Prologue | Twist and Shout
|
|
| Next year's Jurassic Park reboot, starring Scarlett Johansson and Jonathan Bailey, got an early bit of promotion last month, when Bailey's personal trainer posted a video to his Instagram showing off how ripped the actor is getting for the film. Now, is that really what a dinosaur movie needs? A defence strategy of "throat-punch a velociraptor first, ask questions later?" Twisters, thankfully, is a sequel that actually remembers the capable, rational scientist heroes of its Nineties predecessor. It suggests Hollywood might finally come to its senses when privileging brawn (and always sexless brawn, at that) over genuine smarts and expertise.
Even the film's resident cowboy, Glen Powell's YouTuber and tornado wrangler Tyler Owens, studied meteorology and is handy with all the "CAPE" and "EF5" terminology. No one tries to headbutt a tornado. And no one suggests they drop a nuke on it, either. Twisters, like its predecessor (and 1993's Jurassic Park, if we're keeping up the comparison), offers us compassionate, rational heroes faced with unparalleled destruction. And, here, that force rattles right through your bones.
Read the full review here.
Out this week:
Twisters (****) hits cinemas this week, while a mother-daughter relationship is as torrid, in far quieter ways, in Annie Baker's Janet Planet (****). Plus, And Then We Danced's Levan Akin returns with another story uplifted by the most fragile, tender kindnesses – Crossing (****), about a retired school teacher, living in Georgia, who travels to Istanbul to seek out her estranged trans nice.
| |
|
"Can I have a piece of you?" Lacy (Zoe Ziegler) asks her beautiful and generous mother, Janet (Julianne Nicholson). Their relationship, the centre of playwright Annie Baker's feature debut, Janet Planet, is precious but infected. The film spends its runtime trying to find the roots of this malaise. Wayne (Will Patton), Janet's current boyfriend, thinks it's odd that an 11-year-old still curls up in bed with her mother each night, like a pup in a foxhole. So, Janet plucks out a strand of hair and hands it to her daughter to remember her by, now that she has to be confined in her own bedroom.
Baker's film, which she also wrote, starts with Lacy using a payphone and threatening to kill herself if she's not immediately picked up and driven home from camp. She recants after her first step beyond its gates. Another kid gave her a troll doll to say goodbye. "I thought nobody would like me. But I was wrong," she confesses. It's seemingly hard for Lacy to imagine an existence outside her mother's sphere. It's 1991, and Janet is a New Age-type acupuncturist, who's brought her and her daughter to a serene but isolated cabin out in the wilds of Massachusetts. Her life force overwhelms.
Every adult who waltzes in and out of this woman's life – three here, who create Janet Planet's three-act, chaptered structure – imprints themselves on Lacy. Wayne is the dull, bad boyfriend, who brings a sour air into the home. Then comes Regina (Sophie Okonedo), an old friend of Janet's, who knows her history and exposes her delusions. She's arrived as an escapee from a theatre troupe, which might actually be a minor-key cult and whose leader, Avri (Elias Koteas), comes knocking in the film's final chapter.
Baker's frames are carefully posed, sometimes concerned with mirrors or fractured bodies in a way that evokes the wild, haunted self-portraits of photographer Francesca Woodman. It looks precise and slightly unnatural; tied to lines of dialogue that, too, sound precise, and slightly unnatural. Baker won a Pulitzer Prize in 2014 for The Flick, a play about cinema ushers. Here, she brings a theatrical state of mind to film – we understand every word and action here to have symbolic value, and Janet Planet is not afraid of its own artificiality. It's sparse in narrative, but thick with implications.
Read the full review here.
|
|
|
A document of where I've gone and the things I've seen
|
Thursday, 11 July
It was a pleasure to host a Q&A with Levan Akin for the release of Crossing, in which we discussed Istanbul as a truly kinetic city, in which all kinds of micro-communities live virtually on top of each other, and where the population of stray cats can unexpectedly become movie stars.
Friday, 12 July
It was a real indulgence to be able to hop on Ali Plumb's Radio 1's Screen Time podcast to break down the Gladiator II trailer. My Roman Empire actually is the Roman Empire.
Tuesday, 16 July
It was a quick(ish) trip into London to watch Annie Baker's debut, Janet Planet.
|
|
|
A snippet from the 'Gladiator II' trailer
|
|
|
The Society of Avid Film Watchers |
| |
Georgian dance is all fire and fury. Percussion plays – sparse and low – as lines of men swing their limbs back and forth like they're trying to whip up a tempest. The women are slower, and more graceful. Dressed in floor-length tunics, they take tiny steps, creating the illusion that they're floating.
Merab is a dance student at the National Georgian Ensemble, a young man with a sharp jaw and wide, hungry eyes, here played superbly by Levan Gelbakhiani, superb. Tradition runs in Merab's blood. His parents, now separated, were once dancers, but have become stagnant and bitter. He's danced with the same partner, Mary (Ana Javakishvili), for years – the two are a kind of de facto couple – and spends his nights working at a local restaurant. His brother David (Giorgi Tsereteli) also takes classes, but his fondness for mid-week benders means he rarely shows up. And so everyone turns to Merab for support. The pressure has made his body taut and fragile.
His rigidly constructed world soon starts to crumble after the arrival of a new dancer, Irakli (Bachi Valishvili). This stranger moves with confidence. He's muscular but light in his step, with open features and an easy smile. Merab treats him as both a challenger and an object of fascination. Desire swiftly takes over. |
|
|
"There is no sex in Georgian dance," his instructor (Kakha Gogidze) warns. But when Irakli gently places his hand on Merab's thigh, in order to correct his posture, it's immediately charged with erotic thrill. Levan Akin's And Then We Danced is giddy with the pleasures of first love – how it pulsates through the body and mind. It's in the way Merab habitually chews on his crucifix necklace or takes a covert sniff of Irakli's shirt.
Homosexuality isn't outlawed in Georgia, but the country remains in the stranglehold of conservatism. The women gossip about a dancer in the main ensemble who was kicked out for being gay. His family sent him off to a monastery "to make him normal again". Akin (who was born in Sweden to Georgian parents) has spoken about his struggles shooting the film in the country's capital, Tbilisi. He often had to lie about the film's content in order to secure locations. Troops had to be stationed at the film's few Georgian screenings, after ultra-conservative and pro-Russian protestors swarmed outside of the cinema.
Akin's film argues that joy can itself be a form of radical defiance. Merab's story isn't just about the pangs of desire, but the slow untethering from tradition's pressures and expectations. At first, he's desperate to heed his dance instructor's warnings that his posture isn't "hard as a nail". But he soon begins to explore his identity and his sexuality through movement: whether he's out celebrating in the streets, partying to ABBA, or seducing Irakli to Robyn's "Honey". To Merab, those dances are an act of reclamation. The future belongs to him – and all those who dare to live free.
Levan Akin's new film, 'Crossing', arrives in UK cinemas 19 July.
|
|
|
President of the Jury, Wong Kar Wai, poses as he receives the Legion of medal during the 59th International Cannes Film Festival on May 21, 2006 in Cannes, France.
(Photo by Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images)
|
|
|
Spike Lee's Malcolm X arrives for the first-time in 4K on UHD and Blu-ray on 29 July. It's my pick for next week's film club.
|
|
|
| Upgrade your viewing experience – we've rounded up the best TV deals this month. |
|
|
Join the conversation or follow us |
|
|
Download the free Independent app |
|
|
Please do not reply directly to this email You are currently registered to receive The Independent's film newsletter. To unsubscribe from The Independent's film newsletter, or to manage your email preferences please click here. This e-mail was sent by Independent Digital News and Media Ltd, 14-18 Finsbury Square, London EC2A 1AH. Registered in England and Wales with company number 07320345
Read our privacy notice and cookie policy
|
|
| |
