Shaun of the Dead (2004)

QFS No. 156 - The invitation for October 30, 2024
Shaun of the Dead is directed by Edgar Wright, wacky genius behind one of my favorite Quarantine Film Society selections Hot Fuzz (2009, QFS No. 29), selected in our group’s first year.

And since my involvement with zombies and zombie fare as a filmmaker has been long documented, Shaun the Dead seemed like an appropriate pick to discuss on the eve of Halloween. If this movie is even remotely as funny as Hot Fuzz, it’s going to be a very satisfying viewing experience.  

So for now let’s ignore our current apocalypse and watch Shaun of the Dead (one of the great plays on “of the dead” you can find) and discuss.

Shaun of the Dead (2004) Directed by Edgar Wright

Reactions and Analyses:
For a comedy about zombies and a zombie apocalypse, Shaun of the Dead (2004) actually has something very pointed to say about humanity – especially at the beginning and the end of the film.

That commentary begins in the opening credits which roll after the opening teaser sequence where we meet Shaun (Simon Pegg) and all the main characters. During the opening credits, director Edgar Wright shows humans sleep-walking through life, zombie like. They sway in unison with their music devices, drugged out, waiting for the bus with vacant expressions and checking their watches simultaneously. Or they go through the motions as cashiers or in the supermarket parking lot. Even Shaun, when he wakes up, lurches like the undead.

Zombies or people? Or can we even tell the difference?

In Shaun of the Dead (2004), Edgar Wright asks the question if we’d even notice a zombie apocalypse at all.

The filmmaker appears to be saying – we’re already acting like zombies. So if an actual zombie apocalypse happens, would we even notice?

The answer, for a while, is no. At least not for Shaun and Ed (Nick Frost) – roommates and disconnected from the world and occupied by their own concerns. (Or lack of them, in Ed’s case.) Meanwhile, a strange disease or occurrence is turning people into the undead. The fact is, we are so distracted and going through the motions of life that we can easily avoid knowing that an apocalypse is at our doorstep.

Shaun, moving zombie-like through the world already.

Wright cleverly continues to show us that we’re already among people who are the walking dead already. A homeless beggar asks Shaun for cash and later, when that beggar has been turned into a zombie, Shaun barely notices the difference. In another scene, Shaun looks out at the park and sees what appears to be a homeless person with mental health issues who goes after pigeons. Is he about to eat one? Before we can find out, a bus comes between Shaun and the man, and both the pigeons and the – homeless person? zombie? – are gone.

Shaun even stares, zombie-like, at the television, a television set that is desperately trying to tell him that the world is crumbling and people need to take cover because humans are mutating into some sort of animal-like undead creature. It’s an incredibly brilliant device – Shaun is flipping through the channels and each one is filling out a statement, telling us (who already know this) and Shaun (who still isn’t hearing it) that the world is ending. It’s terrifically funny and a perfectly clever coordination of exposition, character development, and plot setup.

Even when one of the undead women nearly kills Shaun, they think she’s drunk and coming on to him. It isn’t until they see her impaled and survive with a hole in her torso do they finally understand that something is very very very wrong. It’s fantastic.

Shaun still doesn’t quite get that there are zombies now in the world, even when one is literally on top of him.

He finally finally gets it.

As several us in the discussion pointed out, Wright and his collaborator Pegg are clearly fans of genres. We screened and discussed Hot Fuzz (2009, QFS No. 29) four years ago, a film that’s a perfect homage and satire of action films that could only be done by someone deeply immersed in the genre. Same goes for Shaun of the Dead – it’s clear that Wright and Pegg are zombie movie nerds. The film contains a multitude of reference and possibly my favorite one is Shaun’s mother, named “Barbara” (Penelope Wilton) which gives the perfect set up to reference a line from Night of the Living Dead (1968, QFS No. 44) – “we’re coming to get you, Barbara!” Not to mention that they can’t say the “zed word,” a reference to the fact that zombie movies and shows go to painstaking lengths to call the undead anything but “zombies.” Even the Hindi-language broadcast in the Indian-run corner convenience store is broadcasting about the zombie apocalypse - but in Hindi so Shaun doesn’t get the news.

This tactic of smearing zombie guts on your body to move among the zombies will be used later in The Walking Dead series. 

The flowers for Shaun’s mother Barbara are an example of a simple gag set up and paid off much later.

Wright’s comedic setup, timing and use of dialogue are unmatched in contemporary filmmaking, I feel. His comedy isn’t based on improv or relies on clever characters the way a Judd Apatow film might, but uses visuals and filmmaking in the way that Charlie Chaplain may have done to enhance comedic scenarios. It’s true directing to enhance a story. And for Shaun of the Dead, it’s his clever use of satire to make a sideways dig at humanity that elevates this film from something like Zombieland (2009) that’s a funny action zombie-genre film but nothing much beyond that. Shaun of the Dead is an insightful film about our current civilization – still “current” even though it was made 20 years ago. I’d argue it's even more relevant now, frankly. He’s saying – we’re already in a semi-catatonic state of detachment. How much different are we than the zombies of movie lore?

Watching useful zombies on television in the aftermath.

And what cements his apparent commentary is the film’s denouement, the final moments after the climactic finale. Humanity has now learned to live with the undead around them. Shaun and Liz (Kate Ashfield) watch TV and see that there are the mundane type of shows we have now – talk shows, game shows, news documentaries – but with one key difference. They all have folded zombie-life into their world. Zombies have been utilized to do daily labor tasks humans once did. Others are part of a game show where they’re raced or used for sport. There’s a sensationalized talk show where a woman talks about the love of her life is a zombie. It’s so perfect – humanity hasn’t so much as learned from their mistakes and made life more vibrant, they’ve just adapted to the reality of having zombies living among them.

The clincher for this is the final scene – Ed, now a zombie, is chained in a little shed in Shaun and Liz’s yard, where he’s hooked up to a video game system. Just as we saw him at the beginning of the film. And Shaun plays with him. Ed is living the same life as before. Just now, as a zombie. Which is basically what he was all along.

Shaun and Ed, living on the couch in front of a video game console.

As Ed was in the beginning - on the couch, playing video games with his friend  Shaun.

Is this a scathing criticism of people, society, of men in particular? After all, Shaun’s journey throughout the film is evolving from an overgrown child into a man who can take charge and actually prove his love to Liz. Regardless, the commentary or criticism would be nothing without humor, the performances, and the execution from the deft hand of an elite-level filmmaker.  

Carnival of Souls (1962)

QFS No. 155 - The invitation for October 23, 2024
We go from low-budget drama for our previous selection to low-budget horror this week. This is going to be an incredibly short invitation, compared to the usual, because I deliberately know nothing about Carnival of Souls. I know that it’s a film that has been influential to filmmakers over the years, enough to be in the Criterion Collection, and that it from the 1960s. And maybe it has a carnival of sorts? Or perhaps its metaphoric!

Also, importantly – the film is originally in black and white. In my briefest of research, Amazon Prime is offering a color version. My suggestion is to eschew this colorized film and go for the original because we’re purists here at the Quarantine Film Society, as you know.

Okay, watch Carnival of Souls and join us to discuss this our 155th film!

Carnival of Souls (1962) Directed by Herk Harvey

Reactions and Analyses:
Although Carnival of Souls (1962) is not the origin point for person-is-dead-but-doesn’t-know-it-yet film, it certainly must be considered one of the first. An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge (1961), a short film from around the time Herk Harvey was conceiving of his story for Carnival of Souls is perhaps the first – that film is based on a 19th Century short story so it wasn’t a totally new concept. The “Twilight Zone” was incredibly popular on television in the early 1960s and featured a number of episodes where a main character is not alive who may not know it.

And now, in 2024, after we’ve had more than 60 years of films with this premise – most successfully executed in The Sixth Sense (1999) – is the surprise ending of Carnival of Souls really a surprise at all? Most everyone in our QFS discussion group had determined that Mary (Candace Hilligoss) is likely dead and doesn’t know it.

Mary (Candace Hilligoss) emerges from the river after the car she was in plummeted off of a bridge in Carnival of Souls (1962). Or did she?!

So given that, the ending doesn’t really pack a surprise. But perhaps that doesn’t matter all these years later. A film, made on a miniscule budget by a director who worked in industrial and educational films primarily and never made another theatrical feature again – how does a film like endure the test of time?

Herk Harvey, bound by the constraints of the budget and what available locations and resources he had, leaned into his limitations instead of trying to mask them. And beyond that, he uses a true artist’s eye for unnerving and enduring visuals. Take for example an early scene. Mary plays a massive pipe organ in an organ factory. Harvey shoots much of the scene from high above, the long verticals of the pipes reaching upwards like rigid fingers. It evokes a queasiness too, the verticals accentuating the height and creating a sense of unbalance.

Mary surrounded by massive pipes from pipe organs at the factory where they’re made, early in the film.

On the one hand, this is a great premise – an organ player being hired to work in a church who doesn’t feel particularly religious and treats it as a job. On the other hand, we know now that Harvey had access to this particular location in his hometown of Lawrence, Kansas. He adapted his story to fit what he had.

One could say that about the actors as well. Candace as Mary is the only professional actor and the rest of the cast are “amateurs” which is a little generous. Many of them were Harvey’s co-workers, and their performances feel out of the ordinary. Something’s amiss with Mrs. Thomas (Frances Feist) the landlord of the home where Mary rented a room. John Linden (Sidney Berger) is extremely, perhaps extraordinarily, aggressive, ready and willing to sexually abuse Mary at the first chance. Dr. Samuels (Stan Levitt) is quite an aggressive doctor. No one acts in a manner that seems quite human.

Candace Hilligoss as Mary, the only professional actor in Carnival of Souls - something that director Herk Harvey turns to his advantage.

Now, on the one hand, this could be just the pitfalls of working with a cast of primarily amateurs. On the other hand, if you write and create a film to use your production’s weakness as an asset, you’re able to use the fact that no one acts quite human to help enhance the feel of the world you’re creating.

The abandoned (is it?) bathhouse occupies Mary’s mind and her nightmares for some reason.

And that’s the overall feel of Carnival of Souls – something is off. Nothing quite fits and that’s likely the point. Mary is in purgatory. And in purgatory, you’re neither alive or dead. Nothing is quite there and nothing is quite gone. In this purgatory, as opposed to Dante’s Divine Comedy where he’s attempting to pass through Purgatory, in Carnival of Souls we meander about throughout it. There’s no driving narrative, no main story in which the protagonist struggles to succeed. Instead, Mary is just mostly wandering around, trying to figure out why things are so off, why she’s obsessed with this abandoned bathhouse on the shore of the Great Salt Lake.

Mary exploring the abandoned bathhouse complex.

This uncertain feeling and mood allows for genuinely creepy imagery. I confess, the first time Mary sees the ghoulish man (NAME???) out the window while driving, I jumped in my seat. Mary looks forward, her reflection in the passenger window with the world going by as the sun’s going down, but then when she looks back it’s not her reflection she sees but our first glimpse of the man who haunts her throughout the film. Then he appears at night in front of the car as she’s about to hit him. It’s so effective at creating a sense of unease, and the film peppers these moments throughout.

This image was incredibly effective in creating an unsettling feeling as Mary drives to her new town.

This image, with a fast car-POV push in, punctuates the driving scene and is really effective in creating horror and suspense.

The man appears to be stalking her, but only she can see him. Then, she’s haunted by him so much that she is unable to sleep and has a nightmare with crash zooms and wailing organ music, images of the Saltair bathouse filling her minds. Later, when she’s playing the organ at her new church, she becomes possessed, playing decidedly un-spiritual music, seeing visions of the ghoulish man dancing with similar-looking people in fast motion, a danse macabre.

Later, she’s in the department store and suddenly no one can hear her or see her, as if she doesn’t exist. She’s driven out, crashing into the arms of a dubious medical professional who isn’t all that helpful. Mary, at wits end from seeing the ghoulish man stalking her, moves her furniture around to block her door, and the filmmakers shoot from outside her lit window – the only thing in the darkness, and her frantic movements inside with the organ music playing. All of these are low cost, high impact storytelling techniques that creates this unsettling feeling.

And Harvey accentuates this with clever filmmaking. His use of high angles makes Mary small and lost in her world, both in the street then later in the abandoned bathhouse. The abandoned bathhouse sequence itself, as many in our group pointed out, displays real cinematographic acumen, using the location and it’s emptiness in an effective way to enhance our sense of unease – especially later when Mary is there and sees all the ghouls with her, trying to pull her down into the afterlife. And they eventually do.

Harvey uses high angles very effectively to make Mary small and lost in the strange world she’s found herself in.

The film is, of course, flawed in many ways. The feeling we had as a group is that the rules of this world are not yet solidified in the way they do years later. For example, there are a number of scenes that Mary wouldn’t be privy to – when the doctor and the landlady talk about Mary’s decision to leave or even after Mary succumbs to the demons at Saltair. The sheriff traces her footsteps and says they know that her car is there and this is where she fell but then the trail disappears.

Mary’s final moments, chased down by the undead.

So… are these people real and Mary existed among them but is gone? Or was this entire extra, post-death life just in Mary’s head while she was drowning to death in the car? And what happened in the bathhouse retreat – were people horribly murdered? Why are they there? These are not major flaws but are story holes that get ironed out later on in films that feature the dead-but-doesn’t-know-it protagonist.

The undead, but … why are they here? What happened? Or does it not matter?

In the end, of course, Carnival of Souls succeeds despite much of its short comings. The fact that the filmmaker knew he had shortcomings all around him posed no obstacle. Instead, he embraced these limitations, wrote his story to fit what he had available to him, and used his meager resources to his advantage. Harvey created a film that should remain a model for scrappy, savvy independent filmmakers – and not just ones who work in stories of horror or fantastical realms. Embrace your limitations and find ways to make your disadvantages into advantages.

Low-fi scares through simple imagery abound in Carnival of Souls (1962).

Death Race 2000 (1975)

QFS No. 146 - The invitation for June 26, 2024
The late great Roger Corman produced Death Race 2000 set in a dystopic, mayhem-ridden future. And I, for one, have been keen on seeing it for some time. It takes place in the distant future, the year 2000! What will life be like then? Who knows! Well, the late great Roger Corman will tell you!

In Death Race 2000 you’ve got the red-hot stardom of David Carradine to contend with alongside upstart nobody Sylvester Stallone. Made on a Corman-style budget, this feels like an even more appropriate Corman selection than our previous one, X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes (1963, QFS No. 89). Corman directed that masterpiece himself. This one, he produced it on his B-movie assembly line and is one of the films that actually (sorta?) penetrated into the broader mainstream.

And this is our first return to a Corman film since the legend passed away last month. Let’s honor him by easing back on our critical thinking skills a touch and watch one of his classics. Kick back, relax, and watch the soothing tale that I’m sure is at the heart of Death Race 2000. 

Death Race 2000 (1975) Directed by Paul Bartel

Reactions and Analyses:
There was something in the air in the mid-1970s. Part of our QFS discussion about Death Race 2000 (1975) debated what could be the reason for the glut of post-apocalyptic films in the 1970s and into the early 1980s.

The filmmakers of this era grew up as children with memories of the horrors and heroism of World War II and came of age in the Cold War, a time fraught with the very real possibility of global extinction from nuclear weapons. In the 1970s, The studio system no longer had a stranglehold on filmmakers and a parallel film track from auteurs was starting to penetrate the mainstream.

So given some of these conditions, we see films like A Clockwork Orange (1970), Logan’s Run (1976), Soylent Green (1973), Mad Max (1979) and its sequels, Omega Man (1971), Rollerball (1975), Planet of the Apes (though from 1968, the film franchise continues in the ’70s), and perhaps you could argue THX 1138 (1971) and Stalker (1979, QFS No. 25) as well. And of course, Death Race 2000.

The future! New York City in the year 2000 as depicted in Death Race 2000 (1975) in what is in the running for the worst matte painting in history.

Many of those films are attempting to make a commentary about something – overpopulation (Soylent Green), reliance on fossil fuels (Mad Max), nuclear war (Planet of the Apes, presumably and maybe Stalker), totalitarianism (THX 1138).

And then you have commentary on violence in society and our fascination with it (A Clockwork Orange), how we’re inured to it and, in the case of Rollerball and Death Race 2000, how that fascination is literally turned to sport.

How much social commentary Roger Corman and director Paul Bartel are actually interested in is probably very little. The film is perhaps best summarized as one QFS called: the perfect hangover movie to watch after waking up at noon after a night of drinking. This is, of course, high praise.

The premise of the eponymous “death race” is … simple? Simple, but convoluted. Annually, as a way to appease the masses, racers speed across the continent racing from New York to Los Angeles while trying to kill as many people as possible with their vehicles. Killing the elderly or children will give racers the highest number of points. But also – whoever finishes first wins? It’s not entirely clear.

But it really doesn’t have to be. Just take one segment in particular and you can see exactly who this film is intended to reach. After the first day of racing early on in the film, all of the drivers and their navigators (who, we all agreed, are just there to “service” the drivers in all ways practical, emotional, and physical) are naked lying down getting massages. It’s so amazingly gratuitous without really any reason for its inclusion other than attracting the target audience – adolescent males. And given some of the laughable B-movie blood-splattered scenes from the race, it’s almost impossible to refute that the American male ages 16-30 are the ones Corman was after.

Violence and gratuitious nudity. Target audience: American males, 16-30.

Still, the film is engaging even beyond that demographic. The racing sequences, sped up to amply the scenes, are propulsive. Much of the action follows people in motion, the world whipping behind them. The film introduces the drivers in the most efficient manner, almost akin to a video game with each car and its unique killing apparatuses detailed for the viewer. Add to the fact that this was made on a shoestring budget, and it’s quite an achievement in filmmaking.

But with that shoestring budget comes risks. Namely in performances that lack any sort of attachment to reality - what is more simply can be described as “bad acting” – in particular from the supporting cast. But it’s not like David Carradine (as Frankenstein) or Sylvester Stallone (as Machine Gun Joe Viterbo) are lighting up the place with their performances. They don’t have to, of course, but it all contributes to Death Race 2000 feeling more like a product of its time than a trenchant analysis of American society.

Watching Death Race 2000, I was reminded of two movies that are seemingly vastly different from each other. First, The Hunger Games (2012) and its sequels and also Network (1976). The Hunger Games books and film franchise take place in a world in which a deadly game is watched by all in a post-apocalyptic agreement between nations to quell civil war, where teens are sacrificed for the sake of peace and stability. The idea of a violent sport as a way of a nation together after some cataclysm felt very similar to Death Race 2000.

Network explores the line between news and entertainment. There’s an element of watching something horrible on screen – in this case Howard Beale (Peter Finch) having a breakdown on television – and going through with it because the ratings are high and that’s all that matters. There’s something similar in Death Race 2000. Everyone is watching this national event with glee, even actual Nazis cheering an actual Nazi car in front of people in the stands with swastikas on their sleeves.  

Going back to – what are the filmmakers trying to say? At first the film seemed to be a critique against the glorification of violence. Frankenstein wants to abolish the race and return to the rule of law in the country. When he has an opportunity to kill dozens of elderly patients who were about to be euthanized – and thus getting more points – he does not. So this appears to be a point for the idea that violence is not the way or something to that effect.

Frankenstein (David Carradine) and Annie (Simone Griffeth) both want to take down the president and restore order. Or something like that. He also continues to kill people in the car so it’s a muddled message at best.

But what does Frankenstein do instead? Runs over dozens of doctors and nurses! He gets fewer points but he still goes through with killing for the sake of the race. The commentator Grace (Joyce Jameson) defends the action, saying those doctors were smug and they deserved it but the low point total might cost Frankenstein in the long run. Quite the sacrifice!

Obligatory image of the literal hand grenade.

Okay, but then Frankenstein still does intend to change things. How? By using his prosthetic hand grenade (built into his hand!) to kill the president. He ultimately kills him, with the help of Annie (Simone Griffeth). And then, in the coda to the movie, he’s now president (how?) and is about to leave on his honeymoon with Annie. But that annoying announcer Junior (Don Steele) is in the way, so he just runs him over. Presumably, old habits die hard.

So there are logical issues with the underlying desire of the main character. But there are logical issues throughout so this is par for the film. How are they watching all of the races? Why are people taking different routes when they all should take the most direct routes? Why would anyone be out at all on this day knowing they can be killed? Why again do we hate the French? How is Frankenstein president, what kind of succession plan is in the United States of the future?

The answer to all of these questions is – it doesn’t matter. Of course it doesn’t. Or Corman knows that you don’t have to answer every single logic question a movie raises, just as long as you have all the right elements for film. A premise, a world created, and speed to plow through all logic. And, of course, gratuitous nudity and violence. Is Corman criticizing sensationalism by clever use of sensationalism? It’s hard to say and perhaps that’s the lasting genius of Corman’s work in Death Race 2000 and beyond – the ambiguous nature of the theme, but the unambiguous enjoyment of fast cars hurtling across a post-apocalyptic landscape.

A Woman Under the Influence (1974)

QFS No. 145 - The invitation for June 19, 2024
We haven’t yet selected a John Cassavetes film here at Quarantine Film Society and this shortcoming has sent shockwaves throughout the organization.* What’s just as shocking is that I, your humble narrator, have never seen a Cassavetes film. In 2013, The New Yorker, wrote that Cassavetes “may be the most influential American director of the last half century.” The last half century, mind you, included the likes of Steven Spielberg, Stanley Kubrick, Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese and a lot more! So this is a pretty bold claim. And even more shameful I haven’t seen a Cassavetes film yet.

Oh sure, I’ve seen Mr. Cassavetes as an actor in such films as Rosemary’s Baby (1968). And his auteurist spirit lives on in John Sayles, Jim Jarmusch and especially Scorsese. So I feel as if I have witnessed his influence, if not having seen any of his actual work as a director itself.

I write all this just to make myself feel better because I know, I know, I should’ve been familiar with Cassavetes’ work from the second I stepped foot onto the American Film Institute campus lo those many years ago. His Faces (1968) and The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976) have been on my list for a while, just as this week’s selection has.

A Woman Under the Influence is considered Cassavetes’ most beloved work and stars his wife Gena Rowlands and Peter Falk (as not Columbo). I’m eager to finally watch one of the true fathers of modern cinema, especially modern cinematic performance and independent filmmaking, to fill in a gaping hole in my film knowledge. 

Join us to discuss A Woman Under the Influence! Feel free to be under the influence of something as well – it’s summer, after all!

* The QFS staffer responsible for this oversight has relinquished their proper name and has been remanded to a farm upstate.

A Woman Under the Influence (1974) Directed by John Cassavetes

Reactions and Analyses:
A Woman Under the Influence (1974) offers no answers. Is it about addition? Is it about toxic relationships? Is it about mental illness? Is it about double standards between how men are treated versus how women are treated? Is it none of these or all of these?

Director John Cassavetes does not seem to be raising awareness about addiction or mental illness or any of the other aspects listed above. If anything, A Woman Under the Influence is a portrait of a relationship between two dysfunctional people. Neither change, neither seem to learn or grow. One doesn’t know how to communicate with the other and one may not be capable of behaving in the world as a functional adult. From a storytelling perspective, the movie fights against all filmmaking convention, where scenes seem to continue on past their natural end, creating a feeling of uneasiness, that we’re watching something we shouldn’t watch but we are not released from having to watch.

This scene halfway through A Woman Under the Influence (1974) continues on for a longer time than it seems like it ought. John Cassavetes gives you no way out, just as the characters are trapped in their circumstances.

In a word, the film is relentless. There’s no escape from these two and their manias. Everyone in the QFS group felt that way – the exhaustion, the cringe-inducing awkwardness, the uneasy witnessing of a dysfunctional marriage. Cassavetes traps you in this film in the way that the characters are trapped. In that way, it’s truly a remarkable achievement of filmmaking.

One of the members of the group brought up the ending, which I agree is pretty perfect and apt for the story. In fact, the entire final sequence contains the rest of the film in a nutshell. Nick (Peter Falk) has slapped Mabel (Gena Rowlands) for standing and singing on the couch, and the children are trying to protect her and refuse to stay in their rooms after he physically carries them upstairs (twice!). He has just shouted at them all, saying he’s going to murder her and their kids. It’s terribly upsetting and wrenching, especially since Mabel may just attempted suicide but instead cut her hand and now lies there bleeding slowly from the wound. Everyone, then, calms and Mabel gathers herself and tenderly puts the kids to bed.

Nick washes Mabel’s hand with equal tenderness – a man who had just hit her moments earlier and threatened mass homicide – and they’re both silent as the water cleans her hand. The Mabel talks in low tones and asks if he loves her. Nick can’t answer. He looks up at her a couple of times and back down at the bandage and the wound. And he seems like he wants to say something, but he can’t - or won’t. This is someone who has professed or at least demonstrated that he does care for her deeply. But he’s also someone who has hit her several times in the film. This moment contains so much without saying anything – which is what he does. He says nothing. It offers no answers.

Nick (Peter Falk) is unable to answer Mabel at the end when she asks him if he loves her.

But perhaps the most brilliant part of this sequence is the next and final one of A Woman Under the Influence. As the music plays, both clean up the living room and put everything back the way it was. Not fixing anything, just rearranging as if it’s all back to normal. This also speaks volumes – nothing has changed. They’re going to continue on in the same manner as when they began the film and presumably the cycle will continue.

The story unspools. We’re dropped into this family and watch what they’re experiencing as if we’re a part of it but we gather information as it goes along that changes our perspective. At first, Nick seems to tell co-workers that his wife is loving and takes care of all the household needs. He tries to get his fellow workers the night off but instead they end up having to fix a water main and he can’t spend the night with Mabel. She, for her part, has given the kids to her mother so Mabel and Nick can have a night together.

So for the first 10 minutes or so of the film, it feels like a happy, healthy family with support and a couple who are hoping to spend more time together. But then Mabel drinks heavily, goes to the bar on her own, picks up a man, brings him home, and (we think) they sleep together. So at first it appears that Mabel has a drinking problem brought on by loneliness because her husband works so much.

A typical setup and familiar story. But then, when Mabel wakes up and the man (Garson Cross played by George Dunn) tries to slink away in the early morning, Mabel calls him by her husband’s name and is confused where the children are. We had seen her just the afternoon before as she put the kids in her mother’s car. Her behavior is jarring, and we start to realize that Mabel’s problems aren’t only substance-related – she has some form of mental illness.

For Nick’s part, at first he seems like a garrulous but likeable middle-class working man, doing his best to live with a woman who suffers from mental illness and doesn’t know what to do. He expresses regret on the phone that he has to stay out late working, and we’re led to believe this is a reasonable caring man – until we seem him shouting at Mabel in front of his co-workers at dinner the next day. (Setting aside for a moment how unusual it is for Nick to have invited a dozen guys from work over to dinner after being gone for probably 40 hours straight and missing a night with his wife...) Throughout that dinner scene, Mabel is so hard to watch – smiling and enjoying, but clearly not all there. So then when she insists on someone dancing with her and Nick shouts in front of everyone, we feel as if we’re in that dinner and can feel that awkwardness the others feel.

Nick seems caring at the beginning, and he mostly is. But also prone to unreasonable overreactions and violence. Or has he been driven to that?

Mable (Gena Rowlands) in the Top 10 most awkward dinner scenes of all time.

Because she starts caressing this pretty face and insists on dancing, leading to Nick;s first outburst.

At this point, it seems as though Mabel has a clear mental problem. But with Nick, we start to get close. Is he abusing her and that’s what’s driven her to this point? Or is it Nick driven to this rage because he’s lived with a person with mental illness and has no tools to address it in a time where these conditions were even more stigmatized than they are now 50 years later? Soon, we do see Nick strike Mabel so we know he’s capable violence as well. This unspooling continues as we learn more and more – the introduction of the doctor who knows her condition, Nick’s mother, Mabel’s mother and later her father. It’s clear this has been going on for some time and we’re just catching up.

One question that came up in the discussion is – does Nick have a mental illness as well? He seems prone to outbursts and violence, mood swings of his own. He wants to control everything, show everyone that everything is normal. Take the scene at the beach with the kids. He insists they go to the beach but then Nick chases down his daughter even though all she was trying to do was going to work on the sand castle. He preferred her be over by him on a beach towel, I guess?

Nick is also prone to extreme overreacting. He comes home when Mabel has been “babysitting” her three kids and two friends. Nick arrives and the kids are all trying on clothes in a costume party and their daughter is running around naked, as kids sometimes do. He flies off the handle, threatens to kill the other kids and their father, Harold (Mario Gallo) in what can only be described as an unnecessary escalation. 

To me, it seems clear that Nick also has a mental condition of some kind. Others weren’t so sure, they felt he was perhaps behaving in a way that someone might behave living with a loved one who has manic mood swings the way Mabel does (not that they condoned the violence of course). Whatever it is – perhaps some combination of both mental illness and driven to the edge (again, Cassavetes provides no answers) – it’s clear that the combination of Mabel and Nick is combustible. They go up in flames.

It says volumes that Nick can get off by behaving the way he does without so much as a mention of him having a problem that needs to be addressed, but it’s Mabel who gets carted off to an institution for six months. She’s subjected to shock therapy and separation from her children, but no one tells Nick that he’s got to seek counseling for rage or domestic abuse as well. He definitely definitely needs it. But it’s 1974, he’s a working class male in America, there is likely no way it’s even on his radar – or on anyone else’s in the family – that he has problems that need to be addressed.

Everything’s fine. We’re all fine here. So she’s got a couple of screws lose and is in the nuthouse, so what? (Paraphrasing Nick

Instead, he’s free to take his young kids out of school, ride in the back of a pickup truck with them, give them Hamm’s beer until they’re drunk enough to sleep as soon as they get home. It’s both a product of the 1970s and also the double standard of how the “hysterical” woman is treated versus how a man is, as reckless as his behavior may be.

Nick tries to get convince everyone, and maybe himself, that you can just force yourself to act normal and things will be normal. He plans a large, ill-conceived party for Mabel’s return from the institution. He invites all of the guys over for dinner after the work shift. He shouts at Mabel to just flip the switch and act normal. But that’s not how it works, and nobody in the film knows how to deal with Mabel’s problems – least of all the family doctor (Eddie Shaw). Dr Zepp communicates with Mabel in a way that we would, in 2024, recognize as profoundly unhelpful. Telling a manic mental health patient to simply “calm down” or the like is definitely not at all useful in any way.

Great sequence that is pure 1970s - a smoking Peter Falk riding in the back of a pickup with children who’ve been taking big swigs of Hamm’s beer.

A Woman Under the Influence is not easy – not to watch and also not easy to discern what meaning to derive from it, if any. And yet, it does feel like essential viewing. There are scenes where the filmmaking is top tier. When Nick’s drinking with the children (that’s so strange to write…), it’s a very tight closeup on Nick as the frame bounces violently, but solidly holding the closeup on Nick. The world speeds past him, out of focus and in a blur behind his head and the red railing of the truck. And he speaks very earnestly with the kids, apologizing for having to send their mother into the institution. The contrast between the dynamic background and what he’s saying is incredibly effective and affecting, giving the feel of that’s what his life feels like.

Mabel returns home after her time at the institution and goes to see their children.

When she sees them, it’s played in tight disorienting closeups, evoking how Mabel feels.

Also, when Mabel comes back home, she finally gets to see the children. She steps into the adjacent room and it cuts to a close up on her face. All of the shots are tight – there is no wide shot that holds the room and the family. It’s tight on her, then tight on the kids, it’s a little disorienting and you can’t quite get your bearings. This is how Mabel feels, and it’s done with the camera, without any gimmicks or special effects. Just simple shot selection, cinematography, choice of camera, and performance. Basically – directing. Cassavetes pushed his performers to the brink to expose their raw insides, photographed that rawness, and made a wrenching, relentless film.

In A Woman Under the Influence, he pushes his audience the same way, giving them no way out. Just as the characters in the film are trapped by their circumstances and each other. Is the moving saying anything about that? Is it saying nothing about that? I still don’t know for sure. So if if for nothing else, the movie is worth enduring exactly because it offers no easy answers in the way that life often does not. 

Black Girl (1966)

QFS No. 141 - The invitation for May 22, 2024
A lot of "firsts" in these next few sentences. Black Girl will be our first ever selection from Senegal, and our first selection of a film by Ousmane Sembene. Sembene is considered the “dean” or father of African cinema. Did I know this before? No. Am I ashamed of that? Yes.

Sembene’s first film, Black Girl, has been on my radar for the last few years. I first discovered it when it arrived at No. 95 on the esteemed* BFI/Sight and Sound 100 Greatest Films of All Time list. (Tied with QFS No. 9 A Man Escaped, 1956). As you remember, just a few weeks ago we watched No. 48 Wanda (1970, QFS No. 138). Recently, some of the imagery from Black Girl has piqued my interest, including clips I’ve seen in the great montage on the second floor of the Academy Museum that introduces you to the main Stories of Cinema exhibition. And from what I’ve gathered, Ousmane is finally getting some newfound recognition and his due outside of Africa and France.

For those of you keeping score at home, this is our eleventh selection from the BFI top 100 list. We previously selected No. 1 Jeanne Dielman, No. 5 In the Mood for Love (2000, QFS No. 105), No. 11 Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927, QFS No. 104), No. 30 Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019, QFS No. 114), No. 43 Stalker (1979, QFS No. 25), No. 48 Wanda, No. 60 Daughters of the Dust (1991, QFS No. 18), No. 67 The Red Shoes (1948, QFS No. 52), No. 72 L’Avventura (1960, QFS No. 116), and No. 95 A Man Escaped.

Also, at 66 minutes long, this will be the shortest Quarantine Film Society selection since our first Christmas in 2020 when we watched A Christmas Carol (1938) which clocked in at 69 minutes. So watch this week’s film because it’s only barely longer than an episode of Succession. Oh, and for all those other reasons too I guess.

*We’ve discussed at length how I both enjoy and also loathe the BFI list, so “esteemed” is of course sort of facetious. Yet, the list remains an important guidepost if for nothing else but to encounter great works of foreign cinema that I have overlooked.

Black Girl (1966) Directed by Ousmane Semebene

Reactions and Analyses:
Film as symbolism, film as metaphor. These were useful tools for me to finally get my grasp of Black Girl (1966). Recent crtitical revisiting of this early work from the Father of African Cinema Ousmane Semebene has placed this film firmly on the radar of people like us in the QFS viewing group.

But the film is challenging, despite its recent reclamation of glory. Before getting into all the production challenges – of which there were the usual kinds and the uniquely African kinds – we’ll delve into the narrative and the filmmaking craft.

From a purely story standpoint, almost all of us in the group felt the story contained numerous holes and an ending that was shocking, sudden and abrupt. And unearned. Diouana (Mbissine Therese Diop) appears in France, a new maid for a white French couple who also live in Dakar, Senegal – where they encountered and hired Diouana.

But it’s clear there was something missing in the arrangement. Diouana believes she’s arriving in the South of France to take care of children. Madam (Anne-Marie Jelinek) treats her, however, like a maid and not a nanny. Diouana develops a sense that she was duped, is trapped, and has no way out.

Diouana (Mbissine Therese Diop) didn’t sign up to be treated as a maid. But then… what did she expect? Perhaps a well delineated contracted could’ve gotten them all out of trouble in Black Girl (1966).

All of this is a perfectly fine set up. Diouana believed she was going to see France but instead sees darkness out the windows at night and has no encounter with the famous nightlife of the area near Cannes where she lives. France lacks the human vitality of Dakar. In France, it seems, people are stuck in their homes instead of out in the world together.

The strange thing, however, is that Diouana feels shocked that she has to do work at all. And here is where a variety of narrative questions being. Why is she surprised? Was she misled? Is she just young and naïve? Also, when she is actually paid, she says “I didn’t come here for the apron or the money?” But … didn’t she? Surely she didn’t think she was on vacation – she knew she was there for work?

This is not in any way meant to excuse the behavior of her employees. Madam is definitely demanding and it’s not clear why the children are suddenly gone. And for how long? Timelines are unclear in the film throughout – has she been there for a week, a few weeks, months? It matters only because of this – we need to feel as an audience that she is truly trapped, truly abused with no way out. That’s the only way the end is earned and worthwhile.

That’s the face of an irate employer prone to violence.

The end was a major topic of discussion. No one was quite sure what to make of the suddenness of Diouana’s suicide. To me, it’s was, of course, very bleak, but why was this her only answer? The film did not present that she was so trapped and desperate that death was her only way out. She packed up her things and was, seemingly, going to leave. But in the end, she does not and finds that suicide in the tub is her only means of escape.

The narrative is imperfect. But it’s not meant to be airtight as a direct story. It’s film as metaphor, as symbol. When I thought of it that way, and excused the narrative imperfections and some of the inexperienced filmmaker craftwork, the film takes on an importance that is clear in its recent rival.

All of it is symbolism, and what it symbolizes is clear from the start. The power dynamics between the white employers, extracting labor from Africa to do their chores with no cost to themselves. The tantalizing wealth and fun of France, luring poor Senegalese to toil and not experience the joy of the French Riviera in the way the white French are able. The liberal African-loving dinner guests, exoticizing the black girl who serves them food and openly talking about her when she’s mere feet away. Not to mention the extremely creepy guy who wants to kiss a black girl for the first time, treating her as a literal sexual object for his unwanted affection. And the dehumanizing slave market-style scene when Diouana first meets Madam on the street as the group of women are attempting to find work as maids or servants. The refusal of money – a symbolic gesture standing up to the West’s money and holding on to pride, even if it didn’t make sense in the narrative or in reality. 

Dehumanizing dinner featuring a creepiest of the creepy guys who just wants to kiss a black girl.

Dehumanize human marketplace for a maid/nanny.

Even the death – she dies alone, in a tub that, when we next see it, is wiped clean as if she never existed. She’s invisible to the world, and in death forgotten. For a film rooted in a kind of realism or neorealism to some extent, it’s entirely reliant upon symbolism for one to see its value and importance.

Take, for example, the mask. Which many of us felt was the most effective metaphor employed by the filmmaker. Form my perspective, when I first saw the mask on the wall of the French home, I applied meaning to it. I immediately judged the French couple as the type who “love Africa” and culturally appropriate their art in the way that I’m familiar with people who are enchanted by the exoticism of India, but have little care about the actual people and their experience there.

The mask’s origin.

The mask on the wall in France. a gift from Diouana.

The mask “chasing” Monsiur (Robert Fontaine) away in Dakar.

But I was too hasty; the mask evolves in the story, and we discover that it was actually Diouana who gave the mask to them as a gift. It’s genuine and authentic, whether the couple see it as anything other than a fascinating artifact. Then Diouana takes it down when she’s preparing to leave, causing a stir as Madam starts to get very upset with her but Monsieur (Robert Fontaine) says it’s hers after all, she can take it. This, too, is symbolic – is it a hope that Senegal and Africa will reclaim their indigeneity? Perhaps.

Then, the mask returns to Senegal after Monsieur brings it to the mother. A boy takes it and wears it, following Monsieur as he leaves but it has the feeling of dread – almost as if the boy in the mask is chasing the white man out. Out of the village, out of Senegal, out of Africa. This is where the symbolism in Black Girl is most effective – it’s thematic, it has a narrative push, and it’s active. 

It’s amazing this movie was made at all. In Africa, specifically in Senegal but also likely true elsewhere, Africans were banned from making movies due to a Nazi Vichy government law. Illegal! Such work was left to ethnographers, treating Africans as subjects of study instead of creating narrative work about their lived experience. The ban wasn’t lifted until 1960! Only six years before Black Girl is released. One can excuse any inexperience or amateurish filmmaking – by this point the West and Asia had been making films for sixty years. Without any production infrastructure in place, Sembene had to learn on the fly and scrape together the resources to make a movie.

Diouna arriving in France, wide eyed, but it will all go awry.

When you look at it from the production standpoint and look at the film as symbolism and metaphor, Black Girl is a stunning achievement. Sembene practically had to invent African film – hence his well-deserved title of Father of African cinema. Truly an incredible accomplishment, and Black Girl should be seen with all of this context to fully understand it’s value as a film.

Hard Eight (1996)

QFS No. 140 - The invitation for May 15, 2024
This is our first QFS selection of a Paul Thomas Anderson film. You know him from all of his great work over the last 25 years but Hard Eight was his first feature. I’ve seen so many of his films but I’ve never seen the first one so this week’s selection addresses that to remedy that shortcoming.

PT Anderson made Hard Eight when he was about 26 years old. What’s almost as infuriating as that is the next year, in 1997, he makes Boogie Nights and then two years later makes Magnolia (1999). By my count, that’s three major motion pictures before he was 30 – including two of those films, Magnolia and Boogie Nights I’d put up there as downright modern auteurist classics. The amount of stars he directed before 30 years old rivals any of the great filmmakers of all time.

Now, whether you enjoy his films or not is a matter of opinion of course. Although he has been Oscar-nominated eleven (11!) times for screenplay (5), directing (3) and best picture (3), he has never won one. This is probably bad luck and circumstance, but it also could be an indication of how people have mixed opinions on PT Anderson’s work.

For example, if you’re a fan of “The Rewatchables” podcast like I am, you probably know that they consider Boogie Nights one of the greatest films ever made. Personally, I enjoyed Magnolia more than Boogie Nights as a film, but even Magnolia is ripe for criticism – frogs and Aimee Mann and whatnot – and is not universally loved. PT Anderson has the young pre-fame filmmaking pedigree of Steven Spielberg in a way, but Anderson’s films are not mainstream nor are they small artistic and abstract explorations of the soul. He’s Martin Scorsese with less benefit of the doubt from critics. Both of them make movies lauded for artistry even though the narrative may not be so clean, but it feels like Scorsese’s long life as a dedicated artist gives him leeway with the public in ways that Anderson may not.

Of course, there is no perfect film devoid of criticism. For me his greatest achievement is There Will Be Blood (2012) one of three of his films nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture along with Phantom Thread (2018) and Licorice Pizza (2022). There Will Be Blood is a singular accomplishment of filmmaking in terms of its scope and its exploration of power, ambition, religion and will. Not to mention the sheer production feat of making a period film with an oil well explosion.

Apparently, PT Anderson’s next film will be released in 2025. All I know is that it’s his first film with Leonardo DiCaprio, which feels like a good fit when making the comparison with Scorsese. Scorsese is undoubtedly one of the greatest filmmakers of the second-half of the 20th Century, and continued on into this one. When we look back in a couple of decades about the greatest filmmakers at the start of the 21st Century, it’s hard to debate PT Anderson including at or near the top of the list. I’m looking forward to finally seeing his first one.

 Join me in seeing Hard Eight (1996) and discuss with us!

Hard Eight (1996) Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson

Reactions and Analyses:
When is it too late to reveal a major story point? The end of Planet of the Apes (1968) or Citizen Kane (1941) suggest that it’s never too late. Citizen Kane of course makes sense because that’s the conclusion of the hunt, whereas the why the world exists the way it does isn’t revealed until the last image, but it’s not the central driving why of the film. In Hard Eight (1996), our QFS discussion centered around the revelation of Sydney (Philip Baker Hall) and the central why motivation – why he’s behaving like the guardian angel or savior of man-child John (John C. Reilly).

The movie begins with Sydney taking in what appears to be a perfect stranger and offering him coffee and a smoke. It feels like Sydney knows something about John but it’s very cryptic. And for some reason, John goes on a road trip with Sydney and becomes his Players Card-scheme protégé. John does not ask why Sydney is being so kind to him.

Sydney picks up a “stranger” kicking off the question why in Hard Eight (1996).

And Sydney seems like he knows about John.

This sets off a really strange road trip.

Sydney teaches John how to get a room through Players Card scheme.

And as the film continues – even bridging two years over a first-act title card that advances time – we still don’t know why Sydney keeps being John’s angel. We get some hints about Sydney not having a connection with his own children, so the story evolves to suggest that John and Clementine (Gwyneth Paltrow) are becoming surrogate children for him.

About halfway through the film, the question of why is still not resolved. It’s at this point that nearly all of the QFS members (myself included) started to sense that the film is meandering without a real sense of purpose or direction. To me and several of us, Hard Eight suffers from hiding the ball too long. We know so little about the characters except that John’s mother had died and he lost his money trying to win enough to pay for her funeral. The opening Players Card scam is so inspired and memorable, but then the film relies upon more mood and style rather than versus substance.

Even the revelation, finally when it happens, is not done visually or through some action by our main character. A supporting character, Jimmy (Samuel L Jackson), knows the truth – Sydney was a gangster who shot and killed John’s father – and he blackmails Sydney. Now that Syndey has taken John in as a son, there are personal stakes that we as an audience understand now.

Ohhhhh… that’s why. Samuel L Jackson (as “Jimmy”) tell us. But is it too late in the story to reveal that? Several us felt that yes, it’s too late.

This late revelation backloads the action and drama. Suddenly, there is plot and stakes. But since this happens late in the narrative arc, everything is crammed together as the film builds to a somewhat obvious conclusion: when you threaten a former gangster with blackmail, you’re probably going to get yourself killed.

And that’s exactly what happens. Sydney breaks into Jimmy’s home and shoots him as he’s coming home from a date. We get a simple glimpse of what a young Sydney must’ve been once like – cold, professional, efficient, and compassionate (he lets the date go home). There’s something fun about watching an aged gangster, living with regret, coming to terms with his past and trying to make up for something he’s done. But if we don’t know why he’s doing it, does that take away from our feelings about it? Everything does click a little bit better, but there are a lot of aspects of the story unsaid.

You threatened a former gangster with blackmail - what did you expect would happen?

Sydney comes to help out Clementine and John at a hotel room where a semi-conscious man lies handcuffed and beaten up. We are given bits of information as to what happened, but John and Clementine are so unreliable and distraught that it’s still unclear what happened in what is, up to this point, the only dramatic scene more than an hour into the movie. We learn that Clementine and John were married that day … and yet Clementine is still continuing work as a prostitute? Or is John (and maybe Jimmy?) acting as a pimp in an ill-conceived scheme for money?

The first really dramatic thing in Hard Eight happens about an hour into the movie and introduces a lot of questions.

Questions include - how doomed is this marriage?

Also – had Sydney been keeping tabs on John throughout his life, like Obi-wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker? Was John’s father a gangster too, because why else would Sydney feel so distraught? And why is Sydney in Reno or does he live there because he finds John somehow who doesn’t live there but then…

I’m not bringing up these holes specifically to attack the plot or premise. It’s more a reflection of the filmmaking here. The filmmaker is relying on style and not substance for so long, so then when we get some substance but not enough of it, we start reaching for more substance, as opposed to being brought along with the narrative. There is no obligation for a movie to explain everything; obfuscation can be a useful narrative tool especially in a movie. But Hard Eight keeps the audience in the dark in a way that seems to do a disservice to the storytelling.

Speaking of the filmmaker – of course, we selected this film as it’s Paul Thomas Anderson’s first movie. The next two he makes, Boogie Nights (1997) and Magnolia (1999) cement him as the next great director of a generation. Our conversation, however, helped illustrate how that’s a contentious claim on greatness. I pointed out in the QFS discussion that Hard Eight has a tonal issue. Are some of these scenes and situations supposed to be played for laughs? Are Jon and Clementine fun doofuses in the Coen Brothers mold? It’s hard to tell, but that balance comes through a little more in Boogie Nights and Magnolia. Others in the group feel that PT Anderson never ever quite gets tone right in any of his movies, as if the director enjoys turning a “tone dial”from one end to the other without any balance. I can see that – Magnolia swings from poignant moments between Frank Mackey (Tom Cruise) and his catatonic dying father to an infamous breaking-the-fourth-wall singing sequence to Aimee Mann’s “Save Me.” It’s bold, but for me personally, PT Anderson can pull off the tonal shifts with a few missteps here and there (the end of There Will Be Blood, 2009, is an example for me where the ending has a really whimsical tune followed by a goofy final line by Daniel Day-Lewis’ Daniel Planview into the end credits).

In the end, we were interested in discerning what from this movie convinces producers, studios, and star cast to be in his next films? One benefit PT Anderson gets in the 1990s is that Hard Eight was made during the golden age of independent cinema. What probably didn’t hurt is that this is also the golden age of ample funding of music videos – a medium in which PT Anderson truly excelled. As far as films, there are a lot of 1990s studios willing to take risks on a fledgling filmmaker with a voice. For me, just seeing Hard Eight that voice isn’t totally clear – or rather, it isn’t totally clear to me what signaled to producers that this filmmaker has something unique that cannot be suppressed and has the instinct if not skill to tell a story expertly. It’s likely that the very real documented problems PT Anderson had in making Hard Eight – in which the studio attempted to recut it – prevented him from making a film fully of his desire.

Yet, his directing is confident, the command of the camera is elegant but at times more sizzle than steak. Comparing this to, say, Quentin Tarantino four years earlier in Reservoir Dogs (1992) or Wes Anderson three years earlier with Bottle Rocket (1993) with their first films, PT Anderson is harder to get a grasp of in terms of what convinced producers and studios of his greatness. One can easily see Reservoir Dogs showcases a writer-director of the highest order and Bottle Rocket suggests the quirkiness that will characterize all of Wes Anderson’s future work. But Hard Eight is harder to pin down. In three short years after Hard Eight releases, PT Anderson directs Mark Wahlberg, Julianne Moore, Burt Reynolds, Luis Guzman, Don Cheadle, William H Macy, Heather Graham, Jason Robards, and of course Tom Cruise in a role that very nearly won him what would have been his only Oscar, across two landmark films.

Opening image of Hard Eight mirrors one of the final images.

What I’m trying to get at here is – how. Very much in line with the why we tried to address in Hard Eight. Not that it wasn’t ultimately correct to support this filmmaker at this stage of his fledgling career. However it ended up happening, the American film landscape is lucky someone saw whatever greatness lay in store for PT Anderson and gave him a chance to flourish. Without it, we wouldn’t have some of the more iconic films of the last 25 years.

Past Lives (2023)

QFS No. 134 - The invitation for February 28, 2024
What I know about this film approaches zero. I do know it’s (partly) from South Korea and that it’s Celine Song’s first film after being a staff writer on a major Amazon series. So, you know – pretty amazing, that!

But I’ve deliberately kept myself away from knowledge of the plot and was looking forward to seeing the film. This is our second selection from South Korea, the other being Bong-Joon Ho’s Memories of Murder (2003, QFS No. 112), and many more remain on my to-watch list. The South Korean film industry just keeps blasting home runs all over the place.

Join us this week if you can!

Past Lives (2023) Directed by Celine Song

Reactions and Analyses:
There’s a shot in Past Lives (2023) that essentially tells the premise of the film in one frame. It’s early on, Na Young says goodbye to Hae Sung because her family is immigrating from South Korea. The goodbye is curt and without over-wrought emotion because, well, they’re adolescents.

Then they each walk towards their own homes – Na Young upwards on the right of the frame and Hae Sung on the left, more or less straight, away from us. This image defines, in some ways, their trajectories. It’s simple and straightforward but clear. And it definitely sets a course for the split in their lives.

When I first selected Past Lives, knowing very little about the film besides its accolades and that it’s Oscar nominated for Best Picture, I assumed this was a South Korean film. And after having seen it, I can say that it’s very much an American film, an immigrant’s tale. This splitting or fracturing of a life in divergent storylines. It could’ve been told from my parents’ perspective leaving India in the 1970s.

The point from which their lives split in Past Lives (2023).

I brought this up in our QFS discussion and the others pointed out that this is not just an immigrant’s tale – this is the story of anyone who is forced to split from their home at a young age and has that fondness, that nostalgic remembrance, and that powerlessness to stop that fracturing the familiar. The fact that this is also true and valid illustrates how universal and accessible the story is.

Past Lives makes an argument for the simple film told with tenderness but with just the right amount of layering. The Korean concept of “in-yun” – the layers of interaction between throughout past lives – feels deliberate beyond how it’s used to describe the relationship between Hae Sung (Teo Yoo) and Na Young/Nora (Greta Lee). Perhaps in-yun is also meant to convey that the film is not as simple as it seems, that it’s layered in unseen ways (which, I’m sure, is me misinterpreting the definition of in-yun but bear with me). That there’s depth between these two childhood friends (sweethearts?) and when they reconnect later in their lives, that connection has meaning beyond how it’s been set up in the film.

The QFS group was split on the strength of this connection. For some, the childhood connection between Na Young/Nora and Hae Sung didn’t suggest a deeper connection later in life. For example, Nora claims to not exactly remember the boys name while talking on the phone with her mother, but then discovers he’s been asking about her whereabouts for a little while now.

After going on their “date.”

For others in our group, their connection in childhood was enough and felt familiar – this idea of two lives, connected through family, culture, and yes, love – two people diverging but when they reconnect, it’s fated they are to be together. Or, more specifically, in-yun. Case in point: your enjoyment of this film is directly related to whether or not you believe that their relationship at the beginning is strong enough that they could reconnect so quickly over such a long span of time.

Past Lives has the ease of a simple film well told but some of the trappings of a first-time filmmaker, several of us felt (including me). For example, there’s a scene where Nora’s (non-Korean) husband Arthur (John Magaro) talks about how they met and became a couple and moved in together and got married so she could get a green card, etc. What’s missing in his description is “love.” The kind of standard American relationship story devoid of cinematic spark or romance, but realistic and familiar. He continues to then say that in this version of the story, Hae Sun – the childhood lover – returns to her life and she realizes that this is who she should’ve been with her whole life. That he, Arthur, is the villain in this story. Hae Sun is more closely suited to her culturally but also very satisfying narratively. Both Nora and Arthur are writers so this aligns with their story-telling impulses.

Now, that’s all true but … we know that already as an audience. The filmmaker seemingly hasn’t trusted us to put that all together and she has a character explain it to us. This, to me, is a significant misstep in a story otherwise hewing close to cinematic realism. The scene, also, continues and Arthur says he started to learn Korean because Nora was talking in her sleep but in Korean. He says “You dream in a language I can’t understand. It’s like there’s this whole place inside you I can’t go.”

That is beautiful. It’s poetic, it speaks to the character himself, to their relationship, to the thrust and import of that scene. The scene could have very easily started here and it would have spoken volumes. But instead we get the needless explainer. And the ending as well – there’s a version of the film that ends as soon as Hae Sung leaves, wondering if this life is actually a past life and “we are already something else to each other in our next life? Who do you think we are then?”

Again – this is beautiful poetry. One member of the group suggested that ending of the film would be stronger if it ended right here, or right after this and he gets in his airport ride and goes. Instead of the long walk with Nora back to her husband where she cries. (And this is where I offered the additional criticism of staying in a wide shot instead of seeing her face here, for that felt like a payoff to me.) Even the opening shot - there’s an unseen bar patron watching the three in the bar. We push in slowly but instead of trusting the images of these three, with only their expressions and body language to inspire our curiosity, we’re hearing a bar patron who we will never see give us a setup that our eyes would have given us without the help.

Perhaps. These are all counterfactuals and there’s an argument in conducting film criticism that one needs to focus on the film in front of them and not the alternate version in our heads. Yes, valid – but still, the fact that these questions arise are less about how we would’ve done it differently and more about a few small weaknesses in an otherwise solid, simple film. 

Despite some first-time filmmaker criticisms, there are a lot of beautiful uses of visual storytelling throughout - including the use of symmetry across eras between Na Young and Hae Sung.

And in defense of the simple film – I mean “simple” not that it lacks depth or intelligence. Quite the opposite. When the filmmaker has trusted us, we’ve filled in the blanks and walked in the shoes of two people different than ourselves and went on a journey with them. As one person in our group remarked – it’s refreshing to have a film that’s only about 90-minutes, has a simple but tender story, well-acted and executed, that brings up emotions in a natural way. Not overwrought or excessive or gratuitous. (Counterexamples from this award season include Oppenheimer, 2023 and Killer of the Flower Moon, 2023). I believed I added “inoffensive” as a way of describing Past Lives and, once again, I meant it as a compliment. There are no subplots, no side character, no stretching for meaning. It’s all there. Simple.

Whether that simplicity was effective or not, we all were in agreement, however, on this one thing – we are grateful that a movie like this is still being made, is receiving accolades, and that a lot of people have watched and enjoyed it. So consider this an endorsement of the simple film.

Hae Sung and Nora on their non-date date in New York City.

This is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection (2019)

QFS No. 124 - The invitation for October 11, 2023
I know this will come as a shock to many of you, but this will be our first Quarantine Film Society selection from Lesotho. The country has about 2 million people – which is, I believe, still smaller than what the population of Los Angeles would be if the San Fernando Valley succession happened in 2002. Lesotho is completely surrounded by South Africa and the country’s motto was “No, not Swaziland – the other one.” (At least that’s what I assume it was before Swaziland changed their name to Eswatini.) Lesotho remains a really great answer in geographic trivia. That’s about all I know. The fact that there exists a film from Lesotho (pronounced “le-SUE-to”)* that’s available for us to see it pretty terrific and I want us to see it.

Also, this is our first film from anywhere in Africa since our seventh ever selection way back in 2020, the obscure Air Conditioner (2020, QFS No. 7) from Angola. This is a shameful tally, I admit, and it’s mostly due to me and the QFS Selection Committee knowing almost nothing about films that come out of Africa. It’s also true that very few films from Africa are being widely distributed in the US. Nollywood – the moniker given to Nigerian films, the most prolific filmmaking nation outside of India – is still completely obscure to me, but I hope to select a film from there in the future. Regardless, three years is a long time between films from an entire region of the world. The QFS Selection Committee Member responsible for this digression has been reassigned.

As for This is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection** – this is not a movie I know a whole lot about, other than it was featured on the Criterion Channel which got me curious to read a tiny bit about it earlier this year. Enough to get me interested in seeing it. As you all know by now, I firmly believe in film’s ability to transport you into a person, a being, or a place completely and utterly unknown to you and, if done well, can take you on a journey that is extremely unique and specific to that world but touches on something of a shared humanity we have with people unlike us. I hope this week’s selection is able to do just that.

Either way, it will be pretty fun to take a trip to Lesotho for a couple hours. Join me in watching This is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection and we’ll discuss!

*Believe it or not, I have actually been to and stayed in Swaziland for a week, back in 2010 (before it was renamed Eswatini). I was helping a friend shoot a documentary in Swaziland and South Africa. It is here were I learned, crucially, how to correctly pronounce “Lesotho.”

 **This is one of our few QFS selections where the title could also be a complete sentence. The others: Knives Out (2019, QFS No. 6), A Man Escaped (1956, QFS No. 9), Dolemite is My Name (2019, QFS No. 15), The Lady Vanishes (1936, QFS No. 24), You Can’t Take it With You (1938, QFS No. 47), Escape from New York (1981, QFS No. 61), Flee (2021, QFS No. 69), Enter the Dragon (1973, QFS No. 73), One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975, QFS No. 75) and though it might be not intended this way, How Green Was My Valley (1941, QFS No. 121) could be an exclamatory sentence or a question. True, Knives Out, Escape from New York, Enter the Dragon and Flee all would have to be commands (imperatives, if you will: “Flee!”), I think it’s hilarious that someone could order you to “Enter the Dragon” in a non-ironic way. This is the important high level analysis you can expect from the crack team here at QFS.

This Is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection (2019) Directed by Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese

 Reactions and Analyses
I can safely say, this is my favorite film from Lesotho. The best way to describe this movie is that it is a visual poem. Everything is lyrical, from the narration to the vistas and the composition. There’s quite a long time until a plot device appears, and when it does it has a familiarity to it - a simple person fighting for tradition and standing up to “progress.” A faceless march of time that will literally wash away this place.

The pace is languid and so much rests on the window Mantoa’s face. Portrayed by the late Mary Twala Mhlongo, her face tells so much of the story. She is the strength of the story as much as the visuals are. This is Not a Burial is more fable than movie.

The unforgettable face of the late Mary Twala as “Mantoa” in This is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection (2019) does much of the heavy lifting in a languidly paced film.

Pace is such an fascinating thing in film. This movie isn’t that long as a matter of real time, but it feels long. In part because the plot is thin but it also makes sense because it feels like the pace of village life. The pace of the film mimicking the pace of the locale.

The “burial” in question is her own - she prepares for it and asks a fellow villager to dig a grave for her. She ends up having to do it herself, covered in sweat, under the cover of darkness. The “resurrection” - here’s where the group had some disagreement about. Not that the resurrection as such doesn’t happen, but it’s very subtle and at first I didn’t quite grasp it. Mantoa decides to stay on the land and not leave with her fellow villagers who are being relocated to the capital Maseru (yes I had to look up the capital of Lesotho), moving towards … soldiers? Government workers at the very least. And she disrobes, moving towards them to a certain death.

But - how does it, her death, happen? Do they shoot her? It doesn’t seem like they’d concern themselves too much with one 80-year-old (naked) woman to actually kill her - they could just simply work around her. Perhaps it doesn’t matter, what matters is that this is her death or it will be soon. Her “burial,” and her “resurrection” is the little girl who watches her in this act of martydom - yes?

Mantoa (Mary Twala), digging her own grave (literally, not figuratively).

To me, that felt a little thin. To others, it made sense. For a film that’s a visual poem and rests on lyricism, concrete answers are not necessary. The film is a tone, a mood, and on that alone it’s really quite lovely to watch and explore its meanings. The film’s title could easily be This is not a film, it’s a fable - a lyrical visual poem that feels as if it’s a local legend one would share with a friend. A fable that’s bittersweet, hopeful and a cautionary tale of indigenous peoples facing the unreleting march of time and modernity.