Leave The Projector On

This year has been a tough one; and while this writer is no stranger to psychological duress, he is also a firm believer in escapism. I have always enjoyed media and entertainment that can take one to another place for even the briefest stretch of time, whether it be through two-hour play, a twenty-four-page comic book or a handful of brief ambient tracks. None of it’s the same but they can all mute the noise between the ears, if only for a while.

The best forms of heightened sensibility brought on by entertainment, I personally feel, are the ones that not only take one away but give them something to take back with them. When they re-enter the motions of daily life they are granted new perspectives influenced not just by the stories and sounds and images of various works, but also by who they were before experiencing them.

I have been exposed to more circumstances though, as of late, that have amplified the voices in my system causing more periodic screams and brands of anguish that I am at times convinced are special; but part of the point of this article is that said anguish is not special. Some people may respond to the news poorly but very few (if any) brands of pain are “special” or wholly unique. And despite sometimes thinking otherwise, three films from 2022 have given me sound and stern reminders that such notions are universal, so is the alienation that the pain brings. In these three well-crafted works of cinema, I could see pure humility and hardship (past and present) in the eyes of their characters and subjects. It’s been a good year for film; so much so that I’m willing to make a “best of” list a day or so before June begins.

And to be clear, these rankings and reviews are not a measure of anything in terms of either cinematic technique nor literary merit that these films carry, but merely a re-telling of how they affected me emotionally in coping with the likes of melancholy, ennui, and psychological alienation.

3. This Much I Know To Be True (Andrew Dominik)

The first and so-far only documentary I’ve seen in 2022, Dominik’s film begins with interviews and some behind-the-scenes style footage before it gradually turns into what it actually is-– a concert film.

Concert films typically bore me; I feel they tone down the live-concert experience and grant little more than a less-than-well-produced music video. Theatrics are often interesting, but they only elevate the film so much. Like fireworks they’re fascinating for a couple minutes before you check your watch and wait to go home.

This Much I Know to be True, however, reaffirms to me the vision of Andrew Dominik as well as his symbiotic collaborations with Nick Cave, one of the true “greats” of this century and the one behind us. Cave’s musical style has evolved quite a bit over the years, ranging from Southern Gothic to nearly-operatic rock all the way to the symphonic soundscapes brought on by the synthesizers of his last two albums.

And those albums, as well as his collaboration with Bad Seed veteran Warren Ellis in “Carnage” are the works that are really brought center-stage in This Much I Know to be True.

Eventually the film goes from almost zero interviews and becomes wholly music, with the songs being performed in what appears to be a warehouse. Members of chorus and some classical-style instrumentalists are present, but it's mostly Cave and Ellis, Cave singing and Ellis conducting and playing keys, vocalizing when need be. Falsetto harmonizing and conducting and violin playing don’t seem like inherently masculine interests, but Warren Ellis does these things with such rigorous force to the point that the question of such norms are left in the background.

Electronic soundscapes in full force, Nick Cave’s own lyrical abstractions sung confidently, This Much I Know to be True is a sermon, and we sit in the pews of movie theaters and gaze in awe as the camera circles around the band and these two men retell their truths in the only way they know how.

Even though I’d purchased a ticket almost three weeks in advance, I almost missed this screening due to a last-minute dinner with my family. I tried to cancel the ticket but Regal was not allowing it (due to poor service on their part) and my mother, knowing me to be a seasoned fan of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, encouraged me to leave dinner early and go see the film.

Almost with reluctance, as I didn’t really enjoy going out on weeknights, I went ahead with my ticket and saw it at Regal the only night it was playing. I’d been suffering some ennui and instances of unnecessary panic in the preceding weeks, and did not quite think I was up for it.

But there was something about the sheer will and artistic determinism on display in This Much I Know to be True to the point that not only did my needless worries shed away through the runtime but I also left saying “That was the best film of the year. I doubt anything will beat that.”

Funny enough, in the next month I would say that again. Twice.

2. On The Count Of Three (Jerrod Carmichael)

Bad thoughts are an ever-lurking third wheel in this buddy-comedy. The film, which so beautifully launches comedian Jerrod Carmichael’s directorial career, takes place in an unspecified towan that is both mundane and sublime in cinematography by Marshall Adams, and it at no point feels to be an accident. The film was written by two writers (Ari Katcher and Ryan Welch) whose identities in the world of film are unknown to me; yet somehow I am convinced that both they and Carmichael (who recently came out as gay in his new comedy special Rothaniel) as well as his co-star Christopher Abbott have all at some time, even if only in passing thought, identified with the term “suicidal.”

The characters outside of our main pair seem overly happy and joyous, whether they’re assisting them or bullying them, they are all smiles and can’t wait to go about their day. I explained to my friend just after the screening that I felt that was a directorial choice to make our protagonists seem as out-of-place and out-of-touch as they feel inside.

Val (Carmichael) and Kevin (Abbott) want to die today. Val’s been dealing with dissatisfaction in both his relationship to his girlfriend (Tiffany Haddish) and feeling unfulfilled even when promoted at his job (working with mulch; a job as droll as its setting). So he breaks his best friend Kevin out of the local mental hospital and pulls him over at a strip club, a place where nobody will bother them at 10am. Kevin, who’s been dealing with neuroses and has flirted with the abyss since he was a kid, tries to talk him out of it. And humorously enough, it’s Kevin who chooses to delay their suicide, “I just need one more day!”

Believe it or not, this is a very funny 90 minutes. They not only see the absurdity of their circumstances, they exploit them. Their actions become more rambunctious and dangerous as the snowy day fades into a night they don’t expect to live through, but the film never loses its ironic warmth nor its buddy-comedy charm. On the Count of Three convinces us of their lifelong friendship, realistically weaving their stories of both one another and them as individuals. It tackles the dark matter of suicide, as well as passing by other ideas such as relationships, purpose, childhood trauma, even gun control worked its way in there.

At times we tell ourselves (and each other) lies to get us through the motions of the everyday. Not every day is like the events of On the Count of Three, but the sentiment remains the same. And to some the lies—whether they be minute ones about the way others think or larger ones about where you’ll be soon—all register to us in various ways, based on how seriously we take them, and how important they are to us. We see at the end of the supposed “last day” how seriously Kevin and Val took their suicide pact; all in a grand finale that was as heartwarming as it was heartbreaking. This film is not perfect, sometimes its plot points can be considered “trite” and predictable, but in terms of emotion eclipsing logic, I only see Carmichael’s debut aging very well for me.

As previously stated, I took a friend of mine with me. This friend and I have a treasured intimacy left behind not just by romance and attraction, but continuous through shared experience. I recall seeing the trailer for On the Count of Three whilst seeing another film and immediately took my phone out, texted that very friend, and told her to look this movie up, saying “We have to see this one.”

The film was so small-time that even when I saw the trailer in theaters, it didn’t have a trailer online yet, and only played in a small window of time. Nevertheless, I could not be more pleased that I could see it, much more with her, as two individuals who have often struggled against ourselves and endured trials of spite and hate that would only beget more and more within ourselves. Even if On the Count of Three was rendered pointless and despicable, I am appreciative I was able to share such an experience with her.

1. Men (Alex Garland)

One could say that the male gaze and its impact on women has been overdone to redundancy in cinema. And why wouldn’t one say that? Human beings’ eyes leveling one another is a rich and prevelant theme, and for almost half of cinema’s existence, the directors and lead actors have mostly been men. And these days we have female auteurs like Celine Sciamma concerning themselves with the female gaze and other themes that, while maintaining femininity, do not fall into lame tropes or overtly generalized perceptions.

Alex Garland’s Men, however, may only say so much in terms of new ground in the dynamic between female protagonists and the male strangers they come across, but I don’t know if what’s being said has ever been screamed so loud. Garland’s Men is described as “folk horror,” but despite female protagonists, a European setting, and recurrent emotional anguish, these two modern A24 folk-horror features could not be more different.

The enemy in Men isn’t a cult. The enemy is everyone; but also noone. Jessie Buckley’s Harper is recovering from her late husband’s suicide and chooses to do so in a remote manor against a British countryside. As she goes about her holiday, however, she begins feeling watched, like something is off, and suspects that things are not as they appear.

Sound familiar?

Instead of tracing things like an unsavory environment or a stalker, or even Harper’s deteriorating mental state, Alex Garland’s third film (and first horror film) takes on an ambition that only so many filmmakers can lay claim to. I speculated themes and ideas to my friends, and we all seemed to have different ideas about the many different sequences.

Men plants thematic seeds in things like religion, grief and mental health, the natural world, the male gaze (of course) and even treads ground on more cosmic ideas toward its excruciatingly gruesome (and somehow beautiful) finale. It depicts the notions of the never-ending cycles that the world operates on in ways that I have not seen before. The simple ripening of apples to the point of collapse from their branches, a dandelion being brushed by wind and seeing its spores go to various places, and the decay of a recently deceased doe to the point of macabre decay are all illustrated with such care for what’s inside the frame that finding such profundity in them is no difficult task.

Every man that Harper comes across, young or old, no matter their profession (all played by Rory Kinnear, humorously enough) seem to constantly either desire her (no matter how subtle they think they’re being) or blame her for whatever problems they had before she came to that place; assuming the place is real, for (spoilers ahead) it can be assumed that the manor and the surrounding location is where she psychologically went to heal. I don’t think the “circle-of-life”-style motifs paired with Harper’s multiple dashes out of the house toward the film’s finale are coincidental. Harper went to that manor to heal. And that’s what life is— pain and then healing. Albert Camus said it best, “One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”

I rarely see films that take the “sharp left” that Men takes into its third act. Time will tell how it ages with me, for this is a very ambiguous film, but since seeing it just a day ago, I can’t help but think of the way Mulholland Drive managed to almost fully sacrifice all of its loose narrative threads in favor of images of pure horror and symbolism, rendering us more enchanted than confused. I cannot definitively say Men will age as well as Mulholland but I can assure the reader of two things:

1. In its sprawling ideas and creative freedom, Garland succeeded here where he couldn’t with Annihilation.

2. Even if you completely disagree with this analysis and despise this film, it will impress its way into your mind.

Men is a stern reminder of how well sincerity and determinism, paired with dedication to the filmmaking craft, can pay off and grant an audience a singular—if not divisive—vocal opinion.

As previously stated, I saw Men just last night, actually with the same friend previously mentioned in the article. And while she admired some of its aspects—its acting, its imagery, ambition—she could not say she liked it, and found herself more confused than interested.

I, on the other hand, having endured a rather psychologically hectic week and an ever-shifting mood right up to when the previews began, found myself instead immersed, ever-present, escaping from my own mind into the world that Garland created. I found an obsessive stability in deciphering it, and my own takeaway, horrifying imagery aside, was a positive one, the takeaway being not to sweat either the small or large-scale problems, because not only will it go away, but you’ll face pain again and again in this life of ours; so we may as well use our downtime not just wisely, but joyously.