Chloé Zhao

  • Eternals (2021)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Disney+ Streaming, January 2022) I’ve been having a not-so-good time with the Marvel Cinematic Universe since the wrap-up in Endgame, and it’s not simply a feeling of having to begin again after a big climactic event—the movies themselves have been underwhelming. Black Widow and Shang-Chi were mediocre at best, with a few tepid ideas drowned into overly familiar execution. Eternals doesn’t have the same problems, but it does remain underwhelming. Striving to add another cosmic chapter to the MCU, it runs aground on many of the same issues that plagued the first two Thor films: It all makes less and less sense the longer you think about it, and this conceptual hollowness is not exactly mitigated by overlong execution. It’s certainly not a flop—the ensemble cast is a schematically diverse group of likable actors, and letting go of the Avengers continuity does allow the story to go hard on team dynamics that would be unthinkable with the mainline heroes. Adding a writer-director like Chloe Zhao at the helm means that the film can be more dramatically ambitious, but other than some nice visuals, a globe-trotting narrative and some character moments (many of them overlong), Eternals flails for a long time before finding its groove. I did like most of the cast: Led by the ever-likable Gemma Chan, bolstered by people such as Kumail Nanjiani and Lauren Ridloff, it’s a nice mix of people even if the insistent diversity can feel forced. (Meanwhile, veterans such as Salma Hayek and Angelina Jolie look a bit lost.)  There are some nice images along the way, notably in an earth-shattering final act. But the execution sputters: endless action scenes, intrusive exposition, and dialogue that run the ragged edge of pretentiousness, and while the serious execution aspires for cinematic weight, it often forgets the zippy core values of what brought audiences flocking back to MCU films. Perhaps the worst consequence of its leaden execution is that it allows audiences ample time to take apart the nonsense passing itself off as ideas—a supposedly humanistic film undermining humanity by claiming some of its most impressive achievements for its godlike characters (“the Manhattan project—yeah, I did that” except “oh no, we never interfere with human history”), and an awkward expansion of the MCU mythology trying to cram more ill-fitting cosmic and historical directions. The overall plot barely makes sense, and offers a surprisingly unconvincing case of anthropocentrism where the mythological characters are captured by their charges. (Which leads us back to the nonsensical nature of the overall plot—don’t give amnesia to your characters if you don’t want them to go native and work against you.)  Generally speaking, I have a feeling that the MCU is having issues that directly stem from its intention to get closer to the comics: all the stupidities and incoherencies of the serial comic-book format that were papered over so effectively during the first two phases of the MCU (less effectively in Phase Three) are now roaring back in this fourth phase and they take centre stage while we’re waiting for the overall plot to take hold. It’s worth noting that the next few films in the series are straight-up sequels to well-received instalments, with returning directors—embracing a measure of comfort after three experiments in a row. As for Eternals itself, it all boils down to a persistent feeling that it should be more than it is—more fun, more spectacular, more satisfying. But it sputters and swerves so much (and so languidly) along the way that it can’t match its own expectations.

  • Nomadland (2020)

    Nomadland (2020)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Disney Streaming, April 2021) Something very expected happened in the twenty-four hours between seeing Nomadland and writing this review — it won the Academy Award for the Best picture of 2020. Working from the theory that the Academy Awards are a gigantic Public Relation exercise in which Hollywood tells the world how it wants to be seen, it was an incredibly predictable win. In a year where the COVID-19 pandemic upended nearly everything about the movie industry, in which the number of major studio releases plummeted to nearly nothing, in which diversity became a rallying cry, in which economic anxiety peaked even more as millions of Americans slid into poverty, well — Nomadland seemed like a distillation of many, many things. A film (inspired by a growing trend) about a woman choosing to live in her van, going from one seasonal job to another, it seemed like a distillation of decades’ worth of gradual civilizational decline. Written and directed by Asian-American woman, visually composed to emphasize the widescreen aspect ratios of American landscapes, Dickensian in its depiction of people overcoming misery, Nomadland doesn’t just check off all the boxes — in such a miserable year, it seems almost tailored to make Academy voters think that this is the film that they want people to think about when they think about Hollywood. But now that we’ve explained why it won the Big Trophy, let’s get to the heart of the matter: it’s actually a good movie. Not the most enjoyable one, certainly not my own favourite of the nominees (currently a race between The Trial of the Chicago 7 and Mank), probably not a film that people will flock to over and over again, but a good film nonetheless. It is, admittedly, a slow burn. I wouldn’t blame anyone for overloading on the misery of the first half-hour, as our protagonist finds herself driven to a “houseless” lifestyle that would be intolerable to most viewers, as we’re once again reminded of the inhumanity of Amazon, as the cold blue winter cinematography makes everything feel so much worse. Things get a bit better as she starts making inroads in the nomadic community, getting tips and help about the lifestyle. As the film goes on, it becomes clearer that this rootless existence is a choice more than an obligation: she not only turns down two offers for a permanent residence, she starts taking in the freedom that comes with a moving dwelling, taking in the spectacle of America and finding her friends here and there. The film ends on a much better note than it began, and Frances McDormand’s performance is about as raw as the film can get close to documentary. The mixture of actors and non-actors playing “themselves” reinforces writer-director Chloé Zhao’s intention to avoid conventional filmmaking technique, something echoed in the script’s refusal to highlight pivotal moments and instead dwell in the spaces in between. It’s not a perfect film—characters have the grating tendency to explain themselves as if to a journalist, which is so very much not the protagonist—call it a holdover of adapting a non-fiction book. But even in its imperfect, often uncomfortable state, Nomadland (No mad land?) is a sobering reflection, hopefully not a portent, and a striking piece of cinema in its own right. It highlights something new, humanizes it and leaves us to consider the flip side of the situation. Yes, that’s the film that people will see when the open up those “Cinema in 2020” retrospective articles.