WHIPLASH: The Film Babble Blog Review

Opening today at an indie art house near you:

WHIPLASH (Dir. Damien Chazelle, 2014)

Miles Teller, who I initially disliked as a douche in the asinine 21 & OVER but thought he redeemed himself as a drunk in THE SPECTACULAR NOW, puts in a sharply superb performance as a determined student drummer squaring off against his hard-ass teacher/conductor played by J.K. Simmons, also in one of his finest performances.

Taking place mostly in a dark rehearsal room at the fictional Schaffer Conservatory of Music in Manhattan, the film follows Teller’s Andrew Neyman as he wins a spot in the prestigious school’s band, and undergoes tons of verbal, and some physical, abuse by Simmons’ cruel conductor character Terrence Fletcher.

Simmons’ Fletcher is a brutal bully who believes in pushing his students beyond their limits to achieve greatness. “There are no two words in the English language more harmful than ‘good job,’ he tells Teller.

Teller’s Andrew, who worships at the altar of drumming legend Buddy Rich as we can see from the books, CDs, and posters on his walls, is so driven to be one of the greats that he takes Simmons’ trash talk, but he is quickly approaching his breaking point.

On the side, Teller dates Melissa Benoist, who he had a genuine meet cute with at a movie theater he and his father (a nicely understated Paul Reiser) frequent, but their courtship doesn’t last long as he feels he needs to completely focus on his craft.

In the film’s most compelling sequence, Teller struggles to get to a concert on time after his bus breaks down, he leaves his drum sticks at a car rental agency, and he gets into a major automobile accident on the way back from retrieving them. He makes it there, albeit covered in blood with a broken hand, but blows it by dropping one of his sticks. It’s a grippingly stressful and electrifyingly edited third act starter that sets us up perfectly for the film’s musical showdown climax.

The movie is impressive on all fronts. Both Teller, who it should be noted does all his own drumming, and Simmons deserve awards season action – but in my book (or on my blog) it’s Simmons, who’s a better villain here than the over-the-top ones in most Marvel movies, that should get at least an Oscar nomination for his stunning work here.

The film itself, the feature length debut of writer/director Damien Chazelle, is impressive for its tight narrative construction, especially as it was shot in 19 days on the low budget of $3 million.

Sure to make my top 10 movies of 2014, the beautifully abrasive WHIPLASH takes its name from jazz composer Hank Levy's 1972 standard that Teller nails in his audition, and it features a bunch of blustery big band compositions that keeps the film bumping from beat to beat. It never rushes or drags, to use the parlance of Simmons (“Were you rushing or were you dragging?”), and there’s not one wasted moment that I can recall.

WHIPLASH may leave you feeling as bruised, and bloody as Teller, but you won’t feel beat down by it. It’s ultimately an inspirational tale that if you haven’t had to overcome the tyranny of a control freak asshole you can still relate to, but if you have, man, it will hit you hard.

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THE PAST: The Film Babble Blog Review

Opening today in the Triangle at the Colony Theater in Raleigh, the Chelsea Theatre in Chapel Hill, and the Carolina Theatre in Durham:

THE PAST (Dir. Asghar Farhadi, 2013)

In his follow-up to the excellent Oscar-winning 2011 drama A SEPARATION, writer/director Asghar Farhadi again deals with divorce, Iranian style.

Ali Mosaffa plays a man who returns to a not so picturesque Paris from Iran to finalize his divorce to his French wife (Bérénice Bejo, best known for her Oscar nominated performance in THE ARTIST). 

Bejo, who has two daughters from a previous marriage, is now in a new relationship with an Arab man (Tahar Rahim, star of Jacques Audiard’s acclaimed 2009 prison drama A PROPHET). Rahim has a son (the cute scene-stealing Elyes Aguis) and a wife who has been in a coma for eight months. So yeah, things are complicated.

Bejo’s oldest daughter (the 16-year old Pauline Burlet) is suspicious of the situation with her mother’s new boyfriend, which calls for Mosaffa to investigate what happened while he was away. Turns out Rahim’s wife’s coma was caused by a suicide attempt, and he is still legally married to her. Other revelations, including the involvement of one of Rahim’s employees (Sabrina Ouazine) at his dry-cleaning business, come to light as Mosaffa gets closer to the truth.

What’s most pleasing is how THE PAST (French title: parcels out its plot points with leisurely precision. The use of spare dialogue, free of messy exposition, lightly layers the story, as Cinematographer Mahmoud Kalari’s carefully placed camerawork carries us from one emotionally meaty scene to another.

Despite having to wear a slightly ill-fiting hairpiece, Mosaffa excels as the conscious of the film in his measured acting. We can feel that the heat between he and Bejo, who as a woman caught between anxiety and anger shows much more range than before, hasn't completely faded.

Rahim appears so sullen and distant that it's hard to see how he and Bejo got together, but as the film goes on we get telling inklings of his true sensibility. These all feel like real people that we are eavesdropping in on.

THE PAST isn't as sharply powerful as A SEPARATION, but it's an immersive mixture of solid storytelling and flawless acting that's full of passion for the people it depicts. It's less a cultural statement than it is a meditation on how the hidden connections beneath a fractured family can be felt long before they are revealed. 

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Jacques Audiard's RUST AND BONE Out Today On Blu Ray & DVD

Releasing today on Blu ray and DVD:

RUST AND BONE 

(Dir. Jacques Audiard, 2012)

Jacques Audiard pulls off a distinctly different sense of tone and timing from his last two acclaimed award-winning films, A PROPHET and THE BEAT MY HEART SKIPPED in this raw love story between Matthias Schoenaerts as a directionless single father, who makes money by competing in illegal boxing matches, and Marion Cotillard as a killer whale trainer, who loses her legs in an “on the job” accident.

It’s definitely not a “meet cute” when Schoenaerts’ Alain first encounters Cotillard’s Stéphanie (pre-accident) at a night club in Antibes in southern France. Alain (“Ali” to his friends and family) is on his first night as a bouncer at the club when a fight breaks out and Stéphanie, dolled up for a night on the town, gets caught in the middle of it.

Acting the gentleman, Ali insists on driving the roughed up Stéphanie home to her apartment, only to find that she has a controlling abusive boyfriend waiting for her there. Nevertheless, Ali gives her his phone number - “if you need it” - before exiting.

Not long after that, the vividly scary spectacle of a large Sea World-type stage collapsing during an Orca show (to the tune of Katy Perry’s “Firework,” mind you) leaves Stéphanie without legs below her knees, via seamless CGI that shows us how far such special effects have come since Gary Sinise’s similar predicament in “Forrest Gump.”

In the midst of her painful recuperation, Stéphanie decides to call Ali, who’s by then working as a guard at a security firm. The stoic strongman begins taking care of the legless lady, and in a sweet scene set at the beach, he carries her into the ocean and she appears to have a cathartic experience wading in the sundrenched waves. 

Stéphanie gets close enough to Ali that she even accompanies him on his street fighting ring runs, but has to stay in the car as women aren’t allowed. Ever so casually, while cleaning up after a meal, Ali asks Stéphanie if she wants to have sex. Embarrassed by the bluntness of the proposal, yet intrigued, Stéphanie agrees and afterwards she appears regenerated, on her way to feeling whole again. An immersive shot in her empowering post coitus sequence shows Stéphanie, now outfitted with prosthetic legs, visiting her old workplace and re-connecting through body language with the enormous whale that caused her accident through a giant glass partition.

Unfortunately, Ali continues to see other women, and his relationship with Stéphanie suffers. What also suffers, albeit only slightly, is the movie’s focus in its second half as its storyline gets messier than it needs to be. Especially when Ali’s sister (Corinne Masiero), who is taking care of his 5-year old son (Armand Verdure), loses her job due to video surveillance set up by Ali’s company. This causes Ali to leave town, leaving everything up in the air with Stéphanie. 

The brooding Schoenaerts, previously best known for his leading role in Michael R. Roskam’s 2010 crime drama BULLHEAD, has such a dry cold demeanor that his character can be hard to relate to, but edges of humanity come through at crucial moments, particularly when he realizes late in the game his feelings for Cotillard’s Stéphanie.

Cotillard, displaying comparable poise and power to her incredible Oscar-winning portrayal of Édith Piaf in LA VIE EN ROSE, owns the heart of RUST AND BONE. She wasn’t nominated for an Academy Award this time around (and she lost the Golden Globe for the part to Jessica Chastain for ZERO DARK THIRTY) but she’s taken home a few well deserved awards for the performance (at the BFI, Cabourg, and Telluride Film Festivals).

Audiard’s A PROPHET cinematographer Stéphane Fontaine captures the couple, and the sunny scenery surrounding them in a visual style that’s often poetic. Based on a short story collection by Canadian author Craig Davidson, Audiard’s screenplay, co-written with Thomas Bidegain, keeps the dialogue spare and simple, which helps it stay clear of clichés.

In this random romance, in which tough times tinged with tragedy can bring disparate damaged people together, Schoenaerts’ thick-headedness and lack of sentiment can numb one’s heart, but Cotillard’s longing and belief in love will melt it.

Special Features: Commentary from director Jacques Audiard and co-writer Thomas Bidegain, deleted scenes, and a few featurettes including “Making RUST AND BONE: A Film by Antonin Peretkatko.”

* This review originally appeared in the Jan. 17th, 2013 edition of the Raleigh News & Observer.

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Blu Ray Review: A PROPHET

This Oscar nominated French drama played briefly in my area (Raleigh, N.C.) to small yet very appreciative audiences last spring. It’s now out on DVD and Blu ray so, with hope, it will gain much more appreciation.

A PROPHET (Un prophète) (Dir. Jacques Audiard, 2009)

In this film’s swift opening scenes we are immediately drawn into the dark world of 18-year-old Arab Malik (Tahar Rahim) when he is thrown into prison with a 6 year sentence.

Rahim, after spending the better part of his life in juvenile detention, is told that he’s going to be in with “the big boys now” and finds himself stuck between a rock (the Corsican mafia who rule the joint) and a hard place (the Muslim contingent who want nothing to do with him).

After completing a gruesome task for an elder lifer – the Godfatherly Niels Arestrup - Rahim's power rises in prison to the point in which he can take day passes to oversee the business on the outside.

The film’s storytelling strengths lie in how it posits pivotal characters. With bold white lettering we are introduced to Hichem Yacoubi as an Arab murdered by Rahim early in the film, yet he visits his cell as a haunting reminder throughout the film; Adel Bencherif as a Muslim recovering from testicular cancer who believes highly in rehabilitation, and Mamadou Minte as dangerous drug dealer Latif the Egyptian among deadly others.

Often brutal in a way that may cause some viewers may have to avert their eyes, A PROPHET earns its 2 hours and 35 minute running time with a gripping pace – it’s truly one of the most compelling films of the year.

It’s challenging with its non compromising stance on the futile forum of prison reform and in your face violence, but one can sympathize and cringe with Rahim as he brushes off the insults of “dirty Arab” and tries to assert himself on this treacherous yet unavoidable path.

Not sure if this one would make that noticeable a difference on Blu ray from DVD as it’s a pretty gritty looking movie to begin with, but both versions have deleted scenes and an insightful commentary by from director Audiard, Rahim and co-screenwriter Thomas Bidegain.

In French, Arabic, Corsican with English subtitles. Also available in the Raleigh area at multiple Redbox locations.

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