Shorts #104
Short Thoughts: Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012), War For the Planet of the Apes (2017), Dave Chappelle: Sticks & Stones (2019), Bill Burr: Paper Tiger (2019), Parasite (2019)
All at once silently esoteric and boisterously thunderous, Beasts of the Southern Wild uses distance to great effect. We are not allowed too close to characters - there is a silence that prevents this; we can only know so much as we weave between unpredictable happenings. We are also repelled by characters' booming personalities; they make queer a story of survival, of grounding one's feet in the soil and remaining strong. This consistent juxtaposition of the silent and harsh keeps the audience at, at least, an arm's length from character interiority and, in the end, makes rather impactful the final symbolic gestures the narrative makes with its beasts. Successful this film's distance management is then at generating affect. Alas, the clarity of this affect is the problem of this narrative for me. The feelings this generates are cloudy and left a haze despite being strong. This narrative is then easily turned away from. Easily forgotten? I do not know yet.
A crisp end to the prequel trilogy that follows in Dawn's footsteps by falling into the philosophical and ethical mires of civility. It is then this trilogy's greatest strength and complexity that the apes not only become more fundamentally human, but grow to understand their own 'humanity'. Humanity's folly indeed creates them, and humanity indeed destroys itself over the course of this extended narrative. Alas, ape civilisation, too, is broken and continues to break despite its achievements. And maybe that is the element of gold about this part of the trilogy especially. It is not the presence of humanity--which, due to the trans-species, post-human narrative is a quality defined as something near-natural and a product of consciousness and society--it is not that the presence of humanity determines success and is that which should be celebrated, but that the successes of the inherently troubled humanity must be celebrated - because who knows when it will fail next. Dark, but warm.
Not a masterpiece, but it secures some sense of peace within itself. Funny, yet not clever, but seemingly - and maybe entirely so - honest. Unassuming, even humble, despite its opinionated and rather sharp facade, Chappelle's comedy exists in a closed bubble. What is said is done with; jokes like moods and judgements come and go, eventually dissipating in amused chorus and witty loops. As implied: peaceful, or at least, at peace, in a weird way.
Oh no...
A dud from one of my favourite comedians. Forget funny for a moment, what about originality? Burr spends a seriously significant proportion of the hour either rehashing uninspired rants that were in circulation between 2013 and 15, reworking old points and reviving already used up premises. I found myself scratching my head, asking myself, haven't we heard a better version of the First Lady segment? He even throws out a story he was once filmed unable to tell without breaking down whilst telling. This is a strange throw-away special that I can't see being anything but weird to anyone who has seen a lot of his work. That said, the material that felt fresh (all 15 minutes of it) was a joy to hear... and... this was pretty painful to write.
Bong Joon-ho has created a stupendous work of intelligence and deep drama. Though previous works of his such as The Host, Memories of Murder, Okja and Snowpiercer are good (Okja less so than any other), Parasite reveals a complexity and sophistication of a much higher level in the character department. The thematic concerns across these films have in common a rather overt socio-political critique, but it is Parasite that uses these themes as a place of departure. It explores more than caste: the terror of flirting between the social classes and the perturbances of character that this excites.
Deeply engrossing, subtly and brilliantly impressionistic, smooth, humorous and grounding, Parasite is a truly fantastic film; a world cinema staple in the making.
