POSER: personal plagiarism

Photo caption: Sylvie Mix in POSER. Photo courtesy of Oscilloscope Films.

Poser, a deeply psychological portrait of an artistic wannabe among real artists, was the Must See at the 2021 Nashville Film Festival and it’s in theaters now (albeit hard to find). It is worth seeking out.

Lennon (Sylvie Mix) reveres the underground music scene of Columbus, Ohio’s Old North (which she compares to the cultural achievements of Renaissance Florence). Her entrée is a podcast, which allows her to meet a panoply of local artists, including Bobbi Kitten, the charismatic front woman of the real life band Damn the Witch Siren. At first, we chuckle and cringe at Lennon, until it becomes apparent that a much darker personal plagiarism is afoot and Poser evolves into a thriller.

Poser is the first narrative feature for directors Ori Segev and Noah Dixon (Dixon wrote the screenplay), Mix, Kitten and damn near the entire cast and crew, and it’s packed with original music. Segev and Dixon are Columbus filmmakers who work in music, and they wanted to set a story in that music scene with their favorite bands; they could have done that with a banal premise, but instead their story is super original

There is so much in here about identity and the creative process, lots of original music and some cultural tourism, too. A shot of the recording of train sounds is indelibly chilling.

The podcast lets Lennon invite herself into the world she worships. When Lennon is invited up on a rooftop by two actual artists, she can barely contain her excitement. We find Lennon amusing until she practices aping an artist in front of her mirror, and we sense something much darker is afoot. Stealing the creative work of someone else is plagiarism – but what is stealing someone else’s identity?

It’s easy to mock self-invention, but every achiever begins with the ambition to be something he/she is not yet. (And it doesn’t escape me that no one but me decided that I would become a movie blogger.)

Sylvie Mix and Bobbi Kitten in POSER. Photo courtesy of Oscilloscope Films.

Be prepared to be creeped out by Mix’s performance and to be dazzled by Bobbi Kitten’s magnetism. This is the first feature film for Sylvie Mix, and she is able to turn the role of a passive, unaccomplished, initially silly character into something powerful.

Poser is the first screen credit for the exuberantly confident Bobbi Kitten, who commands our attention whenever she is onscreen. Damn the Witch Siren is the premiere electronic act in Columbus, Ohio, and five of her songs are on the soundtrack.

Z Wolf in POSER. Photo courtesy of Oscilloscope Films.

Kitten’s colleague Z Wolf is also a presence in Poser. Z Wolf always wears a full wolf mask on his head, sipping a fountain drink through a straw with great practicality.

The audience gets to visit the Old North, Columbus Ohio’s local arts neighborhood. There’s a very funny montage where we hear from real artists and aspiring artists. It reminded me of a code that The Wife and our niece Sarah devised when strolling through an art show – BA for Bad Art, NA for Not Art and KA for Kid Art. One very stoned guy marvels over the secret of the doubled-over potato chip.

Poser is rolling out in theaters and is playing Landmark’s Opera Plaza beginning July 8. My favorite film at last year’s Nashville Film Festival, Poser is one of the Best Movies of 2022 – So Far.

MOKA: whodunit mixed with psychological thriller

Emannuelle Devos in MOKA

In the atmospheric ticking clock drama Moka, Emanneulle Devos plays Diane, a Swiss woman whose daughter has been killed in a hit-and-run accident.  Months afterward, she is still consumed with grief.  Impatient with the slow and uncertain pace of the police investigation and with her husband’s attempts at finding closure, Diane launches her own investigation to find the responsible party and make them pay.

Diane starts connecting dots and begins to suspect Marlène (Nathalie Baye), a shopowner from a neighboring town in France.   Diane adopts the alias of Hélène and, creepily, begins to infiltrate Marlène’s life.  Moka is a whodunit mixed with psychological thriller – who is really the perp and what is Diane capable of doing?

I, for one, didn’t see the big plot twist coming.  Director Frédéric Mermoud adapted the screenplay from the Tatiana De Rosnay novel.

The prolific French actress Emanneulle Devos made a splash in 2001 with Read My Lips and popped up recently in the indie Frank & Lola.  Devos has a very compelling quality.  She excels at playing women who are very intense and possibly dangerous, women like Diane in Moka.

Nathalie Baye and Emmanuelle Devos in MOKA

Nathalie Baye is the Meryl Streep of France, nominated ten times for France’s Best Actress award.  She started off in 1972 as Joëlle the script girl in Trauffaut’s Day for Night, and had risen to international stardom by 1982 and her performance in The Return of Martin Guerre – one of the greatest acting turns in all cinema. In Moka, Baye’s Marlène is a seemingly uncomplicated woman.  We correctly suspect that she’s something else under the surface, but we don’t guess what that really is.  It’s great to see Baye take this supporting role and nail it.

Moka is a well-crafted fuse-burner and a showcase for two great actresses. You can stream it from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

Stream of the Week: PHOENIX – riveting psychodrama, wowzer ending

Ronald Zehfeld and nina Hoss in PHOENIX
Ronald Zehfeld and Nina Hoss in PHOENIX

In the German psychological drama Phoenix, Nina Hoss plays Nelly, an Auschwitz survivor whose face has been destroyed by a Nazi gunshot; her sister has arranged for plastic surgery to reconstruct her face. When Nelly gets her new face, we accompany her on an intense quest.

Writer-director Christian Petzold is an economical story-teller, respectful of the audience’s intelligence. Watching a border guard’s reaction to her disfigurement and hearing snippets from the sister and the plastic surgeon, we gradually piece together her back story. The doctor asks what seems like a very good question – Why would a Jewish woman successfully rooted in London return to Germany in 1938? The answer to that question involves a Woman Loving Too Much.

The sister plans to re-settle both of them in Israel, but Nelly is obsessed with finding her husband. She does find her husband, who firmly believes that Nelly is dead. But he notes that the post-surgery Nelly resembles his pre-war wife, and he has a reason to have her impersonate the real Nelly. So he has the real Nelly (who he doesn’t think IS the real Nelly) pretending to be herself. It’s kind of a reverse version of The Return of Martin Guerre.

It’s the ultimate masquerade. How would you feel while listening to your spouse describe you in detail to a stranger?

Nina Hoss is an uncommonly gifted actress. Here she acts with her face fully bandaged for the first third of the film. We ache for her Nelly’s obsessive need for her husband – and when she finally finds him, she still doesn’t really have him.

As the husband, Ronald Zehfeld shows us the magnetism that attracts Nina, along with the brusque purposefulness that he thinks he needs to survive and flourish in the post-war Germany.

Christian Petzold and Nina Hoss collaborated on the recent film Barbara (he won the Berlin Film Festival’s Silver Bear for his work). About Barbara, I wrote

“Given that’s it difficult to imagine how anyone else could have improved Barbara, I’ll be looking for Petzold’s next movie.”

Well, here it is, and it’s gripping.

The ending of the film is both surprising and satisfying. Several people in my audience let out an audible “Wow!” at the same time.

Phoenix was one of my Best Movies of 2015. It is available to stream from Netflix Instant, Amazon Video, YouTube and Google Play.

Stream of the Week: CUSTODY: the searing essence of domestic violence

Thomas Gioria in CUSTODY. Courtesy Kino Lorber.

In his searing French thriller Custody, writer-director Xavier Legrand paints the most elemental and realistic depiction of domestic violence that I’ve seen.  Custody begins with a child custody hearing over an almost 18-year-old daughter and an 11-year-old son.  Neither kids wants anything to do with the dad, and there’s more than a hint of spousal abuse in their past, but the court awards the father weekend visits with his son.

The father (Denis Ménochet) is acting very reasonably at the custody hearing, of course, but we soon see signs of the need for domination and control that is the core of domestic violence.  He can’t bear not knowing where his ex-wife (Léa Drucker) lives.  He needs to be the “winner” in every transaction.  With naked entitlement, he says “I get an extra hour because I picked you up an hour late”.   Too vile even for his own parents, the father is an insistent stalker.

Especially through the eyes of the son (Thomas Gioria in a miraculous performance),  Legrand helps the audience understand the traumatization of family violence.  Every family member lives with dread of the father surprising them like a bogeyman.  The boy takes on responsibility to protect his mom and sister by keeping the dad away from them – it’s an emotionally wracking burden that no child should bear.  The mom is not a hero or a feminist icon – she just wants to survive and not be a victim.

Intimate partner violence is about power and control.  In Custody, the father doesn’t react physically until the movie’s midpoint, and he doesn’t touch another character until almost the end.  But, without hitting anyone, he is successful in terrorizing the family.  By buzzing the mom’s doorbell in the middle of night, he proves that he really is a terrorist.  And his lethality emerges in the thriller ending.  LeGrand says that the thriller aspect of Custody comes organically from fear.

Léa Drucker and Denis Ménochet, in CUSTODY. Courtesy Kino Lorber.

Every performance is excellent, and Menochet’s has received plaudits.  But the child actor Thomas Gloria goes places you don’t expect a child to go; his performance is stunning.  Menochet discusses his performance and Gioria’s in this Inside Picturehouse interview on YouTube.

As the sister, Mathilde Auneveux delivers a mesmerizing performance of Proud Mary at her birthday party.  She is clearly distracted by at least one event in her life, but which is it?

In Custody, Legrand has also filmed the most perfectly shot pregnancy test scene ever.

Custody is the remarkable first feature from Xavier Lagrand.  The story grew out of his Oscar-winning short film with the same actors, Just Before Losing EverythingCustody won Legrand the Silver Lion (Best Director) at the Venice film festival.  I saw it at Silicon Valley’s Cinema Club months before its release.

Custody can be streamed from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

THOROUGHBREDS: which of these girls is the most sociopathic?

THOROUGHBREDS

The psychological thriller Thoroughbreds is a witty and novel exploration of sociopathy.  The story is about two teen daughters of the Connecticut super-rich:  Amanda (Olivia Cooke – so good in Me and Earl and the Dying Girl) and Lily (Anya Taylor-Joy).   Although the girls have known each other since early childhood, it turns out that Amanda’s mom, at her wit’s end, has paid for a “play date” with Lily.  This seems like a mismatch, but the two bond and then scheme to murder Lily’s odious step-father, Mark.

Amanda admits that she doesn’t feel emotions. That being said, she is very perceptive and self-aware about her lack of feelings.  Although she has an Asberger’s affect, she has learned to mimic emotional behavior.   Amanda has shocked the community with a disturbing act and has been socially ostracized.

Lily, on the other hand, is at first glance a normal teen – normal for the over-privileged, that is.  It turns out that she has her issues, too.  In the film’s biggest understatement, one girl says to the other, “empathy not your strong suit”.

Thoroughbreds is the writing and directing feature debut for Cory Finley.   Although it has its obvious similarities to psychological thrillers in the vein of Strangers on a Train, this film is not so much about the plot as an exploration of these two personalities   Finley has taken two types of sociopaths and combined them into a very original match-up.  For example, one of the girls is definitely a very high-functioning borderline personality – but she’s not the one who has been diagnosed as such.

As we are immersed in the story, we focus less about whether they’re going to kill Mark and more on which girl is more disturbed.

Both Cooke and Taylor-Joy deliver fine performances.  The late Anton Yechin appears in a very funny role as the Connecticut suburbs’ bumbling bottom-feeder.

Paul Sparks is excellent as the repellent step-dad Mark.  In Mark, Finley has crafted a character who excels in business and his many hobbies (riding, tennis, kendo), each of which he pursues obsessively.  He is the only character who has a very clear and accurate analysis of Lily’s personality.  Mark is the guy who outsiders would see as a high-achiever in many fields, even though he’s gone beyond the pale with his mega-rowing machine and monthly juice purges.  But once we see his domination and control of Lily’s mom and the creepy sexual undertones of his relationship with Lily, we want him to go.

I had been eager to see Thoroughbreds since I first watched this deliciously noirish trailer.  It was worth the wait.  Thoroughbreds is a very promising calling card by Cory Finley.

 

Enemy: Gyllenhaal plus Gyllenhaal equals…

enemy
In the psychological thriller Enemy, a guy finds out that he has an exact physical double – down to their voices and the scars on their bellies. He can’t resist looking up and meeting his twin, which unleashes some unanticipated consequences.

One guy is a tweedy college professor, kind and introspective. His doppelganger is an actor who doesn’t filter his own venal self-interest. Essentially, the difference between these two  is that one guy has a conscience and the other guy doesn’t.  They are both played by Jake Gyllenhaal.

The physical similarities even confound their partners (Sarah Gadon and Melanie Laurent).   Gadon’s performance is especially compelling in a scene when she first meets an amiable guy who doesn’t know her, but physically seems to be her husband.  Yeesh.

The key to Enemy’s surpassing the gimmick of double casting is that Gyllenhaal’s performance is so brilliant.  The difference between the two characters is so subtle.
You always know which guy you’re watching, but, other than wardrobe, it’s often hard to figure out how we can tell – it’s just in Gyllenhaal’s carriage, the occasional gesture and the hint of rapaciousness in the one character’s eyes.

Enemy is not completely literal and realistic.  Be prepared for some large and startling creatures that you will not expect.

Director Denis Villenueve knows how to deliver suspense and thrills, as he did in my top movie of 2011, Incendies, and in last year’s underrated thriller Prisoners, (also with Gyllenhaal).  Enemy isn’t as good as those films, but it’s an entertaining and mildly thought-provoking thriller.