Maelström (2000)

 

Director: Denis Villeneuve

Screenplay: Denis Villeneuve

Cast: Marie-Josée Croze as Bibiane Champagne; Jean-Nicolas Verreault as Evian; Stephanie Morgenstern as Claire Gunderson; Pierre Lebeau as The Fish; Kliment Denchev as Head-Annstein Karlsen

Canon Fodder

 

The opening dialogue, telling the story-within-a-story of Maelström (2000), comes from a talking fish. Right away, Maelström is not as strange as this bookend suggests, which I feel is something to consider as this is more of a mostly bleak tale of life and death which happens to end with a happy ending. The fish however is strange, and Denis Villeneuve, long before he crossed over into Hollywood with his own style, showed an eccentricity with this touch. Based on a prehistoric type, the fish befits the fishing motifs throughout, and is the idea of a fantastic narrator whose constant death and resurrection, because he is a fish being prepared for food, befit the tale of death and life here. Said fish, an animatronic which adds to this surreal touch, wishes to tell a story to us, and he (though note gendered, only with a male voiced narrator) does stand out for what is a film which is interesting, but does entirely depend on your taste in a bleaker drama with moments of black comedy.

What initially feels like a horror film as the fish is being prepared in a medieval hell chamber cuts jarringly to modern Canada in the midst of the most clinically done abortion. The patient is our female lead Bibiane "Bibi" Champagne (Marie-Josée Croze). The daughter of a famous figure, with the weight of this and her brother’s success on top of her, her high fashion store is failing, and her life between drugs and casual sex leads to an accidental hit-and-run whilst intoxicated of a Norwegian fish factory employee. This older man manages to drag himself to his apartment but he still dies, and she sadly already drove off unaware of what she has done, only realizing what she had done the morning after and sober.

Text introductions to sections makes this feel like a novel, with its silent film intertitles and the emphasis on a plot which begins with despair, about losing all, and eventually leads to romance and true love even if through her mistakes and death. The eccentricity is there just in how Tom Waits’ The Ocean Doesn't Want Me is use, proudly without any subtext but literal, with an attempted suicide attempt by Bibi where fate decides to keep her for a reason. Maelström is a bleak film just in terms of its grey aesthetic. It does come with happiness; one where fate intertwines hers with the adult son coming to pay his dues to his father, but this complete a drama whose characters find themselves in their lowest. The dark humour is there, where the ashes of the father end up considered down a toilet, but it feels incredibly bleak for a long period of itself, where the happiness is based in the matter-of-fact, with only our fish narrator the only thing close to a spiritual entity. It is through love, the burgeoning one despite the obvious melodramatic concern, in how you can love a person who hit-and-run your father, that offers a serenity and something magical in this world which the fish recounts. There is also the man who finds himself consoling our two central figures separately, telling them to live for the moment, as close to this tale's angel, if an older man abruptly tangled in the web of fate, adding another bow of light in this very grounded world.

The style of Denis Villeneuve at this point did not really change into the modern day, with films like Prisoners (2013) still possessing traits from Maelström, which presents a moment which was absolutely reassuring, regardless of your opinions on him as a filmmaker and personal taste. That being in the 2010s onwards, when I went through that decade with concerns of the auteur and idiosyncratic filmmakers being far less common than the blockbuster, one did appear and he seemingly did not get compromised at all, even when handling a licensed adaptation like Dune.

Cosmos (1996)

 

Directors: Jennifer Alleyn, Manon Briand, Marie-Julie Dallaire, Arto Paragamian, André Turpin and Denis Villeneuve

Screenplays: Marie-Julie Dallaire and Sebastien Joannette (segment "The Individual"); Denis Villeneuve (segment "The Technetium")

Cast: Igor Ovadis as Cosmos; Marie-Hélène Montpetit as Yannie (segment: Boost); Pascal Contamine as Joel (segment: Boost); Marie-France Lambert as Fanny (segment: Jules & Fanny); Alexis Martin as Jules (segment: Jules & Fanny); Stéphane Crête as Antoine (segment: Jules & Fanny); Sebastien Joannette as L'individu (segment: L'individu); Eve Gadouas as La jeune fille dans le corridor (segment: L'individu); David La Haye as Morille (segment: Le Technétium); Audrey Benoit as Nadja, l'animatrice (segment: Le Technétium); Carl Alacchi as Tekno (segment: Le Technétium); Marc Jeanty as Janvier (segment: Cosmos & Agriculture); Gabriel Gascon as Crépuscule (segment: Aurore & Crépuscule); Sarah-Jeanne Salvy as Aurore

Ephemeral Waves

 

I told you. Everything started with agriculture.

Most will come to Cosmos, unless you are well versed in Canadian and French Canadian cinema, because this is an anthology work with Denis Villeneuve very early in his career among the list of directors. A list of what segments are what is wiser to have ahead of time, as instead of a traditional segment followed by a segment structure, these all interlink around Greek-Canadian cab driver Cosmos (Igor Ovadis), whose work intertwines the stories. These are: Boost by Manon Briand; Jules & Fanny by André Turpin; L'Individu by Marie-Julie Dallaire; Le Technétium, which is Denis Villeneuve's entry; Aurore et Crépuscule, by Jennifer Alleyn; and Cosmos & Agriculture, Cosmos' own segment by Arto Paragamian.

All shot in monochrome, there is many segments which juggle between each other in priority. For the most part, the set up focuses on most of them, the last two mentioned being introduced much later into the film. Le Technétium's lead, a filmmaker named Morille (David La Haye), is drinking espresso after espresso in a cafe, hesitant before an interview for an art television show as he writes about cinema and war, so on edge he is even adding chemical stimulants to the caffeine, enough for the female cafe staff member to ask, frankly, whether he is planning to fuck a gorilla. Cosmos, an older cab driver of Greek heritage, is the interlocking titular figure, who crosses paths with all. That includes the film director Morille; that includes a man with flowers from L'Individu, the vaguest of the narratives as he may be the man killing young women across town and leaving flowers with the bodies after he also molests them; a lawyer named Fanny (Marie-France Lambert), from Jules & Fanny, involved with a legal dispute; and Cosmos helps jumpstart the car Yannie (Marie-Hélène Montpetit) has acquired for a friend, by jumpstarting the battery, who is in a depressed mood.

Barring L'Individu, which feels so much grimmer as a premise to the rest of the segments, and has no real resolution, with a trip in an underground parking complex which was apparently installed near Hel with the noises on the soundtrack, Cosmos whilst having serious moments is much lighter in tone. Some of it is serious, but a lot is lighter hearted, more openly humorous and playful as character pieces. The filmmaker is traumatised by thoughts of Cambodia and war, especially of the woman dear in his life connected to his work on the film on this, but his story is one of the more absurd tales. With Cosmos once in the militia and offering a discount haircut at $15 because he likes him, the interview is at Tekno's Hair Shop, an underground television show which, ran by Tekno (Carl Alacchi), is more interesting about styling the guests' hair even against their will, and talking about the products used on camera than Morille's art. That is until Morille snaps and threatens someone by shaving his or her hair off.

Julian ("Jules") (Alexis Martin) is helping a deaf woman in a court case, whilst pontificating with Antoine (Stéphane Crête), one of the staff at the hotel he is at, about a dream he had about atoms being made of energy, and matter, alongside being chased by hit men. That is until he bumps into Fanny, an old girlfriend and the lawyer against his client in the case, offering him to see her newly acquired breast implants if he deliberately sabotages translating his client in court. There is Yannie and her male friend Joel (Pascal Contamine), in the segment Boost, the later gay and hinting at a serious medical fear he is waiting on, such as a HIV test result, the car Yannie has acquired evoking nostalgia for him and to try to help in this extremely stressful moment as they bond.

The two segments that come later are Aurore et Crépuscule, Aurore (Sarah-Jeanne Salvy) a twenty year old girl who, because her boyfriend did not bother to get to a theatrical performance on time, finds herself bonding with a significantly older man named Crépuscule (Gabriel Gascon). This episode does not get into an uncomfortable territory, the cliché of older men wooing a younger woman, even if there is a romantic chemistry; that cliché for me is only a problem in that they ended up being a trope especially in Hollywood cinema, a fantasy and a casting cliché of always having older male actors with a newer and significantly younger female star with them just to be the love interest. For me, any spring-winter relationship regardless of the genders of those involved should not be viewed as wrong in a story or real life, when at least here, it is a chemistry between two people, not becoming sexual, where they get to bond and having a friendship for one night even if with an undercurrent of flirting. It is a huge credit to the leads, and it is to note, in mind to what I have said, that this is a segment by one of the female directors, so I would not be surprised if Jennifer Alleyn came with this possessing far more nuance in tackling the subject than a fantasy. Cosmos & Agriculture is a great send off to the feature, in which two bank robbers steal Cosmos' taxi cab for a getaway vehicle whilst he is with a friend and fellow cabbie, one pontificating that the world's ills, whilst also a good thing, can be blamed as far back as to when the species developed agriculture. The car chase that ensures is a fun comedic short.

Out of all of them, you can see Denis Villeneuve at his beginning, as the final breakdown for Morille involves the kind of distortion of the screen which evokes the styles he would change between, but truthfully, alongside other segments for me being far more interesting, all baring the one involving a potential serial killer were interesting. Like a good anthology, it is a variety and for me, I am more forgiving for this genre for seeing the idiosyncratic tones and styles at hand, here deliberately existing in the same world and tone perfectly, all Canadian filmmakers showing their skills and the anthology altogether being of worth. Villeneuve's career out of all of them managed to become that of a Hollywood filmmaker, but one who managed to keep his own style.

Jennifer Alleyn is an artist, filmmaker, writer and photographer, so whilst her filmography from this is smaller, she works in multiple art forms. The filmography of Manon Briand is smaller sadly, but she had started before Cosmos in filmmaking up to Liverpool (2012). Marie-Julie Dallaire works more in documentaries, such as Big Giant Wave (2020), but was a Second Unit Director on Villeneuve's own Arrival (2016). Arto Paragamian's filmography sadly only has two films and this segment as a director, but they are working to this day still. André Turpin became a director, but is more prolific as a cinematographer, for the likes of Denis Villeneuve early in his career, but especially for Xavier Dolan, a big name in Canadian art cinema. He was also cinematographer on Playmobil: The Movie (2019), because why not end this review, recommending Cosmos, on something tonally alien but yet befitting. That all these figures worked on this collaborative effort, all work in a variety of areas from then on, and all of them work, be it toy tie-in animated films to Denis Villeneuve ending up directing sequels to Blade Runner and a reboot of Frank Herbert's Dune. In itself, like all anthologies, you can also see the way cinema works in all the fascinating tangents everyone here ended up within as they continued.

Enemy (2013)

From http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/
en/0/0d/Enemy_poster.jpg

Dir. Denis Villeneuve

For a film that desires to be unconventional, I will start with the conclusion than go backwards. Enemy has a chance, hopefully, to grow in favour for me when I return to it. Again, first opinions are always problematic. The mind is fickle. But there is a clear aspect of the film which is a flaw now. Enemy is incredibly obvious as an attempt at a "strange" film and because of all the other movies I've seen that have influenced it, it's very normal and sells its premise short through trying to have this tone at quite a few points. The strangest and most unnerving aspect is the character dynamics, rather than the more openly obtuse content, of a history teacher Adam (Jake Gyllenhaal) discovering he has a doppelganger, spotting an extra in a film who looks exactly like him called Anthony (Jake Gyllenhaal). It eventually reaches its most interesting content by the third act, when the two learn of each other and infect each other's lives including that of their other halves (Mélanie Laurent and Sarah Gadon). To the point of a sexual favour being hinted at for one of the men to take advantage of, it reaches the uncomfortable tone of David Cronenberg's Dead Ringers (1988), the character drama standing out as the more interesting and best content of Enemy. What feels flawed is the more deliberately abstract content. The spider metaphors, including the divisive final image, the conspiracy and political content etc. do feel too overtly prioritised on a first viewing when the real meat is the two doubles existing in a flux, where they switch roles and become difficult to tell between, and the dynamics that spin out from it.

From http://www.beyondhollywood.com/uploads/
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What means more, and is of greater interest, is the performances and the psychological content. Gyllenhaal is in the position playing two individuals who the viewer can represent as two sides of the same person as well as separate people. At first, the narrative is of Adam the teacher investigating his doppelganger Anthony, only for the shifting roles of the two, and the involvement of Laurent as Adam's lover Mary and Gadon as Anthony's heavily pregnant wife Helen to take place. This leads to deliberate blurring and implications that the film is the metaphor of a person split into various roles through his sexual desires and boredom. A small cameo by Isabella Rossellini, always someone you want appear in a film even in a cameo, is where this dualist issue is shown further.

From http://thecriticalcritics.com/review/wp-content
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As two people Gyllenhaal is exceptional. Adam and Anthony are too similar to the discomfort for the character Helen, which becomes of importance for her dramatic narrative too, but noticeable differences in body language, without becoming heavy handed, are shown that make the doppelgangers their own complicated people as well as potential halves of each other. Adam cautious and hesitant, Anthony more confident in his stride. It's not just their clothes and the materials around them that represent their personalities - Anthony's motorbike as much part of his cocky persona - but Gyllenhaal's admirable performance as both, able to juggle two distinct characters in a film that calls for questions to be raised, like for James Steward in Vertigo (1958) following Kim Novak's Madeleine, of whether Adam and Anthony are actually the same man in a complicated little mind game. Because of the character interactions involved in the drama, Mélanie Laurent and Sarah Gadon are as of importance too. Unfortunately, Laurent is not given as much as she could've worked with; not just because of her breakout performance in Inglourious Basterds (2009) and the desire to see her act in more films, but because it would've been as interesting, more dynamic, for Enemy to include her more in the narrative. Gadon on the other hand, visibly pregnant in real life on screen and not just playing a pregnant woman, gets a lion's share of the drama which she does well with. Like Geneviève Bujold in David Cronenberg's Dead Ringers, her character is the one stuck in the middle of doubles' interactions, offset further by a scene, adding to the issue, where her husband Anthony is implicated for adultery, the relationship of the two as much part of the dynamics at play. Interestingly, narrowly avoiding this being a film which merely fetishes the sexuality held over the female form, with a lot of sex and nudity for a film with a fifteen certificate in the UK, Gadon's Helen gets to be complicated because of the character dynamics involved, including a great additional twist, just at the end, with spices things up with new implications.

From http://nsa34.casimages.com/img/2013/08/29//130829105320681613.jpg

Enemy though is as much about the talked about spider symbolism and many other things around this drama. Only ninety minutes, Enemy does end up devoting time to this material as much as the central idea, the content around this centre leaving me ambivalent to the film altogether. I have not read the original source novel The Double (2012) by José Saramago, but I do know content like the spider motif was added for this adaptation. The decision to be even more unconventional as a film beyond the doppelganger narrative is both a virtue and a failure which will complicate my attitude to Enemy. The decision for a yellow based lighting and visual palette, with colours still present but dialled down, places Enemy's setting into that where all is not necessarily what it seems without being cliché, a distinct visual look that balances the muted without becoming grotty. The rest of this style, including some of the content, is divisive for me however. There is a danger with films like this where filmmakers will use shorthand tropes to develop a mood that are caught short if thought about for longer than a brief minute. Particularly as director Denis Villeneuve has placed himself in the area of cinema occupied by the likes of David Lynch, he has set himself up for comparison. The best example of the conflict of Enemy's quality is Danny Bensi and Saunder Jurriaans' score. The usher in the theatre I saw Enemy at, who ripped my ticket, a younger woman, compared the score to that by Mica Levi's for Under The Skin (2013). Under The Skin's music still haunts me from the beginning of last year and, rather than using cheap effect, its texture hearing it in the cinema added a dense quality to the visual content. The score for Enemy is at times a beautifully considered piece you can admire but it can also feel too deliberate. There is a potential concern with this type of current "oddball" cinema to use a term my mother coined, which Under The Skin stands above but Enemy is dangerously close to, where scenes and events in these films seem more profound and artistically brilliant only because of a shorthand like an industrial throbbing noise is layered over the images rather than a synchronicity between visuals and audio.

From http://www.labutaca.net/imagenes/wp-content/
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This issue is the same with the motifs and themes within the film. The spider motif feels arbitrary. Yes, there is the potential metaphor that it represents Adam and Anthony's fear of women, or the tangled webs woven by the narrative, but was it the best implementation to have this metaphor in the first place? As much as it leads to photogenic and poster friendly images, like a spider the size of a kaiju, it feels like excess baggage that doesn't need to be there. The same is with the potential political content. A lecture to Adam's history class, repeated twice, is about how dictatorships deceive the populous. Again, it feels excessive when the inherent idea of the doppelganger is political. Whether Adam and Anthony are the same people or different individuals who become one, it's impossible to fight against a dictatorship if one cannot control the different sides of your being. That and the fact the two could represent the alternative sides of one man, implicating the potential masks worn by people in a society. Finally there is a subplot about a secret sex show club which opens the film. This has more credibility in that it questions the reality of what is going on, or complicates the character of Adam/Anthony depending on how you adjust your thoughts on the film to include the material. Baring in mind that, on another viewing, that all the aspects mentioned in this paragraph could work better when revisited, it feels as if the film doesn't spread its main concerns further enough especially as there's only ninety minutes to work with.

From http://images.ddlvalley.rocks/images/12317218695131663492.png

Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): None

Enemy was the first of two projects between Denis Villeneuve and Jake Gyllenhaal. The second film was the Hollywood film Prisoners (2013), with Hugh Jackson, that was released first. Enemy was designed by the director as an antidote for the potential compromises for Prisoners as a more mainstream film. Ironically, Prisoners is the more unconventional film - with a more conventional narrative, the more unconventional content, from Gyllenhaal as a police detective named Loki, or a spine tingling scene involving a room covered with travel cases on the floor, it becomes more striking as a film. Enemy with its spider motifs and dream sequences mutes its own energy with its upfront oddness. This is a matter of opinion, but the term 'weird' doesn't only mean the strange and bizarre, but that which suggests the supernatural or eerie. Enemy is a good film, but its mood and tone which is significant for my rating gauge as well as content, and Enemy doesn't have anything, for all its unconventional imagery, that is inherently abstract.

From http://www.chud.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Enemy-2.jpg

Personal Opinion:

Enemy is my first viewing experience for 2015. I've decided to concentrate on those so called "oddball" films, like Enemy, or films I have a minimum of a high interest in to see at a cinema or at all, because I want to be frugal with money, even if I was a rich man, and as a cineaste, you don't have to confirm it by watching films for the sake of it. So I start with Enemy, wide eyed from how good Prisoners was, with the hope for an abstract movie par excellence. Frankly, it fits between being an underrated work of interest, a slow burner, and a minor work of immense interest. The expectation for it, the promise, is always a problem when encountering a film that doesn't immediately stand out, and has flaws to it, the emotion flippant. I cannot help but compare Enemy to many films in the same company - Lynch, Cronenberg, countless mindbenders - and it does feel minor in comparison in my mind as it is currently.