The latest film releases include Elio, The Damned, Meeting with Pol Pot, and Scarecrow in a Garden of Cucumbers. Weighing in are Alonso Duralde and Dave White, film critics and co-hosts of the movie podcast Linoleum Knife.
Elio
A boy with an active imagination realizes his dream of being abducted by aliens. This Pixar animation is voiced by Yonas Kibreab, America Ferrera, and Zoe Saldaña.
Duralde: “The design of the aliens and of what they call the communivers, which is the floating intergalactic UN, is really gorgeous to behold. And there are some gags that land along the way. But there's so much plot and incident in this movie that we don't really get to know Elio or his aunt, who's taking care of him, or the alien big caterpillar that he becomes close friends with. It's the kind of movie where people tell Elio about what he's like and what he does, as opposed to letting us just see it.”
The Damned
During the Civil War, Union army volunteers patrol the western territories and reflect on their roles.
White: “The soldiers are various ages. They don't have a clear picture of what they're meant to do. There's a battle in the middle of the film, but it's not really clear who that battle is with. It becomes very chaotic, not just visually, but for the soldiers, for the characters themselves. And this creates even more uncertainty among them as to why they are there in the first place. … Everything you see here is dependent on location and mood. It's shot entirely outdoors, using only available light, like when it snows, it snows, and the camera just keeps rolling. There is not a lot of dialogue.
… What there is initially focuses on: What is the function of a soldier? Here's how you work this rifle, stuff like that. But as time goes on, the soldiers’ conversations become entirely about existential stuff — the faith in their lives, meaning, family, their purpose, their very survival. It's as quiet a war film as you have probably seen. It very pointedly locates itself in a place that you don't associate with the Civil War.”
Duralde: “This is the kind of movie that is going to test viewers who fall back on the ‘but nothing happens’ argument. Because a lot is happening here, but it's handled in a very subtle way, and it's about paying attention to mood and performance and the silences. … I was wrapped up in it, and it is haunting and beautiful.”
Meeting with Pol Pot
The Khmer Rouge invite French journalists to conduct an exclusive interview with Cambodian dictator Pol Pot. This is written and directed by Rithy Panh.
White: “[The journalists] are shown what the people in charge want to show them. They are blatantly lied to about the living conditions of the people who've been relocated to collective farming communities, and the three of them begin to rebel in different ways. … It's based on a book by journalist Elizabeth Becker called When the War Was Over. So it is both a fictionalized moment in a horrifying history and a very contemporary reminder that genocides and autocratic leaders and governments that lie to their own citizens are not at all confined to the past, or to a place other than where you happen to be.”
Duralde: [Rithy Panh has] got a cast of actors playing characters, but he uses … stock footage and those dioramas … to portray moments in a way that's almost more chilling than if he had tried to reenact them himself for his camera. So we see these little statuettes that are representing different characters in the film in certain places with certain things happening. And it really delivers the terror of this moment in history and what these journalists were witnessing, even though official sources were trying to keep them from doing so.”
Scarecrow in a Garden of Cucumbers
Holly Woodlawn plays an aspiring actress from Kansas who moves to New York in this queer cinema classic from 1972. The American Genre Film Archive recently restored this film. It’s screening this weekend as part of the American Cinematheque’s "Taking Pride" series at the Los Feliz 3 Theatre.
Duralde: “This is arguably the first movie in which a trans actress is playing a cis character, and no one mentions it. … [Woodlawn is] a very gifted comedienne, and this movie really gives her the opportunity to pull some faces, and do some pratfalls, and deliver some really great arch one-liners. … It's very underground and silly, but it's one of those low-budget movies that, because they're shooting probably without a single permit in hand, you really get a feel for what did New York City look like in 1972, and it's all happening right there.”
White: “It's not just this wild representation of early 70s, very low rent New York City where artists could live and thrive and be a part of everything, and not have to compete for rentable space. … It's also just a very fun and unusually earnest story about a woman who wants to be a star, and she has fallen in love with that idea, and she's fallen in love with movies.