SUNDANCE 2016: Capone checks out Jeremy Saulnier's GREEN ROOM and Yorgos Lanthimos's THE LOBSTER!!!

Hey everyone. Capone just back from Park City, Utah, once again attending the 2016 Sundance Film Festival. Here are a couple of titles that played Sundance this year that made a spalsh at other festivals in 2015 (I believe both of these played at the Cannes Film Festival)…

GREEN ROOM



Writer-director Jeremy Saulnier has literally made a follow up to his acclaimed previous film, BLUE RUIN, that is so punk rock that it’s actually set in the world of punk rock. Opting not to follow in the footsteps of many of his contemporaries and go from micro-budget films to some of the biggest franchises in existence, Saulnier went with yet another low-fi, low-budget thriller—granted, with a bit more star power—GREEN ROOM.

Set primarily in a punk club in an isolated section of the Pacific Northwest, where white supremacists and other nefarious types can operate more or less without interference from the law, GREEN ROOM finds an unsuspecting fringe punk band called Ain’t Rights on a lousy tour that has cost them more than it has made them. A fine collection of young actors make up the band, including bassist Pat (Anton Yelchin), guitarist Sam (Alia Shawkat), drummer Reece (Joe Cole), and vocalist Tiger (Callum Turner), who all open the film hungover from the night before and exceedingly unhappy with the guy who has booked their tour. I like the time Saulnier gives us with the band before the actual plot kicks in. He provides a necessary glimpse at these burned-out faces, tired and weary and clearly unprepared for what they are about to encounter.

By the time they get to the club, which actually appears to have an full house of kids primed for their music, the band seems pumped to play the show until they spot a handful of skinheads in the crowd, prompting them to launch into the Dead Kennedys’ “Nazi Punks Fuck Off,” which does not go over well, but it’s an inspired moment nonetheless. Upon returning to the green room, they stumble into the aftermath of something fairly horrible, something that kicks off a series of utterly unpredictable and hyper-violent events that leaves no one untouched by the shocking amount of blood and meaty flesh wounds that follow.

With BLUE RUIN and GREEN ROOM Saulnier has expertly constructed two of the most substantial action films in years, throwing these people (Macon Blair in the former film, the band members in the latter) who are clearly not killers into situations where they must become them in order to continue living. The villains of GREEN ROOM are the supremacists who work and run the club, led by the deceptively low-key Darcy (Patrick Stewart, owning your ass in this role), who is not only attempting to end this epic showdown but also trying to plan a way to stage a crime scene that throws the blame for these deaths off his people. But the band members have other plans that don’t involve laying down and dying.

Once the war is on, the band members hold up in the green room and fend off assault after assault, with mixed results. The rhythm of the movie is perfect—one group makes a plan of attack, attempts to carry it, something goes wrong, and the body count increases, all the while Darcy adjusts and reworks his master plan of explaining away all this death to the authorities. Two of my favorite characters are ones that switch sides when they find out what instigated the crime that set off this battle royale in the first place. Imogen Poots plays the absolutely feral Amber, who becomes indispensable to the band members. Mark Webber is also on hand as white-power heavy Daniel, whose significance and story arc is a bit more difficult to explain, so I won’t even try, but he’s damn good in this. And Saulnier favorite Blair is back (almost unrecognizably so) as club employee Gabe, one of the film’s few level-headed players.

GREEN ROOM reminds me of quite a few films, but as he did with BLUE RUIN, Saulnier does a bit of deconstruction with a formula that that John Carpenter (particularly in ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13) frequented in his early works. The filmmakers can’t resist going just a bit too far with the detailed violence, pushing the movie just over the line into exploitation, ensuring that the audience will go from tense to slightly queasy without much of a push. And that’s not a complaint. Saulnier knows exactly what he’s doing and is fully aware that if and when he does move into Hollywood productions, he may not get the chance to get the graphic for a time. GREEN ROOM is a grubby, messy, gritty little piece of perfection from one of the most skillful young directors working right now.


THE LOBSTER



Like most of the films from Greek director Yorgos (ALPS, DOGTOOTH) Lanthimos, his latest work (and his first in English), THE LOBSTER makes more sense watching it than it does explaining it, but here goes anyway. Set in a version of the future in which being single is a detain-able crime after a certain age, THE LOBSTER is actually two films that look at the options made available to those without a partner. If caught, they are taken to a hotel of sorts with other single people and told that they have 45 days to find a partner or else they will be transformed (through a decidedly unpleasant-sounding procedure) in the animal of their choice. If they do pair up successfully (and believably), they are cast back into the world. That’s the first film.

The second part of the movie examines what happens to uncoupled hotel guests who manage to escape and manage to meet up with other singles in the woods (where many of the recently transformed animals stroll around without a care) in a type of dangerous exile where pairing up is strictly prohibited and even punished. No matter where you land, your romantic life is strictly managed, but no one really complains, especially not David (Colin Farrell), through whose eyes we see this story unfold and who doesn’t quite feel comfortable in either environment.

Co-written by Lanthimos and Efthymis Filippou, THE LOBSTER walks us through the paces of the hotel with such a casual but regimented delivery that you could almost set a metronome to its cadence. All of the characters speak in a largely monotoned, carefully modulated, emotionless manner that some may find too affected, but by hearing these characters deliver what would normally be highly charged dialogue in such a passionless way, it forces us to hear them more clearly and spot moments when a hint of panic or longing or melancholy slips in. It’s a fascinating exercise in language and message delivery that adds to the overall atmosphere quite powerfully. David’s animal of choice is a lobster for reasons that primarily involve him liking the sea; in this film, sometimes things just are.

The only character actually given a name, David arrives at the hotel with a dog, who happens to be his brother, and he begins the process of seeking a mate. First, he observes some of the other guests successes and failures, including John C. Reilly as Lisping Man and Ben Whishaw as the Limping Man. The caretaker/warden/hotel manager is the great Olivia Colman, who recites rule reminders and their requisite punishments with a dominatrix’s combination of standoffishness and lusty authority. Eventually David finds Heartless Woman (the director’s regular Angeliki Papoulia), whom he manages to fool into thinking he’s equally heartless and therefor a perfect match, but when his ruse falls apart, all hell breaks loose, and David ends up running for the woods.

Before long, he stumbles onto other escapees, led by Loner Leader (Léa Seydoux of BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR), who explains the group’s own set of punishable rules, most of which involve not falling in love, as if that somehow that stipulation counters what the world of the hotel is forcing people to carry out. Naturally, David finds himself drawn to Short Sighted Woman (Rachel Weisz, who also narrates the film), and after they finally confess their feelings for each other, they come up with their own series of hand and body movements as a secret language of love.

If THE LOBSTER sounds absurd, congratulations, you figured that out. But it’s also darkly funny in its messages about societal pressures to couple up and have children (the hotel doesn’t discriminate between gay or straight couples, so it’s nice that we’ve got that figured out in the future). Staying in line with the director’s previous films, the movie can also get quite cruel. When one female guest who has her eye on David is repeatedly rejected by him, she decides to kill herself by jumping to her death and being spared the animal transformation, but she doesn’t die from her injuries and instead lies in a heap in a great deal of pain. There are a few moments like that that will likely leave a similar pit in your stomach.

It seems inevitable that our lovers will get caught; the question is, What will their punishments be, since Seydoux’s character seems to personalize her brutality to fit the crime. But as THE LOBSTER moves cautiously and carefully toward its surprisingly moving conclusion, Lanthimos can’t help but add an element of repulsion to the final sequence. We want to lean into the screen because of its intimacy, but a specific tender gesture makes it almost impossible not to want to looks away. Most of the film exists on duel (almost opposing) planes, and as such, it almost demands multiple viewings. THE LOBSTER is an exercise in patience, weirdness, anarchy and ultimately compassion. It’s a film that demands that you don’t think too hard about what is unfolding, while at the same time asking you to contemplate some very big subjects. There are those duel levels again.

-- Steve Prokopy
"Capone"
capone@aintitcool.com
Follow Me On Twitter