Film Fest 919: Dispatch 3
With Bardo: False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths, Alejandro G. Iñárritu joins the ranks of Federico Fellini, Bob Fosse, and other filmmakers who’ve brilliantly grappled with their life, their life’s work, and life as an artist overall via one contained work. Tonally somewhere between Iñárritu’s Birdman and the more playful work of his countryman Alfonso Cuarón, the journey with Mexican documentary filmmaker Silverio Gacho (Daniel Giménez Cacho, Memoria) and the complications he experiences upon returning home blend fantasy, reality, and filmmaking in enthralling fashion to the extent that it’s damn near impossible to tell which is which. However, it’s all so stylized and active that nailing down the specifics in the moment don’t matter, leaving the whirlwind of surrealist imagination to sweep up invested viewers early and often, resulting in one of the year’s richest cinematic experiences.
Grade: A. Rated R. Available on Netflix starting Dec. 16
Noah Baumbach continues to grow as a filmmaker with his spirited adaptation of Don DeLillio’s satirical novel White Noise. Set in 1984 in an Ohio college town, the dark comedy revels in absurdist humor, delivered via Altman-esque overlapping dialogue by Hitler scholar Jack Gladney (Adam Driver), his wife Babbette (Greta Gerwig), and their blended family of four children. This dryly verbose style remains gleefully consistent on campus and around town, as well as when a nearby accident drastically alters the community’s lives, during which visual gags also successfully enter the fray. Though the film’s final act suffers from some of the same issues as the source material in its exploration of the bleak potentials of the human soul, these difficult stretches are as all well-earned as its more accessible counterparts and reveal previously unseen depths from the talented writer/director.
Grade: A-minus. Rated R. Screens again Oct. 23 at 6:30 p.m. at Lumina
Universal Pictures
Picture a film about the brave women of the New York Times who investigated Harvey Weinstein’s serial sexual abuse, and odds are good that it would look almost exactly like She Said. Indebted to Spotlight in numerous ways yet lacking that film’s nimbleness and wit, director Maria Schrader’s follow-up to I’m Your Man competently tells the important story of reporters Megan Twohey (Carey Mulligan) and Jodi Kantor (Zoe Kazan) navigating the numerous challenges that arise as they bring the article’s various components together.
The two leads are their usual terrific selves and receive ample support from a talented ensemble, including Patricia Clarkson, Andre Braugher, and Jennifer Ehle, but Rebecca Lenkiewicz’s overly didactic script yields few surprises and is peppered with character-building scenes that are cut short and fall flat. All the triumphs and applause-worthy moments are there, but in this by-the-book presentation, they’re sadly muted.
Grade: B-minus. Rated R. Screens again Oct. 23 at 3:30 p.m. at Silverspot
(Photo: Netflix)
