Sicario (2015)

QFS No. 153 - The invitation for October 2, 2024
I’m sure many of you saw Sicario (2015) when it came out or in the ensuing nine years afterwards. I, however, am not one of them, hence this pick. It’s been on my list for a while, especially because of the filmmaker at the helm.

Denis Villeneuve is one of my favorite directors working right now. Arrival (2016) is a modern classic that got short shrift at the Academy Awards that year but I know will endure the test of time (really solid movie year with Inside Out, Mad Max: Fury Road, The Revenant, Ex Machina, Creed, The Martian, Spotlight, Brooklyn, The Big Short and the new Star Wars trilogy launched). For Villeneuve, I’ll go so far as to say his Blade Runner 2049 (2017) rivals or perhaps surpasses its legendary predecessor (come at me!). Dune (2021) is arguably his “worst” of those three it’s still a monumental and fantastic (half) a movie.*

All of these films above are likely vastly different than Sicario, which is what I’m most interested in seeing. He’s mastered atmospheric other worldly stories and landscapes, I’m very curious what he does with the Mexico-US border.

If you haven’t seen it or even if you have, please watch or rewatch join the Sicario discussion!

*I somehow haven’t seen Dune: Part Two (2024) yet which is why it’s left off this list but I’ve heard good things which is just as good as seeing it right?

Sicario (2015) Directed by Dennis Villeneuve

Reactions and Analyses:
Moments before the climactic sequence of Sicario (2015), there’s a shot in the film that evokes a specific genre of movie. It’s low light, the sun has set but there is striking reds and oranges and light in the distant horizon. The figures move in silhouette, in unison as the camera moves parallel to them, wide. The figures – some close in foreground and others in the back all wear military helmets and hold military weapons.

Classic soldiers-at-dusk shot in a war movie, which is how Sicario (2015) portrays border of Mexico and the US - as a war zone.

When I saw this shot, everything in the movie clicked for me – this is a war film. The shot is appropriately similar to imagery in Jarhead (2005), a film about the futility and Sisyphian nature of war – also photographed by the legendary Roger Deakins who is the cinematographer in Sicario as well. It’s a classic shot you’d see in a film about the conflict in Vietnam or in Middle East or Afghanistan. But here, in Sicario, the battleground is the US-Mexico border, not some far off world.

Not a shot from Sicario but from another Roger Deakins shot film, Jarhead (2005) - another film about war.

The composition here – as well as the narrative and themes that precede it – is no accident. The screenwriter Taylor Sheridan and director Denis Villeneuve have a thesis, and that thesis is that this conflict, this so-called “drug war” is indeed war. Full-blown war. Not a criminal enterprise of cartels and traffickers and something to be dealt with by the justice system. It is war. And thus, quaint rules of due process, legal procedure and the rule of law don’t apply. Because this is war, and your attempts to treat it differently are at best naïve and at worse a danger to the people of America. After all – look how brutal the faceless cartel is – they’re beheading people and hanging their bodies in major cities.

And in war, you must do what is necessary to defeat the enemy. To destroy these monsters, we need to become and embrace monsters. 

This thesis, if accurate, explains so much of the behavior of the characters in the film. Kate Mercer (Emily Blunt) is a proxy for the American people. An FBI agent, but she’s in the dark just as we are for most of the film, only given a little bit to know when it’s right. But the men around her – they know what’s best. Rest your pretty head, you don’t know what it really takes to get the job done, or so the message comes across in Sicario. It takes men willing to do ruthless things, bend the rules, break laws. That’s what it takes.

Kate Mercer (Emily Blunt) stands in as a proxy of the ordinary American - kept in the dark, just as she is as they cross the border here in Sicario.

Perhaps this is the cynical way to look at the film, but it feels very much in line with what Villeneuve and Sheridan are trying to say. In this way, it also feels deliberate that the character cast is a woman, unable to be taken seriously in a world where the only solution to our problems lies in bravado machismo and brazen law breaking in the service of “national security.” I hesitate to bring this up, but the only Black man in the film Reggie Wayne (Daniel Kaluuya) and the only woman are the only two who are portrayed as naïve wimps following “rules” like wimps do. Another way of looking at it (that one of our QFS discussion group members brought) up is that they are the only two following a moral compass. That is giving the filmmakers more credit than I’m willing to give them, but it’s valid. The other way to look at it, however, is that this Black man and White woman are diversity hires who don’t have the stomach to do what needs to be done to keep us safe. Yes, this is very much a cynical take but the evidence in the film itself suggests this interpretation.

Reggie Wayne (Daniel Kaluuya) and Kate are the only two people standing up for American ideals of justice. Is it a coincidence that they are also the only Black character and woman character in Sicario? There's a cynical way and a more gracious way to interpret this.

Sicario feels very much like a post 9/11 film. People entrusted with keeping America safe explicitly violated American moral values in order to do so. The film very much has that tone and I, for one, don’t love this aspect of the film. (I can disagree, of course, with what a film espouses while still thoroughly enjoying it – as I did with Sicario.) Matt Graver (Josh Brolin), after all, specifically does not want to select someone who went to law school, as Reggie has, because they know their at best skirting the law and at worst overtly breaking it.

Matt Barnes (Josh Brolin) has mastered the condescending look that "tough guys" give to people who want to follow quaint and outdated "rules" and "the law."

And throughout, the team condescends to Kate, keeping her in the dark and in the end it’s even clearer – they’re using her, including her loneliness as bait to lure in a corrupt cop (Jon Bernthal). Specifically, they’re using her status as an FBI agent to justify the CIA operating on American soil, which is otherwise against the law. But law doesn’t matter when you’re at war, as the filmmaker appear to contend.

Some in the group believed the filmmakers are just presenting the world as it is, showing what it’s really like. And here’s where I disagreed with them. It’s not just a simple expose, if you will; the filmmakers are expressing an opinion. For example, at the end Alejandro (Benecio del Toro), the shadowy international double agent of some type, has broken into Kate’s apartment to put a gun to her head and force her to sign a document saying that everything they did followed the law. But now, after Kate has seen Alejandro kidnap and kill in Mexico with impunity – in fact, he shoots her to disable her when she tries to stop him. Now in her apartment, she reluctantly signs the document, knowing that Alejandro will go through with it.

As he leaves, he says: “You should move to a small town where the rule of law still exists. You will not survive here. You are not a wolf. And this is the land of wolves now.”

Alejandro (Benecio del Toro) says here "You are not a wolf. And this is the land of wolves now." This is as close to a thesis statement as you can find in a film. 

If this is not a thesis statement, I don’t know what is. As well, the opening title card says The word Sicario comes from the zealots of Jerusalem, killers who hunted the Romans who invaded their homeland. In Mexico, Sicario means hitman.

“Invaded” and “homeland” here are deliberate, as is the framing. The Roman Empire was the ruling governmental authority, so if you swap America for Rome and the “zealots of Jerusalem” as Mexican drug dealers and drug lords – well, that’s a pretty stark interpretation. I’m not saying it’s completely inaccurate, but when you’re using those terms it definitely justifies violence for some folks out there.

Filmmakers should have an opinion, a thesis, An opinion makes a film better, gives it direction and that driving force is felt throughout the incredible craft of the film. Villeneuve is a master of showcasing scope, perhaps one of the best filmmakers using aerial photography working today. The sequence of black SUVs crossing the border from the US at Nogales into Mexico is hypnotic, ominous and incredibly effective at building tension. Similar work can be seen throughout Villeneuve’s recent work – Dune (2021), Blade Runner 2049 (2017), and Arrival (2016) are masterclasses in portraying scale and scope.

But Sicario, with all the stunning craft work helmed by Deakins and Villeneuve, it still comes down to something personal. Alejandro breaks into Kate’s home and forces her to sign the document, he leaves her apartment. She gathers herself, grabs her service weapon, and rushes out to the balcony in the cobalt dusk.

She points it at him in the near distance and he turns to her, opening himself up to be shot. Kate, shaking with a bloody eye from the firefight in the tunnel earlier, is unsure what to do. Alejandro opens himself up to her, giving her a clear shot. This moment is one of the most powerful in the film. It’s where performance, cinematography, directing, story, and theme all intersect. What will she do? Will she act as they would, act outside the judicial system and be judge, jury and executioner? In the battle’s aftermath, she told Matt she’s going to report all of it to the higher ups – but will she? Is this better?

She relents. She can’t go through with it, and he walks away. It’s a fascinating scene and we all had varying interpretations of it. Some felt that Kate realizes that Alejandro is right, that this is the way it works. She may not like it, but his way is the right way. Others felt that perhaps she knows killing Alejandro will not end anything and she, herself, will become like him – a fate she does not prefer.

The final sequence is open to a lot of fascinating interpretation.

Kate, small and insignificant at the end.

I took it to mean – Kate is bound by law, by the moral code of America. If you believe she’s a stand in for us, the general public, she has an obligation to follow that code. After all, she tells Matt this after the raid and battle in the tunnel. And Alejandro knows that. He knows she’s powerless in this world. She’s not a wolf.

And in the end, is Alejandro right? Are the filmmakers right, is the drug war only winnable if we commit to it as if it is a war? One member of our QFS group is a political scientist shared that he has a mentor from Mexico that works on issues of jurisprudence in that country. To paraphrase, though she is committed to the rule of law and governance in Mexico, she entertained the idea that perhaps maybe in this circumstance – you indeed need wolves.

Perhaps. But isn’t it true that wolves beget more wolves? In a land of wolves, what happens to the sheep? Are they all eliminated? The filmmakers pay some service to the sheep, with the somewhat innocent Mexican police officer (Maximiliano Hernandez as Silvio) who transports smuggled drugs in his police car. We see his son, his very modest homelife, and you get the sense that he’s not a violent criminal but just someone who is getting by, bending the law to survive. Until he’s callously killed by Alejandro and left to die on a dark highway. In the film’s coda, the officer’s son plays soccer near the border when gunshots are heard in the distance and everyone stops and turns towards it, before resuming play.

One of the few acknowledgements of the real victims in Sicario, somewhat tacked, here near the border wall. 

This is the only nod, really, the filmmakers pay to what is happening to the sheep in the land of wolves. It feels tacked on, an afterthought and thin compared to the complexity of the other characters and their storylines in Sicario. This has all the hallmarks of American arrogance – the story focuses on the American side of it, told through the American’s point of view. Matt, after all, accuses American drug users of being the ones who are causing all the harm. The true victims are the people of Mexico, however, where the sheep are being slaughtered by wolves. Perhaps the last thing they need are even more wolves.

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010)

QFS No. 143 - The invitation for June 5, 2024
There are a lot of great things about Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010) even if you don’t know about it at all, just as I don’t. First, look at that title! It’s our second longest QFS selection title after Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975, QFS No. 98).

Second, the director’s name – Apichatpong Weerasethakul – is the longest of any directors we’ve previously selected. Between his name and the film’s title we’ve now got the longest filmmaker+title combo yet for a QFS selection. And third, this is our first selection from Thailand. As you can see, the selection process here is rigorous!

I’m very excited by all of these facts. I know almost nothing of the film, other than it has its share of critical accolades and it might be very, very weird. Or it might be just a simple tale of a man who can recall his past lives and that’s that. I’ve come across Weerasethakul’s work on the BFI/Sight & Sound list – this film is No. 196 in the extended Greatest Movies list and Tropical Malady (2004) is tied on the 100 Greatest list with Black Girl (1966, QFS No. 141), Get Out (2017), The General (1926), Once upon a Time in the West (1968), and A Man Escaped (1956, QFS No. 9). Also, Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives* won the Palme d’Or at Cannes back then, in case that sways you. And thus concludes all I know about the film and filmmaker.

Anyway, do watch with us and let’s find out about Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives!

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010) Directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Reactions and Analyses:
The first impression I had of Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives is that of a fable from India. Though the film is from Thailand, I was reminded of fables I heard from my parents or read from the land of my ancestors. Thailand, of course, is its own country with its own set of traditions and legends and mythologies. But it shares quite a bit with nearby India, from Buddhism to Hindu mythological traditions to its language which has Sanskrit origins just as most of the languages in India do.

So in a film which blends the stark realism of its filmmaking – locked off camera, long takes and very limited first-person perspective of scenes – the interweaving of fantastical elements into that tapestry makes it feel like it’s less a film and more a tale or folklore.

To be more concrete about this, here’s an example: the first fantastical thing we encounter is Huay (Natthakarn Aphaiwonk), Boonmee’s dead wife, materializes out of thin air at the dinner table. It’s mundane, done in a wide shot, as she fades in suddenly during the meal, just sitting at the table. Everyone reacts with surprise, but not supreme shock. Then, they talk to her and are amazed she’s there but it’s all folded into the normalcy of the scene.

And then, to top it off, moments later a demonic creature with red eyes that pierce the darkness appears. He emerges from the darkness into the light and we learn that this is Boonsong (Geerasak Kulhong), Boonmee (Thanapat Saisaymar) and Huay’s long-lost son who disappeared into the jungle one day ten years ago.

Just your regular dinner but with a ghost in Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010).

But then, another mysterious figure appears.

Boonsong (Geerasak Kulhong), the long-lost son, has returned. And there have been changes!

All of these beings are materializing in part because they know that Boonmee is dying of kidney failure – at least, I think that’s why they’re coming. Boonsong disappears in the next scene but Huay hangs around until Boonmee’s final end later in the film.

In our QFS discussion, I found myself trying to grapple with the narrative. Not all films have to have a strong narrative – of course, many great ones rely upon a feel or a mood or emotion above a direct storyline. But Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives doesn’t have a straightforward narrative trajectory, but it also isn’t totally abstract. We know he is dying so are these family members visiting him as he slowly drifts away?

That sort of end-of-life visitation by ghosts is of course known throughout the world (in some ways similar to England’s A Christmas Carol). And though it’s a familiar setup, this is not what the filmmaker attempts. An entire middle section of the film is its own short film – a tale of a princess (Wallapa Mongkolprasert) who is aging and saddened by her appearance, but is lured into the water by a catfish who loves her and finds her beautiful and then makes love to her. Again, I found myself returning to fable-like storytelling. The princess first sees a reflection of herself as young in the water’s reflection, but soon it fades away and she knows the catfish (or lake spirit perhaps) manifested the illusion. There are numerous stories from Indian folklore and Hindu mythology of interactions between a human and an animal or a spirit of the lake or river, and they are not considered unusual but rather from some divine providence or hand of fate. That’s how this scene and sequence felt like to me. But … what is it saying about the rest of the film? It has almost nothing to do with Boonmee’s story.

The princess storyline tangent was fable-like but unclear to a lot of us its narrative purpose.

Unless… the catfish was Boonmee in a previous life! We have no basis for this, but someone in the group thought perhaps that’s the case. The film offers no real clues, so we’re left speculating and reaching for meaning.

Is this a negative? Depends on your perspective. So I asked the group – are we capable of rendering judgment on something like this? Are we tied to Western narrative semi-linear storytelling and incapable of evaluating a slightly opaque artistic film from the East for what it is?

Someone, helpfully, pointed out that we’ve seen The Color of Pomegranates (1969, QFS No. 130) and This is Not a Burial, it’s a Resurrection (2019, QFS No. 124) and were able to evaluate those films as both art and visual storytelling. The Color of Pomegranates is a series of vignettes with meaning that are hard to decipher but they are there, telling the story of Sayat-Nova and his life. Whereas This is Not a Burial, it’s a Resurrection has a central story point – the old lady and everyone have to leave that land before it’s turned into a lake. The narrative is concrete but thin, and the film relies on a feeling, but it’s not totally abstract as there is a premise and a deadline that This is Not a Burial is inching towards.

The structure and story of Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives is looser than that and falls somewhere in between those two films on the narrative spectrum. There’s the story about Boonmee’s remaining days for sure, but that’s only a small aspect of the story. He tells Jen (Jenjira Pongpas) he regrets all the Communists he’s killed and he’s being receiving karmic retribution now. And there are these encounters and interactions with his family who have passed away or departed, but they don’t seem to offer meaning and the film doesn’t feel like it lives up to a “recalling of past lives” necessarily. Or at least not in a way that’s easy to decipher.  

Some of the really evocative imagery of the film appears in the penultimate chapter, as they trek through the night and ultimately to Boonmee’s end.

The glittering caves give the appearance of the infinite celestial heavens.

The creatures - or ghosts - come to witness Boonmee’s final moments.

And then, in the end, the film tails off with a very long coda after he dies. It’s a bit of a headscratcher. Boonmee died in the cave, and we’re witnessing final rites in the Thai Buddhist tradition at the temple in a city. His sister-in-law Jen and her daughter (who we haven’t met until this point) and Boonmee’s nephew Tong (Sakda Kaewbuadee), who is a monk too (that surprised us all), are spending time in a hotel room. Tong and Jen experience a sudden and nonchalant out-of-body experience where they watch the others transfixed to the television while the other Tong and Jen go to a restaurant with karaoke. The film ends this way, in the restaurant, with somehow appropriate abruptness.

Perhaps the most mundane out-of-body experience depicted in cinema.

In which they end up at dinner with karaoke, but don’t do karaoke and we never see karaoke.

As in all films, I try to find something that will stay with me. When I was watching Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives I felt that every time my attention started to drift when the narrative felt like it was losing steam, something unusual or surprising would happen. Huay’s ghost appearing, or the Boonsong creature coming out of the darkness, or the middle interlude with the princess and fish love, or the end night journey where it’s truly unnerving and it’s shot handheld and they’re in the jungle with monkey ghosts and then they’re in the glittering cave – all of it adds up to a haunting series of imagery that will remain in my memory. Perhaps that’s what I will recall when remembering Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives – that movies aren’t always a roadmap from point A to point B and don’t have to be clear to be compelling.

Honeyland (2019)

QFS No. 5 - The invitation for May 27, 2020
In keeping with the randomness of the movie selection, it’s time to switch gears and watch a documentary feature film because who’s there to stop us? Though I’ve made a few of them, I’ve never selected a documentary to watch in any of the predecessor film societies before QFS. But Honeyland (2019) I’ve had on my watch list from last year so I figured why not.

I know very little about Honeyland other than the raving reviews I heard from trusted sources. I would’ve known even less but for the first time I permitted a guest selector to join me in choosing this week and I watched the trailer with her. Valarie found this trailer to be the most compelling of the five films I narrowed down for her.

So there you have it – a peek into the rigorous selection process that happens here at QFS Studios and Educational Institution for the Barely Stable. Also – not that this should be a sole reason you watch anything – this film won thirty four (34!) awards last year.

So this week we’ll watch this nonfiction film and apply our rigorous, unflinching, inebriated evaluation of its narrative as we would with any film. Join us if you can!

Honeyland (2019) Directed by Tamara Kotevska and Ljubomir Stefanov

Reactions and Analyses:
Written in March 2024 - Honeyland (2019) was a perfect selection for our first documentary film selection for the nascent Quarantine Film Society back in 2020. To date, we’ve only selected three nonfiction films, and all three have crossed over from documentary into traditional narrative film in some way. Our most recent documentary selection, last week’s 20 Days in Mariupol (2023), won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature Film, just as Honeyland did four years ago. 20 Days in Mariupol is an action-driven film that could easily be a narrative fiction film if it wasn’t crafted as urgent reporting from the frontlines. Flee (2021), was also nominated for a Doc Feature Oscar and though it didn’t win it similarly crossed boundaries as both nonfiction and animated - a feat so rarely pulled off.

Both of those QFS selections are documentary films that are not pure docs in the way that nonfiction films had historically been considered. The deft hand of the filmmaker was evident in crafting the story, and it very much feels like a “movie” rather than a “documentary.”

And while the filmmakers have made themselves virtually invisible in Honeyland, the film too defies the conventions of nonfiction storytelling. The narrative storyline of the film feels deftly crafted as a scripted tale - a woman, using an ancient craft, struggles against nature and time to provide for her family as she attempts to survive the encroachment of a modern society. If you squint just hard enough, you could imagine this film told in black-and-white in the 1960s as a neo-realist classic.

Except that it is “real” and not “realist.” Hatidze Muratova is one of the last keepers of wild bees, selling honey to local markets. Newcomers, an itinerant family, settle next door and while it starts off well - havoc ensues. This setup is a time-honored narrative convention - a person’s sense of normalcy is disrupted, setting off the story and a chain of events that test the protagonist. This is why this film was perfect for a group of filmmakers who mostly in the world of fiction. Not to mention, the cinematography was stunning and evoked a certain movie-like quailty.

Some of the stunning cinematography and landscape of Honeyland (2019).

I didn’t take detailed notes of our discussions when the QFS first started, but I remember one aspect of our analysis, and that was the role of the filmmaker. Some questioned whether the filmmaker has a duty to intervene or assist the subject if that subject is in danger. In particular, the boy from the family nearly drowns in a river. Were the filmmakers supposed to help? Would that violate a code of ethics? Or is there a greater moral obligation and duty to save the child? The child survives but it brought up questions that you don’t get when you watch a scripted film. There are many skeptics who question how much is real and how much is staged - another dimension of nonfiction filmmaker that does not come up for those of use working in fiction.

“Half for you, half for me.” (From Honeyland, 2019)

When we watched the film, the world was a strange place. Everything was shut down. We though we had to scrub our groceries and local officials shut down walkways and public spaces even though they were outside and could offer respite from our homes. Social order and democracy itself seemed to be crumbling all around us. So perhaps it was some comfort to watch a film taking place in the glowing sun of Macedonia and to hear a woman say to her bees “half for you, half for me.” If only to transport us elsewhere, which is what the best films - fiction or nonfiction - can do.