Author: BRWC

Fingers In The Wind: Review. By Joe Muldoon.

Fingers in the Wind is the feature-length debut of director Chad Murdock. The opening of the film introduces us to our two main characters, an unnamed young man (Azendé Kendale Johnson), and Faye (Taylor Brianna). Little is given away with regards to the young man, for we simply observe him buying flowers, not knowing who for, or for what occasion. When we meet Faye, we witness the end of her friendship with Naya (Maya Holiday), originally her best friend.

Naya wishes to sever ties because she distrusts Faye, feeling that she knows as much about her as she did the day they met. Devastated, Faye leaves the apartment, and heads for the park. We switch back to the young man as he rearranges the flowers in his apartment, and he attempts to make a call to somebody called Naya – could it be the same Naya whose company we were just in? After a shower, the man also heads to the park, leading to the chance encounter between him and Faye.

After a noticeably slowly-paced start, their meeting lights the fuse that gets the film moving, and ignites its mysterious undertones. As the man stands gazing out to the lake, Faye calls out to him, believing him to be an old friend of hers, Kenny – only, he denies knowing her and claims to be somebody else entirely. The cleverness of Murdock’s begins to shine here, because the coincidence of this situation is almost suspicious; one of them is mistaken, but who? Their encounter and subsequent time spent together is somewhat reminiscent of the beginning of the romance between Jesse and Céline in Richard Linklater’s 1995 masterpiece Before Sunrise.

We experience the unfolding of this meeting through a series of still, lingering shots. Though the cinematography is gorgeous (with the opening scene at the flower shop being a notable example), the film’s pacing in parts suffers from the overuse of exposition shots, which sometimes add little to nothing to the overall piece. That said, when the shots focus solely on the cast members, they work marvellously, catching the warmth (and coldness) between characters. Most of the film centres itself around an extended conversation, showcasing both the strength of the writer, as well as the dramatic capabilities of those onscreen.

Fingers in the Wind thrives in its ambiguity, refusing to give any of its secrets away without any work, inserting cryptic poetic intertitles throughout. Only towards the end are we given a proper glimpse behind the curtain, and the subtle mystery is slowly and delicately revealed. The minimalistic sound design is perfect for the film, and its lack of soundtrack works well to intensify the awkwardness of several scenes. Though its flow and pacing could greatly benefit from the trimming down of its extended exposition shots, this piece works very well as a whole, and is an excellent showcase of its cast and crew’s talents. With impressive performances from its cast (in particular, that of Taylor Brianna), Fingers in the Wind serves as a smart drama-mystery, and a hopeful look into the futures of those involved in its making.

La Vie En Rose: Review. By Joe Muldoon.

With music movies (see: Elvis and Tár) predicted to perform well at various awards ceremonies next year, I decided to check out a few award-winning films from previous years. Having seen most of the greats (1984’s Amadeus, 2005’s Walk The Line, 2007’s Control) and being a long-time fan of Édith Piaf, I was rather annoyed with myself for having somehow overlooked her fourth biopic, La Vie En Rose (named after her most popular song). Starring as the beloved chanson and torch ballad singer is Marion Cotillard, partially chosen for the role because director Olivier Dahan noticed her eyes to be similar to Piaf’s. Cotillard has a natural likeness to Piaf, but Didier Lavergne and Jan Archibald’s efforts in the makeup department brought her towards identicality – the pair won a well-deserved Oscar for their work.

The biopic is a non-linear kaleidoscope of events spanning from Piaf’s childhood to her death, and we witness the creation of a widely-loved, but deeply troubled star. Spending her early years under the care of various relatives (her alcoholic mother, her circus performer father, and her paternal grandmother, a madam at a brothel), Édith has a clear talent for singing, and is eventually discovered singing on a street corner by a club owner, who promptly gives her the nickname ‘Piaf’ (‘little sparrow’). From then on, her star and public awareness rapidly grows, and she soon finds herself performing in concert halls in America as well as falling in love with the boxer Marcel Cerdan, who tragically dies in an air crash on his way to visit her.

As we flit back and forth across the most important years of her life, spending time in crowded auditoriums, in hotel rooms with her closest friends and confidants, and at luxurious events, our time with Piaf is experienced through the lenses of boozy decadence and devastating heartache. We see Piaf’s highs and lows, her friendships and loneliness, her rise and fall. All in all, we’re presented with a patchwork of episodes that document the cruel misfortunes to which she was subjected. One of her greatest achievements of all – as beautifully showcased by Dahan – was to take the sorrows of her short life and to transmute them into pure lyrical beauty.

Audrey Tautou was originally sought after for the role by producers, but director Dahan was adamant in his desire to have Cotillard play the esteemed singer. A marvellous actress though Tautou is, it’s difficult to imagine anyone other than Cotillard in the role – a performance that was rewarded with 27 acting awards, including the coveted Oscar and César Best Actress awards. Her dedication is startling, with her apparently having shaven off her eyebrows and her hairline back in order to grow closer to resembling the singer. More brow-raising still, Cotillard shrank her body in order to reach Piaf’s tiny 4’11 frame.

Some biopics have crossed the line between being informative and exploitative, but La Vie En Rose manages to treat Piaf delicately and sensitively, not as a subject, but as a human being. Though a stunning depiction of her life, the film’s biggest quirk is also its undoing, and it suffers from its confusing time structure. Whilst non-linear event sequences can be exciting, it becomes distracting in this instance, and we don’t quite get the evolving image of Piaf that would’ve been possible with a more coherent chronology. That said, perhaps the back-and-forth is appropriate and reflective of her nickname, Little Sparrow, flying back and forth between memories. “Non, je ne regrette rien”, sings our dear Little Sparrow in the film’s overwhelmingly emotional finale – I certainly don’t regret spending 140 minutes with one of the world’s greatest-ever songstresses. No, I regret nothing.

Corsage: The BRWC Review. By Joe Muldoon.

Few period dramas are as fiercely feminist as Austrian director Marie Kreutzer’s latest work, Corsage, the most recent biopic of Empress Elisabeth of Austria. A semi-fictional account of a single year of her life, spanning from 1877 to 1878, the life of Elisabeth (or Sissi) is shown to be one fraught with hardship. Hardly does a moment, or fresh interaction with another person, pass without a comment being made about her appearance; the opening credits have barely vacated the screen before we see Elisabeth’s waist being measured, and a comment is soon made about how the outrageously (and cruelly) gossipy papers have recently discussed her weight. Elisabeth looks on, clearly unsurprised or new to such attention.

The viciousness laced throughout the comments directed towards Elisabeth is always hidden behind an ersatz smile, a facade of politeness. Unsurprisingly, she much prefers life in Hungary, a place where she can escape the nastiness of Austrian court life. Trapped in the aristocratic bell jar of imperial elite life, Elisabeth’s moments of happiness are few and far between; she has an emotionally absent husband, faces tedious public engagements, and often finds herself shrouded by loneliness, even when in the company of others. A keen equestrian (and, according to historical record, one of the most famous and accomplished of her time), one of her main joys is riding, and at times, it feels like her joy is felt more amongst animals than humans.

With the film beginning around the time of her 40th birthday (on 24th December 1877), we notice the shift in treatment towards Elisabeth, and in a voiceover she narrates that “at the age of 40 a person begins to disperse and fade, darkening like a cloud”. Her birthday is treated as the death knell of her life, as if her usefulness and worth is spent, no longer being fertile or (apparently) beautiful. Beauty has no expiry date, despite any societal claims to the contrary, and Kreutzer makes sure to communicate this.

By no means is Elisabeth portrayed with uncritical doting sympathy, as her flaws are on show, and she is at times waspish and spiteful, as seen upon her refusal to allow her handmaid to marry – then again, most of us would fail to always act with kindness if subjected to the banalities and unpleasantness of court life. Her personality shines through the greatest upon her visits to mental asylum wards, putting effort into engaging with the patients, whereupon she bestows them with gifts of candied treats. Perhaps she finds a warped kinship with those she visits, with many of them being prisoners of their own minds, and her being the prisoner of others’ minds. Her genuine care for the mentally ill is a well-known historical fact, with Elisabeth being quoted as having said, “a fully equipped lunatic asylum would please me most”, after having been asked for gift ideas by her husband.

Corsage is a poignant and scathing critique of the treatment of women, both in the past and in the present, where the parallels sadly show that very little has changed. The film highlights the panopticonic nature of the treatment of high-profile women, often reduced to mere appearances. Corsage is a biopic in the same way of Sofia Coppola’s stunning Marie Antoinette; the substantial historical facts are there, but its purpose is not to be a painstakingly accurate historical account, rather an opportunity to humanise a real person – something of which Elisabeth sadly seems largely to have been robbed during the time depicted in the film.

When she cuts off long locks of her famed hair in an act of rebellion, her handmaid screeches in dismay and desperately gathers the fallen hair so she can have a wig made from it, crying that her life’s work has been ruined; Elisabeth isn’t a human to those around her, but a project. The film’s treatment of the Empress is respectful, deliberately discarding any insalubrious scandals, and instead concentrating its efforts into giving us a glimpse into a brief and painful window of time in her life. It feels appropriate that the film’s most prominent poster is of Elisabeth holding up her middle finger, both towards the audience, and towards those whose venomous words plagued her days.