-editor) Gaspar Noe's Climax. Noe conceived the premise but then simply told his entire cast and crew to do and say whatever the fuck they wanted to. The result is a film that even Baz Luhrmann would call trippy and stylised, with non-stop choreography and numerous extended takes including one that lasts 45 minutes. Plus, as you'd expect, it becomes relentlessly sexual and violent. Filmed in just 15 days and based loosely on a real-life drink-spiking incident involving a French dance troupe in 1996, I didn't know whether to reward myself or call myself a sicko once I managed to finish this movie. It is beyond any doubt one of the most relentless works, of any kind, I have ever seen. Either way, I doubt anybody could shake it once they saw it. 7/10.

Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #225: Incendies (2010).

 

Before he took Hollywood by storm, Canada's Denis Villeneuve made his international breakthrough with this war thriller nominated for the 2010 Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. Incendies follows Canadian twins Jeanne (Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin) and Simon (Maxim Gaudette) Marwan, who have just lost their Arab mother Nawal (Lubna Azabal). An emigrant, Nawal fled her (unspecified) native Middle Eastern country in the 1970s because of a civil war. Her will refers to not keeping a promise and her being denied a proper grave unless the twins locate their mysterious brother, whom they've never met, and their father, who they thought was deceased. After then travelling to Nawal's home country, Jeanne discovers almost everything about her mother's past except the identities of her and Simon's brother and father; for this she eventually convinces the caring but more pessimistic Simon to help her.

This is a slow-burning but ultimately resonant, thought-provoking and educational film about cultural conflict, violence and above all, family. Villeneuve and his co-writer Valerie Beaugrand-Champagne, adapting Wajdi Mouawad's play which itself drew inspiration from the story of Lebanese revolutionary Souha Bechara and ones from the 1975 Lebanese Civil War, plot and visualise this unfortunately still all-too timely and topical narrative in a wisely, effectively methodical and patient manner, interspersing the twins' combined story very seamlessly with their mother's (in flashback) so the increasing parallels between them are as clear and powerful as necessary. Gaudette and especially Désormeaux-Poulin give strong central performances as the equal guides through this quest for parental truth.

Also, Gregoire Hetzel delivers a pounding musical score, and Andre Turpin and Monique Dardonne's cinematography and editing respectively are fully appropriate and effective, particularly in the battle scenes. Incendies is a challenging watch because of its (initially) slow pacing as I said, but it once it gains in momentum, that momentum never fades. 8/10.

Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #224: The Kindergarten Teacher (2018).

 

Lisa Spinelli (Maggie Gyllenhaal), a Staten Island kindergarten teacher, is dedicated in her job but unhappy in the rest of her life. At home she's in a loving but uneventful marriage to Grant (Michael Chernus), and their two teenage children, Josh and Lainie (Sam Jules and Daisy Tahan) are increasingly tired of her. But then while attending a weekly poetry class, Lisa hears one of her students, six-year-old Jimmy, reciting a poem which surprises and impresses her. Then she chooses to read it to her poetry classmates and teacher Simon (Gael Garcia Bernal), who mistakenly praise her for her "talent." Now inspired, after learning more about Jimmy's own unstable home life, Lisa sets out to nurture and promote his gift, taking increasingly unreasonable and unethical steps to do so.

This is a film I'm finding myself appreciating more, the more I contemplate it. Remaking a 2014 Israeli film, writer-director Sara Colangelo turns what could've otherwise been just another schoolteacher movie into a haunting and daring but restrained experience. It also works so well because it offers a brutally honest look at modern education, particularly regarding the gender-based double standards and preconceived notions therein, and Colangelo employs a rather cold but refined visual language to do so with. And what may be her strongest turn yet, Maggie Gyllenhaal is brilliantly understated.

It has a few pacing issues and Garcia could've played his part in his sleep, but those two shortcomings notwithstanding, The Kindergarten Teacher earns an 8/10 grade from me.