FALLING INTO PLACE: uncommonly authentic

Aylin Tezel and Chris Fulton in FALLING INTO PLACE. Courtesy of Cinequest.

The absorbing Scottish romantic drama Falling into Place begins on the Isle of Skye when two visiting London creatives meet outside a rowdy pub and flirt.  Kira (Aylin Tezel), a theater set designer, is on holiday.  Ian (Chris Fulton), a musician, has grown up on Skye and intends to shoehorn in an infrequent visit with his family. Kira is trying to get beyond a recent breakup, while Ian’s relationship is in its final throes. 

When Kira hears that Ian has a girlfriend, she puts in the brakes, but she’s drawn enough to Ian that she accompanies him as he faces some family drama. Then, Kira and Ian return separately to London. The audience soon wants these two to get and stay together, but they’ll need to get past some trauma in Ian’s family, his current romantic entanglement, Kyra’s feelings for her ex, an attractive boss with his eyes on Kira and some bad timing.

Utterly devoid of the tropes in conventional movie romances, Falling into Place is profoundly authentic. This is the first feature for German-born writer/director Aylin Tezel (who also stars as Kira), and it’s a very strong and promising debut. As a director, she paces Falling into Place perfectly, keeping us eagerly engaged as the threads if Kira and Ian meet and part and meet again. She is especially adept directing the scenes in the Isle of Skye bar and the London art gallery opening, with lots of moving bodies and ambient sound. But it’s Tezel’s screenplay, without a single false note, that really soars.

I screened Falling Into Place for its US premiere at Cinequest.

THE TASTE OF THINGS: two passions – culinary and romantic

Photo caption: Juliette Binoche and Benoit Magimel in THE TASTE OF THINGS. Courtesy of IFC Films.

The French romantic drama The Taste of Things is the story of a man consumed by two passions – an obsession with gastronomy and a profound love for a woman. It’s also one of the mouthwatering movies in the history of cinema.

The man is Dodin (Benoit Magimel), a famous gourmand in 1884 France, a key moment in the history of the culinary arts, when the master French chef Escoffier was still in his 30s. The woman adored by Dodin is Eugenie (Juliette Binoche), not coincidentally his live-in cook.

The Taste of Things begins with a long scene (15+ minutes) as Eugenie leads a team in producing an elaborate garden to table meal, with every ingredient prepared old school, the long and hard way. Fish quenelles are formed by hand, shrimp shells are boiled into a stock, and the quenelles are pached in the shrimp stock. It takes hours for a rack of veal turned into an OMG marvel. It turns out that this is a multi-course feast prepared for Dodin and his chatty four buddies. The guys all fall SILENT when the consommé appears, and then, as the courses pile up, don’t say anything more that isn’t about the meal itself or the history of gastronomy.

The fruit of Eugenie’s labor, exquisitely photographed, are the height of food porn. One highlight is a spectacular vol-au-vent. When Eugenue shows up with a giant croissant-like thing (a giant bioche?) that she and the four buddies dig into with their hands, there were audible gasps from the audience at the screening.

There’s even a scene with a culinary Holy Grail, now illegal in the US, fabled ortolans devoured as per tradition, with the diners’ heads under their napkins. Of course gastronomy, as any human endeavor, can be taken to silly extremes, which is illustrated by a dinner for Dodin and his friends, hosted by a prince under the mistaken impression that more is always better.

Eugenie prepares masterpiece after masterpiece for Dodin until her health falters, giving him the opportunity to express his love by preparing and serving her an even more formidable dinner.

The Taste of Things is a film by writer-director Anh Hung Tran, who certainly knows his way around movie passion and movie foods (The Scent of Green Papaya).

Benoit Magimel and Juliette Binoche in THE TASTE OF THINGS. Courtesy of IFC Films.

It’s always a pleasure to watch the radiant Juliette Binoche, especially when she’s playing an endearing character like Eugenie, who keeps resisting Dodin’s offers of marriage even as she values his culinary partnership and welcomes him into her bed. Their relationship is perfectly summed up in the epilogue when Eugenie asks Dodin a question and receives his answer with bliss. She feels loved – and on her terms.

The Wife liked The Taste of Things less than I did, in part because she was less entertained by the long scenes of meal preparation, which captivated me. (I am The Movie Gourmet, after all.)

We both, however, thoroughly enjoyed the character of the culinary child prodigy Pauline (Bonnie Chagneau-Ravoire), especially her reaction to her first Baked Alaska and her growing into a peer of Dodin’s.

The Taste of Things was France’s submission to the Academy Awards. It’s going on my list of Best Foodie Movies. It’s playing in a few arthouses now; I’ll let you know when it releases on VOD.

PAST LIVES: a profound and refreshing romance

Photo caption: Greta Lee, John Magaro and Teo Yoo in PAST LIVES. Courtesy of A24

Past Lives is a profound romance, with one evolving relationship, and then a second, with the lives, loves and obsessions of three decent people swirling between two cultures over 24 years. The character-driven screenplay is a triumph for writer-director Celine Song in her first feature film.

The story of Past Lives begins 24 years ago in Korea, where a girl and a boy, 12-year-old classmates, are childhood best buddies. They have grown up as playmates, and are now each other’s first crush. The girl’s parents permanently relocate the family to Canada, and the two kids lose touch.

Twelve years later, the girl has grown into Nora (Greta Lee), a budding playwright in New York. The boy, Hae Sung (Teo Yoo) is an engineering student in Korea. Hae Sung tracks down Nora through social media, and the two have a reunion on Skype. The video calls became more frequent, and they kindle a tender and genuine adult relationship. They are becoming so close that it’s frustrating to not be geographically together, but they each have committed to career plans; she is beginning a writing fellowship in New York, and he’s about to go learn Mandarin in China. Nora recognizes that they are slipping into a love that is impractical and would require a major sacrifice by one of them – and she ends the calls.

Another twelve years pass, and Nora is still living in New York, but with her husband Arthur (John Magaro). Hae Sung is visiting New York and Nora arranges to meet him. When they finally meet again face-to-face, Nora learns what she may have suspected – the sole reason for Hae Sung’s visit is to see her. This meeting, awaited for 24 years, is clearly emotionally loaded for him; is it loaded for her as well?

Photo caption: Teo Yoo and Greta Lee in PAST LIVES. Courtesy of A24.

Now Nora has two men who want her, and she’s married to one of them. To describe Past Lives as a love triangle might be technically correct but would mislead you, because Past Lives is so specific, authentic and refreshing that it defies the conventions of the form. That we are so often surprised by Song’s movie is probably a telling comment on how we have been conditioned by insipid, shallow and inauthentic movie romances.

According to the conventions of Hollywood, Nora would run off with her soulmate – but which guy is that, exactly? It’s not quite the choice between Rick Blaine or Victor Laszlo, either. Each guy can give her something the other cannot. Each guy understand aspects of her that the other cannot. Nora describes Hae Sung to Arthur with “He’s so Korean“, and it’s unclear to what extent Nora see this as a good or bad thing.

There’s nary a false note in either of Nora and Hae Sung’s reunions, and the final dialogue is PERFECT.

Greta Lee in PAST LIVES. Courtesy of A24.

The performances do justice to the superb screenplay. Greta Lee plays Nora, who is the most central character (because she must choose between the others). Lee’s Nora is usually reserved and contained with others, sometimes even a cipher, but Lee is still able to convey Nora’s thinking and feeling.

Teo Yoo’s plays Hae Sung as an obsessive who ultimately evolves the most of any character. To Hae Sung, Nora is an object of fantasy for decades, and then he must see her as a person. There’s a scene at a carousel where Nora wants Hae Sung to speak to his feelings, and heartbreakingly, his cultural upbringing just won’t let him do it.

The most extraordinary performance is by John Magaro, an actor I had seen in The Big Short, The Many Saints of Newark and 18 1/2 without any appreciation that he was capable of work like this. Who wouldn’t be threatened when your partner’s first crush shows up to woo her? And when they are next to you, speaking with each other in a language you can’t understand? Arthur knows that he has played his hand already, and can only wait for the other cards to be revealed to see if he has won or lost. If he acts out, he would only hurt his chances. As he puts on a mask of stoicism and civility, Magaro’s Arthur is practically vibrating with anxiety.

In a clever prologue, Celine Song begins her movie with unseen patrons at a New York City bar trying to figure out the back story between the three people grouped across the room – an Asian man, an Asian woman and a white guy. Indeed, the movie is about who those three people are to each other. Like her character Nora, Song was born in Korea, immigrated to Canada with her parents, and lives in New York City with her American writer husband.

Song seems to be saying that love is more than one’s own feelings of attraction and connection; love also requires knowing who the other person truly is and is not, which demands setting aside one’s own perspective to listen and observe empathetically.

Past Lives is one of the Best Movies of 2023 – So Far, and is currently the best film I’ve seen this year.

A LOVE SONG: bittersweet, heartfelt and funny

Photo caption: Dale Dickey in A LOVE SONG. Courtesy of San Luis Obispo Film Fest.

A Love Song is a welcome starring vehicle for the longtime character actress Dale Dickey, whose every good night and every bad night is etched into the lines on her face. Dickey plays Faye, whom we meet camping alone in her travel trailer in the remote high desert of Western Colorado.

After a decades-long marriage, Faye has been widowed for seven years, paralyzed by grief in the first two. Now she moves confidently around her solo campsite, displaying her serious outdoor skills and an impressive touch for fishing for crawdads.

It is revealed that Faye is waiting for someone. She has invited a high school friend, whom she hasn’t seen for over three decades, to re-connect. That friend is Lito (Wes Studi), who has also been widowed after a long marriage.

A Love Song wistfully explores loneliness and how grief can impact the ability to love again.

Dickey is on screen almost every moment, and she’s great. Dickey has a way of making even her supporting performances unforgettable. She broke through as the scary meth matriarch in Winter’s Bone, and played the flinty bank teller in Hell and High Water.

Wes Studi and Dale Dickey in A LOVE SONG. Courtesy of Bleecker Street.

Studi recently received a deserved lifetime Oscar. His performances as very scary Native American warriors in Dances with Wolves and The Last of the Mohicans sparked a very impressive body of film work.

Dickey and Studi have said that each had their very first on-screen kiss in A Love Song.

A Love Song is the first feature for writer-director Max Waterman-Silver, who uses his debut to show off his native Western Colorado. I found his direction inconsistent, but he delivered two perfect single-shot scenes, both of very long duration, one when Lito and Faye are sitting with guitars, the other when the two are standing outside Faye’s trailer.

Faye is occasionally visited by four Native American brothers with their little sister as their spokeswoman. Waterman-Silver’s sense of comic timing in these scenes is flawless.

Both The Wife and I were periodically distracted by holes or inconsistencies in the screenplay. At one point, the dog inexplicably vanishes (fortunately temporarily). And there’s no way that someone with Faye’s seasoning would hike up a mountain without water, especially when she can’t make it back down by nightfall.

I admire filmmakers who make their films short enough (82 minutes) so they can pace them slowly. The Wife, less patient with slow burns, still thought that it ran long.

The performances by Dickey and Studi are reason enough to watch this bittersweet, gentle, heartfelt and funny film. I saw A Love Song at the San Luis Obispo International Film Festival. It releases into theaters this weekend.

BOTH SIDES OF THE BLADE: not your conventional love triangle

Photo caption: Juliette Binoche and Vincent Lindon in Claire Denis’ BOTH SIDES OF THE BLADE (FIRE). Courtesy of SFFILM.

With some of Frances’s top filmmakers on the job – Both Sides of the Blade is not your conventional love triangle.

Sara (the ever rapturous Juliette Binoche) has built a ten-year relationship with Jean (Vincent Lindon), that has survived his prison sentence. Sara had previously been with François (Grégoire Colin), but left him because she valued Jean’s reliability, loyalty and decency. When François shows up again in their lives, Sara is drawn to him again.

Both Sides of the Blade is the work of French auteur Claire Denis (35 Shots of Rum, Let the Sunshine In). With Denis, Binoche and Lindon layering in all the complexities of these characters, the result is unexpected.

I screened Both Sides of the Blade (also known as Fire) earlier this year for this year’s San Francisco International Film Festival (SFFILM). It opens in Bay Area theaters this week.

A LOVE SONG: bittersweet, heartfelt and funny

Photo caption: Dale Dickey in A LOVE SONG. Courtesy of San Luis Obispo Film Fest.

A Love Song is a welcome starring vehicle for the longtime character actress Dale Dickey, whose every good night and every bad night is etched into the lines on her face. Dickey plays Faye, whom we meet camping alone in her travel trailer in the remote high desert of Western Colorado.

After a decades-long marriage, Faye has been widowed for seven years, paralyzed by grief in the first two. Now she moves confidently around her solo campsite, displaying her serious outdoor skills and an impressive touch for fishing for crawdads.

It is revealed that Faye is waiting for someone. She has invited a high school friend, whom she hasn’t seen for over three decades, to re-connect. That friend is Lito (Wes Studi), who has also been widowed after a long marriage.

A Love Song wistfully explores loneliness and how grief can impact the ability to love again.

Dickey is on screen almost every moment, and she’s great. Dickey has a way of making even her supporting performances unforgettable. She broke through as the scary meth matriarch in Winter’s Bone, and played the flinty bank teller in Hell and High Water.

Studi recently received a deserved lifetime Oscar. His performances as very scary Native American warriors in Dances with Wolves and The Last of the Mohicans sparked a very impressive body of film work.

Dickey and Studi have said that each had their very first on-screen kiss in A Love Song.

A Love Song is the first feature for writer-director Max Waterman-Silver, who uses his debut to show off his native Western Colorado. I found his direction inconsistent, but he delivered two perfect single-shot scenes, both of very long duration, one when Lito and Faye are sitting with guitars, the other when the two are standing outside Faye’s trailer.

Faye is occasionally visited by four Native American brothers with their little sister as their spokeswoman. Waterman-Silver’s sense of comic timing in these scenes is flawless.

Both The Wife and I were periodically distracted by holes or inconsistencies in the screenplay. At one point, the dog inexplicably vanishes (fortunately temporarily). And there’s no way that someone with Faye’s seasoning would hike up a mountain without water, especially when she can’t make it back down by nightfall.

I admire filmmakers who make their films short enough (82 minutes) so they can pace them slowly. The Wife, less patient with slow burns, still thought that it ran long.

The performances by Dickey and Studi are reason enough to watch this bittersweet, gentle, heartfelt and funny film. I saw A Love Song at the San Luis Obispo International Film Festival. It has been picked up for distribution by Bleecker Street, which plans a July 29 theatrical release.

COMPARTMENT NO. 6: a surprising journey to connection

Photo caption: Seidi Haarla and Yuri Borisov in COMPARTMENT No. 6. Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

In Compartment No. 6, an odd couple must share the same claustrophobic compartment in a dreadful train ride to Murmansk. She aims to see ancient petroglyphs, and he is heading to a job in a massive mining operation, but they’re really on a journey to human connection.

Compartment No. 6 won the Grand Prix, essentially the second place award, at Cannes; (in 2022, as in recent years, the Grand Prix winner is a much better movie than the winner of the more prestigious Palm d’Or).

Laura (Seidi Haarla) is a mousy Finnish college student in Russia, studying Russian language or archaeology – it’s not exactly clear. She is having a fling with a 40ish Russian professor, and Laura is more deeply invested in the relationship than is her new girlfriend. Laura is out of her depth with the girlfriend’s academic friends. The girlfriend cancels their planned trip at the last moment, and Laura, disappointed, still heads off to Murmansk on her own.

Given the discomfort of Russian train travel, this multi day trip is not for the faint-hearted anyway, but Laura is alarmed to find herself sharing a second-class compartment with a nightmare of a roommate. Ljoha (Yuri Borisov) is an obnoxious drunk, a slob leaving a trail of cigarette ashes and partially eaten sausage. This is a guy devoid of intellectual curiosity, who has never had an original thought. What he possesses in mass quantities is macho boorishness – his icebreaker is “are you traveling alone to sell your cunt?”

More restrained when he is sober, Ljoha is socially inept. As emotionally vulnerable as is Laura, so is Ljoha – he’s just trying very hard to hide it with bravado.

What is important to Laura – and to Ljoha? Fundamentally, each needs to find human connection. Compartment No. 6 takes us on their unpredictable journey. This is not a conventional hate-each-other-and-then-fall-for-each-other movie romance.

Compartment No. 6 is hardly an advert for Russian passenger trains. The train attendant is surly and officious, the running water doesn’t work, and the dining car menu is ever diminishing. The passengers are constantly smoking, and they have no ability to wash themselves. As the trains winds northward, you can’t help but imagine the rancid odors.

Compartment No. 6 is the second feature for Finnish director and co-writer Juro Kuosmanen. Boy, I liked this movie.

12 MONTHS: an authentic relationship evolves

Photo caption: Michael James Kelly and Elizabeth Hirsch-Tauber in 12 MONTHS. Courtesy of Cinequest.

The uncommonly authentic 12 Months traces the year-long span of a romance, using vignettes that are snapshots of the relationship’s evolution. Just like a real life relationship, 12 Months has moments that are playful and moments that are searing. It’s the Must See at this year’s Cinequest.

Ellie (Elizabeth Hirsch-Tauber) and Clark (Michael James Kelly) share a first date, which leads to another, and things get serious. Both Ellie and Clark are decent, smart, sincere and vulnerable; each has quirks, but neither is a bundle of red flags. Each deserves to find a partner, and, so, are they a fit?

Directed by Clinton Cornwell in his feature debut, 12 Months is entirely improvised. Cornwell is credited for the story, Hirsch-Tauber as executive story editor and Kelly as contributing writer. 12 Months is an especially promising calling card for all three.

12 Months soars in recognizing that relationships are rarely symmetrical. The two people involved generally experience different levels of attraction, security, commitment, confidence, comfort and maturity – and at different times.

And 12 Months understands that what a relationship can survive isn’t always predictable, whether it be depression, a sexual proclivity or an out-of-town work assignment.

Clearly, Cornwell, Hirsch-Tauber and Kelly are extremely keen and perceptive observers of relationship behavior (whether from their own or those of others). They don’t hit a single wrong note in12 Months.

Clark’s and Ellie’s best pals are played, respectively, by Christopher Mychael Watson and Lindsey Rose Naves, and they are hilarious.

Movies like 12 Months are why we have film festivals. Cinequest hosts the world premiere of 12 Months, and you can stream it at Cinejoy. View the trailer.

Michael James Kelly and Elizabeth Hirsch-Tauber in 12 MONTHS. Courtesy of Cinequest.

MA BELLE, MY BEAUTY: a simmering romantic reunion

Idella Johnson, Sivan Noam Shimon and Hannah Pepper in Marion Hill’s film MA BELLE, MY BEAUTY. Courtesy of SFILM.

In the beginning of the simmering romantic drama Ma Belle, My Beauty, the New Orleans musicians Bertie (Idella Johnson) and Fred (Lucien Guignard) receive a surprise visitor. Fred, the band leader and Bertie, the vocalist, have married and relocated their jazz band to a rambling French farmhouse owned by Fred’s parents. Both the marriage and the move were Bertie’s idea, but now she’s depressed and no longer working with the band.

We learn that Bertie, while involved with Fred, had a simultaneous relationship with Lane (Hannah Pepper), until Lane starting dating another woman. Now Lane is single again, and Fred, hoping to shake Bertie out of her depression, has invited Lane to visit and surprise Bertie.

A surprise it is, and not altogether welcome. Bertie tells Hannah that Bertie’s happiness does not depend on either Fred or Lane – but is that true? And is Lane really willing to accept a non-exclusive relationship? And who is whose creative muse?

Bertie and Hannah spar, Hannah has a noisy fling with another guest, sexual tensions simmer, and before you know it, somebody is harnessing on the strap-on.

Almost all the action takes place at the farmhouse and the setting is sumptuous – Grade A Travel Porn. The farm is located in Anduze, France, at the very edge of the Rhone Valley, nestled in the foothills of the Cévennes.

Ma Belle, My Beauty is the first feature by writer-director Marion Hill, and it won an audience award at Sundance. I screened Ma Belle, My Beauty at SFFILM, and, in the Q&A, Marion Hill said that she was seeking to shoot a film in this idyllic French location, along with aspiring to explore the post-breakup dynamics of polyamorous women.

There’s a touch of jazz in Ma Belle, My Beauty, and Idella Johnson’s vocal performance shine.

The setting may be languid, but we know that Hill’s characters may erupt in passion at any moment. Ma Belle, My Beauty is a gorgeous, sexy, character-driven film. I screened Ma Belle, My Beauty at the 2021 SFFILM.

DIRT MUSIC: a gorgeous bodice-ripper with a WTF ending

Garrett Hedlund and in Kelly MacDonald in DIRT MUSIC. Photo courtesy of Blue Finch Film Releasing.

Dirt Music is a contemporary bodice-ripper set on the wild West Coast of Australia. Georgie (Kelly Macdonald) has become increasingly dissatisfied in her lot as the second wife of Jim (David Wenham), the local commercial fishing baron. Taking some personal time out on the beach, she happens upon Lu, a recluse who ekes out his subsidence from midnight poaching; it turns out that Lu has been emotionally scarred by tragedy in his family.

Georgie and Lu are soulmates and soon become passionate bedmates. Jim, pissed off about Lu’s poaching and REALLY pissed that he is screwing his wife, drives Lu out of town. Georgia goes on a quest to find Lu, who has become even more reclusive, becoming a needle in an endless haystack of tiny coastal islands. At this point, there’s a very unexpected plot twist that is justified later by a dark secret about the earlier tragedy,

During Georgie’s search, the landscapes and seascapes of Western Australia, become even more spectacular.

Will Georgie reunite with Lu or will she have to live only with his tragic memory? The WTF ending wants to have it both ways. As I said, WTF?

Dirt Music is based on the award-winning novel by Australian writer Tim Winton, (and I am assuming that a substantial percentage of the Australian movie audience had previously read the novel). In fact, this is one of those stories that might be better told as a novel.

Kelly MacDonald in DIRT MUSIC. Photo courtesy of Blue Finch Film Releasing.

Kelly Macdonald has been a compelling screen presence since her debut in Trainspotting. She’s brought her intelligent watchfulness to roles in Gosford Park, Intermission, Finding Neverland, No Country for Old Men, Boardwalk Empire and Puzzle. Macdonald’s performance elevates this material, which could have been completely silly with a lesser actress.

Garrett Hedlund is appropriately moody and hunky as Lu; he plays most of the movie with his shirt off and the rest with his shirt unbuttoned. David Wenham is very good as the unsympathetic husband. It’s always a treat for me to watch a movie with Aaron Pederson, so great as detective Jay Swan in the movies Mystery Road and Goldstone and the more recent miniseries Mystery Road; here, Pederson has a small part as Jim’s indigenous factotum Beaver.

Dirt Music has an abysmal Metacritic score of 35 because critics have uniformly opined that its corniness outweighs the gorgeousness. I could tell this was going to be a chick flick from the trailer; that usually means that I’m not the ideal audience for it, but I really admire Kelly Macdonald, and took a flyer in case some family members might enjoy it.

Those who can swallow the ending might enjoy this romantic melodrama in a visually spectacular setting. Dirt Music can be streamed from Amazon, AppleTV and YouTube.