Movies – Joyland

Ali Junejo and Alina Khan in “Joyland.” credit: oscilloscope.net

It takes the writer/director Saim Sadiq a very efficient seven minutes to introduce the complex dynamics of the family of Haider (Ali Junejo), the youngest of two sons, in the beginning of Sadiq’s uniquely impressive feature film debut, Joyland (Pakistan, 2022). While Haider is playing with the children (three daughters) of Saleem and Nucchi, his sister-in-law Nucchi’s water breaks on her fourth child while she is at the kitchen sink doing dishes. Haider speeds her to the hospital, where they are eventually met by Saleem (Sameer Sohail), who fruitlessly tries to convince the nurse that He Is In Charge, and barks orders at Haider, who has handled things well, even with being distracted by the entrance of another female patient who has been doused in some kind of unidentifiable liquid and is clearly in dazed distress.  

It’s typical for the sons’ families to live in the father’s house; ‘Abba’ holds sway over his two sons, their wives, and their children. Saleem, the breadwinner, and the mother, Nucchi (Sarwat Gilani), tending the household and raising her kids, meet Abba’s expectations. Haider, who stays home to help Nucchi tend the house while Mumtaz (Rasti Farooq) has her full-time job at a beauty and make-up salon, disappoints Abba, who insinuates that Haider is unmanly and cannot ‘perform’ with Mumtaz, since they have no children yet. He is dismissive of the idea that Mumtaz is happy working, isn’t interested in kids yet, and that Haider is supportive of her independence.  

Haider, under pressure to get a job from the other menfolk, looks into a lead from their family friend Qaiser (Ramiz Law); an audition as a back-up dancer at an ‘erotic’ theater there in Lahore. He’s not very good, but he has little competition, and the gig pays a fair wage. The performer he’s working with is Biba (Alina Khan), a transexual who turns out to be the woman he saw at the hospital. Haider has two weeks to become a presentable dancer, and the rehearsals are tough. But Biba’s a good dancer and teacher, and a close relationship is fostered between them that escalates until Haider is rarely home anymore. 

If things start to falter, with Haider, with his family, with his dancing gig and burgeoning attraction to Biba, it is due to their struggle against Pakistan’s inflexible and defeating fundamentalist culture. By the time most of these conflicts escalate and/or resolve themselves, for better and worse, we are equally sympathetic with Haider, Mumtaz, Nucchi, Biba and even the generous widow who lives nearby, Fayyaz (Sania Saeed) – her husband has passed away, and she’s compelled to find another man to serve and take care of – like Abba. The family members associate with each other under strict and unrealistic constraints, and the women see the worst of it. Haider’s choices, so unlike the other men’s and so open and questioning of why things need to be this way, are ultimately his undoing. But Sadiq gives equal weight to the specifics of Haider’s tragedy and the slowly-but-surely changing culture; Nucchi delivers an impressive rant to her husband that illustrates the last nerve women and enlightened men are on for continuing the status quo. Sadiq is honest about how bad things are these days, but leaves us with ideas that will remain, even if the people behind them can no longer persevere. 

Rasti Farooq and Sarwat Gilani in “Joyland.” credit: fifib.com

The performances throughout are very good, even the portrayals of those people we don’t like. We take to Rasti Farooq as Mumtaz quickly; Sarwat Gilani’s Nucchi saves her best for near the last. Alina Khan is outstanding as Biba, wearing her scars proudly and always working to make things better for herself despite a tendency towards showy self-denial. Young Joe Saade’s cinematography is superb, and the uncredited ambient musical score should indeed be credited; its use is sparse but well-chosen for its moments. 

As an American film, Joyland would still be considered exceptionally good. As a Pakistani film fighting early countrywide, then subsequent regional, bans after the first was lifted, it is admirable that the filmmakers have fought for, and managed, wide distribution. It was Pakistan’s submittal for Best International Feature, but it didn’t make the final five. It’s particularly good, and well worth seeing and supporting. 

“Joyland” opens for a weeklong run on Friday, April 28th, at the Gene Siskel Film Center.

Movies – Other People’s Children

Longtime readers of Periscope In The Bathtub (and God Bless all six of you!) already know one of my favorite (or most annoying; no half-measures here!) predilections. Anytime I run into a smart, funny, artfully crafted, admirably written European romantic comedy, I plotz, and go off on a rant about how recent American romantic comedies have been stuck in everyone’s sophomore year in high school, and the (supposedly) funniest ones involve people in their twenties and thirties who have not advanced a whit since then. The women, admittedly, seem further along than the men, but unless it was written by Nora Ephron, or pre-dates the invasion of the SNL graduates, name me one recent American romantic movie that’s genuinely funny, really smart, and portrays its romantic protagonists as full-grown adults. That is why I’m a big geek about pre-code movies from the late 1920s and 30s, before the Hays Code was implemented; grown-ups could be grown-ups, warts and all, and not everyone needed to Learn Valuable Lessons®. 

Virginie Efira, Callie Ferreira-Goncalves and Roschdy Zem in “Other People’s Children.” credit: Music Box Films.

If you think of one, then comparing it to Rebecca Zlotowski’s Other People’s Children (Les Enfants Des Autres) (France, 2022) will be instructive. Rachel Friedmann (the always impressive and underestimated Virginie Efira) is a middle-school teacher who is smart and social but prioritizes her work and her students above the idea of marriage and her own kids. While taking guitar lessons she becomes acquainted with Ali Ben Attia (Roschdy Zem), and a few classes down the line, they choose to hook up. Rachel is a bit smitten with Ali and finds herself equally drawn to Ali’s five-year-old daughter Leila (Callie Ferreira-Goncalves). Rachel’s waited too long to think about marriage and children but yearns for that now. Pushing forty, as her gynecologist indicates, starts to make the potential birth of her own child problematic and high maintenance. (I love that the gynecologist is played by documentary genius Frederick Wiseman.) Leila is from Ali’s previous marriage to Alice (Chiara Mastroianni), and we get hints, but no specifics, that Alice, perhaps, was not the most stable partner he could have chosen back then. Rachel can only hope that Ali genuinely loves her, and sees her as risk-free, as a friend, wife, and mother. Ali, however, still has options, while Rachel must make this work or time will run out on her most elemental wishes. 

Virginie Efira in “Other People’s Children.” credit: Music Box Films.

Zlotowski’s screenplay is superb, setting up a series of mature conflicts and attractions with real feeling and emotional complexity. You believe they love their jobs. You believe they love their families. You believe they’re good people who deserve each other, and yet nothing about the narrative foreshadows or guarantees that a happy ending is inevitable. The acting here is phenomenal as well: films featuring Efira are always worth checking out, Roschdy Zem is a longtime character actor who can nail any style or genre he’s faced with, and they have the chemistry of seemingly effortless pros. George Lechaptois has been Zlotowski’s go-to cinematographer lately, and his work here is lovely. Don’t cheat yourself – see it on the big screen. But see it! 

“Other People’s Children” opens at the Music Box Theater on Friday, April 21st.

Movies – The Five Devils

Adèle Exarchopoulos in “The Five Devils.” credit: le-pacte.com

For me, Léa Mysius’ new feature film The Five Devils (Les Cinq Diables) (France, 2022) left me with a mixed feeling of admiration for the narrative invention of the story coupled with disappointment that it couldn’t be brought properly home.  I hope, though, that like me, you’ll find the intriguing sense of dark thrills and the pathology of emotions that Mysius and co-writer/cinematographer Paul Guilhaume labored mightily to achieve will help to fill in a few holes and allow you to forgive a bit of well-intentioned underreach. It’s the best admirable failure I’ve seen in quite a while.

Joanne Soler, her husband Jimmy and their daughter Vicky (Adèle Exarchopoulos, Moustapha Mbengue and young Sally Dramé, respectively) are a seemingly happy family living in southeastern France in Isère, near the French Alps. Jimmy, who is of Senegalese heritage, moved to France with his parents and younger sister Julia, and he eventually became a fireman in the small town he and Joanne now live in. Joanne is a longtime local, a former beauty queen (Miss Rhône-Alpes!) who now works at the civic pool and fitness center, teaching classes and leading exercise and physical therapy. She and her daughter Vicky are very close, and they’re together a lot when they’re not working or in school. I’d put Vicky around 7 or 8 – she’s a small girl with a beautiful inquisitive face and a big bushy afro who tends to herself and isn’t very friendly with the other kids. Being small, black, shy and eccentric meets the requirements for the other (white) kids to commence bullying Vicky pretty hard. But what those kids don’t know, and what Joanne is only beginning to discover, is that Vicky’s sense of smell is astonishingly acute. She can find a random pinecone in the woods and tell you which animal had been nibbling at it. She smells a small coffee stain on a page in Joanne’s address book without turning to the page.

Vicky also explores her gift by collecting small specimens in mason jars that carry the accurate odors of particular things and people. She has a good collection of “Maman,” as well as other people and objects from nature.

When Jimmy’s sister Julia (Swala Emati) is to be released from prison after ten years, Joanne is adamantly opposed to her staying with them, but Jimmy insists there’s nowhere else for her to go. On her arrival, Vicky gets bad vibes from her as well, and rummages through Julia’s meager belongings to create a smell-jar for her. Along with peaty scotch, a few random pills and a piece of her sweater fabric, she finds an enigmatic black bottle with a spray-scent that causes her to shudder, and she adds that as well. Having shaken the mixture to blend, she takes a whiff and passes out.

Sally Dramé in “The Five Devils.” credit: captainwatch.com

In her unconscious state, Vicky can actually see and follow things that occurred in the past between Joanne, Julia, Nadine (Daphné Patakia), Jimmy and other high school-aged contemporaries involved with them at the time. Initially Vicky can walk around amidst them undetected, at least until she awakens. But in her next induced dream, she discovers that Julia can see her, is aware of her in that same high-school timeline even though Vicky shouldn’t exist for Julia then. Nonetheless, if she’s careful, Vicky can lay low and observe all of the occurrences that made them all who they are today, and the truth is both harrowing and revelatory.

The structure of the narrative is both chronological and fractured into chunks. Mysius has us fight our way through the same confusion and curiosity Vicky no doubt feels, even though Joanne’s and Julia’s tale levels out into a straightforward sequence of mutual indulgences and betrayals, and finally tragedy. The film looks both gorgeous and matter of fact: Paul Guilhaume has done similar nice work with Sébastien Lifshitz, Jacques Audiard and Eric Rochant as well. And Florencia Di Concilio’s musical score is subtle and effective without intruding on the tone of each scene – that’s important here, as characters and moods make some big, surprising transitions. Wrapping up all of these well-wrought ingredients for disaster was going to require some creative resolution either way, but Mysius ended up softening all of the hard edges and irreconcilable differences she had worked so hard to make credible. Erring on the side of love and reconciliation is rarely a bad idea; I would have made different choices, but it’s not my film, and the film that Léa Mysius has given us is damned good.

“The Five Devils” opens at the Music Box Theater on Friday, April 14^th.

Movies – The Innocent

Louis Garrel’s new film, The Innocent (L’Innocent) (France, 2023) is the fourth feature he’s directed, and it’s a very nice combination of domestic problem drama and heist thriller, with a subtle but insistent sense of humor running underneath. Following in the footsteps of his father Phillipe Garrel, who indulged a thing or two about relationships and human nature in his own films, Louis falls into a contentious triangle between his own character Abel Lefranc (whose wife has recently died), his mother Sylvie (an urgent and engaging Anouk Grinberg), who teaches acting and theater workshops at the regional prison, and Michel Ferrand (sturdy veteran Roschdy Zem), the swarthy and charming thief, and acting class standout, with whom Sylvie has fallen in love.

Anouk Grinberg, Roschdy Zem and Louis Garrel in “The Innocent.” credit: Les-Films-des-Tournelles

Sylvie’s been lovelorn for a while now – she’s had three unsuccessful marriages, and Abel, still somewhat raw from his own intimate tragedy, is especially insistent on protecting her. Sylvie protests that she’s perfectly capable of managing her marriage with Michel, but Abel starts his own enquête, helping Sylvie and Michel renovate their recently acquired storefront for a flower shop while tailing Michel back and forth through Lyon to discover with whom he’s associating these days. Sure enough, Michel is inclined to pull off a small heist in order to secure the storefront; the shady landlord isn’t nearly as accommodating as Michel was led to believe, but he’s concerned about letting Sylvie down.

Abel is a docent at Aquarium de Lyon, leading student tours (when not surveilling Michel). His co-worker and platonic friend Clémence (Noémie Merlant, who is, deservedly, getting all the work she can handle these days) is a free spirit and Tinder veteran who is aware of Abel’s recent rough breaks. Abel recruits her to help him get the red-handed goods on Michel, but Michel is surprisingly candid with Abel about the planned heist and ends up using both him and Clémence to create distractions, giving him and his partner Jean-Paul (Jean-Claude Pautot) more time to steal a shipment of Iranian caviar.

Louis Garrel and Noémie Merlant in “The Innocent.” credit: Les-Films-des-Tournelles

Abel is a classic comical character, riddled with anxiety over the mistake he thinks Mom is making, yet helplessly intrigued by the criminal adventure he and Clémence are embarking on… with the mistake his mom is making. Clémence proves to be invaluable, working the ever-shifting situation with real reflex and invention – perhaps Clémence could be teaching acting to the inmates as well. It’s a nicely agile narrative, structured, in a way, to consistently get in its own way, compelling each character to shift and adapt in ways they might not have thought were pragmatic or possible in the recent past. Tanguy Viel and Naïla Guiguet (who also worked on Garrel’s previous feature The Crusade [France, 2021]) co-wrote the screenplay with Garrel in admirable fashion. Another Crusade participant, Julien Poupard, does nice work as cinematographer, complementing Garrel’s own expanding sense of visual rhythms and appropriate transitions. And, as is typical for French films, comedies or otherwise, the story is refreshingly populated by grown-ups. It’s getting a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it run this week at the Music Box theater here in Chicago, but if you can’t make that it’ll no doubt be streaming soon. Keep an eye out.