Velvet Buzzsaw

Things that make you go “hmmm”.

(2019) Horror Satire (Netflix) Jake Gyllenhaal, Rene Russo, Zawe Ashton, John Malkovich, Billy Magnussen, Toni Collette, Tom Sturridge, Natalia Dyer, Daveed Diggs, Alan Mandell, Mig Macario, Nitya Vidyasagar, Sedale Threatt Jr., Keith Bogart, Sofia Toufa, Kassandra Voyagis, Mark Leslie Ford, Amy Tsang, Mark Steger, Andrea Marcovicci, Pisay Pao, Ian Alda, Valentina Gordon. Directed by Dan Gilroy

 

I have said many a time that there is a difference between art and Art and it largely depends on how seriously the artist takes him/herself. Art is pretentious and arrogant whereas art is inspiring and insightful. Director Dan Gilroy, acclaimed for his work on Nightcrawlers, knows the difference.

In this horror-laced satire about the contemporary commercial art world, he reunites with two of the stars of Nightcrawlers. Morf Vandewalt (Gyllenhaal) is the self-important art critic whose words can triple the price that a painting will get, or destroy a budding artist’s career entirely. Art dealer Rhodora Haze (Russo) shares a symbiotic relationship with him. Morf, who is bisexual, has a thing for Rhodora’s assistant Josephina (Ashton).

Josephina wants more than to be someone’s coffee-fetcher and when an elderly man in her apartment building dies literally in front of her door, she discovers her chance – his apartment is filled with haunting, vaguely unsettling art work. She knows instantly that it’s the Real Deal and enters into a partnership with Rhodora to sell it, even though the man expressly wanted his art destroyed and not sold. Nevertheless, sold it is and as a number of characters in the art world – up and coming agent Jon Dondon (Sturridge), gallery curator Gretchen (Collette) who looks to make her own mark (and fortune), to name a couple – jockey for position to get a piece of the pie. Then, they start to turn up dead in horrible, gruesome ways.

The film relies heavily on smart, snappy dialogue and Gyllenhaal gives one of his best performances to date as Morf, whose evolution during the film is presaged by the homonym of his first name. In fact, the entire cast, which incidentally is a pretty nifty one, does a bang-up job with particular kudos to Dyer as one of the few sympathetic characters in the film.

The movie doesn’t go easy on the gore which is likely to delight horror fans, although they might not know what to make of the satire that makes up the first third of the movie. Regardless, this is wildly entertaining and one of the better movies under the Netflix banner.

REASONS TO SEE: Gyllenhaal is delightful. Entertaining in a smarmy way. Lampoons the artificiality and pretentiousness of the commercial art world.
REASONS TO AVOID: A bit too ponderous.
FAMILY VALUES: There is plenty of violence and gore, as well as a surfeit of profanity, some sexuality, brief nudity and a scene of drug use.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Gilroy, who also wrote the film, stated in an interview that the unusual character names were inspired by Charles Dickens
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Netflix
CRITICAL MASS: As of 6/14/20: Rotten Tomatoes: 62% positive reviews, Metacritic: 61/100
COMPARISON SHOPPING: A Bucket Full of Blood
FINAL RATING: 8/10
NEXT: Sometimes Always Never

Séraphine

Séraphine went up a hill to paint a pail of water…

(2008) Biographical Drama (Music Box) Yolande Moreau, Ulrich Tukur, Anne Bennent, Geneviéve Mnich, Adélaide Leroux, Nico Rogner, Franҫoise Lebrun, Héléne Hardouin, Serge Lariviére, Léna Bréban, Sandrine Bodenes, Muriel Riou, Dominique Pozzetto, Josette Ménard, Xavier Pottier, Jean-Pascal Abribat, Anne Benoit. Directed by Martin Provost

 

This is a film about the French artist Séraphine Louis (Moreau), a doughty housekeeper by day who painted miraculous works of art by night. She believed herself to be instructed by angels to paint and she was indeed self-taught. Her work caught the eye of German art critic Wilhelm Uhde (Tukur) who had also discovered Rousseau; he helped bring her work into the public eye and sold some of her paintings but her delusions eventually caught up with her and she would pass away in a French asylum in 1942. The movie is mainly about the years in which most of her painting was done, and depicts little of her early years, showing instead her abject poverty and her connection to the trees and flowers.

Moreau is brilliant here; she is one of the greatest actresses to ever come out of Belgium and this is one of her best performances; the film is worth seeking out for that alone. It is also beautiful to look at as cinematographer Laurent Brunet uses Louis’ own work for inspiration, as well as capturing the bucolic village life of Senlis (where Louis lived most of her life) near Chantilly.

WHY RENT THIS: Moreau’s performance is breathtaking. The cinematography is beautiful.
WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: The pacing is a bit slow-moving..
FAMILY VALUES: There are some adult themes and mild profanity.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The film won seven Césars at the 2008 César Awards (the French equivalent of the Oscar) including Best Film and Best Actress for Moreau.
NOTABLE HOME VIDEO EXTRAS: There is a photo gallery of the real Séraphine Louis’ paintings.
BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $9.2M on a $3.6M production budget.
SITES TO SEE: Netflix (DVD rental only), Amazon, Google Play, Hulu, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Begging Naked
FINAL RATING: 7.5/10

Summer Hours (L’heure d’été)

In life there may be nothing so wonderful as a mother's touch, no matter how old you are.

(IFC) Juliette Binoche, Jeremie Renier, Charles Berling, Edith Scob, Dominique Reymond, Valerie Bonneton, Isabelle Sadoyan, Kyle Eastwood. Directed by Olivier Assayas

One of the truths of life is that sooner or later we are all affected by death in one way or another, whether it is our own or that of a loved one. Most of us will have to face the loss of our parents sooner or later. How we deal with that loss is part of what defines who we are.

Helene (Scob) has gathered her children together for a momentous occasion, that of her 75^th birthday. They have come from all over – Adrienne (Binoche) works for a magazine in New York and is engaged to marry James (Eastwood), and Jeremie (Renier) works for a large corporate entity that has sent him to China. Only Frederic (Berling) remains in France and it is he that Helene pulls aside to matter-of-factly discuss the disposition of her property upon her death – the summer home they are gathered in that once belonged to her uncle, a noted painter – and of the beautiful things in it, most of which were collected by her uncle and many of which are valuable. Helene realizes, even if Frederic does not, that her children have moved into the rhythm of their own lives and have no time for the songs of their childhood. Frederic believes that the other children will want to keep the house and its things in the family.

Shortly after her birthday Helene passes away and despite her attempts to prepare them, it comes as a shock to her children. True to Helene’s prediction, Jeremie and Adrienne are more disposed towards selling the house, donating some of the things to the Musee d’Orsay in Paris and auctioning the rest. For Frederic it is a difficult pill to swallow and it puts a barrier, a small one but there nonetheless, between him and his siblings.

Yet there is much left unsaid. As the preparations are made to dispose of the property, the memories that were made there begin to recede and dissipate into the shadows of time. Even Frederic adjusts to the idea of the summer house being given to the caretaking of another family. Only Helene’s maid/cook/companion Eloise (Sadoyan) and, strangely enough, Frederic’s children, truly realize what they have given up.

If a studio had made this movie, the end result would have been far more sentimental and in the end would have been a standard tearjerker. In the hands of a master director as Assayas is (Irma Vep and Demonlover are two of his better-known works in the U.S.) the end result is more touching than sentimental, more thoughtful than emotional but balancing out all of these elements to make a movie that deals with adult emotions and adult situations on an adult level.

It helps to have an outstanding cast. Berling is an outstanding actor and he gets to shine here, as the son to whom it falls to sell the house and its things. It isn’t an easy task – I thought of all of the things in my mother’s house that one day I will have to see to and it hit home in a big way. They aren’t just things, you see; they are the artifacts of a life, and when they are sold, given away, donated or disposed of, that life slips away a little more. It’s another death, in that sense, and Frederic knows it and Berling shows it.

Binoche is simply one of the most incredible actresses on Earth; she plays real people, digs down to real emotions and rarely, if ever, strikes a false note. It is truly a shame she is less known on this side of the Atlantic except to film lovers willing to take a chance on a movie with subtitles. In a fair and just world, she would be the equal of Julia Roberts in fame and acclaim but she can be satisfied with the knowledge that those who appreciate her really appreciate her. She plays Adrienne as a woman consumed by her career but is called upon to face her own life and her own choices when her mother dies. Adrienne is not the sort to let her emotions get away from her, although cracks show in the facade from time to time. It is a masterful performance.

This is the kind of movie that can make more of an impression on you than any digital effect. This is about life, the things we all deal with – the dynamics of family, the pain of loss and the persistence of memory. They are the little things; lunch in the back yard, a swim in the pond, a mother’s gentle touch; these are the sums that make the whole of our lives. Assayas captures this in a movie that is not just about the sweet warmth of summer, but the knowledge that every summer must end, infused with the golden tones of late summer as it morphs into early fall. It is sad and sweet yet inevitable and even comforting. We all pass from summer into fall and winter, because that is the nature of life. Whether it is nobler to preserve our seasons of summer or to embrace the changes of the seasons instead I cannot say; I think in fact that it is our own opinion on that which is truly what defines us as people.

WHY RENT THIS: Amazing performances and one of the most affecting scripts in recent times.  

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: The subject matter of parental loss is at times very raw and hard to watch.

FAMILY VALUES: The subject matter is plenty mature and there’s some foul language; while there’s nothing overtly adult that you need to keep from the kids, this is not a movie most kids will want to share with you.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Kyle Eastwood, Clint’s son, cameos as Adrienne’s fiancée.

NOTABLE DVD EXTRAS: The Criterion Edition includes a wonderful piece on the Musee d’Orsay and its role in the production, and the Blu-Ray edition also includes a retrospective on the career of director Assayas as well as a 24-page booklet of set photographs.

FINAL RATING: 8/10

TOMORROW: Robin Hood