"The Immigrant": A Diamond In The Rough

Now Available on DVD and Blu-Ray

Why have I only just now gotten to see this film?  I had noticed the name in critic Top Ten lists of yesteryear, but how is it that only now the wider general public is granted access to The Immigrant, not on the silver screen, but on their television sets?  There are films that got award season notice last year by simple virtue of being biopics, but never mind a beautifully constructed film like this, an unpretentious character drama layered with a depth and emotion that most films can only dream to aspire to.  This is a film that deserves to be seen and appreciated, as it is most assuredly 2014’s most underappreciated.

The titular immigrant of our story is Ewa (Marion Cotillard), who left from Poland with her sister to find a better life in America.  When Ewa’s sister is quarantined by immigration authorities due to her lung disease, Ewa is threatened with deportation, as she has wrongfully been accused of being a prostitute while on the ship that brought her.  Enter Bruno Weiss (Joaquin Phoenix), who offers to take Ewa in.  All he asks in return is that she act as a showgirl in his stage productions and sexually service the patrons afterward.  In a lesser film, Bruno would have been a slick snakeoil salesman, whisking the vulnerable Ewa into a glamorous world only to pull the rug out from under her feet as he reveals his duplicity.  And yet, The Immigrant has greater aspirations than to paint its characters as mere archetypes.

See, Ewa is not some doe-eyed waif in need of masculine guidance; she is a victim of circumstance, one who had hopes of finding a better life after fleeing her war-torn homeland, only to find America’s promises empty and lacking.  Bruno, about as close to a named villain as the film ever gets, has no ill will toward the women he employs.  He’s just another man trying to get by, disadvantaged by his Judaism in a society that hates him for it, and as much as he regrets having to resort to being a pimp, he can’t abandon his only means of income.  The American Dream has failed him as well, and his cousin Emil (Jeremy Renner) only serves as a reminder with his successful magic act.  Emil is this story’s symbol of American success, and the film’s truest conflicts come to light when Ewa is caught in the middle of the struggle between Emil’s optimism and Bruno’s battered defeat at the hands of early capitalism.

More than just the script and performances, though, the film is gorgeously shot, emphasizing the characters as the focal point of nearly every shot.  This may be a film about the period in which it is set, but it is first and foremost about the characters, and by focusing on the characters, the beauty of their setting pops out all the more.  Many directors would feel obliged to linger on their carefully crafted sets, to draw attention to the painstaking work of the production designers.  However, by choosing to only establish the scenes as necessary and place the camera on the characters, the most important pieces of this film’s puzzle, the sets end up feeling all the more real, because we see the world as the characters do, not as a passive audience.

The Immigrant is a film that I cannot recommend highly enough, particularly because so many of you have not likely heard of it.  Between the gorgeous cinematography, the fantastic performances, and the brilliant direction, it is a diamond in the rough from last year’s cinematic library.  That makes it all the more unfortunate that you had to wait until now to see it.

What understated gems of cinema do you love?  Leave your favorites in the comments below.

"Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter": A Darkly Hilarious Character Study

Now In Select Theaters

Sometimes a film comes along that doesn’t so much as tell a story as it does provide a character study.  Kumiko is just such a film.  Our titular character does not undergo any growth or change as the plot proceeds, but given that the film is not focused on a need for Kumiko to change, that works out just fine.  The consequence is that the film feels a little more freeform than your average narrative piece, but the lack of convention is made up for with a humorously dark sensibility as Kumiko stumbles from one bizarre encounter to another.

The film begins in Tokyo, where Kumiko lives alone, works a dead-end job for a boss she hates, with no relationship prospects or any seeming desire to obtain any, and with a disembodied phone voice for a mother who constantly harps on Kumiko to move back in with her.  Kumiko’s only solace is in a distorted old VHS tape of the film Fargo, with one scene in particular grabbing her attention: where Steve Buscemi buried the $420,000.  The first half of the film is spent with Kumiko as she plans her expedition to retrieve the buried treasure, operating under the assumption that the film is true because the film’s (false) title card claimed so.  And yet, it soon becomes clear that the specific monetary prize isn’t Kumiko’s true reason for seeking her riches; she wants to amount to something, and this goal is her way to surmounting a crippling depression, even if it is a delusion.  Her encounters with co-workers and acquaintances are equal parts hilarious and sad, as we see people totally unequipped to deal with Kumiko’s depression attempt to orient her toward a more relatable life path.

Resisting this apparent “need” to change, Kumiko spends the latter half of the film navigating the route between Minneapolis and Fargo to retrieve the hidden treasure.  Along the way, she encounters many eccentrics, from an unofficial tourism committee, to a woman bent on steering her to tourist traps, to a police officer who genuinely wants to help but has no idea how.  The film is arguably at its weakest here, as Kumiko’s limited English prevents her from extensively interacting with these characters, and attention is brought away from her to focus on what are essentially glorified absurdist monologues.  However, the film avoids becoming a chore by virtue of these encounters being incredibly funny, as the help these strangers offer is compounded by cultural cluelessness and an ineptitude worthy of a Coen brothers cast.

To avoid spoiling the ending, I will just say that it is bittersweet, as its tragedy is offset by an assurance that Kumiko need not change for the rest of the world.  In a sense, hers is the anti-arc, a character study that emphasizes that she is not the one in need of growth, but how the world failed to grow in order to accommodate her and her depression.  Marvelously insightful and wickedly funny, Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter is well worth your time.

This film is on a limited theatrical release run right now, so many of you may not get to see it until its release on home video in a few months.  Would you like to see me review more limited releases on this blog while in theaters, or would you prefer me to wait until they become more accessible?  Leave your thoughts in the comments below.

"A Most Violent Year": Technically Great

Now Available on DVD and Blu-Ray

A Most Violent Year is another one of those films that got rave reviews toward the end of last year, and yet was completely snubbed by the Oscars, and though the film eventually came to a theater near me, I didn’t feel any particular urgency to see it since my plate was full with Oscar shenanigans.  However, I was curious, mostly because of the film’s star, Oscar Isaac, who also starred in my favorite film of 2013, Inside Llewyn Davis.  Normally I don’t let myself get drawn in solely by the actors at play, but Isaac, in this humble critic’s opinion, is one of the most overlooked actors in popular culture, even if his roles are often the subject of critical acclaim.  And he performs quite admirably in A Most Violent Year along with always welcome co-stars Jessica Chastain and David Oyelowo.

The story is somewhat complicated, so bear with me.  Isaac plays Abel Morales, the owner of an up and coming oil and heating company in 1981, who through honesty and hard work is trying to work his way into the New York City market.  His next step is to purchase a fuel oil terminal, and he puts down a sizeable down payment for the property while he waits for his bank to come through on the remaining loaned amount.  Meanwhile, oil trucks throughout New York are getting hijacked at gunpoint, yet Abel refuses to allow his drivers to carry weapons because he is under scrutiny by a prosecutor (David Oyelowo) looking to go after the corruption in the home heating industry.  When one of his drivers ends up in a gunfight on the highway, no bank will loan Abel or his business the funds necessary to close the land deal, so he must gradually compromise his own morality in order to compile the $1.5 million he needs to make his business succeed.

Complex plotting aside, this film feels a lot like The Godfather in how it takes a man with good intentions and gradually reduces him to a product of his environment, and then ultimately the master of it.  Acting as Abel’s foil is his wife Anna (Jessica Chastain), who sees from the start the underhanded and necessary steps he needs to take in order to not lose everything.  Abel’s constant struggle is in maintaining his dignity and moral superiority, which paradoxically means ignoring his self-excused indiscretions while preventing himself from stooping to the levels of vicious depravity that his wife advocates.  It’s an intriguing dynamic that muddies the waters of good and evil by making the steps to evil gradual and yet ever looming.

However, if the film has one flaw, it is because it can at times be something that The Godfather never was: very dull.  Despite the great performances and plotting, the film’s subject matter often leaves something to be desired.  Let’s face it, the oil and heating business is not a particularly sexy or intriguing subject matter, especially when the film’s largest thematic reference point is a film about the fucking mafia.  Sure, the film occasionally diverts to a gunfight or a chase scene, but these moments are fleeting and, while thematically significant, overshadowed by a majority of scenes where men sit in rooms discussing sums of money.  I did not truly become invested in the film until I figured out where it was going, and for the majority of the film’s first act I was trying my best to play catch-up as I zoned out from boring conversation to conversation.

That said, though, I found A Most Violent Year to be an overall good film.  The summary I provided a couple paragraphs ago should act as a decent primer to get a dedicated viewer through the film’s opening half hour, and I promise that there is plenty else to enjoy in this tale of a moral slippery slope.

So who do you think is one of the most underappreciated actors working today?  Let me know in the comments below.