The thrill of uncertainty. Films reviewed: Harbin, Babygirl, The Brutalist
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
First let me wish you all a Happy New Year! With a new year comes renewal, hope… and potential dread. So this week, I’m looking at three new movies where people face potentially dreadful situations, partly of their own making. There’s an abused architect, a compromised CEO, and a sympathetic assassin.
Harbin
Co-Wri/Dir: Min-ho Woo
It’s 1909 in Korea. After defeating a European empire in the Russo-Japanese war, Japan is flush with imperial ambition. They want more colonies on the mainland and are looking hungrily at Korea, Manchuria, Mongolia, and China. But some independence-minded Koreans are regrouping to fight Japan. Their leader, Ahn Jung-geun (Hyun Bin), managed to defeat a Japanese battalion in a bloody battle. But when, following international laws, Anh released the disarmed POWs, their leader Mori (Park Hoon) shot a cannon at their base killing everyone except Anh. Now the survivors are meeting in Vladivostok to decide what to do next. This includes Kim (Jo Woo-jin) his closest ally, and Woo, (Park Jeong-min) his biggest rival. And some of them think Anh is a Japanese mole. To atone for his mistakes and to do something big, he vows to assassinate Ito
Hirobumi (Lilly Franky: Shoplifters, Like Father, Like Son) one of the top statesmen of Imperial Japan who is calling for the annexation of Korea.
To do this killing Anh must make his way to Harbin, a rail hub city right on the border of Russia and northeast China where Ito plans to give a public speech. But If he travels by train he will be caught. He must turn to a former comrade turned bandit, Ms Gong (Jeon Yeo-been) to try to secure explosives. But there is a traitor in their midsts, telling the Japanese all their plans. Can they make it to Harbin undetected, find the rat, fool their enemies, and carry out the assassination? Or are they fated to be erased from their country’s history?
Harbin is a vivid and gripping retelling of a famous historical event. It’s a classic cloak & dagger, full of action, thrills, drama, and deception. It’s done in the traditional style, with the name of each character appearing on the screen to help 
you keep track of which moustachioed fighter is which. But easier said than done, when everyone pulls down the brims of their fedoras to cover their faces. The locations are amazing: Anh crawling across the frozen waters of the Tumen River, horse caravans on the sands of Mongolia, ancient Russian train stations… very impressive! The sets and costumes are great too, with a drunken warlord festooned in animal furs or the ceiling lamps aboard a Russian train, swinging from side to side. If you have any interest in action-thrillers, spy stories or even NE Asian history, Harbin is the film for you.
Babygirl
Co-Wri/Dir: Halina Reijn
Romy (Nicole Kidman) is the CEO of a large, successful corporation that makes automated parcel-sorting equipment — similar to what Amazon has in their warehouses. She lives with her husband Jason a play director (Antonio Banderas) and their two teenage daughters, Isabel and Nora. Her life is almost perfect, but is missing a certain…. je ne said quoi. She is not sexually satisfied. One day she is startled by a vicious dog running rampant outside her office tower. She witnesses a random young man calm the dog down and return it to its owner. Later, inside her office, she is introduced to her latest intern; it’s the same guy she saw outside. Samuel (Harris Dickinson) has an unusually forthright manner, almost rude and overbearing for someone so young. He makes her feel unhinged and yet… intrigued. Who is this twerp, and why is he like that? She finds him overconfident and almost ridiculous. And yet… eventually, to her great surprise, they kiss and sparks fly.
Soon she is secretly meeting him in seedy hotel rooms for furtive sex. But he wants more — total domination over her in an S&M relationship. Romy loves her husband and kids has never done anything like this before. Even though he takes the dominant role, in real life she holds all the cards: she’s older, richer and his boss. She has more to lose, though, and it’s that threat that excites her. And she can’t got enough of him. What will happen if word gets out? Has she bit off more than she can chew?
Babygirl is an erotic drama about an older woman’s fling with
a much younger man for the thrill of it all. It’s both highly sexualized and yet uncomfortable to watch in parts. It’s entirely told from Nicole Kidman’s (Before I go to Sleep, Genius, The Beguiled, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, Boy Erased, The Upside, Destroyer, The Goldfinch, Bombshell, The Northman) Romy’s point of view; we share her agony, her ecstasy, her cringing embarrassment (he treats her like a domesticated pet). As Samuel, Dickinson is opaque, functioning mainly as her erotic foil. He’s usually an excellent actor (Beach Rats, Triangle of Sadness, Scrapper, The Iron Claw) but in this movie he takes second all the way. Some people love this movie, others despise it. I’m somewhere in between. The plot is just a slight twist to the hoary old cliche of the powerful executive submitting to a dominatrix. I don’t need to watch a grown woman lick milk from a saucer. But other parts are quite exciting and altogether it’s worth it for Nicole Kidman’s performance.
The Brutalist
Co-Wri/Dir: Brady Corbet
It’s post-WWII. László Tóth (Adrian Brody: Splice, Predators, The French Dispatch, Asteroid City) is a holocaust survivor from Hungary who arrives in America as a displaced person. His wife Erzsébet (Felicity Jones) and niece Zsófia are nowhere to be seen. His cousin Attila (Alessandro Nivola) gives him a place to stay in his furniture store and puts him to work designing and building chairs. Things look up when the son of an oligarch offers him a job redesigning his father’s home library. Laszlo takes to it like a fish out of water, building a modernistic room with synchronized wooden panels and shelves beneath an open skylight. But when the industrialist Harrison Lee Van Buren Sr. (Guy Pearce) sees it, he goes ballistic and fires him without pay. Soon after his cousin falsely accuses him of sleeping with his wife Laszlo finds himself unemployed, homeless and addicted to drugs. He gets work doing manual labour at a ship yard with Gordon (Isaach De Bankolé) a man he 
befriended earlier until the industrialist who fired him seeks him out ago. Turns out Laszlo was a Bauhaus architect before the war, and the library was featured in modern architecture. Lee immediately rehires him, this time to build a monumental memorial on a hilltop in honour of his mother. But conflicts still trouble the two men’s relationship. Will Laszlo ever complete his masterpiece? Or will Lee crush him with his oppressive and egoistical nature?
The Brutalist is a moving drama about the American Dream and the class struggle between two men. (The title refers to the Brutalist style of architecture Laszlo favours). It’s a full-fledged four hour epic, compete with an overture, intermission and various story lines within the plot. I’m only giving you a taste of it here, a three-minute review of a four hour movie. It is visually and audibly stunning, both in design and execution, from the score to the crisp camera work, even the surprising credit roll. The acting is superb — I’m referring to Brody, Pierce, Jones and the rest of the large cast. This is a mature film made by a young director and former child actor. I’ve only seen one other movie by him, Vox Luxe, which, while visually interesting, didn’t have much to it. The Brutalist takes a quantum leap beyond that, filling in all the parts left out of his previous work. The movie is exciting, full of both hope and crushing devastation. It’s so well done that I left the theatre assuming it was a biopic, only later realizing it’s entirely fictional.
The Brutalist is a stupendous movie that must be seen to be appreciated.
The Brutalist and Babygirl are now playing in Toronto, with Harbin opening this weekend; check your local listings.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website culturalmining.com.
Daniel Garber talks with Paul Verhoeven about Elle at #TIFF16
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM
Elle is a hardboiled businesswoman in Paris who co-owns a video game development company. Divorced with a grown son, she’s as ruthless in the boardroom as she is in the bedroom. But her normal life is shattered 
when she is violently raped in her own home by a man with a black balaclava covering his face. Instead of telling the police, she takes the matter into her own hands, and vows to track 
down her attacker and get revenge. But even as Elle stalks him, he threatens further attacks on her in a deadly game of cat and mouse.
Elle is the latest from filmmaker Paul Verhoeven, known for his playful movies filled with sex, violence, intrigue and war. From his Dutch greats like Soldier of Orange, the Fourth Man and (a personal favourite) Black Book, to his over-the-top Hollywood classics Robocop, Starship Troopers, and Showgirls… they all share his inimitable style.
I spoke with Paul Verhoeven at TIFF in September. Elle opens today in Toronto.
Photos of Paul Verhoeven by Jeff Harris
Daniel Garber talks with Tickled director David Farrier at #HotDocs
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
David Farrier is a New Zealand TV journalist who specializes in odd and off-beat stories. So when he sees an ad online looking for athletic young men, aged 18-23, for Competitive Endurance Tickling, he sees a potential story. But when he contacts the company, run by a secretive woman named Jane O’Brien, he gets a surprising reaction: a series of abusive and 
threatening email.
Followed by three men flown all the way to New Zealand from LA, threatening a lawsuit if he doesn’t drop the story. Just for investigating some guys being tickled.
Tickled is also the name of a fascinating and disturbing new documentary about hidden identities, vast conspiracies, and cyber bullying. All surrounding a phenomenon – professional tickling — largely unknown to the general public. It’s co-directed by actor, journalist and crypto-zoologist David Farrier who’s also the film’s narrator and subject.
I spoke to David at Dublin Calling in Toronto at Hot Docs earlier this spring. Tickled opens today in Toronto.
Photos by Jeff Harris
TIFF 13: Sex + Violence. Movies Reviewed: Tom on the Farm, R100, Moebius
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.comand CIUT 89.5 FM, looking at high-brow and low-brow movies, indie, cult, foreign, festival, documentary, genre and mainstream films, helping you see movies with good taste, movies that taste good, and how to tell the difference.
Hollywood knows: sex and violence = bums in seats. But they also know that you have to keep it fresh and new. So this week I’m talking about three movies that, in very different ways, explore topics of sex, violence and the power dynamic between the two.
I’m looking at three movies playing at TIFF, one from Quebec, one from Japan, and one from Korea. One’s about a city boy who falls prey to an domineering farmer; one’s a businessman who falls prey to a gang of dominatrices; and one’s a family who fall prey to their own morass of escalating horribleness.
Tom at the Farm
Dir: Xavier Dolan
When Tom (Xavier Dolan) drives out to the country to read a eulogy for his young lover, Guy, he thinks he’ll be gone after the funeral. He agrees to spend the night at his mother’s house, even sleeping in his bedroom. But, in the middle of the night, he is attacked by a mysterious man. It’s Frank (Pierre-Yves Cardinal), the homophobic older brother of his late lover. He threatens Tom if he tells Agathe, his mother (Lise Roy), that Guy was gay, or that he was his lover. Tom is forced to pretend Guy had a girlfriend, thus erasing his own status. But it doesn’t stop there.
Frank is a domineering, abusive bully. He’s also much bigger and stronger than the diminutive Tom. Soon, Tom is put to work milking cows, dressed in Guy’s old clothes. Frank dismantles his car, and chases him down when he tries to run away. He’s trapped. Tom finds himself falling into the role of Frank’s submissive younger brother, regularly punched, kicked and threatened with death. Sexually frustrated Frank channels all blame onto Tom. And Tom has a mental shift where he finds himself sexually attracted to Frank and accepts any physical and mental abuse as his own fault.
What is Frank’s problem anyway? Why doesn’t he have any friends? What’s his hidden secret? And will Tom ever come to his senses and get the hell out of there?
This is Xavier Dolan’s 4th film, and the first one based on someone else’s play. This one’s a weird, captive-of-a-redneck horror story, with lots of pyscho-sexual overtones. I like it. It’s not perfect: Tom’s sudden transformation from city boy to hick seems too abrupt; and if he really feels threatened, why doesn’t he just call 911? But Frank and Tom’s abusive relationship – the core of the movie — seems disturbingly real. And Dolan’s careful filmmaking and precise editing leaves you with a chilling feeling at the end. It reverberates in the windmills of your mind long after it’s over.
R100
Dir: Matsumoto Hitoshi
Katayama (Omori Nao) is a shy milquetoast guy who sells mattresses for a living. His wife’s in a coma, so he takes care if his six year old son. He wants nothing more than to listen to Beethoven’s 9thSymphony. But, to escape from his daily stresses, he turns to leather- clad dominatrix for temporary relief. But his life changes dramatically when he signs an unbreakable one- year contract. He will experience the ultimate thrill – never knowing when or where a dominatrix will appear to shock and humiliate him. In his workplace bathroom, on the street, in front if his kid.
Soon enough, it has taken over his life, with hitherto unknown sexual kinks inflicted on him. There’s the Queen of Voices who terrifies Takayama by perfectly imitating his comatose wife’s voice at inopportune moments. And even a queen of spit, who orchestrates elaborate performances punctuated by huge amounts of saliva, shot at 
him from across the room.
Can he escape from all this craziness? And does he really want to? You can tell when he reaches a new level of submission and humiliation when his face is distorted and animated ripples of contentedness flow outward from his mind.
Meanwhile, every so often, the movie switches to the dull people producing this film, sort of a meta-movie-subplot, trying to make a movie with the ultimate restricted rating. R14, R20, refers to the age when you can view a film. This movie, they say is so dirty you have to be R100 to watch it.
I dunno. It has its funny parts – very funny parts — but it gets more and more extreme in its absurdity, as the movie goes on, until it really make no coherent sense whatsoever. It’s just a shaggy dog story, with a ridiculous — but still funny — ending.
Omori Nao is excellent as the nerdy anti-hero. Director Matsumoto Hitoshi is a dry, stand-up comic, part of the Japanese duo Downtown. If you’re into cheap-and-silly Japanese BDSM/leather/comedy, then this is the movie for you. Otherwise…
Moebius
Dir: Kim Ki-duk
A father, a mother and their teenage son live in South Korea. Dad has an affair with a woman who has a small convenience store down the street. Mom (and son) find out. Mom goes ballistic, and grabs a dagger she keeps hidden beneath a heavy Buddha’s head. Dad fights her off, so she breaks into her son’s room instead, and cuts off his penis. When he tries to get it back, she swallows it, and runs away. (That all happens in the first few minutes of this movie.)
Husband and son are forced to live without a Mom, and without one penis. Dad researches the internet for bizarre ways to help his son achieve orgasm, including rubbing a a pumice rock on your foot until it bleeds. Will dad cut off his own penis to give to his son for a penis transplant? Or will the son chop one off a random 
stranger? Who deserves Dad’s ex-girlfriend? Father, son or both? And will they learn to accept being stabbed in the back… literally? (I really do mean literally.)
OK, this is one of the weirdest movies around. It’s filled with rape, incest, violence, alterna-sex, repeated dismemberment (of a particular member – that one), and more. It’s told as a sort of a pantomime: no one speaks throughout the whole film. But its set up like a fable or a storybook, with each scene passing swiftly to the next. It deals with revenge, retribution, repentance but in a very simplistic way. Also interesting is the mother and lover are played by the same actress wearing different wigs and makeup. It’s not funny or cute, just non-stop, extremely repetitive violence. But, I have to say, it was really well made for what it is.
But what is it? Apparently, Kim Kiduk the director, felt his scripts had been stolen by his interns. I’m guessing here, but maybe the whole movie was his thumb in the nose to the powers-that-be in the Korean film industry. Who knows? Am I glad I saw it? I guess I am – it is unique and unusual (although, structurally, it’s like all his movies with a simple, symmetrical, yin-and-yang plot).
I saw R100 at TIFF, immediately – I mean immediately, five minutes later — followed by Moebius, a double- feature like no other. See these two if you dare. You will never forget them.
Tom at the Farm, R100, and Moebius are all playing at TIFF. Go to tiff.net for tickets.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Friday morning on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com
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