ARABIAN NIGHTS - Review By Thomas Zachary Toles - The Captive Storyteller in Gomes Epic

Video Services Corp. (VSC) presents its Canadian theatrical release of 2015's most ambitious and unique cinematic experiences in Montreal, Vancouver and Toronto. A major hit at Cannes and TIFF, Arabian Nights (2015), directed by Portuguese auteur Miguel (Tabu) Gomes is an epic six-hour contemporary masterpiece presented in three parts: Vol. 1, The Restless One / Vol. 2, The Desolate One / Vol. 3, The Enchanted One. This revolutionary trilogy begins in Montreal – Cinema du Parc (3575 Avenue du Parc) on December 18, 2015, then begins in Vancouver – Vancity Theatre (1181 Seymour St) on January 1, 2016, and last, but not least in Toronto – TIFF Bell Lightbox (350 King St W) on January 8, 2016.

The Film Corner is pleased to present its guest critic (and lecturer, actor, director, Rhodes Scholar), Thomas Zachary Toles, to share his thoughts...

The Captive Storyteller: Arabian Nights by Miguel Gomes

Film Corner Guest Review
By Thomas Zachary Toles

When your episodic epic is over six hours long, you have plenty of time for scathing social critique, deadpan comedy, magical realism, documentary-style interviews, and an impressive number of dick jokes.

The sweeping three-part Arabian Nights by Miguel Gomes uses the familiar structure of the classic folktale collection to celebrate and contemplate the need for stories during a crisis (in this case, massive unemployment and fiscal inequality in Portugal). As Scheherazade (Crista Alfaiate) explains, stories “spring from the wishes and fears of man” and, fated as she is herself to hold an audience’s attention she quite literally affirms that stories “help us to survive.”

Whereas Federico Fellini uses Marcello Mastroianni as a fictional surrogate for himself in 8½, Gomes becomes his own Guido Anselmi in Arabian Nights, slipping himself into the prologue--the filmmaker as both fictional character and documentary subject.

Interviews with laid off Portuguese shipyard workers are intercut with footage of an attempted wasp cull, a hazy metaphoric link that the director claims to be too stupid to clarify. Gomes describes himself in these early scenes as pretentious, idealistic, and cowardly. He literally runs from the Arabian Nights project, apparently riddled with doubts about his ambition and competence.

With these self-referential moments, Gomes thematically links his own status as a filmmaker to Scheherazade’s status as the imprisoned storyteller of Arabian Nights. While Scheherazade must always tantalize her audience night after night or be killed, Gomes sees the fate of his country hanging in the balance. The director feels a grave responsibility to respond to the draconian austerity measures across his country, yet is tormented by the thought that his creativity could fail him when he needs it most.

The prologue that introduces Arabian Nights, ostensibly takes a cinéma-vérité approach that suggests a certain faithfulness to “reality” while simultaneously employing a surreal indirectness that bleeds into fantasy. The sequence sets up a crucial collation for Gomes: that of fiction and so-called historical fact.

When the film crew is buried in the sand and Scheherazade takes control of the film’s narration, Gomes imposes his conviction that “imagination and reality have never been able to exist without each other”.

The fantastic elements of the film exist in relation to recognizable human impulse. Moments of magic sometimes serve to highlight contradictions in characters’ thought, as when the expert bird-trapper, Chapas, begrudgingly frees an old, sick genie trapped in a net. In other sequences, magical instances provide an intangible space for characters to connect with each other.

One tale, “The Tears of the Judge,” comically depicts a judge’s frustration as she unravels an increasingly ridiculous and convoluted chain of guilt. The judge becomes so overwhelmed that she rejects everyone in their stupidity, evilness, and despair, lowering her head in surrender. Then, impossibly, the judge is heartened by a sign language pardon that she cannot see. The language of mercy is shown to operate on an extra-sensual level.

The mystical elements of Scheherazade’s tales are knit into the fabric of the world, unsurprising to the characters that encounter them. Strikingly, even the most outlandish tales are filmed with a degree of asceticism. Gomes presents wind spirits, beached mermaids, and talking cows without spectacle, conscious that such inventions are no less comprehensible than the moral bankruptcy of Portugal’s leaders.

Gomes’s lack of visual extravagance in no way limits the aesthetic impact of Arabian Nights. The film’s delicate restraint can be exquisitely devastating: a fugitive patiently eats beans in the dark as officers on horseback gather behind him; Scheherazade and her father discuss her incarceration as they ride a dreamy Ferris wheel on the beach; a mirror is lowered by a dog leash towards the window of an apartment where a couple has committed suicide.

Gomes is fascinated by actors’ bodies, using long takes to capture the way they amble through landscapes or sunbathe nude on a roof. Such attention has an empathic effect. We spend so long watching Simão “Without Bowels” (Chico Chapas) wander, as he staves off the isolation of exile through the offerings of others, that when we are finally told that he has murdered his family, his corporeal vulnerability is entrenched in our minds.

Gomes’s film suggests that stories are as essential to the survival of the Portuguese people as to Scheherazade. Her real world counterparts also face miserable restrictions by tyrannical “kings.”

Heartbreaking testimonies from the unemployed people in “The Swim of the Magnificents” attempt to make sense of life in the aftermath of economic crisis (one man hands out over a thousand CVs until he feels his identity has dissolved). Gomes knows that storytelling done right expands our empathy, helping us to take hold of incomprehensible events that leave us adrift.

The disenfranchised people of Portugal form a chorus of Chaffinches, cruelly trapped, singing beautiful songs for those with the patience to listen.

And, seeing the morning break, the film critic fell silent.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***** 5-Stars

Video Services Corp. (VSC) presents

Arabian Nights:
Vol. 1, The Restless One
Vol. 2, The Desolate One
Vol. 3, The Enchanted One

A trilogy by Miguel Gomes

Begins in Montreal – Cinema du Parc (3575 Avenue du Parc)
December 18, 2015

Begins in Vancouver – Vancity Theatre (1181 Seymour St)
January 1, 2016

Begins in Toronto – TIFF Bell Lightbox (350 King St W)
January 8, 2016

SPECTRE - Review By Thomas Zachary Toles - There Cannot Be Spoilers in this Review of Spectre Because You Already KNOW What Happens

Klymkiw hates Sam Mendes, hated every Bond reboot aside from Casino Royale and hates Spectre. Klymkiw's going to take a nap whilst Rhodes Scholar Extraordinaire, Thomas Zachary Toles, AVIDLY inspects Spectre.

Spectre (2015)
Dir. Sam Mendes
Starring: Daniel Craig, Christoph Waltz, Ralph Fiennes

Review By Thomas Zachary Toles

I would like to formally congratulate Judy Dench for escaping the Bond franchise.

Early in the Dench-free Spectre, Bond (Daniel Craig) is suspended from MI6 for having the audacity to play by his own infinitely successful rules. Casting red tape aside as if it were a sexually frustrated woman, 007 walks defencelessly into a shadowy organization’s home-crater and murders legions of poorly trained goons, only to feel an arbitrary pang of mercy before finishing off their impossibly vile leader, Oberhauser (Christoph Waltz). As M (played by Ralph Fiennes, the pitiful rescuer of Judy Dench) explains, this proves to us that Bond, unlike a drone, knows when not to kill.

Bond vows to quit MI6 so he can settle down into a hollow relationship, mainly to provide him with fresh emotional baggage that might just propel him into another adventure in 2018.

Spectre’s absurdly cobbled together plot is meant to suggest that Oberhauser is the architect of all of Bond’s recent tragedies, the big final boss of Craig’s career as the secret agent. Oberhauser is interested in global surveillance, a contemporary paranoia that is pitted against the apparently unproblematic alternative: white male government agents with carte blanche access to exquisitely lethal weaponry.

The most amusing part of Spectre comes on the heels of the recent revelation that Daniel Craig hates playing Bond, despising the character’s misogyny nearly enough to turn down the tri-annual dump truck of money at Craig Manor. There is a [*ahem*] spectre of weary embarrassment behind Craig’s eyes even as he throws a man off a train or ejects himself from a car.

As a matter of fact, Sam Smith, the musician behind Spectre’s completely inappropriate theme, also seems intent on puncturing whatever remains of the Bond myth.

Spectre is far more comprehensible than Quantum of Solace (the opening scene is fairly strong) and, in some ways, less annoying than Skyfall (no childhood homes in sight), but it continues to spin the wheels of a franchise that really ought to be on its last legs. What a plunge from Casino Royale, which miraculously suggested that there might still be something to admire in a well-made, intelligently ironic Bond film.

Though the Mission: Impossible films do many impressive things that the Bond films fail to do, somehow the 007 brand keeps attracting audience members in droves. And I admit, Bond’s allure has sustained a certain nostalgic significance for me, despite the many dubious aspects of the franchise. If Idris Elba could somehow be cast as the interminable spy, my ears might perk up. Until then, I stand by Bond’s decision at Spectre’s conclusion to walk away from his thoroughly exhausted lifestyle.

Sadly, I know that Craig’s claim that he would rather slash his wrists than play Bond again is as unrealistic as his character’s departure from MI6. Both the actor and the character will undoubtedly reprise their roles in a forthcoming jaunt into the high-octane doldrums.

Sam Mendes, the director of Skyfall and now, Spectre, proves once again that he can kill James Bond as easily as he decimates most every movie he purports to direct. On the other hand, the producers of the Bond franchise, like Bond himself, are experts in knowing when not to kill something.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: *½ One-and-a-half stars

Predictably, Spectre is playing everywhere.

TWO DAYS ONE NIGHT - Film Corner Criterion Blu-Ray Review By Thomas Zachary Toles

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Two Days, One Night (2014)
Dir. Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne
Starring: Marion Cotillard, Fabrizio Rongione, Timur Magomedgadzhiev, Pili Groyne, Simon Caudry, Catherine Salée, Baptiste Sornin, Alain Eloy, Myriem Akheddiou, Fabienne Sciascia, Hicham Slaoui

Film Corner Guest Review
By Thomas Zachary Toles

Unembellished Beauty in Two Days, One Night

In Two Days, One Night (Deux jours, une nuit), the Dardenne brothers wield their harsh naturalistic style to position viewers amidst the often humiliating anguish of financially strained working class life. Yet, through the pain, a sensitive humanistic viewpoint emerges. The numerous figures who populate the story are not romantic evocations of poverty nor are there any cane-twirling villains. The film is a gorgeous series of vulnerable conversations in understatedly dire circumstances. The Dardennes create stunning tension by pitting the ordinary there-ness of its characters against the prodigious capitalist forces surrounding and constricting them.

After Sandra (Marion Cotillard) suffers a nervous breakdown, her not-so-sunny coworkers at the solar panel factory learn that they will each receive a €1000 bonus if she is made redundant. The whole affair is put to a depraved vote, leaving Sandra with two days and one night to beg each of her colleagues to put her above themselves. Sandra methodically approaches as many of her coworkers as she can reach, finding some understanding, some fearful, others furious. She, and the filmmakers, are keenly aware of the emotional power of a face, up close and personal. Sandra’s goal is not so much to make a complex argument as to bare her pathetic humanity to those who have plenty to gain by ignoring it.

I typically expect to like Cotillard more than I do. In James Gray’s The Immigrant, I found her unable to rise above the sanctimonious suffering of the character as written. With the Dardennes, however, Cotillard seems unflinchingly exposed, internalizing her character’s intermittent ugliness. Her strength is impressive without revelling in the glory of “I-am-victim-hear-me-roar.” The rest of the actors all pull their weight to fill the drab, industrial landscape with a careworn community.

Sandra’s biggest obstacle, larger than her depressive anxiety and medication dependence, is shame. And while the filmmakers are sympathetic to her desperate mission, they are equally careful to imbue each of her targets with their fair share of desperate humanity. With each rejection Sandra faces, she and the viewer are painfully reminded of the costs of her victory. Even the true hard asses, as Renoir put it, have their reasons—no relationship in the film is shallow.

Even the seemingly inexhaustible support of Manu (Fabrizio Rongione), Sandra’s husband, is undercut by Sandra’s suggestion that he no longer loves her. The film leaves it ambiguous whether Sandra’s assessment is a purely deluded symptom of her misery or if Manu’s efforts are fuelled more by pity than affection. His uncompromising aid keeps her going but it is possible that Manu, on some level, views her employment as a guilt-cleansing prerequisite for their future separation.

In many ways, the film is a hate letter to the capitalist system that makes its premise possible. The situation will be settled by twisted democracy, a practice that seems far more barbaric than it is typically regarded. To maintain the mediocre status quo at work, more than half of the employees must choose to vote against their own self-interest on a piece of paper marked either “Sandra” or “Bonus.” It is no surprise that many have trouble empathizing. Even if Sandra wins, those who saw their bonuses as essential may not soon forget what she took from them. In the end, Sandra is presented with a prototypical paradox of capitalist reasoning.

Yet, despite the bleak scenario, the film is not bereft of hope. It insists upon the importance of fellowship in impossible circumstances. When Sandra’s pleas meet an understanding ear, the faint burst of buoyancy is palpable. In one scene, after she has interrupted Timur’s (Timur Magomedgadzhiev) soccer to wearily recite her petition, his apologetic collapse restores some bewildered life to Sandra’s features.

The monumental emotional payoff of the film’s final scenes is made possible by the Dardennes’ patient pacing. We are forced to fully experience the arduousness and excess of Sandra’s journey, rendering the seemingly brief period described in the film’s title as both fleeting and endless.

Over the course of that weekend, the filmmakers present numerous characters honestly and delicately. One by one, we are gently acquainted with different voices, postures, mannerisms. Each figure independently may not leave an immediate impression. But at the end of the film, when Sandra sees the now familiar faces who voted for her gathered together in a single room, the sheer humanity on display is overwhelming. The frame is simply saturated with personhood, bursting at the seams with prosaic beauty.

My chest tightened; I could hardly bear to look.

Therein, in the unembellished revelation of people as they are, lies one of cinema’s greatest gifts.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: *****

Two Days, One Night will be released 8/25/15 on Blu-Ray and DVD via the Criterion Collection with a new 2K digital master, supervised by director of photography Alain Marcoen and approved by directors Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray. Added value supplements include new interviews with the Dardennes and actors Marion Cotillard and Fabrizio Rongione, When Léon M.’s Boat Went Down the Meuse for the First Time (1979), a forty-minute documentary by the Dardennes, featuring a new introduction by the directors, a new tour of the film’s key locations with the directors, To Be an I, a new video essay by critic Kent Jones, the trailer, an essay by critic Girish Shambu and new cover design by Eric Skillman.

Feel free to purchase directly from the following links and support the ongoing maintenance of The Film Corner.

In Canada, purchase HERE
In the USA, purchase HERE
In the UK, purchase HERE

PARKS AND RECREATION: Ruinous Optimism - Tea Time w/ Thomas Zachary Toles

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The Ruinous Optimism
of Parks and Recreation

By Thomas Zachary Toles


More TV Trash Talking from
The Film Corner's
Tea Time Columnist

The series finale of Parks and Recreation was as saccharine and excessive as a Sweetums Child Size soda. With astonishing conviction, the episode whipped up embarrassingly perfect futures for each of its recurring characters. Tiny fleeting conflicts were drizzled onto certain epilogues as if a couple squirts of lemon could deepen the flavor of 512 ounces of refined sugar.

When did the once tasteful show let itself go?

It did not start in Season 7. Parks and Recreation has, for years, been such a staunch defender of the goodness of its characters that it refused to let anything truly bad happen to them. This was no doubt an attempt by the show runners to distance the series from their previous hit, The Office. Indeed, early in the run of Parks and Rec, it was oft-described as an Office knock-off.

Hoping to escape this identity crisis, creators Greg Daniels and Michael Schur sought an alternate characterization for the show’s central character, Leslie Knope. Between Seasons 1 and 2, Knope transformed from bumbling manager type with delusions of grandeur to one of the most stubbornly ambitious, generous, and hard working characters on television. The joke was no longer on Leslie, but on the whiny, ungrateful people of Pawnee for whom she so tirelessly advocated.

This new approach borrowed significantly from Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life. Capra’s film centres on the personal sacrifices George Bailey must make for the sake of his average little town. Despite the film’s euphoric ending, these sacrifices weigh heavily on George, pushing him to the brink of suicide. He severely compromises his own needs for the sake of others—the perfect metaphor for devoted public service.

In its first few seasons, Parks and Rec followed Capra’s example by ingeniously making comedy out of Leslie’s wildly under-appreciated labor. Historically, comedy thrives on that particular Chaplinesque brand of optimistic hopelessness and all sitcoms especially benefit from such cyclical premises. For a time, Pawnee’s stubborn mediocrity landed its Parks department reliably back where they started, reaching like George Bailey for detectable impact from the drab valleys of Indiana.

Parks and Rec bravely imbued modest goals in potentially soul-draining circumstances with real value. Not everyone had Leslie’s ambition, of course. Ron’s primary commitment was always to avoid any government action; Tom’s commitment was to himself; April’s to macabre cynicism. There was more to these people than those simple descriptions, and fortunately they were allowed to develop over time under Leslie’s arm-twisting, inexhaustible guidance. Yet all the show’s main characters were most interestingly defined by their confinement in the feeble Parks department, a station that seemed to suit none of them perfectly, including Leslie. The possibility of doing meaningful work in such imperfect conditions was the faint ray of sunshine Leslie tenaciously sought after.

Unfortunately, as time went on, Parks and Rec allowed the clouds of stifled ambition to float away to Eagleton and beyond. Its writers became so attached to Leslie’s tireless optimism that they refused to place any immovable obstacles in the way of its characters’ desires. The exception that proves the rule is the Parks department’s incessant bullying of Jerry, which is too endless and frivolous to sustain any bite.

Eventually, Leslie could do anything, putting inhuman amounts of work into even the least significant projects. With seemingly unlimited resources and energy, compromise was less and less a part of her life. The same came to be true of the rest of the cast, who grew increasingly successful separate from the Parks department and ever more enamored with each other.

Parks and Rec remained only superficially about the importance of teamwork in adversity, overlooking all the underlying struggles that might make such collaboration inspiring. Without real conflict, like so many sitcoms before it, its characters were allowed to transform into Platonic ideals of themselves, losing their human complexity:

Ron should say something manly here.

April should be cynical to hide her sweetness.

Andy shouldn't get it.

As early as Season 4, an uncomfortable shift can be felt in the ethos of Parks and Rec. Convincingly awkward comic figures like Mark Brendanawicz and Dave Sanderson were replaced by absurd caricatures like Chris Traeger and Craig Middlebrooks. Caricatures were always a colourful part of the show’s background (Jean Ralphio often soars during his infrequent appearances) but had no place in its main cast, further undermining whatever shreds of emotional stakes remained. Ethan Alter noted the somewhat surprising absence of former principle Mark from the finale but the city planner’s credible disenchantment simply would not have made sense in the exaggerated world of the series’ later seasons.

By the finale, the caricaturization reached its apotheosis. As Parks and Rec had already abandoned pain and complexity for broad humour and shallow positivity (becoming as vacuous as the hollow self-help literature affectionately mocked in this final episode), it seemed a fait accompli for every major character to find seamless happiness in both their work and personal lives.

Tom’s improbably bestselling book literally boiled each figure down to three generic traits; meagre summaries as empty and hackneyed as the type of book Tom is peddling.

“April: Individualistic, intense, intimidating."

"Ron: Self-reliant, uncompromising, inner-directed."

"Leslie: Leader, tireless, optimistic.”

Optimism—and comedy—separate from struggle, compromise, and disappointment, does not have much impact. By the end of the series, Leslie’s overbearing idealism was the sole lens through which we were forced to view Pawnee, and governmental work more generally.

A once wonderful, weird, feminist delight deteriorated into a gang of cartoon characters embarking on a happiness scavenger hunt. In the series finale, we were assaulted by a future of boundless false satisfaction.

By that point, to put it in the show’s terms:

Parks and Recreation was beating a dead mini-horse.