David Byrnes' American Utopia (Spike Lee, 2020, USA)

Ben Livant says:

Gunda (USA/Russia, 2020, Viktor Kosakovskiy)

Ben Livant:

[1]  Farm noir.  Definitely on the level, though, ground level Bub, no Dutch angle about it  The cows were too cowed to corroborate the crime, but the trip to the prison paid off anyway because one of the rosters crowed.  That's what happens, sister!  Hobble a cock and he'll squawk.  That's the price for leaving him only one leg to walk.   Guy's just lucky that murder most foul wasn't murder most fowl.  Anyway, the bird was a rat and that was that.  So, not in this barnyard, babe!  How now killer sow?  You don't get to stomp out one of your own and get away with it.  Poor piglet.  Them's the breaks baby cakes.  But at least the strong arm of the law made sure none of your siblings had to go head to foot, take mom's trotter to the snout.  Crime does not pay, ya dastardly dame!  Those squealers are safe now, in the protective custody of the state.  You can just pace the place all by yourself and await your fate to be meat on a plate.

 [2]  Artsy-fartsy vegan agit-prop.  Well, vegetarian at least.  An elementary school kid could get the message.  While I reckon most professional pedagogues of the primary grades would regard the maternal execution of the runt of the litter too brutal for tender tots, they could condone the rest of the film for the curriculum.  Should the shocking scene be censored, however, the wrenching heartbreak at the end would be emotionally available as so much Disney anthropomorphism, not the moment of ecological empathy it is meant to be and which is so crucial to generate against anthropocentricism today.  As for the stark simplicity and paint-drying pace - the Bela Tarr aesthetic from the perspective of the animals instead of any identified humans - I believe young children need to be exposed to this formally just as much as to the content of the message.  Get off your cell phone and regain an attention span, boys and girls.

 [3]  The type of animals whose perspective the film is at pains to subjuctivize without personifying is approached by Gunda

 
[4]  The sow is not a boar.  Nor is she a bore.  I was engaged by Gunda from start to finish; although I must admit, I am still not sure what I was supposed to bring to the bovines.  The chickens, no confusion.  They could not have been more obviously rescued from abuse.  And of course, the pigs are adorable and it is truly disturbing to witness her anguish in the end.  Perhaps a tad precocious, nevertheless, the film is undoubtedly moving and maybe just the sort of show to raise the consciousness of certain folks.  As someone who is still a meat eater, I believe it would be hypocritically inappropriate for me to comment further.

 New Order (Mexico, 2020, Michel Franco)

Ben Livant:

Given our conversation beforehand, I misunderstood the scale of the situation.  I thought the dramatic setting was strictly within the confines of a single private dwelling.  After you told me that the servants rebel, I confirmed my (incorrect) understanding that the focus was within "the feudal manor;" again, on a solitary estate.  Plus, since you criticized the film for failing to flesh out the characters of the rebellious slaves while attending more substantively to the masters, I was expecting New Order to be some sort of The Exterminating Angel and/or The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie; albeit no doubt, without Bunuel's properly proletarian radical point of view, (never mind satiric wit, surrealist artistry and overall cinematic auteur uniqueness).

 So, I was taken aback by the totalizing perspective; i.e., the complete societal purchase of the piece.  From from being restricted to local rebellion, the lens takes the much wider angle, looking at the nation as such and the violence is at the level of revolutionary insurrection.  This being the case, yes, New Order is not a properly proletarian point of view.  Furthermore, this general class issue intersects culturally with respect to race and indigeneity as per the concrete particulars of Mexico specifically.  Yet, I do not think it would be right to dismiss the film as entirely misguided politically.  It is not simply attending to aristocratic dread of the mob as nothing but lumpen proletarian criminality ,at bottom a reactionary pre-emptive strike against systemic change.  Rather, the film means to make it plain to muddled petti-bourgeois consciousness that 'nasty' bourgeoise power will opt for fascism, whether 'nice' bourgeois power gets with the nasty program or not.

 Not a great film, by any means, but not just a reactionary piece of shit either.   I give it one thumb, halfway up.

 And Dan continues:

Yeah, I didn’t wanna tell you too much, so kept my description purposefully vague. We agree that the film has value, and I have said as much both in person, and in my brief written comments. I also found the film’s intensity ratchet up during the military’s fascist quelling of the uprisings particularly compelling and completely plausible. I just wanted to spend more time with the peasants. Do they have an end game? What sort of system do they imagine replacing the current one? What is their “New Order?”

Good, but feels like an incomplete film.

Then Ben:

Fair enough.  And I figured as much.  I realized once into it that you did not want to "spoil" the film for me.

 The few peasants with whom we spend time are those still loyal to their master; either still on the job, or once having been, believing that their old boss will be a benevolent benefactor in their time of need.

 But the aristocrats with whom we spend time are no less instrumental props for the narrative.  All the characters are basically mannequins of sociological/ideological positions.

This hollow dramatic characterization is not the problem with New Order, perfectly entitled to adopt this formal strategy.  The problem is the sociological/ideological vacancy of the peasantry very much no longer loyal to their masters.

Black Bear (USA, Lawrence Michael Levine, 2020)

 Ben Livant begins:

 A bit of a head scratcher.  I mean, in a very sweeping sort of way, I can take away that the exercise is a study in personal falsehood in the circumstance of professional (Part 2) or wannabe professional (Part 1) artistic creativity.  You know, fabricating fiction as a vocation comes with its own occupational hazards.  So, if making make-believe is how you mean to earn a living, might want to arm guards along the border of your actual identity to ensure that you don't bring your work home with you to ruin your domestic life.  Easier said than done, it would appear Black Bear is out to show.

 And with a demented sense of humour at that.  Part 1 is pretty creepy and quite witty at the same time; as if Woody Allen wanted to make a serious psychological thriller, but just couldn't stop himself from writing dialogue with a dark comedic attitude.  Part 2 departs from being vaguely ominous, the mental abuse is blatantly obvious.  So blatant, in fact, the whole affair has the tone of lampoon.   After all, the emotionally manipulative film director is a trope tried & true.  Or is that tired & what's new?  Black Bear is fully in touch with the latter perspective; which is to say, the whole business is ironic in the extreme.

 And Dan:

 It reminded a little of some latter day Kiarostami, like Certified Copy, which is not my preferred Kiarostami as it too suffers too much from the disease of post modernism, but that said, I REALLY liked Plaza’s performance, enough so that I recommended the film to you knowing that it ain’t your cuppa tea. The film hits home for me as an exploration of the multiple dangers of using one’s personal life as fodder for one’s creative expression, with a dash of method actor-y meta-commentary added for flavor.

 Still not sure what the black bear symbolizes.