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Reviews
Penny Dreadful (2014)
A Masterpiece
This might just be my favorite TV series ever. It earns the rank of favorite not simply because it's a highly atmospheric and brilliantly executed horror series, but because it has a profoundly literary, even philosophical dimension to it that is as integral to the series as the supernatural plot elements. I've rewatched it several times, and it still never seems to get old.
The writing is deep, engaging, and at times waxes poetic in a way I think most modern writers shy away from. It tackles profound questions like the meaning of the modern age, the ultimate existential value of life itself, and whether humans can ever really be free of their trauma - and it does so with a grace and, yes, poetry that elevate the material far above not only the rest of the horror genre, but most dramas on TV in general.
And yet, despite that, it is still exciting. There is no shortage of gore, fight scenes, desperate chases, or unnerving encounters with evil. But when these happen, there's more at stake than just the demise of a blond teenager number 604. Striking a balance between excitement and meaning is not easy, and this show has hit the nail on the head.
Then, of course, there's the truly superb acting. Eva Green is truly phenomenal here. One unforgettable, fairly early scene involving a seance (which I will not spoil) might very well be represent the most intense acting I've ever seen on screen.
To be entirely honest, there are a couple episodes that do drag on a bit, but ultimately that hardly detracts from the series. Most of the pacing is excellent, and a few places where it might be better are a negligible price to pay for a work that seamlessly marries the content and style of Bram Stoker with the depth and spirit of Dostoyevsky. I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say this series is a masterpiece.
Triangle of Sadness (2022)
Scattershot, badly executed, thoroughly unoriginal, and torturously long
As much as I respect the labor that went into this production, I have to say that the product is among the worst I've seen in years. Triangle of Sadness is way too predictable to work as a drama, but too slow and serious to work as a comedy. At the same time, it's also too absurd for the (unoriginal) social commentary to have any teeth. This had no place anywhere near Cannes, much less winning.
Basically despite a couple of clever ideas, almost everything in the movie - themes, subjects, scenarios, and social commentary - has been done before elsewhere, but with more skill.
TONE
One overarching problem is that the tone was all over the place. Rather than creating a film where each component compliments the next until the work overall is powerful, this movie alternated between trying to be serious and artful, lazily having characters blurt out what could have been a clever subtext for the film, and long, *long* periods of sheer boredom.
SOCIAL COMMENTARY/SATIRE... THAT CHALLENGES NOTHING
It's especially galling that the film is billed as a brilliant social commentary when it's worse than just derivative. The only target the film really takes up as the object of its satire are the tiny, tiny circle of ultra-elite plutocrats that have served as the world's default villains par excellence for 150 years and make up a truly negligible portion of the audience. The only other characters are basically servants to the ultra rich - and while the film's eventual suggestion that they might behave similarly to the rich if given the chance could be an acceptable theme for a serious film, it's badly executed and unoriginal.
Much bigger than the question of the classes you do see in the movie is the question of the classes you *don't* see. I don't think any of the characters that actually works for a living has a Masters or Professional degree. So while the rich and the poor are at each other's throats, the bourgeoisie (pretty much the entirety of both the film's makers and its intended audience) gets to sit aloof at a comfortable distance and laugh at everyone else slinging mud.
UNCRITICAL PANDERING
Worst of all, the film's primary message seems to be "the ludicrously wealthy are awful." Well, when a message like that comes from and is meant for people who are not ludicrously wealthy but "merely" very wealthy, it's ironic. And when the movie in question explicitly lampoons luxury marketing that the says "we are all equal," it goes beyond irony to become offensive.
Triangle of Sadness indulges a profound desperation among many upper-middle class elites to insist that they "really" represent "the masses" as though their own massive privilege and near-monopoly over cultural capital counts for nothing. I can see why people who fly first class would want to identify "rich" people as the ones who have private jets and luxury yachts, but meaningful social commentary should be harping on the hypocrisy of this fiction, not helping to maintain it.
OVERALL QUALITY
Beyond all of that, the film was simply not skillfully made. It had the pacing of a movie that gives the audience time to absorb and digest painful and challenging insight, but never delivered anything profound.
The closest it came was an argument about the taboo about women talking about money in the first act; perhaps it could have been interesting (maybe...) if it had been 2 minutes instead of half an hour - and, crucially, were followed by several other pithy observations.
Instead, it preceded an hour of dreary, seemingly interminable exposition, followed by a "climactic" scene with little that was deeper than vomit and feces (save for a few ironic references to Marx). There's a place for poop jokes, but not as the centerpiece of an award-winning social commentary, and certainly not if they're this poorly delivered. Far from being a refreshing dose of mirth, the scatological humor felt mind-numbingly repetitive. Who would have thought that watching characters no one really cared about in the first place vomit continuously for 20 minutes would get old?
The final act is perhaps where the movie could have been strongest. If this were a Lars von Trier movie, like Dogville, the crushing power and bold message of the conclusion would end up justifying the slow pace. Instead of redeeming the agonizing torpor of its pace with a profound message,, Triangle of Sadness instead delivers a misbegotten attempt at a tired literary trope so old it goes back centuries, and possibly to classical antiquity: that class hierarchies disappear or even reverse in extreme circumstances.
I'm sorry again to anyone who participated in the making of this film; the cinematography and acting were both good. Overall though, Triangle of
Sadness is predictable, underwhelming, and, frankly, extremely boring.
John and the Hole (2021)
The Ice Storm meets Home Alone
John and the Hole succeeds quite admirably in providing a genuinely fresh take on the well-established genre of films that critique childhood in upper-middle class American life. On one hand, the plot centers around an implausible, perhaps even absurdist premise of a son following through with a plan to get his family "out of the picture" for a while so he can have run of the roost. At the same time, the theme of the movie - delivered excellently by all the principle actors - has to do with the intense, sometimes maddening isolation that comes with family life in upper-middle class America. It's conveyed subtly including in the way the camera seldom really focuses on the family members even when they speak to john - as though, while they go through the motions of family life, no one is really very invested in it.
In that sense, even though the plot line is totally different, thematically, the film invites comparison to The Ice Storm (1997)'s tale of similarly situated American family's unravelling and then coming back together. In both cases, the sprawling suburban houses, separated by so many trees that one can't be seen from another, are a metaphor for the distance between even the people who live closest to the center of each other's lives.
John, the youngest member of this family and newly arrived at the age of discernment, begins to both perceive the emptiness of the social paradigm for which he is being groomed to participate and question whether or not he actually needs to accept this empty model of adulthood that's presented to him. But rather than spending time processing the question while alone and occasionally having random outbursts of rebellion) - as happens both in real life and in The Ice Storm (1997) - John and the Hole plays with that by taking it to its logical (and absurd) conclusion. Indeed, a parallel storyline involves a little girl that is flatly, almost farcically told by her mother that, for no real reason, the mother is done mothering and the little girl will now need to be responsible for her own life (....at the age of 12).
The absurdity does a lot to capture and highlight aspects of bourgeois anomie that remain stubbornly invisible even in excellently made films with more realistic plot lines like The Ice Storm (1997), and that's a real cinematic accomplishment. The only reason I'm not awarding the film a 10 is because I think the writer and director should have put in the extra effort to build some sort of organic tie between the main storyline and the parallel one. The subplot absolutely adds a vital dimension to what makes the movie wonderful, but it could have done that just as effectively - and would have felt more satisfying - with an integral, or even peripheral connection to the main plot line. As it is, it feels a bit forced. Certainly this is excellent filmmaking, though, from everyone involved!
Üçüncü Sayfa (1999)
Classic Demirkubuz
Much like virtually all of the other major films by Zeki Demirkubuz, this movie explores in a realist style the depths of human suffering through betrayal, guilt, and lowliness. The general lack of a musical score and the incidental sounds such as the off-screen barking of dogs or the noise of moving furniture combine to really drive home the reality of such feelings, making the viewer feel as though this could be happening in their apartment building and in real life - rather than some sort of parallel film universe. The cinematography is deliberately a bit "shaky' at times. The film complements nicely others by Demirkubuz such as "Kader," "Masumiyet," and "Yazgi." It should go without saying that film is depressing and not for the faint of heart.