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| A scene from Before, Now & Then |
For this week's review, Lisa Laman will be breaking the mold...a little bit. With major new wide releases being scarce in the middle of August 2023, this review will instead provide mini-reviews of a handful of new indie movies that have dropped in the past few weeks. Though the reviews are more concise than usual, perhaps this will put some films on people's radar that they weren't previously aware of. Make sure to support independent theaters and artists!
This review was written during the 2023 Writer's Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA strikes. This motion picture wouldn't have been possible without the efforts of unionized artists who deserve fair liveable wages.
Afire
Afire chronicles Leon (Thomas Schubert), who is sharing a cabin with best pal Felix (Langston Uibel) and unexpected guest Nadja (Paula Beer). Surrounding these characters is a forest that's catching fire, but that seems like an afterthought considering how overwhelmingly irritable Leon is to everyone around him. Helmed by Christian Petzold, the filmmaker behind Phoenix and Transit, Afire manages several deft feats in terms of storytelling, including making Leon a reasonably compelling protagonist despite his relentless rudeness. Also impressive? The way the project weaves an absorbing world out of just a handful of people in the German countryside. The intimate scope of the proceedings works wonders in making the tension between the lead characters feel extremely palpable while the ever-increasing wildfires function as a great subtle ticking clock. There's lots to admire in Afire in terms of its narrative intricacies, but it's also just a gripping character-based drama while you're watching it unfold.
Tori and Lokita
In the tradition of French movies about tortured youths from the likes of Robert Bresson and François Truffaut, Tori and Lokita captures the miserable lives of two kids, Tori (Pablo Schils) and Lokita (Mbundu Joely). Immigrants from Africa, the pair are on their own somewhere in Belgium, trying to make money by working alongside some shady characters. All the while, all they want to do is help their mom back home and stick together. It's incredibly impressive how well Schils and Joely both handle the weighty material of the screenplay by directors Luc Dardenne and Jean-Pierre Dardenne. A pair of great lead performances and some sharp directing, though, can't infuse Tori and Lokita with enough of a discernible personality to differentiate it from other similar dramas about adolescent characters navigating the horrors of the world. A film so conceptually harrowing shouldn't also register as so often too familiar for its own good.
Before, Now & Then
By the time Before, Now & Then begins, major historical events have already faded into the past. A series of uprisings and events in Indonesia in the middle of the 20th century have already transpired, with Before, Now & Then following Nana (Happy Salma) as she navigates her existence in the wake of all that drastic change. Now in a new marriage, Nana is tormented by memories of her first partner, who was brutally killed, while finding salvation in a friendship with Ino (Lara Basuki), a lady her newest lover is carrying on an affair with. The Ino and Nana dynamic in Before, Now & Then is one of the greatest strengths of this project. Not only is it a conceptually interesting pairing that subverts viewer expectations over how Nana would respond to meeting a mistress, but the two actors have such compelling chemistry with one another. Quiet scenes of them talking about their respective internal woes and existential queries are incredibly fascinating. Writer/director Kamila Andini is wise to focus so heavily on this duo and she shows equally strong chops in how she visually depicts the past bleeding into Nana's modern life.
Passages
The very first scene of the latest Ira Sachs movie, Passages, begins with Tomas (Franz Rogowski) working as a director and being extremely picky over how one performer should depict walking into a club. It's a terrific distillation of how controlling Tomas is, a trait that oozes over into his personal life with his husband Martin (Ben Whishaw) and new lover Agathe (Adèle Exarchopoulos). The ensuing twisty-turny depiction of Tomas bouncing between two loves proves a most transfixing portrait of just how messy relationships can be, especially when a member of those dynamics is as toxic as Tomas. Sachs demonstrates a subtly keen visual eye for how to capture all that romantic turmoil and his decision to opt for lengthy single-takes when filming graphic sex scenes (including an extremely memorable one between Martin and Tomas) shows remarkable control. Even more so than the gripping script and camerawork, though, the true star of Passages has to be Ben Whishaw, who once again demonstrates his mastery of quiet but impactful characters with his work as Martin. The guy's haunted eyes and quietest line deliveries spark with more personality than most forceful monologues delivered by "method actors".
Shortcomings
Shortcomings protagonist Ben (Justin H. Min) is insufferable. That's the point of Randall Park's directorial debut (adapted from Adrian Tomine's graphic novel of the same name, with Tomin also writing the screenplay adaptation), which doesn't hold back in depicting Ben being short-tempered and cynical to everyone he encounters, including his girlfriend Miko (Ally Maki). The film's commitment to just how deeply unpleasant Ben is, Justin H. Min's engaging lead performance, and the fact that many of his personality traits seem designed to critique the sort of Letterboxd/Film Twitter heads who might her-worship Ben ends up making this character (at least for me) more interesting than repellant. However, Tomine and Park end up doing their job a little too well, as Ben's toxic traits are so well-defined that, by the time the third act arrives, one yearns for a darker conclusion rather than a rushed tidy wrap-up. Don't give us happily ever after, offer up something more challenging and morally ambiguous! Still, Shortcomings, even with an underwhelming finale, proves to be just the kind of breezy, well-acted indie that goes down easy in the summertime. Best of all, it's a great showcase for the talents of Joy Ride breakout star Sherry Cola, whose so much fun here in Shortcomings as Ben's best pal Alice.
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