Happy as Lazzaro
Like Dostoevsky’s masterpiece The Idiot, Rorwacher wonders what an unknowing Christ figure would look like in modern times. If you removed Christ’s proselytizing and self-confidence in his divinity, plopped him into the 20/21th centuries and instead rendered him an infinitely humble man so void of self that he essentially lived as a prop to uphold the wellbeing of others and absorb their suffering, how would he be treated by our post-industrial world? The answer for Rorwacher, as for Dostoevsky in the 19th century before her, is simple: like a fool.
At the end of Silence, F. Rodriguez is told to “trample, trample!,” for Christ, he is further informed, was born of his world to be trampled by mankind and alleviate their suffering. For the inhabitants of Rorwacher’s world, Lazzaro serves a similar function. We don’t know Lazzaro’s level of self-awareness (his often unperturbed, dutiful face belying any emotional or intellectual catharsis). We do know that he is trampled upon by all - the wealthy landowners, his supposed “brother” the Marquis, and each of the sharecroppers he lives among - and that his indefatigable willingness to help and be of use is perennially exploited. Lazarro would selflessly do anything for anyone and not only turn the other cheek, but offer his entire body up for abuse rather than strike out from a place of self-interest. We learn other things about Lazzaro, which amplify his ties to Christ in the later half of the film, and which I will not reveal because so much of the joy of this film is how its majesty unfolds like the rippling enchantment of sprinkled fairy dust over your downy eyes. But, don’t misunderstand, this is not a saccharine fable. Their are passages in this film of astonishing beauty and euphoria (it is shot on 16mm rounding film stock - and bless it for it), but it is an angry film about how the poor are treated by the retrograde exploits of capitalistic industrial society and the nefarious, urban indifference of late capitalistic culture. In many ways, it’s as angry and as despairingly tormented as First Reformed. Yet, it’s also subtly and painfully humorous at points. It ultimately may have hit me harder than any film I saw last year. Right now - it’s my favorite by a mile.
Halloween
Its best qualities are its offhand goofiness and willingness to expose its histrionics to impromptu ridicule, a testament no doubt to Green and McBride’s years of honing their comedic style. The diner scene finale of Pineapple Express comes to mind as a classic example of their brand of self-aware, digressive meta-commentary as a means to chuckle at the preposterous theatricality of action cinema contrivance. There are sundry moments in Halloween when characters make similar near-fourth-wall-breaks, with most of these au fait observations coming from its ribald community of astute, loquacious teens and preteens. The ease with which these kids are given effervescence, especially in quick one-off scenes, is the film’s primary source of flippant, albeit minor, joy.
Its worst qualities, however, are its hypocritical reverence for mythologizing and its egregious lack of tension. There’s a sense of Green and McBride wanting to reign in the convoluted mythology surrounding Michael and to wipe the post-’78 Halloween renditions from our cultural memory; they, for instance, outright dismiss the Laurie-Michael sibling connection foisted on Halloween II and subsequent sequels. And there is the commentary from one of the doomed teens about how Michael’s initial babysitter murder spree isn’t all that impressive considering the age of routine mass shootings we’ve all consented to tolerate. But, alas, and to no earnest fault of their own, Green and McBride are not immune to the influence of 30+ years of Michael Myers cultural iconography. And this is probably where their having-our-cake-and-eating-it demythologizing project feebly fails. In attempting to demythologize and dehistoricize Michael, they end up idolizing him. There are too many scenes with people talking robustly about Michael, as if he were some plebeian villain in need of more mystifying, grandiose bastions. In the original Halloween, we didn’t need many scenes of Loomis’ boogeyman aggrandizement. Like an effective campfire story, there’s just enough of it to unnerve our imagination into a there-is-something-behind-you discomfiture. Instead, in Carpenter's adept hands, we are left with the omnipresence of Michael. We don’t need to be repeatedly told from multiple characters how evil, how immortal, how elusive as a shadow Michael is - we know these characteristics to be true because we see them; and we feel Michael as such. The simplicity of Halloween I and II (which I love) are that we are in a contained world, an almost labyrinth of horror, where Michael floats around as effortlessly as an autumn wind. There’s a sense that Green and McBride want to recreate this sinister and elusive ubiquity, but we are often abruptly shuffled between too many scenes and bifurcated narratives to feel any tremulous immersion. There’s a labyrinth all right, but we’re not the ones trapped in it with the residents of Haddonfield like a gaggle of helpless wanderers - Green and McBride are.
Blockers
Cena’s commitment to the role of the sensitive, willfully naive helicopter dad (fastened with dorky, belt-clipped cell phone) sells the movie. And the film works its best self-reflective magic as a commentary on how adulthood commitments and misplaced panoptic energy fractures genuine connection and spontaneity between parent-kid & parent-parent relationships. There’s a warped Hawksian posse formation between the parents to face their common problem of female virginal sacrifice - one that is clearly assembled for all the wrong reasons. Even though their means are ethically dubious and motives are farcically fear-induced, you do get the sense that this is the most fun these parents have had in a long while. And the film is at its most naturally perceptive when it reveals the various ways these adult "friends" have truly failed each other as comrades and supporters - juxtaposing their blind judgment of Hunter’s failed marriage with their children’s rapturous acceptance of Sam’s lesbianism. I can see Blockers getting the requisite liberal adulations for striking all the right woke points about gender double-standards (which I, of course, agree with and know are important reminders for a society that still shields male date rape behind an impenetrable shroud of boys-will-be-boys discourse). But for me, these were the film’s weakest moments. They are just too knowingly imposed and underlined with a good-ol’ fashioned wink and nudge to the audience about their own importance to be anything other than insufferably obligatory (where’s Keenan Ivory Wayans' mailman when you need him?). Blockers has way more to say than it probably has any right to, but it is more successful when it speaks through the narrative than when it turns and points directly at you.
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