The Long Night of Francisco Sanctis (La Larga Noche de Francisco Sanctis) (2016)

A Long Look at the Dirty War (For Those Familiar With It)

            Based on a novel of the same name by Humberto Constantini, The Long Night of Francisco Sanctis (La Larga Noche de Francisco Sanctis) runs just a brief seventy-eight minutes yet it feels much too long. It would have made an excellent short film, but it makes for a generally slow feature film.

            First-time directors Andrea Testa and Francisco Marquez drag out a single tension-filled day in the life of a middle-class worker living a quiet life in Buenos Aires. The opening scene expertly shows (and refrains from “telling” at any point in the film) the audience everything to know about the daily life of Francisco Sanctis, portrayed by Diego Velazquez. In a single take with a still camera, Sanctis and his wife hurry to prepare breakfast for their two children. The four of them barely fit in the cramped kitchen, let alone within the frame. Like a typical family, they are running late in their morning routine. The children complain like children do, and Sanctis talks about his anticipated upcoming promotion like a proud breadwinner does. It is evident that this average man lives a mundane life. The drama and impetus of the plot is whether Sanctis will break out of this banal lifestyle.

            He is soon given such an opportunity when an old acquaintance, Elena, phones him at work ostensibly to talk about a poem he wrote in college.  This phone call misled me, as I assumed this poem was about love and this call about an affair. The dialogue with his co-workers hint at an affair as well. After all, extramarital sex is seemingly the most common theme in the films screened at Cannes this year.  But this film was one of just a few I saw that contained no sex. Rather, this was a suspenseful encounter about politics, though the average American viewer would not have realized it. For this reason especially, this arthouse feature is not immediately accessible to a general audience below a certain age.

            The first thing you need to know is that the film takes place in 1977 under the rule of a brutal military junta, right in the midst of the Dirty War. The protagonist uses pay phones several times, but the viewer is never explicitly told what year the film takes place. Perhaps the old fashioned costumes and mustache might suggest that the film takes place in the 1970s, but it was very difficult to confirm my suspicions about the context of the plot otherwise. Testa and Marquez make a very bold assumption that the audience is familiar with the Dirty War. While that may be true of Argentinian audiences, and even Western audiences who lived through it, the typical young American viewer is not well versed in the Dirty War. I can say with certainty that the Dirty War is not included in the American high school history curriculum. Thousands of Argentinians who were thought to oppose the military dictatorship were disappeared, often never heard from again. They were thrown into prisons and flung into the ocean from helicopters left to drown. In this period of terror and uncertainty, everyone was scared and no one could be trusted for they could be spies of the government.

 The only reason I was familiar with it (and was able to form a hypothesis about the plot while watching it) was because I have seen The Official Story (La Historia Oficial), one of the first films released internationally about the Dirty War, in which it is revealed that children of the disappeared were given to families with close ties to the military for adoption. Without the necessary background knowledge, the viewer is left completely in the dark, figuratively and literally. And even with this knowledge, I could only make assumptions as the dialogue is necessarily cautious and consequently vague. This vagueness feeds suspenseful mystery. Viewers clamoring for explicit answers never get them as the mystery lingers past the end credits.

            There were a few specific words that tipped me off, but they could have easily been missed. The first was the name of the military branch that Elena’s husband works for, which sounded aerial in nature, implying death flights (vuelos de la muerte). The second was the use of the word “taken” though the more common term in the context of the Dirty War, “disappeared” (desaparecidos), is never used and the mysterious “they” is never specified. Lastly, Sanctis’s left-leaning poem uses the word “comrade,” revealing his past political activism as a student and providing a motive for why he might be interested in helping Elena warn two people in imminent danger, though Sanctis is unsure just how imminent, adding to the suspense. Talking about the Dirty War without coming right out and being explicit is a means of testifying. If we are to read this film as a primary source on contemporary Argentina, why this film had to be made at this point in time, such testimony is necessary for national healing. It is impressive that these ideas could be conveyed with minimal dialogue, evidence of strong storytelling ability. It is not easy to read between the lines but it is quite rewarding.

            The opening scene in the kitchen probably has more dialogue than any other scene in the film. It is used to introduce the viewer to the ordinary Sanctis family which is implicitly put at risk.  If Sanctis acts on behalf of the strangers and gets caught, he will be disappeared, and his wife probably would be too. And yet if he does nothing, the strangers will surely die as a result of his inaction. It is an impossible moral dilemma. The rest of the movie is characterized by long silences, filled only with ambient street noises, though even those are infrequent in the empty streets of suburban Buenos Aires in the middle of the night. There is no score to fill these silences either, forcing the viewer to simply marinade in the silence of an uneventful night—and that is why the film feels so long, and how it so masterfully builds suspense.

            The reason for the excruciating silence is that everyone is scared. Everyone tries to keep to themselves, because it is not worth the risk of engaging with a stranger who might betray you. An extended scene on a bus gives each of the eight passengers a solid fifteen seconds each to themselves. Each individual is terrified, doing nothing but sitting silently afraid.  Make no mistake—it is suspenseful but you must be prepared for a very slow burning film. The directors succeed in creating this atmosphere of fear that will compel those in the audience who can understand the tension. The uncertainty is unsettling, disquieting. The haunting mystery of the unknown nags at you incessantly. I think that is why despite my slight confusion the movie lingered with me.

The scenery is extremely dark, with just street lamps periodically providing a slight orange tint. This fosters a bleak atmosphere building suspense and quiet anticipation.  The viewer feels the tension and fear that Sanctis does, not knowing what or who may be lurking around the corner or in the shadows. Maybe I have just seen too many scary movies during the Festival, but the dark quiet alleyways made me shiver. Testa and Marquez convey the horror that the Dirty War was by using elements of the horror genre. Thankfully, no one ever does jump out from the shadows, but it is the suspense that something could take you by surprise that keeps the viewer scared.  

Unlike other films about the Dirty War that focus on the disappeared themselves, Testa and Marquez look at a man who is uninvolved in politics.  This is a study in the dilemma ordinary Argentinians simply trying to get through life faced on a daily basis. Sanctis faces a tough situation, one that the viewer as an ordinary person can sympathize with. We suffer along with Sanctis and question our own convictions asking what we would do in his situation. He did not ask to be dragged into this dangerous situation and yet he cannot simply do nothing. He struggles with this internal struggle as he meanders through the city. He perhaps wavers a little more than is necessary to convey the same message. The lack of dialogue hinders the viewer from getting inside Sanctis’s thought process, which would have made for some more eventful scenes. The viewer is left to simply read Velazquez’s facial expressions. A monologue would have been helpful though understandably out of character.  But if you have a family, maybe you do not exactly need Sanctis to spell out his dilemma. The viewer is (probably intentionally) forced to look inside himself to transpose his own thought process to Sanctis. Nonetheless, I think the message is clear that the dark reality of politics is inescapable no matter how far removed one may wish to be from conflict. We can comprehend the horror on a personal level because ordinary viewers can plausibly place themselves in Sanctis’s ordinary shoes. The viewer may have no stake in politics, but neither did Sanctis. And that is what is so scary about this situation, if you can comprehend it. 

I, Daniel Blake (2016)

I, Daniel Blake won the Palme d'Or. And don't get me wrong, it's a solid movie. But by no means was it the best. Ken Loach is a bleeding heart liberal and it shows with a fiery passion for two hours straight. His contempt for British bureaucracy is meant to get the viewer riled up. We feel intense anger and immense sadness for the tragic situation that the honest heroes find themselves in, no fault of their own. There is no subtlety. Loach is very straightforward, unabashedly wearing his politics. And the film just keeps hitting you, tearing you further down until you just want to give up. But Daniel Blake doesn't give up. He's a working class hero (and Ken Loach a hero to the working class) and through all the red tape he perseveres. He's extremely compassionate and likable and relatable. There are some cringe-y scene transitions, with a cheesy fade to black to show the passage of time. You see what Ken Loach really thinks about computers, as Daniel Blake gets frustrated trying to figure out how to use it.

Though the film is in English, the thick British accents are almost unintelligible. Funnily enough, the film played with English subtitles. And I found myself reading them to follow along.  It is kind of ironic that it won the Palme d'Or. Maybe the jury felt guilty, acknowledging the plight of regular working people amidst all the glitz and glamor of the exclusive Cannes Film Festival. 

Toni Erdmann (2016)

Toni Erdmann might just be the funniest movie I've ever seen. Some of it is stupid funny--whoopee cushions at the Cannes Film Festival. But it's not just sex jokes like the comedies we get in the US. It's three hours of pure dry humor. And it never feels long. The reason it is so long is that it drags out every joke, milking every laugh it can get from each gag. The humor is highly unexpected and refreshingly honest. As funny as it is, it is equally moving. It should be required viewing for wannabe consultants. The world of management consulting in all its glamor is casted in a less than favorable light. It's not all about money, but about happiness. Ines's father tries to make her happy, tries to make her laugh and while she isn't having it, we have a ball. My favorite scene is one in which Ines sings the entirety of the Whitney Houston classic "The Greatest Love of All," quite well I might add. Everyone in the theater was laughing hysterically. But the scene everyone is talking about is the raucous nude party. And all the promotions include the enormous Bulgarian costume that makes a side-splitting cameo.  This is a faultless brilliant romp. It was a phenomenal way to spend 3 hours.

Paterson (2016)

This is a movie about daily life for a bus driver in Paterson, NJ. And you know how exciting New Jersey is. The most action we get is his bus breaks down. I was waiting for his bus to get hijacked. But his life is too mundane for that. Their dog is cute, but I don't like to give in to animals. Even if Nellie won the Palm Dog posthumously for acting in drag.  It's cheap. Adam Driver plays Kylo Ren, essentially. His acting is flat and monotone, maybe a little less angsty. And he writes poetry, some of which is insufferable. His poem about the matches literally put me to sleep. He and his wife are perfectly content and their marital bliss is almost too perfect. The wife has her hobbies and the husband indulges her. It feels like manufactured happiness.  It is a slow movie that I didn't particularly care for.

Blood Father (2016)

Why do producers think we want to see old guys in action movies? Moreover why would they think we want to see Mel Gibson in anything? William H. Macy provides some comic relief, and the film opens with a joke about the ease with which you can buy bullets in the US (but cigarettes are more difficult). It is a typical action movie that doesn't really give us anything new. The film is otherwise kind of boring and conventional. It's basically Taken, but without the intensity of Liam Neeson. And as much as I don't like Mel Gibson, Erin Moriarty is the worst. She has no redeemable qualities. She's bland and unengaging, like the movie.

The Salesman (Forushande) (2016)

After watching Elle, it was refreshing to see this more delicate depiction of an assaulted woman. Iran gets a bad wrap in the West, but it is a much more nuanced society than we give it credit for. It is simultaneously modern and traditional. Asghar Farhadi is a master at his craft. Shahab Hosseini and Taraneh Alidoosti both give very strong performances as actors performing Death of a Salesman. I didn't quite understand the reference, but I think it has to do with the husband being so focused on his own goals that he doesn't see what his wife actually wants. The movie almost takes a Prisoners like turn. But it isn't quite that sadistic and dark. And it's not as loud as you would expect in an American revenge story. No, it is thoughtful. This movie took a lot of turns that are rather unexpected. It is suspenseful and the last act is super intense and unpredictable. Then the ending is left a little open ended. I wasn't positive how to interpret it, but I think they separate. 

Elle (2016)

This was a terrible movie. And the worst part was that people like it. OK, it has a couple of moments. I appreciate that the French audience could laugh at Catholic jokes. And there is a funny storyline about a black baby. But there is nothing else funny about this movie. And it is disturbing and offensive that other people were laughing so raucously. Moreover, it is so messed up that Paul Verhoeven thought this was OK. There is no situation in which a rape comedy is acceptable.

This is a really sick and misogynistic movie. Verhoeven gets close to redemption by almost portraying a strong independent woman succeeding in a man's world (she makes video games, albeit hypersexualized misogynistic video games). And just when you think that she has overcome her rapist and intimidated him into fear, Verhoeven makes her even more submissive. Elle is portrayed as if she likes rape, as if she is asking for it. What the hell kind of message is that? And in what world is that funny? And the very last couple of minutes just made me livid. When the rapist's wife has the audacity to say "I'm glad you could give him what he needed." What the hell is that supposed to mean? Well, I know exactly what it's supposed to mean, but how the hell is that acceptable? I refuse to believe that this is acceptable behavior in Europe. It can't just be my American sensibilities--it's just outright sick. I am really stunned that this movie has been getting such praise from male and female critics. People are messed up.

Kiss Me Deadly (1955)

Kiss Me Deadly is a film noir. After having taking the film noir class, it was fun to casually see a noir on the beach. It is a mystery that keeps you guessing. It is the original asker of the classic question: what's in the box? I don't know if we get a proper answer, but we get most of an answer so that you can fill in the gaps yourself. We saw the original American ending, but there was an alternative ending that leaves out the final minute or so. It is a much more pessimistic ending, apocalyptic if you will. It is a movie that is reflective of the time in which it was made. In that sense, you can read it as a primary source on Cold War paranoia. I loved the 1950s answering machine. It is enormous! And also he has this oddly close relationship with his mechanic.

The Neon Demon (2016)

There is only one good thing about this movie, and that is the cinematography. Many of the shots you might find in a Vogue photoshoot. They are stylish and glitzy. The models: stoic and sexy. The first third of the film makes use of bold colors and lights, especially in the club scene. But after that, it seems like Refn gives up on style, and is just going for shock. His manner of shock is disgusting and misogynistic (and would have guessed that cannibalism would be a common theme in the Festival?). The characters are flat and one-dimensional, reducing these women to vicious animals, and one deer in the headlights.  Concerning the male characters, their stories are underdeveloped and unfinished. We are left hanging, not that I was ever really invested in them enough to care. Sure, I get the message about the modeling industry--but it is an inherently misogynistic one. As far as plot goes, there is beginning and end, but the middle is severely lacking. You are constantly asking "what the heck is happening?" Take the catwalk for example. What was the inexplicable triforce light doing there? I would go so far as to say it is boring and offensive movie. 

Dog Eat Dog (2016)

I was a little disappointed that Nicholas Cage didn't show up to the morning screening, but I was otherwise pleasantly surprised by his performance. This could have been a tired old crime story, but under Paul Schrader's direction we get a fresh take. In the Q&A, he gave an example of how he updated the classic genre. The strip club has been done before, so he did it in black and white. And the contrast between the black and white with the solid vibrant blues and reds (notably resembling police lights, or a drug-induced high) is striking. The use of color in this film is one of its greatest stylistic strengths. Willem Dafoe is really creepy. The first shot is a close up of his deranged face. And then in a manner reminiscent of a Quentin Tarantino film, he commits an admittedly stylish bloody double murder.  And then of course there is Nicholas Cage. And he is Nicholas Cage as usual, but it kind of works here. It is almost a parody of that type of character and he plays it up.

Gimme Danger (2016)

It's not a bad film, it's just not a midnight movie. At midnight, you need a blockbuster to keep you up. This movie lacked explosiveness. And I found that not being familiar with Iggy Pop's music made it difficult to care. I just wasn't really engaged with the movie. And it was too late and I was too tired to try very hard. But Iggy Pop showed up, naturally without a shirt. I don't think he passes the red carpet dress code, but they let him through. It is a pretty typical documentary with talking head interviews and archival clips. One weird thing was I thought the font they use in the movie was borderline illegible. It was something you'd find on a Halloween party invitation. It seemed inappropriate for a documentary about a rock musician.

Risk (2016)

Risk is Laura Poitras's latest documentary about Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. She has been filming Assange since 2011, before she started work on Citizenfour as well as after. And this is where I got a little confused. From watching Citizenfour, I understood that Edward Snowden reached out to her because of her previous work on the Iraq War. But I'm not so sure about that anymore. Did Snowden know about her Assange project and is that why he contacted her? Did Assange actually connect her with Snowden? What was so incredible about Citizenfour was that she was in that Hong Kong hotel room in the moment. Was it luck? Not exactly, but it was certainly fortuitous. Here, she has an incredible amount of access to Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy, but it is not quite as eventful and thrilling as Citizenfour. Perhaps it is unfair to compare though. This film has lots of merits. It really is an excellent and insightful documentary. Less confined, Poitras's camerawork is more developed. She composes her shots well and builds tension and anger. She asks her audience to question the government. She has proven herself to be one of this generation's most important filmmakers, indispensable. And after seeing her retrospective exhibit at the Whitney Museum earlier this year, I could fully appreciate her sacrifice and efforts.

There is a scene in the film that is an interview between Lady Gaga and Julian Assange. It is an awkward celebrity cameo that I certainly didn't see coming. But it is a bit of much needed comic relief to release some of the tension. And Lady Gaga is fabulous as always.  

Graduation (Bacalaureat) (2016)

This movie was surprisingly very good. Romanian cinema is vibrant and well. On the surface, it is about a father who is willing to do whatever it takes to help his daughter, who was assaulted. But it is not a revenge story as it would be in America. It is actually not about revenge at all. There is some nuance. His daughter needs to pass her final exams to accept her scholarship, but shaken up, she is not her usual smart self. This is a story that could've taken place in a different developing country, but it is unique to this world where corruption reigns supreme. I rub your back and you rub mine. This look at Eastern Europe is illuminating. Adrian Titieni gives an excellent performance as the concerned father. And things get particularly interesting when he has to drag his innocent daughter into his schemes.

The titular graduation is something of a joke. I learned that in Europe, they don't do big graduation ceremonies. There isn't really any ceremony. They all gather in the playground, no gowns, no pomp, no chairs, a few speeches. And then they hilariously gather for a picture. They get in formation for this picture unnaturally fast. There is no way that any group of human beings could line up for a picture that quickly. Otherwise, it is a very realistic film. And it is this real melodrama that makes it so compelling.

It's Only the End of the World (Juste la Fin du Monde) (2016)

From what I've seen of Xavier Dolan at the closing ceremony, he is beloved by his fellow filmmakers, but derided by the critics. And he gets teary very easily. He cried even watching other people win awards. He's like the John Boehner of the Cannes Film Festival.

But about the film…in short, I didn't like it. There are some good things about it amidst a cluster of bad things. I appreciate Dolan's style. There is a great use of head-banging pop music accompanied by strong colors and quick cuts. There is an excellent wordless dream-like scene of stylish reminiscing. The cinematography is gorgeous. He makes use of a very shallow depth of field, focusing on one thing at a time, leaving the rest of the shot in a blur. There are very close-up shots of faces (often crying or teary eyed) that are kind of unsettling. The acting is very good but the script that they're dealing with is just too emotional. There is so much yelling and screaming and I don't think it's all justified. Because the script is so circuitous. It goes around in circles without getting anywhere and freaking Antoine just riles everyone up sometimes seemingly for the hell of it. And I'm just so sick of Antoine. He provides all the drama, but his brand of drama is just exhausting and excessive. 

After the Storm (Umi yori mo Mada Fukaku) (2016)

This was one of my favorite films in the festival but I am having a little difficulty explaining why. Perhaps it is the humility of the characters, the realistic and relatable qualities of a flawed individual. Kiki Kilin is hilarious. I think she is like Japan's Betty White, still going and cracking jokes. Even if that's a bad analogy, she is certainly a big star. This is a family drama that is funny about a divorced father trying to reconnect with his son and ex-wife. It is simultaneously heartbreaking and heartwarming and side-splitting without ever being saccharine--a delicate balance. It is simply a well executed relatively simple film. It's faultless. It doesn't need to be flashy, just good acting and good writing. 

The Red Turtle (Le Tortue Rouge) (2016)

Studio Ghibli is back! And in fine form. After closing shop, Studio Ghibli co-produced this film by Michael Dudok de Wit. De Wit, an Academy Award winning short filmmaker, first caught the eye of the Japanese master Miyazaki with a short film. And presented the chance at a collaboration, he made his first feature length film. It is complete devoid of dialogue, save for a few screams, universal in any language. The music is hauntingly magical, even though not composed by Ghibli regular Joe Hisaishi. It is extraordinarily high pitched, ethereal, other worldly. And the animation does transport you to another world. It is a necessarily simple story without dialogue, straight out of Castaway.  It is actually an extraordinarily lovely story once the eponymous Red Turtle is introduced. What it can show us without telling us is very impressive. It is beautifully if simply rendered. And continuing the theme of animals as the manifestation of God (see Two Lovers and a Bear), there is the Red Turtle.

The Wailing (Goksung) (2016)

This Korean film Goksung has a few different names, like the Wailing. The French title is actually another English title, The Stranger. It refers to a Japanese man in a Korean village. The movie has a pretty negative depiction of the Japanese, as expected from a Korean perspective. What is a little more surprising is its commentary on religion. It definitely says something about Christianity and about traditional shamanism, but after sitting through 2.5 hours, I'm not positive what the message is for it is seemingly critical of both.  A number of people left the theater during the shaman ritual, which was admittedly over the top and proved a little too much for their French sensibilities. It really harps on the doubting Thomas, seeing-is-believing story, but I'm not sure if we're meant to believe in the end even after we've seen it. In short, I was still quite confused by the end and discussing it only brought slight clarity. The film opens with a passage from the Bible, which is later referred to in the film. But what we hear in dialogue seemingly contradicts what we see on screen. So then what purpose does the epigraph serve? Is it to throw us off the scent? Is it to mock Christianity or perhaps all religion?

The movie is a gruesome horror film. It was not marketed that way in the synopsis. I thought it was going to be a police detective mystery. But that is misleading because a mystery should have a clever solution, whereas this film offers no clear solution. And though he is nominally a police officer, there is some really shoddy police work in this movie. Why don't you arrest him? I was not expecting to see so many scary movies at a classy film festival like Cannes. And this was probably the scariest one I saw. It isn't a zombie movie how we know them, but there are certainly elements of zombie movies in it. It preys on our fear of the unknown and succeeds in keeping us up at night. 

Two Lovers and a Bear (2016)

Nunavut looks like a terrible place to live. Why would anyone want to live in the perpetual cold, hours away from just about everything? It is in this un"bear"able isolation that this film takes place. The two lovers have just each other. Well, and a bear. It's really strange. So this guy can talk to bears (to a manifestation of God?), but does he really talk to bears or does he imagine himself talking to bears? I think probably the latter cause he's delusional. That's what they all have in common--they're all a little mentally disturbed. Tatiana Maslany and Dane DeHaan both play that type of character convincingly. 

Fiore (2016)

After watching this movie, I'm not entirely sure why it is called Fiore. But that doesn’t detract from the movie. It is a sweet saccharine love story that ends predictably but properly. It follows a young romance that develops in a detention center. At times it almost feels like Orange is the New Black, humanizing criminals. The detention center isn't all bad. There are opportunities to have fun and make friends. It is almost even an uplifting image of Italian social services. I can only imagine that it is probably an inaccurate depiction but I can't say for sure. Daphne Soccia is a refreshing newcomer, playing in every scene and stealing many of them. I wasn't crazy about the male lead, Josciua Algeri. I can't quite say why, cause it's not like he was bad, I just didn't think his chemistry with Daphne worked quite right.

Julieta (2016)

Julieta is an excellent movie about a woman looking back on her life, realizing how little she knows about her daughter. There are two phenomenally emotional performances by Adriana Ugarte playing the younger Julieta and Emma Suarez as the older Julieta. In one fabulous shot, we see Julieta age and transform in a magical switch underneath a towel. It is a movie about a mother-daughter relationship; Pedro Almodovar returns to the theme of family and women (The people who gave us their extra invitations mislead us into believing that the protagonist was a lesbian). The character development is rich and skillfully told. As the story is primarily told in flashback, there is a natural suspense as we wonder how we get from the past to the present. For much of the film, we are left wondering what exactly the drama is. The brilliantly composed suspenseful music doesn't match the tone of the film (but rather cleverly anticipates it) until we finally realize the motive towards the end of the movie. The style is colorful and grand. The cinematography ranges from subtle to epic in the mountains of Spain. And while the ending might not provide the full closure that some clamor for, it was sufficiently satisfying to me.