Killers of the Flower Moon: This is latest, large scale story from Martin Scorsese. The same director who has recently told the lengthy story of Jimmy Hoffa with The Irishman, is taking another poignant and timely project. In some ways, this is perhaps more pointed for Canada than the US, given our more recent past with the situation with residential schools and the continuing treatment of the indigenous people within this country. This story was unfamiliar to me, and took place in the 1920s, in Osage County Oklahoma where the native Indians by pure fate ended up with oil bubbling up from their land. They own that land, and they kept the rights to that land as they sold the liquid gold to the white man, needing this oil for their burgeoning Industrial complex (cars, trains, planes etc) and became rich. The indigenous people there owned more Pierce Arrow cars than any other area per capita in the country. They had servants. But as often happens, a plan was hatched by the surrounding white people and how they can address this imbalance.
Scorsese has put together an impressive cast including Leo DiCaprio, Robert DeNiro, Jesse Plemons and others. He also includes quality less known actors like Lily Gladstone who plays indigenous woman, Mollie, who owns the rights to their land. They delve into this subject matter and explain the situation well to the point of discomfort for a white audience member like myself. It is yet another example of how we have poorly treated the indigenous peoples. Specifically here, the women who have land rights are targets and they are encouraged to marry and have children with these white men. But the white husbands, the powerful white men in the area, and the white police force (Sherriffs and Deputies) turn to taking what they aren’t entitled to have. They also get impatient, and rather than waiting for their eventual rights to the land and income, there are mysterious murders and accidents taking place. Unsurprisingly the local law isn’t investigating. The body count is rising. Leo plays Ernest who is a rather dim nephew of Uncle William Hale (DeNiro) who has a plan, and has recently returned from the battles in Europe in the First World War. He is susceptible to manipulation because he isn’t a man who thinks ahead. The story unfolds with his relationship with Mollie, who likes how Ernest looks, while her sister interestingly sees him as a snake. That is ignored.
For me, I found that this was very slow to unfold, much like The Irishman. I found that the Leo acting was a bit over-the-top with how Ernest was rather dim, and didn’t see the manipulation while the audience members will see it rather quickly. We however as the audience hadn’t been able to foresee how far that Ernest would go, and remain loyal to his Uncle. The story also then speaks to the early days of the Federal Bureau of Investigation led by Herbert Hoover, who after a while couldn’t ignore the pleas to investigate these mysterious deaths in Oklahoma. It becomes beyond a “local problem”. I wish I liked this more. I think that it is sad how stories like this are so prevalent, but have been swept under the rug. As the saying goes, like the introduction in Braveheart, “it is the victorious who write the history books”. A story like this, doesn’t sell newspapers back in the day, nor do the powerful white people want the the magnifying glass out to show what they have done. What is their legacy? Many, like the Roger Ebert site, have annointed this movie as the Best Movie of 2023. I wouldn’t agree with that. But it is certainly a story worth telling and bringing out into the light.
Leave the World Behind: This was recently released on Netflix. It is another of a number of these apocalyptic stories for current society that have been put out recently. Other films or series like it would include The Last of Us, World War Z, A Quiet Place, Annihilation etc. The credible cast includes Julia Robert, Kevin Bacon, Ethan Hawke, Mahershala Ali in this story. Hawke and Roberts play a couple with children, who in some ways are eerily remisicent of the children in Hereditary. They are vacationing in Long Island, and then strange, unexplained things start happening around them.
Julia and Ethan end up back with the owners of the place that they have rented (Mahersala and his daughter) and experience all the weirdness of the days ahead. Strange things just seem to keep happening, and however much the characters might know something, they aren’t sharing. It is frustrating. I guess the real question for me is why? Why wouldn’t you share what you have heard or know? You are all in this situation and perhaps someone else may be able to build up or add to your story. Instead it is half truths or silence. The weirdness continues. However much this movie tries to provide a look and feel of a scary movie like Hereditary and doesn’t work. The political message in the end seems to fall flat too for me. So this isn’t something that I can recommend and I don’t expect it to be getting any nominations for anything, despite those with impressive movies in their repetoire of films.
Past Lives: This is a new release, with mostly Korean characters focusing on a singular adult relationship of two young people knowing each other, growing up, and interacting as they go. It is a romance which starts out innocently enough in Korea, before Mom and Dad to the daughter (Nora played well as an adult by Greta Lee) and her friend at school (Hae Sung played as an adult by Teo Yoo). Nora and Hae Sung have been close as friends, and they compete with their studies, with Nora having large goals of winning a Nobel Prize, or a Pullitzer Prize and feel like her family where she needs to leave Korea to swim in a larger pool with greater opportunity. Her Dad is a director and Mom and artist. They emigrate to Canada, but not before Nora holds Hae Sungs hand on their First Date, with Moms watching.
The story takes place at various times, with the opening scene above beginning the film. Pay attention to the commentary from a couple watching this interaction at 4am at a bar. Then we go back a stretch of time with the young lovers. After Nora leaves, they connect once again over social media and they learn to like one another once again. Relationships for them have come and go. Nora is now in NYC. She breaks off the communication and promises to reach out soon. Time passes and she doesn’t. The story moves forward and we have a more fullsome adult discussion about love, relationships, choices, marriage and all manner of human interaction. Body language, silences speak volumes. Adult choices are made, quality observations made about one another, and you can see choices made by each of the main characters. This is a thoughtful, engaging piece which is also on many of those Best Movies of 2023 lists. I would agree with that, as I think that it is good story, well acted, with results which are satisfying. I am glad to have seen this, and can enthusiastically recommend it for others.
Mondays With Robbie 