NIGHT MOVES (Kelly Reichardt, 2013, USA)

Three Eco-terrorists play dam busters with little regard to the repercussions of their explosive act of violence. Kelly Reichardt explores the emotional and intellectual landscape of three radicals whom are chillingly not far removed from ordinary peaceful protesters.

The plot concerns Josh, Dena and Harmon as they plan to blow up a hydroelectric dam because of its environmental impact. Their goal seems to be a purpose in and of itself: that is, the act is the purpose and not the outcome. They feel justified in destroying this artificial construct without considering the destructive fallout to the environment and the potential to harm other people. Thus the characters fail to consider the irony of their actions. Director Kelly Reichardt tells an anti-action story: instead of relying on the typical conventions of the Action genre she brings the story into sharp focus, her lens peering into the dark silences and mundane routines of three lives about to change dramatically. From purchasing the titular boat named NIGHT MOVES to securing 500 pounds of fertilizer to build the bomb, Reichardt portrays how typical and rather easy this task becomes which makes the story all the more frightening! When it comes, the explosion is only heard off-screen, which allows a detachment between the act and its implications.

Director Kelly Reichardt also drains the story of melodrama by refusing to reveal or exacerbate the relationships between the characters. It’s never explicitly mentioned that Josh and Dena are a couple (or in the process of becoming one) though they are often shown together. Reichardt takes this implication and undermines this trope by keeping the information out of the story. We only learn that Dena comes from a rich family when they are talking about paying cash for the boat. So is she just a hanger on or a romantic interest? When Josh discovers Dena and Harmon screwing he seems a bit disappointed but again, this is only through subtle body language and not confrontation.

The final Act becomes incredibly tense as the three split and vow to have no contact with one another. The camera focuses tightly upon Josh who is afraid that Dena will succumb to her guilt and confess their crime. Turns out, an innocent man was killed by the flood waters and day by day the newspapers and newscasts are filled with stories of this man’s life and family. This drives Josh past the point of endurance as he is driven to one desperate fatal act. He becomes fueled by self-preservation and not idealism; Josh tracks Dena down and makes sure she remains quiet…forever.

Reichardt frames the murderous act in extreme close-up forcing the audience into a violent conspiracy: here, she does not give us the luxury of emotional detachment or objectivism. Dena’s gurgling sound as Josh strangles her to death is gruesome but strangely the killing seems rather mundane, like the earlier “gunpowder” plot. We are given clues that Dana probably told her friends (it lead to Josh being kicked out of his commune). Josh takes off and is last seen in another part of the state, looking for work. But it seems he is destined for a mobile life of paranoid conspiracies…but it may be better than no life at all.

Final Grade: (A+)

COME AND SEE (Elem Klimov, 1985, Russia)

COME AND SEE is the most brutal and disturbing war film ever made: we experience Florya’s fiery baptism from boyhood into insanity. Director Elem Klimov shows us the horror of the Great Patriotic War untainted by Western propaganda (or at least its ignorance). 

Klimov films in a tight 4:3 frame and packs every shot with information: we are not spared the bodies, the slaughter, the deep wailing sorrow, and the emotional filth of war. His close-ups into vacant eyes and burned faces croaking reprimands are unsettling. The soundtrack is often an ambiguous thrum, a deep scream through nature; when music is revealed it is often ironic. Florya is a young man who wishes to defend his country from terrorists, these Nazi invaders who are destroying everything in their path. We experience the film entirely from his perspective; we feel what he is unable to put into words. His heartbreaking scream as he tries to shut himself out from the world, hands clawing futilely at his ears, to refuse the knowledge of his family’s gruesome butchery, is utterly compelling and unbearable. He and another young girl join the survivors of his village who are hiding in a swamp, starving, without hope. 

Klimov gives us pure instinctual survival, he defines the human animal, and Florya stumbles directionless through the film becoming less and less human. Klimov films mostly with a Steadicam with minimal editing giving the film a very realistic rhythm, choreographing complicated sequences with hundreds of people. The final half-hour is almost too much: the retreating Nazis burn an entire village including a church full of women and children in vivid detail. Klimov packs us in this tight space with Florya and we smell the stench of fear and gasoline, and the cries echo in our hearts forever. This dichotomy is mercilessly crosscut with laughing and taunting soldiers, who not only feel no remorse but are jubilant and ecstatic, whose joy at this murderous parade is gut wrenching. Florya survives and witnesses the Partisan’s retribution as they execute the Nazis but they take little happiness from this act. 

Florya never fires his rifle the entire film until the end when he discovers a muddied picture of Hitler. He points the weapon into the camera and shoots, reversing time, the Great Patriotic War rewinding, the Blitzkrieg retreating back into Germany, the Versailles Treaty being unsigned, and back to Hitler’s childhood. He pulls the trigger and each time these images rewind and his face glows with madness. But the final picture of Adolf as a child, cradled lovingly in his mothers arms…Florya can’t kill this image. Unlike the Nazis, he has retained his humanity; he is no child killer. The film ends as the Partisans march into the forest: the Steadicam follows them from the muddy road of fall, through the trees, and suddenly the snow is falling and a new season beckons. A wonderful shot without an edit, as the Russian winter is their final weapon that defeats the monstrous invaders. 

Final Grade: (A+)

A MAN ESCAPED (Robert Bresson, 1957, France)

Fontaine struggles to help himself, seeing coincidence as element of an unknowable and mysterious alchemy. Director Robert Bresson washes away all pretense and melodrama to reveal the sparse determination of the human soul, allowing the audience to project their own fear and anxiety upon the silver screen.
The first scene of the film is flawless as Bresson introduces the protagonist Fontaine, detained in the back seat of a moving car. Bresson creates tension visually with close-ups and editing: from steady hands slowly reaching for the door handle to a gentle pan of handcuffs upon the wrists of Fontaine’s companions, cut to the point-of-view shots as the car speeds past sudden obstacles until Fontaine weighs his chances and leaps from the car. His recapture is shown off screen punctuated by gunshots, and as he’s thrown back into the car he is cuffed and pistol-whipped. This entire sequence is devoid of dialogue and denotes the cinematic style: actions speak louder than words.

Bresson eschews suspense and instead centers exclusively upon Fontaine’s claustrophobic perceptions: after all, the very title gives away the ending. But it’s not the result of Fontaine’s struggle that concerns Bresson, but the struggle itself. The film becomes an exercise in repetition, a forlorn soliloquy like a prayer muttered to a deaf god. The viewer becomes engrossed in the daily activities and begins to comprehend the crushing despair of the prison, trapped in the story with Fontaine. Though the other prisoners lack faith, carrying the weight of their mortality, the protagonist’s persistence is inspirational. Fontaine’s belief is in himself because it’s the only thing he can control, and if there is a higher power help will only come through action. Bresson keeps the German soldiers to the periphery of the screen like ghosts. The use of sound equates a spoon with a key, the click of steel as the tumblers seal Fontaine’s fate, or the gunshots heard from the courtyard passing their terminal judgment.

Fontaine’s narrow escape is a violent poetry, his willpower infectious. When he is assigned a new cellmate it’s apparent the newcomer will either join him, or be murdered by him: nothing will stop his attempt. Bresson depicts the meticulous transmutation of mundane items into miracles: bed sheets slowly wound into rope and the metal frame into grappling hooks, slowly and secretly, time lost and unaccounted for in this microcosm. Finally, Fontaine must murder not out of hatred but necessity, and he and his young companion fade away into the ethereal mist.

Final Grade: (A)