Capone's Art-House Round-Up with EX MACHINA (SXSW '15), CLOUDS OF SILS MARIA, REVENGE OF THE MEKONS, and MAY IN THE SUMMER!!!

Hey, folks. Capone in Chicago here, with a few films that are making their way into art houses or coming out in limited release around America this week (maybe even taking up one whole screen at a multiplex near you). Do your part to support these films, or at least the good ones…


EX MACHINA
A great deal of the EX MACHINA, the directing debut from prominent sci-fi screenwriter Alex Garland (28 DAYS LATER, SUNSHINE, DREDD), has to do with the Turing Test, which, as you know from having seen the recent THE IMITATION GAME, is a test given by humans to an entity to determine if it's human or a machine. So let me give you your own test before you go in to see EX MACHINA: if you leave the theater thinking the film is about the dangers of artificial intelligence, you have failed. There are so many under-the-surface things going on in this film that the downside of AIs is barely scratched. Like all great sci-fi, EX MACHINA is as much (if not more of) a comment on human behavior as it is about the pretty and seemingly harmless robot named Ava.

The film beings with programmer Caleb Smith (Domhnall Gleeson) being selected seemingly at random to meet Nathan Bateman (Oscar Isaac), the reclusive owner of the company he works for and man who created a search engine now used in more than 90 percent of all internet searches. Caleb is dropped off in the middle of who knows where, having no idea why he's being given this honor. The two men are polar opposites in so many ways, including how they look. Caleb is pale, skinny, a bit nervous, and I'm guessing hairless except for shock of red hair on his head; Nathan is muscular, tan, bearded, bald, and dripping with confidence. He's also something of a drinker. When we meet him, he's wailing on a punching bag, sweating and feeling extra manly, I'm guessing. It's a lot for Caleb to take in. Nathan explains that he has an AI that is ready for the Turing Test, and he wants one of his best programmers to deliver it. Since Caleb already knows he'll be speaking to machine, the real objective is to figure out if the AI has a consciousness or is just pretending and reacting via its programming.

Meeting Ava (played by Swedish actress Alicia Vikander of A ROYAL AFFAIR, SEVENTH SON, and the upcoming THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E.) is a bit of shock to Caleb. While featuring the body of a robot—her wiring and other tech is fully visible through a partially see-through framework—she has the face of a pretty lady, and that fact alone should have been a clue that something was not quite right. She speaks in a measured, curious tone, smiles just enough to be considered sweet, and seems genuinely excited to meet only the second human she has ever met. She's not quite flirting, but that doesn't stop Caleb from reacting to her in a friendly manner. She seems vulnerable, somewhat helpless, eager to impress; she even goes so far during one of their sessions as to put on a wig and dress, but nothing overtly sexy. She has more glamorous wig options, but she goes for a simple pixie cut; her dress is less seductress and more Brooklyn hipster's thrift store find.

To say too much about the direction of the plot would be ruining some truly great reveals, but needless to say, Caleb falls for this machine that he labels "she," while trying to convince Nathan that he hasn't. While Nathan is always observing the sessions, during infrequent power failures, the cameras go off briefly and Ava reveals her true mind about Nathan and her being held captive in this research facility. Naturally, Caleb is moved by this damsel in distress and wants to help.

There are other elements at play as well. Nathan has an Asian servant woman who doesn't understand English, and he is very cruel to. And when he debriefs Caleb about his sessions with Ava, he seems to be gauging Caleb's reactions more than Ava's. EX MACHINA is not a film about whether Ava is good or evil; it's about whether she becomes aware. It's less about whether she likes or loves someone; it's about whether she fully grasps what those concepts are. Writer-director Garland is far more interested in capturing subtle acts of manipulation and the consequences of such actions rather than seeing what Ava's reaction times are. There's a metaphor brought up more than once in the film about the magician's assistant being a distraction so that the magician can perform an illusion. There's a lot of that at play here, and having seen the film twice now, I can confess that EX MACHINA is a very different, though no less fascinating, work the second time around.

Watching Gleeson and Isaac converse and move around each other is endlessly entertaining. But Vikander is the real discovery here. Every move, intonation and expression is carefully calculated. She moves fluidly but also as you'd expect an advanced robot might. And don't fool yourself for a second, she's working us as an audience just as much as she is Caleb in the film. She wants us to fall under her subtle spell, and we do. EX MACHINA is a masterfully constructed work—an exercise in complex thought and visual simplicity. And we come to realize that the real danger of AI is how its existence will impact us. When we start treating machines like feeling creatures, what does that say about humanity? Yes, you should see this film, but then you should see it again and again.


CLOUDS OF SILS MARIA
Blurring the lines between art and life once again, French writer-director Olivier Assayas (CLEAN, DEMONLOVER, CARLOS, IRMA VEP) returns with CLOUDS OF SILS MARIA one of his strongest and most probing examinations of both the movie industry and the broader themes of one generation of artists (in this case actors) making way—or perhaps paving the way—for the younger, prettier versions of what they once were. Juliette Binoche stars as famed, seasoned actress Maria Enders, who began her career on the stage in a play directed by a filmmaker who went on to put her in the film that launched her career. On the way to a tribute to him, she gets a call that he has died and she is devastated almost as much by the death of a friend as she is that his death is yet another sign that she and her friends are getting older.

The event triggers a series of events that include the chance for her to act in the same play again, this time playing the older of the two female characters, who is essentially taken over and cast aside by the younger (whom she played originally). In a move that seems straight out of another Binoche film, CERTIFIED COPY, as Maria attempts to learn her lines with the help of her faithful assistant Valentine (Kristen Stewart), the relationship of the two characters in the play seems to strangely mirror the one between these two women. On stage, Maria will be playing opposite rising star and tabloid queen Jo-Ann Ellis (knowingly played by Chloë Grace Moretz), who seems serious about her craft, despite her commitment to dopey Hollywood blockbusters. Being surrounded by such youth and youthful thinking causes Maria to feel overloaded with emotion at the idea that her age is about to end her career, the same way it did her marriage.

CLOUDS OF SILS MARIA is set in a beautiful corner of the Alps that feels so isolated that Maria and Valentine rarely have to see other people if they don't want to. The dynamic and chemistry between Binoche and Stewart is exquisite; they come across as great friends, colleagues who can solve any problem together, and still find time to bicker about various interpretations of the play at hand. And they way they slip from the play's dialogue into their own more personal battles is marvelous, and sometimes undetectable.

The film's title comes comes from the same origin as the play's title, Maloja Snake, which is a cloud formation that weaves its way through the valleys of Sils Maria just before potentially nasty weather. Assayas makes no secret that an unpleasant change is on the way for Maria, but perhaps it's a necessary one. The plot, as it is, is hardly the point of CLOUDS OF SILS MARIA; it's merely a vehicle to allow these three generations of women to move in each other's gravity and size up what the other does or does not offer them. Despite the sometimes conventional ideas at play, these actors are superb and add dimensions to these characters that only they can. It's a quietly devastating little work that you should seek out for the stunning landscapes and the merciless acting.


REVENGE OF THE MEKONS
With any music documentary, my theory is simple. Whether the film is about a band or musical movement, its only mission is to convince me that this is a subject worth tackling. I don't need to know anything about the subject going in, but I want to feel that it contained some level of import to the music world as a whole. Case in point, director Joe Angio's rollicking REVENGE OF THE MEKONS, a film about a band born out of the late-'70s British punk world that somehow survived. The film makes an honest-to-god point that The Mekons may have been the most punk of any band ever, not because of their clothes and hairstyle, but because they embraced a certain level of musical anarchy, in which there was no leader nor musical style that they were forced to adhere to. They went where their hearts told them to, and with that philosophy driving the band, they were, of course, destined to remain obscure, which was fine by them.

The stories of the formation of the band are almost comical, as a group of art students from the University of Leeds (also the birthplace of their pals Gang of Four) got together, none of which really knew how to play an instruments. Instead, they borrowed Gang of Four's equipment when they weren't playing and taught themselves to become a band. A lot of time is spent discussing not just the music, but The Mekons place in the punk world as Jon Langford, Kevin Lycett, Mark White, Andy Corrigan and Tom Greenhalgh navigated the choppy water between commercialism and staying true to their artistic leanings.

REVENGE OF THE MEKONS traces the band's history, revolving-door line-up (which has blessedly included singer Sally Timms and violinist Susie Honeyman since the mid-1980s), ever-changing musical styles (most significantly, the move into insurgent country, which The Mekons may have actually invented), and attempts at experimentation through collaborations with the likes of artist Vito Acconci and writer Kathy Acker. Director Angio primarily focuses on interviews and archival footage with the band members, but it does feature a small, important roster of fans and friends, including director Mary Harron, Fred Armisen, authors Luc Sante and Jonathan Franzen, musician Will Oldham, and music critics Greg Kot and Greil Marcus, all of whom attempt to explain The Mekons' place in the world of music.

Each band member is fun and informative in their own way, with Jon Langford (the most prolific member of the band) leading the charge, whether he wants to admit that or not. He's the one who pulls the band together to record or play when he feels it's time, and his enthusiasm for the band's history and present-day configuration is infectious in this film. He's also the one that keeps the philosophical origins of The Mekons alive.

The band's critical profile may have grown over the years, but record sales have never been a priority. They play what and how they want to, and even if you've never been exposed to the band's music, by the end of REVENGE OF THE MEKONS, you'll probably have a few new albums you'll want to add to your collection, as well as a few new ideas of what makes a great band.


MAY IN THE SUMMER
Directed by, written by and starring Cherien Dabis (AMREEKA),MAY IN THE SUMMER sets itself up as a film about the culture clash experienced by three sisters parented by a born-again-Christian Middle Eastern mother (the great Hiam Abbass) and an American father (Bill Pullman). The sisters are reunited with their now-divorced parents for the occasion of the wedding of eldest sister May (Dabis) to a Muslim man. May is a best-selling author and fully Americanized woman, and her soon-to-be husband is non-practicing, but that doesn't stop her mother from wishing the marriage wouldn't happen.

Sisters Yasmine (Nadine Malouf) and Dalia (Alia Shawkat) have their own identity issues to cope with, none of which is aided by the fact that their womanizing father has remarried a much younger Indian woman (Ritu Singh Pande) and still has straying eyes. May is having doubts of her own but seems determined to see this wedding through, even though her fiancé is arriving at the last minute because of his all-consuming work. MAY IN THE SUMMER is essentially a better-than-average soap opera with surprisingly little emphasis on how this particular culture might place unique and unusual strain on the film's female characters.

The best scenes in the movie are the ones many may regard as disposable, in which the sisters are simply sitting around comparing their lives, voicing their insecurities, and discussing their tumultuous childhood. These scenes don't forward the plot, but they do offer some small amount of depth to these fairly shallow characters. Dabis's performance is fine, but she's so good looking and dressed so inappropriately for the Middle Eastern location, it's actually distracting. There are several shots of her jogging around town in very revealing clothes, with the local men starring at her that it feels like a comment on female repression, except no one actually comments on it. Very odd.

My greatest frustration with MAY IN THE SUMMER is that it never amounts to anything substantial, and the material is there. Dabis's AMREEKA was something special, focusing on a Palestinian single mother in heartland America. But when give the chance to reverse the scenario, she turns the story into something far more trivial. The location shooting is beautiful and poignant; I only wish the material matched the setting.

-- Steve Prokopy
"Capone"
capone@aintitcool.com
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