Author: Daniel Pollock

Paris Is In Harlem: Slamdance Review. By Daniel Pollock.

Music heals, but wounds can be deep – is that a fair assessment for Christina Kallas’ energetic celebration of New York City, Paris is in Harlem? It seems reductive for such a multi-faceted, deeply interlaced film, but it proudly holds jazz and racial division at its core, and while it raises some interesting questions, it doesn’t hold enough pretension to believe it has the answers. It instead serves a deeper purpose to a city and the ever shifting fabric of its people, and allows them to share their experiences, which are rarely easily defined. 

Paris Blues, indeed, is in Harlem – it’s a jazz club that brings together a vast array of patrons who inhabit different classes and ethnic backgrounds, but share a love of music. On a night of celebration, where owner Sam is welcoming the repeal of New York City’s racist Cabaret Law, the revelry turns sour as a lone gunman opens fire. But on a night of such joy, why? And who? Over the course of the previous day, we learn what hardships brought our music lovers to drown their sorrows at Paris Blues, and see that each has a messy, complicated story to tell. 

The most immediately notable element of this film is the use of splitscreen to concurrently tell the stories of its ensemble cast. Sometimes these screens comment on each other, and other times they don’t at all, or even actively clash visually and tonally.

Along with the odd deftly placed jump cut, this visual style gives the film a staccato rhythm, and ably apes the improvisational jazz that inhabits its emotional core. But beyond that, it gives the film licence to jump between stories freely and seamlessly, never once distracting or detracting from the film’s flow. It instead adds to it, weaving a tapestry of humanity that interacts and reflects itself as characters cross paths, create connections, break them in two, and forge new ways.   

The film only occasionally dips into the patronising racial melodrama you would see in, say, Crash, but it owes more to the works of Spike Lee (including an intriguing segment shaped around a film lecturer’s unorthodox interpretation of School Daze) than the aforementioned Oscar schlock. Much like a lot of Lee’s work, Kallas’ film exists on the lived-in streets of New York, with the brownstones as her backdrop. It lends an authenticity to proceedings, which in turn validates certain scenes that lie at either end of a spectrum; the understated, as seen in the musical interplay between two buskers on opposite subway platforms during the opening credits, or the more outrageous, as club owner Sam turns a potential armed robbery into an audition for a new drummer by appealing to the gunman’s passions and hunger. 

When Duke Ellington died, they say jazz died with him, as an overly friendly Uber driver tells us. But he left behind not only a legacy of unequalled musical genius, he also imparted great wisdom, including his four “moral freedoms”. They are mentioned explicitly in the movie, and each given weight, but one stands out in Duke’s list: “the freedom from the kind of pride that could make a man feel that he’s better than his brother”.

Paris is in Harlem embodies this entirely, in its characters, their relationships, their interactions, their immediate response to the repeal of a century-old law that effectively banned dancing in black nightclubs. And, in the film’s triumphant final moments, it shows us that no matter what challenging road is mapped out for us, there is always a chance for human connection. The future is written, but you can pick which notes to play.  

Retrograde: Slamdance Review. By Daniel Pollock.

Debuting at Slamdance this year, Retrograde is an exercise in austerity; it shows how much you can achieve with so little, and how you can pinpoint an entire generation ageing clumsily into their 30s and 40s with one tale of total mediocrity. 

Molly is an average employee at a bland tech startup who takes a day off to help her new housemate move in, and subsequently gets into a traffic altercation with a police officer – a charge she strongly denies. What begins as a minor setback quickly snowballs into an issue that threatens to derail her relationships, career and emotional stability as she takes every available bureaucratic pathway not in an attempt to avoid a fine or to prove her innocence, but to prove that she’s right and somebody else is wrong.  

This is a film that captures modern Western entitlement in such a fascinating way – each character sees themselves as the lead in their own story, no matter how mind-numbingly boring they may be; her work colleague and housemate each share stories with interesting characters involved, but they place themselves squarely in the centre, avoiding the point of their own tales. They flee from the fringes to the comfort of the centre, much like Molly’s futile attempts to use Canadian institutions of bureaucracy to delay the inevitable. But even when they’re the star of the show, it’s never their fault – Molly’s hangups are reflected primarily by her housemate’s obsession with astrology, pointing to a series of charts and planets that determined your fate and traits from birth – a sort of cosmic passing of the buck. 

The cinematography does a great job in framing Molly as a lonely force unto herself – every time she finds herself interacting with another person, she is either alone in the frame, communicating over the phone or through cracks in doors, or turned away from the camera – it seems we rarely if ever see her face alongside her “friends”, and if we do, it’s obscured, it’s in profile, and it’s never during a friendly chat. No matter what, though, she will dominate the frame. I would have liked to see this stylistic choice develop as the film progressed, but it mostly maintained its thematic power until the final credits. 

Director Adrian Murray also gets a cross-section of strong, embarrassingly realistic performances from his mains, with Molly Reisman delivering a particularly watchable unpleasantness in the lead role. The film hinges on her ability to toe the line between charismatic and pathetic, which she handles with aplomb. Funnily enough, we never actually find confirmation either way if she committed the traffic offence or not, but it hardly matters – the situation itself reveals everything we need to know about her, and about the way she deals with the people in her orbit – no loyalty, no commitment, all just miniature battles to be won.

It’s the tasteful tastelessness that shows like Girls explored, though there’s a level of irony here that surpasses even what Lena Dunham was trying to achieve. The unashamed dullness on display is enough to not only make your skin crawl, but have it slide off your body, sweep round a corner and die of shame somewhere. It’s a nasty film, depicting such weaponised mundanity that it borders on psychological horror. Watch this, then do the opposite.

Butter: Review. By Daniel Pollock.

When it comes to a market as crowded as the high school movie, I feel that to successfully produce a decent effort, it is completely necessary to do one of two things: either tell the same story differently (Donnie Darko, Welcome to the Dollhouse), or tell a different story (Election).

If you can’t do either of these, you run the risk of falling in the quagmire that almost all feature films dwell in for one reason or another. That is why it’s such a shame that Butter wasted such a dark and intriguing premise, which had every right to differentiate itself from the pack, but eschewed black comedy for muddled moralising and Hallmark sensibilities. 

On paper, it definitely sounds promising: Butter (Alex Kersting who, God love him, totally inhabits a thankless, charmless role) is a morbidly obese loner who spends his days alone, where he eats, plays the saxophone, drives the sweet Mustang he has somehow, or effectively stalks his schoolyard crush online (McKaley Miller, not as charmless). One day, he decides he’s going to eat himself to death, and he’s going to stream the results live over the internet. However, his suicidal antics lead to an explosion of popularity, and see him installed as one of the “cool kids”, which definitely confuses things. Will he accept his newfound (if horribly formed) friendships and pull the plug on his plan, or stick to his word?

Like I said, it’s an intriguing premise full of opportunity for morbid, fatalist exploration. But what if I told you it seems to portray itself as a light, fun comedy for all the family? There’s nothing wrong with going against type when it comes to movie making (I practically demanded it in my first sentence), but if you work this hard to ignore the nature of your story and protagonist’s struggle, then why make the film at all?

Butter aims to be an easy cautionary tale; the kind that a P.E. teacher could pop on for a rainy day and count it towards their mental health module. But by substituting the weakest tropes and colour-by-numbers elements of a teen movie in for anything even approximating the stark reality of the situation, the filmmakers have taken out any teachable moments. 

Beyond the content, the filmmaking is mixed – director Paul A. Kaufman has primarily worked on television episodes and TV movies, and it shows, with brightly bland lighting, basic framing and weak staging giving off the vibe of a silently released Netflix original. Butter’s gormless narration also undercuts his relationships, with his relations to other characters presented often through his dull ramblings instead of any memorable actions or gestures. There were undeniable bright spots however: Ravi Patel as Butter’s witless doctor had his moments, and in likely the single bold choice of the film, our lead’s climatic meal is played out in near dead silence.

A family scene at Christmastime narrowly misses being genuinely powerful, too, with some odd editing choices giving it away too quickly. Also, Academy Award-winning actress Mira Sorvino plays Butter’s mum. She puts in a performance that is at least what you’d expect from an Oscar winner, and the movie is better for it.  

I would’ve loved to see the disturbing “Leaving Las Vegas by way of Todd Solondz” oddity this could and should have been. Instead, basic heartstring-tuggery is the most the film aspires to. Ironically, it’s a tougher pill to swallow in this incarnation than the black comedy would be. At least that would’ve taught some of the film’s intended audience a thing or two. 

Colors Of Heaven: Review. By Daniel Pollock.

Celebrating a recently passed ten year anniversary, the award-winning Colors of Heaven has seen a slight resurgence off the back of streaming releases on Amazon Prime and Netflix, and with debate raging over attempts to label Israel as an apartheid state, it is worth looking back at this depiction of a fundamentally and constitutionally divided South Africa. Based on a true story, the film opens in 1976 with two child actors and best mates, Muntu Ndebele and Norman Knox, navigating their careers, love lives and newfound success. However, as political and racial tensions rise, the two lifelong friends quickly find themselves on opposing sides of a race-driven war. As the open warfare of the 70’s gives way to terrorist insurgency in the 80’s, the two men, along with Muntu’s lost lover Sabela, must find a way to define their place in a crumbling nation, and face the monsters left in the ruins.  

This is a truly fascinating story with a unique friendship at its centre. It’s a shame then that this tale isn’t served by stronger filmmaking. Director Peter Bishai presents a piece that seemingly struggles with a lot of ideas and questions, but none are explored in a meaningful way due to the structural and creative issues present in the movie. Powerful moments are undercut by character interactions lacking subtext and subtlety, as well as uniformly pragmatic shot selection that gives us little insight beyond the surface level interpretation, which tends to weaken the emotional impact of some scenes that should be truly shocking at best, and completely emotionally devastating at worst. For the larger set pieces, the film often deploys a significant number of extras, which brings a much needed sense of scale to proceedings, but it’s often not enough to compensate for a creative team who use them ineffectually. 

Additionally, too much focus is placed on a romantic relationship that hardly feels recognisable as love from the start. Sabela has an urgent story to tell of her own, that of a woman who cannot conceive trapped in an arranged marriage to a local powerful chief demanding an heir, as she forges deep relationships with the tribe’s women. This feels like an entire story on its own, and does not thematically entwine successfully with both the racial tensions present in the relationship between Muntu and Norman, nor the murkier, violent black-on-black issues within the community. It feels instead like an element that was kept not because it served the story, but to stay faithful to the truth, which ironically adds to the feeling of inauthenticity that Bishai has fostered. Funny things, movies. 

On the flip side, I did appreciate a handful of the cast. Wandile Molebatsi is the standout, bringing great charisma and buoyant energy to his depiction of Muntu, elevating the character beyond what he is given to work with. A wide-eyed, maniacal turn by Mpho Osei Tutu as local gangster and ongoing antagonist Bomba is also of note amongst the cast. Beyond that, performances are found wanting, though it’s difficult to build a character of note with such little quality material. One thing worth noting: while some characters are left floundering, they are all impeccably dressed in the most intense period-if-not-conventionally-appropriate outfits your grandmother’s money could buy. Give the costume person a medal, or at least a better gig. 

Colors of Heaven is meant to be a triumphant, bittersweet movie – South Africa is ostensibly liberated, our heroes find peace on the other side of war, but the battle for the hearts and minds of the people rages on. And yet, it falls so short of the mark. Muntu and Norman’s fraught friendship is intense and evocative, though Bishai and his crew could not complement it with equally powerful filmmaking. Perhaps it is worth reassessment by defter hands.