Philophobia: Or The Fear Of Falling In Love – Review
Boy meets girl. Boy sees girl for seven months. Girl confesses her love for boy. Boy blows it. Damien (Aaron Burt) relishes his bachelor lifestyle while his frequent hook-up, Danielle (Emily Pearse) wants more. She delivers an ultimatum that leaves him struggling with haunted visions of commitment whilst attempting to give his best friend, Alan (David Lengel) one last hurrah before he heads back home to propose to his girlfriend.
What I found most compelling about Philophobia was director Tyler Cole and writer/ actor Aaron Burt’s focus on Damien’s condition. His mental and emotional state are clearly shaped by his fears of both action and inaction. There’s a conflict to the character that is wonderfully realised on screen with the use of cool blues and warm red hues, creating a striking visual contrast.
With a dearth of romantic plot threads dealing with commitment phobia as either tragic or comedic, it’s refreshing to see a horror element utilised for Damien. There’s certainly a deeper issue at play that fundamentally drives the character’s motivations.
While this is Damien’s journey, it is a shame that we only cut back to Danielle intermittently. There’s definitely a whole other movie to be made that deals with the horrors of a relationship on the brink from her perspective. Pearse and Burt radiate chemistry but at times their dialogue seems to get the better of them. However, there is a sweetness to the character’s relationship that has you rooting for a positive outcome to their troubles.
What struck me more than anything was the depiction of male bullishness and guardedness that comes in the wake of a break-up. The dichotomy of emotional strife and testosterone-fuelled machismo are the cracks in the pavement that Damien must traverse while upholding the illusion of normalcy. His fears manifest in his attempts to bury his feelings and “man up”.
While the completion of Damien’s arc may be a little obvious, Philophobia is more about the journey, and to that end, I could have sat through a season of his inner turmoil bubbling to the surface in a long-form narrative format. Aaron Burt imbues the character with a sense of emotional conflict that is both horrific and humorous. The aesthetic choices and percussive pervasiveness in the score help represent Damien, the man, the podcaster and philophobic. This project is clearly a labour of love and I’m looking forward to Tyler Cole’s next production
Philophobia: or the Fear of Falling in Love is released November 12th
By Fergus Henderson. In the poignant short film Konfirmanden (The Confirmation), writer-director Marie-Louise Damgaard uses the eponymous Danish Christian tradition of symbolically entering adulthood to explore powerful ideas of gender, tradition, and family.
The child at the centre of the story is Matthias (Xean Peake), a transgender boy at the start of his transition, still being deadnamed by his immediate family. However, from the film’s opening close-up of his mum Susanne (Ellen Hissingø) applying lipstick, we can tell that this story is told from her perspective.
Lest this sound like the wrong approach, one that misses the real narrative, Damgaard uses Susanne’s point of view during this charged event to explore dense ideas of parenthood, and how a parent can project their own emotions onto their children.
The camera is always tight on Susanne’s face, whereas Matthias is seen from a distance. That Matthias is seen from Susanne’s distant perspective allows us to see Susanne’s fear for her son, whilst keeping us and her at a remove from what he is actually thinking and feeling.
By the time everyone is gathered under a gazebo for drinks and toasts, she is ready to crack. After several glasses of wine and some tellingly hostile interactions with her own mother that suggest an already tense relationship, Susanne takes it upon herself to give a speech about the difficulty of Matthias’ transition. Her speech finally makes clear that her parental defensiveness is mixing uneasily with her discomfort with Matthias’ transition.
Konfirmanden (The Confirmation)
And yet, as dense as this short already is, Damgaard is aware fundamentally that what is most important in all of this is the voice of the marginalised, young Matthias, who has had his day taken over by his own mother. The short wisely leaves us with forgiveness and resolution, but only after Susanne has realised her fault.
The Confirmation reminds the viewer to be mindful and ethical as advocates and allies, and to let people tell their own stories. Finally, the film offers a gentle reminder that this story, at its heart, is a tender and complicated moment in the lives of a parent and a child. It is a remarkably insightful, well observed film that packs a book’s worth of ideas into its 18 minute runtime.
Talking to someone, someone you know and trust, about your inner demons and struggles is the perfect first step to overcoming them. Cinema displays and romanticises this in a number of ways, and more often than not, someone you know and trust isn’t involved at all.
Take ‘Good Will Hunting’ or ‘The Breakfast Club’ both are about people coming together to help each other when they didn’t even know the others existed before they met. Don’t Look Down (Haut perches) from French auteurs Olivier Ducastel and Jacques Martineau is a new film that takes from a similar vein.
5 strangers, Veronika (Manika Auxire), Marius (Geoffrey Couët), Nathan (Simon Frenay), Louis (François Nambot) and Lawrence (Lawrence Valin) find themselves together in Louis’ Paris apartment. They aren’t there by force, and they aren’t there because of some grand conspiracy, they are there because one individual unites them all and he’s waiting inside a room in the corner of the house, one we never get to enter.
All we know about the room is that the man inside it hurt every character we meet. He manipulated and humiliated them each in a different way; he’s an abuser. Together the 5 take turns entering the room to exorcise the man from their lives, and we are left to decipher the in-betweens. In these moments they paint their tormenter for us through the stories of how they ended up here tonight. They all fell for him in some way or another, and he used them all leaving scars in the process.
Don’t Look Down is unflinching in its approach. We are strictly never allowed to meet the man whom we hear so much about, and the characters are not allowed to talk about what happens in the room either, everything about him is a mystery. As a result, we find ourselves hearing a whole lot of conversation that only vaguely connects to the situation; most of it is intensely sexual.
They go around and share their deepest fantasies, and despite promising not to judge each other, it very much seems like they all quietly do. Amongst this, they prepare and eat a variety of food and drink plenty of wine. As they do bonds begin to form between them, tenuous bonds but bonds nonetheless.
But as much as the film evolves on the relationship front, the main story fails to become any more transparent. No one seems to be finding any genuine closure; we lack so much crucial information that everything drags almost to a halt. How was this all organised? How did they find out about each other? And most of all what is going on in that room? I understand the powerful concept the film aims for, a ‘power in knowing you aren’t the alone’ angle and whilst its depiction of camaraderie is effective its depiction of the relationship between abused and abuser is lacking.
The man in the room doesn’t become this menacing presence capable of hurting everyone immeasurably by merely showing his face, all in all, it’s more like he’s not there at all, and they are walking into an empty room. From what we hear from the 5, he is sinister, but his physical presence in the film isn’t.
Each of the cast performs admirably. Such a dialogue-heavy film can’t have been easy to prepare for, but they each flawlessly transition from one scene to the next. Most importantly, they are engaging when they need to be which failing to do in this film would have been catastrophic as it naturally drags.
One by one, they have moments in the spotlight, detailing what the man did to them, and it works on every level when they step up to the plate. On balance, the casting may be the strongest aspect of this film because they are everything about the film that works.
Don’t Look Down doesn’t budge for anything and that’s admirable. But in sticking so rigorously to keeping the antagonist faceless, the film loses what it’s trying to say and becomes empty.
The Deuce, Its Everyday People, & Their Social Saga. By Brandon Topp.
The Deuce blew my mind. David Simon shows tend to feel like dramatic blueprints of systematic struggles common in urban American societies. The works paint these vast schematics that track institutional tragedies through the lens of the everyday people, in everyday scenes. Connecting a broad vision to the pains, struggles, hungers, and conversations of the humans at the center of these broader messages makes for one of the richest brands of storytelling I know.
Keeping in tradition, Simon nailed it again, this time co-creating The Deuce with longtime collaborator George Pelecanos. The show’s third and final season wrapped up this week, and it was the most emotional and heart wrenching of its chapters. It was also exceptionally beautiful. That’s a broad adjective, but these eight episodes were undoubtedly full of beauty.
One of my favorite performances of the season came from actor Chris Coy and his portrayal of Paul in “You Only Get One,” the fifth episode of this latest season. Paul’s been a brilliant character throughout, but this occasion certainly felt like his climax.
The scenes with Todd, the love of Paul’s life, dying from AIDS in their apartment, and Todd’s estranged parents visiting were magnificent pieces of drama. How the AIDS crisis plays into the season, and Gene Goldman’s move to change Times Square was also fascinating, and a prime example of how Simon productions grasp the layered influence of politics on particular communities and cultures in more profound and insightful ways than most.
But, the depth of every line, and the measure of the performances in those scenes with Paul and Todd’s parents moved me so much that I remember thinking the plot line would work brilliantly as its own one-act play. That’s not to overlook the many other captivating wheels spinning in The Deuce machine at the time. Emily Meade’s portrayal of Lori Madison was brilliant and heartbreaking throughout the series, and particularly bleak closing season. While dark, Madison’s story feels so important to the show’s focus on the humanity of the women in the sex industry.
That sounds feeble, to commend focusing on the humanity of humans. And it is fucked up, and I think The Deuce is pointing that out. It’s saying that women who are sex workers, and women who work in porn are obviously complex, real-ass human beings, even though they’re rarely viewed as such in their professions. They’re not purely victims, but they also deserve empathy and consideration. The Deuce never gets on a pedestal and says think this way about this world, it just looks closely at people whose stories are central to it. It’s moving, eye-opening, and thought provoking.
That philosophy of no judgement is baked into the show from the outset. Vincent Martino is an intriguing character when we meet him, because in a day and age where a lot of straight men had zero disregard for anything considered different, he ran bars that were for all genders, professions, looks, and stories. He prided himself on that approach, and it went a long way towards building a successful operation.
Candy is one of the most fascinating feminist characters imaginable, and her refusal to express shame, or to look down on porn and the sex work industry was central to her identity. She’s a pillar of this no judgement theme. This human, heartful theme that’s rare in television writing. The world beat her down, no question about it. But, she never made herself out to be a victim, and even when it nearly threatened her life, she supported herself throughout.
Speaking of Candy, I think Harvey telling her that she was making a real film, and that she had to complete it was one of the most satisfying moments I’ve ever watched on screen. Even with Candy too overwhelmed to take it. That type of sincere validation is almost every artist’s dream, and no filmmaker has been through more than Candy.
I was so happy to feel she finished it, and thought it was the perfect tragedy for her character that she never saw its success, despite the film ending up becoming a cult favorite later picked up by the Criterion Collection. George Pelecanos says in an inside look of the episode on HBO that the film is based on Wanda by Barbara Loden.
We get loads of these exceptional conversations throughout the show, and each one feels earned because of the style of The Deuce. This broad tapestry maps the migration of impoverished communities and sex workers over the course of arguably the most drastic example of gentrification ever. The method of the mapping is simply showing a great deal of everyday scenes lived out by the people central to the social shift.
A ton of the first season centers on everybody hanging out at the diner, weaving in and out through their individual roles in this corrupt, yet intimate community. The sex is casual, arguments come and go, and everyone always has more important shit to worry about, because that’s life when you’re struggling to make ends meet. Gangster characters Rudy Pipilo and Tommy Longo are reasonable, casual businessmen for the majority of the series. Rudy holds his own the whole way. They’re far from typical, embellished mafiosos—these are men going to work, just like the prostitutes are mainly women going to work, just like these are just cops going to work.
The everyday rhythm of the show makes its deaths feel that much more sudden and jarring—a type of surprise eerily realistic, and that’s been typical of Simon on The Wire and Treme among other shows. This season had a difficult number of these shocking deaths, beginning with Frankie, then Rudy, and the brutal suicide of Lori Madison.
Those we saw go, and those who drifted off—everybody’s complicated, everybody’s got a story, and it all blends together in this machine that feeds the rich, and shits on the poor. It’s an American theme, a global theme, and a Blown Deadline Production theme, which is illustrated in the most captivating way by David Simon and the writers he teams up with.
The frustration of perpetual dread comes across in a heartbreakingly honest scene, when Chris Alston takes Gene Goldman to the Bronx to show him prostitutes who’ve moved on from The Deuce to a new place. Then Alston gives this encapsulating statement from a script penned by co-creators George Pelecanos and Davis Simon, “We fixed nothing, Gene. All we did was push it.” He continued, “All we do is push the shit to another corner of the room, so people have enough space to build fresh shit and make money. That’s the only thing that ever happens. Someone spends a dollar and makes ten or a hundred or a thousand, but the people, all those shitted up souls I policed all those years in all that mess, they just hang on. Everyday the same.”
It’s a grim, but honest portrait of humanity in the shadow of the machine.
Treating People Like People
I saw David Simon and George Pelecanos at The Austin Film Festival in 2017, and there they premiered the season finale of the first season of The Deuce. Despite the show’s lack of judgement in regards to its characters, I judged the festival’s audience, because the theatre was only half filled for the screening. This was David fucking Simon. Where was everyone? This is a sentiment I’ve felt throughout the airing of The Deuce, which while being one of the most intelligent and well-reviewed shows on television this decade has never received an Emmy nomination, or a prize from any other major award show.
But The Deuce, and most other Simon productions, and other beloved, award-snubbed programs like It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphiaall present as unconcerned with the judgement of others, but prefer to stay truthful to their stories and missions. This, in my opinion, doesn’t help their acclaim, but does help what truly matters—the story, and the episodes.
During the Q&A following the screening, I wanted to ask one question, “Is Vince a good person?” I didn’t have the nerve to raise my hand and chickened out. Honestly, I’m happy I did, because the answer I figured out for myself during the finale was quite satisfying. We’ve seen Vince do a lot. We’ve seen him leave his family, we’ve seen him (though reluctantly) support the sex work industry, and we’ve seen him share a lot of love with a lot of folks. We’ve seen him welcome outcasts with zero judgement, and then build a family with those people.
Vince isn’t a good guy, or a bad guy. He’s a complicated human being who happened to live his life at the central of a drastic shift in the most energetic city in the history of the world. He’s an ideal central character, because he’s a friendly neighborhood bartender, who is imperfect, and whose imperfections have led him down a brilliant path, and given him plenty of fascinating stories to tell.
He’s a bartender you can still find in New York City, but who you’re unlikely to chat up in Midtown today. Not saying those bartenders don’t exist, and not saying they don’t work in Midtown, just saying there’s a lot less establishments that will let them give an honest pour.
P.S. The conclusion was unexpected, fitting, and quite emotional—one to remember, and to celebrate for story lovers of all sorts.
It Must be Heaven is the latest satirical comedy from world renowned director Elia Suleiman. Known throughout his work for commenting on the state of Palestine, his country which he holds close to his heart, Suleiman’s latest film looks at the world around him rather than his country directly. However, as he travels from Palestine, France and New York, Suleiman’s story brings up parallels which are taken for granted abroad but hold a deeper meaning for Suleiman’s home country.
Being a master of an almost lost form of cinema (silent cinema) Suleiman is there every step of the way with the audience, putting himself in every scene as he is a silent and yet compelling observer of the world. Along with the audience, he witnesses the unusual, the passionate, the disturbing and often the comical sides of life.
Rather that starkly telling the audience as it is and the way Suleiman sees it, his presence as director, writer and actor is as if Suleiman has stepped out into the cinema audience and is sat alongside them as the film plays out. Mostly as a spectator but occasionally and sometimes with great surprise for the audience as a participant.
Suleiman is a pleasant man to spend time with and so his thoughtful observations subtly help the audience understand what he is trying to say – even when he says nothing at all. It Must be Heaven shows the world as it is but in a heightened and comedic way, so while the audience are laughing at the vignettes that make up the film, they can be taken aback when they start to realise that these satirical observations may not be so amusing after all.
Through the use of precisely choreographed scenes involving tapes measures and Segways, Suleiman shows the peaceful beauty of life as well as the comedy that comes with the most mundane of situations. However, while the audience have their guards down, that is when Sulieman starts to tell the audience why they are there and what he wants to really say.
Although Suleiman’s story is not without a little venting on ignorant producers who want to tell his story their way or want to soften the message to appeal to a broader audience.
It Must be Heaven can be appreciated in many ways and can appeal to those who are fans of Suleiman’s work, those who are passionately political or even those who may just enjoy a gentle view of the world told through the medium of silent cinema.
Although there may be moments that go over the heads of the audience that may be less informed of Sulieman’s background and Palestine’s place in the world, It Must be Heaven shows that there is still a place in the world for such a unique voice.
