What to Watch: The god-damn news, "Sirat," a new Jarmusch, and more.
Reviews of Spain's Oscar nominee, plus "Father Mother Sister Brother," Jodie Foster in "A Private Life," Claire Foy in "H is for Hawk" and one ball-busting Pre-Code movie starring Edward G. Robinson.
So we’re bombing Iranian schoolchildren now. Winning, eh? The White House responded a few hours after the unforgivable February 28 attack by posting a video mixing airstrike footage with clips from “Top Gun” “Iron Man,” “Gladiator,” “Star Wars,” Transformers” and other Hollywood fantasies made by and for men with smallish penises. No, I’m not going to link to it. Search “Justice the American Way” if you absolutely must.
But, hey, we sent Kristi Noem packing and replaced a consciously malevolent woman with a man who by all accounts is functionally unconscious. Not sure if that’s better or worse or just a new wrinkle in an ongoing nightmare.
Noem returned to her South Dakota ranch, where a welcoming committee greeted her:
Yes, I know, you’re here for movies, not outrage or gallows humor, but I do find it difficult to proceed as if everything’s normal. It only seems that way, at least for those of us comfortable enough in our day-to-day lives and not direct threats to The Empire. (If they want to hijack “Star Wars” to their ends, so will I.) But take a moment and reflect how thoroughly this country’s structure, ideals and legitimacy have been dismantled and pissed upon in 13 short months, and wonder why we just sit there, mesmerized, as the wrecking ball does its work.
God, do I look forward to the trials if we ever get out of this mess. Until then, make some phone calls, contemplate action and see you on March 28th. On to the movies.
Ty Burr’s Movie Club: I’m still doing this every second Thursday of the month at the West Newton Cinema, and it is a respite that comes with some fantastic post-movie conversations among the audience. (Last month’s discussion after “Train Dreams” was a doozy.) March’s film is “The Holdovers” (2023, ) and, yes, I will be referencing my own experiences at a New England prep school in the 1970s, which Alexander Payne’s brisk, biting human comedy resurrects in all its tweedy, bong-scented horror. Next Thursday March 12 at 6:30 p.m. – see you there. (Here’s my review of the film, and here’s an interview I conducted with Payne back when the film came out.)
In theaters: “Sirat” (⭐ ⭐ ⭐ 1/2) – Spain’s entry in the Best International Film category at this year’s Oscars begins as a family mystery, becomes a road movie, and then lifts off into a brutal, nearly abstract existential fable unfolding in a landscape scraped to the bone. Óliver Laxe’s film is also up for the Best Sound Academy Award, presumably on the basis of the Electronic Dance Music that pulverizes the soundtrack during the early scenes, as a rave in the Moroccan desert writhes ecstatically with punks and aging hippies of every nation and none. A barrel-chested man named Luis (Sergi López) and his young son (Bruno Núñez Arjona) work their way through the throng holding a photograph of the man’s missing daughter: Is she here? Have you seen her?
A small group of ravers – a makeshift family, really – say they’ve seen the daughter at an earlier rave and that she might be at the next one, held deeper in the desert, and so the man and his son join mother hen Stef (Stefania Gadda), kohl-eyed Jade (Jade Oukid), a grizzled fellow with one leg named Tonin (Tonin Janvier) and two others as they head into the void. There follow thekind of dramatic jolts that completely upend a narrative and unmoor a viewer, forcing the characters and us into an unknown territory that in a sense is more frightening than any horror movie. That said, cinematic echoes well up throughout “Sirat,” of Clouzot’s “The Wages of Fear” (1953) and William Friedkin’s 1977 remake “Sorcerer”; of Gus van Sant’s “Gerry” (2003) and George Miller’s “Mad Max” movies; maybe a soupçon of Antonioni’s “Zabriskie Point” is in there, too.
It’s a good movie to see in a theater as opposed to at home, if only to experience the early rave scenes with a decent sound system – the bass alone can shake you into an out-of-body experience. I personally stop short of giving “Sirat” the full four stars because its ultimate meaninglessness, which is partly the point, is also somehow … meaningless. But the cast of mostly first-time actors is unforgettable, each face elemental in its own way, and it’s wonderful to see López in a sympathetic role given his sadistic Nationalist officer in Guillermo del Toro’s “Pan’s Labyrinth” (2006) and sketchy “family acquaintance” in “With a Friend Like Harry” (2000). One way or another, this is a movie to come to terms with, and there's one scene in it that will stick with me for life.
New On Demand:
