#decolonise your gaze nolan

[justanythingfromourday]

Three Films and a Couple of Thoughts

22.07.23 - 10.08.23

My phone calendar for July was not just marked with bill payments and birthdays but also the release dates of three films, complete with an accompanying reminder that would inevitably light the screen, catch my attention, ensure that I was booking the tickets in time. The films were ‘Past Lives’, ‘Barbie’ and ‘Oppenheimer’. I watched all three of them with my partner, my usual film companion if I’m not watching something with our parents or you, and each of these experiences – Past Lives, 6.05PM show at INOX, Oppenheimer, 11.55PM show at Cinepolis and Barbie, 12pm noon show at PVR – was singular in its own way, for a myriad of reasons.

Notwithstanding the absurdly high prices of tickets where a Rs. 350 ticket starts to look ‘cheap’ (to me, the upper-middle class consumer, with enough liquidity to throw cash even at a coca cola priced at Rs. 360!!), what was it like to watch each of these films in the cinema? Let’s also not forget that all three of these films are, to varying degrees, in English or English-centric (since Past Lives is a mix of Korean and English, subtitled only in English), the implication being that the audiences for all of these will be English-understanding, if not English speaking etc. I think it’s important to note all of these things – the cost, the language, the space of the cinema itself – in the present moment, before diving into the ‘criticism’ / ‘opinion’ portion of my piece. The subtext of all this is: how communal of an experience does the cinema still provide? Who can afford the obnoxiously priced snacks and the reclining seats, let alone the ticket itself? Who has the ‘time’ to luxuriously book a noon time show, in the middle of a work day, or one late at night in a city like Delhi? With the rapidly intensifying need to show more and more ‘content’, as made obvious by the number of screens in a particular cinema ‘complex’ (no longer hall, no longer single screen), the question that also comes to mind is this: is consumption everything?

When I watched the trailer for Past Lives, I felt an appreciative nervousness that seems to be evoked by nearly all A24 films; the subtle promise that this movie, this narrative will shift the way you might think or feel things. After all, a film about a Korean-American woman, married to a white guy, who then runs into her childhood sweetheart, is a film that can open so many doors, invite so many questions, evoke that complex sense of yearning and uncertainty, while attaching it to memory-making and the politics of identity. So I went into the hall with this promise in mind, expecting a complex and touching narrative about love, identity, history…but by the first half, it was beginning to seem that I had expected too much. In the interval, when my partner and I stepped out to get popcorn, we exchanged only sceptical glances and no words, both perhaps trying to let the film run its course, refusing an early judgement or indictment, generous to a fault.

Past Lives is one of the most disappointing films I have ever had to watch in the cinema. Not only did I nearly fall asleep twice in the first half, the gaping holes in plot and the sheer lack of any chemistry, or depth in any of the relationships made me want to pull my hair out. The film seemed to think that unnervingly long, awkward-without-purpose silences between characters is all that a context of tenderness requires – this particular choice irked me throughout. Our protagonist meets her childhood crush repeatedly over the course of 20-30 years, after gaps that are decades long and their conversation amounts to this: did you eat anything today? – UNNECESSARY FORCED SILENCE -  What prize do you want to win for your writing now? – UNNECESSARY FORCED SILENCE - Do you and your partner fight?  - UNNECESSARY FORCED SILENCE – and so on and so forth. If in these year long intervals, they have gained no curiosity about each other nor the ability to hold a single engaging conversation, then perhaps they should stop pretending they’re in love. The absurdity does not stop here, with the pretend-serious quiet that forces the film into disfigured drivel, but extends to all other aspects of the film – the protagonist has a younger sister and a pair of parents mentioned only once in the film, never to reappear or be mentioned onscreen again, the protagonist is a writer who stops talking to her crush the first time round because she wants to write but we never get to see what she’s writing, or what her work life is like or anything ‘writerly’ at all, the protagonist meets her white husband at a retreat and the ONLY conversation they have is where she monologues in the most dry, unaffected manner about ‘in-yeon’, a seemingly ‘deep’ concept that gives literally no weight to the film but seems to be its alleged driving force, before we drift into their marriage that has, again, no depth, feeling, tension, nothing, and in one particularly galling scene when the protagonist invites her childhood crush to a dinner/bar scene with her husband, the two of them start out talking in Korean with her translating into English for her husband before descending entirely into Korean, excluding the husband from the exchange which is mirrored literally by the camera cutting him out the frame. Not only is this absolutely, unfathomably unreal and stupid, they also manage to discuss what a ‘life together’ might have been like….right there, with the ousted white guy sitting somewhere within earshot. How has this not come up before, you know, when they met like 5-6 times alone? How can anybody take their spouse out with an erstwhile crush/flame and proceed to ignore said spouse for hours on end, without any ramifications? How is the said spouse not even hurt a tiny bit? What is the logic of this film? What is the meaning of this film? Is it enough only to put one ‘deep’ Korean concept in, fill the run time with awful, hankering silences and characters that appear to be more cardboard than real people, and put some stringy-ambient music in the background – in order to make an ‘art’ film, a ‘stunning’ cinematic debut?

I call bullshit.

At the end of the film, my partner and I turned to each other and both of us said….WHAT? IS THAT IT? IS THAT WHAT WE PAID SO MUCH MONEY FOR, AND GAVE OUR TIME TO? It was in a senseless, almost slurring kind of disbelief that we walked back home, unable to articulate how awful the film really was, especially because it pretended so hard not to be anything but ‘touching’ and ‘simmering’ and ‘beautiful’? When we pulled out reviews of the film, the disbelief sky-rocketed to another level. Past Lives was a critically acclaimed film, by the measure of most, if not nearly all reviews. We kept shaking our heads, wondering if we’d watched another film, the wrong cut, or if we were just stupid. Was there something we didn’t understand? Were we the ones missing something, and not the film itself? After all, in varying publications and across platforms, it was being hailed as a ‘masterpiece’. And the only words we had for it were: bull-fucking-shit.

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Oppenheimer was a midnight show, and we were running late, having had to look for parking and the cinema itself - of course we would arrive at the wrong shopping mall first. We missed the first five-seven minutes of the film, but got settled in quickly. A fair amount of time has elapsed since I watched the film so my thoughts aren't quite as dense or immediate - it was an interesting movie overall, with a number of elements that faltered and misspoke. Here's what I liked: the impeccable sound design, often a 'staple' of Nolan's films, the 'character' of Albert Einstein (perhaps acted too perfectly, in my opinion, a portrayal that teetered on the edge of whimsy but never became a caricature?), Cillian fucking Murphy making the most of a script that didn't fully grasp or even attempt to grasp the complexities of Oppenheimer's life or the bomb dropping itself, the popping up of random actors - though after a time, it became a bit tedious. Hello, Rami Malek, is that all you'll be saying?

It's also indicative that the cinema was predominantly 'male', full of tech bros and cishet men that had turned out en masse to rave about Nolan - I am late to the discourse surrounding his films and the women portrayed in them (awfully, poorly, tediously, repetitively awful etc etc) but of course that was one of my major issues with the film. Plenty of reviews about this. I remain unconvinced by a film that leaads up so heavily to a world-history changing bombing but refuses to show us even ONE visual of the devastation in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It's not enough to show us this singular white man's 'guilt' (very sparsely, might I add) - for a film made in this day and age, it certainly doesn't seem to want to reckon with the sheer scale of violence this moment unleashed upon the world. To be preoccupied with 'Oppenheimer' is a lazier, easier choice and still the film meanders in the second half, a little too obsessed with the trial / American politics, rather than the absolutely real time ramifications of the bomb. The film seems almost forgiving, when it should perhaps adopt a more complex approach to Oppenheimer. Don't even start me on the women - that's a whole other shit show. Literally nothing works in that realm, not for even a second, is any woman onscreen remotely believable or real, or even realized as a person. So Nolan has bumbled a number of things in the film - in parts, the film felt likes three different films put together, the editing was quite poor and abrupt, the women utterly destroyed in favour of a boring trial and an all-too-easily-forgiven antagonist, without a moment taken to acknowledge the horror he brought upon the world through his world. Underwhelming and not well thought out, I'd say but I really enjoyed the way sound functioned throughout film. For those raving about the 'cinematography' or 'visuals' - friends, come on, it's alright, it's pretty standard. Some things do strike you but overall, it's just alright.

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We were on time for Barbie. What a relief. After watching three films with missing beginnings (these two above, and even the new Spiderman film!), I was relieved to see WB ads playing out on the big screen. My partner was very sorry that neither of us were wearing pink - the cinema hall was flushed in said colour, mostly, and I liked how 'extra' it felt, almost exuberant? But at the same time, the company making Barbies now making films about barbies - do we get more meta in capitalism than this? Probably. But that subtext stayed with me.

On first thought, right at the first watch, I really enjoyed the film. I laughed a lot, and I laughed at how much my partner laughed because some of the humour really worked well. Funnily enough and like a small majority, Ken emerged as my favourite character over the course of the film. The production design and the music was very well done most of the time, and some of the writing was very crisp, very intelligent. There were some issues though - many of which emerged in my conversations with other viewers, as well as my partner, as we read through internet discourse, reviews, tweets, instagram hot takes and so on, rethinking many of our initial thoughts. Though Barbie remained very much a fun film, one that should certainly be watched in the cinema, there was a sense that this film was just fun.

A great bit of superficial fun, that did not try to gesture at deeper meanings, nor truly try to break gender binaries (because how could Barbies???? even as there is one radical moment where Barbie and Ken, in the real world, tell construction workers, that neither has genitals, a radicality immediately defeated by how binarised the worlds remain and perhaps the fact that Barbie goes to the gynaecologist, confirming the bio essentialist reality of her as a 'woman' idk). Even the Weird Barbie wasn't weird enough for me - wasn't unsettling enough, wasn't subversive enough, didn't possess any qualities that might offset the 'sweet' 'funness' of the Barbie universe. No character beyond Barbie or Ken were developed, especially the real world mother-daughter pair upon whom much action hinges, but who remain empty vessels, unrealized people with no interior lives or histories, nothing. That one monlogue that has garnered significant praise across the Barbie discourse was quite average, in my opinion - it did not force me to think deeper or did it connect with me very emotionally. In a landscape where we've broken gender right open and are actively trying to collapse boundaries, this film did little in that direction, but enforced these dualities instead. I don't think it even properly examined how patriarchy reduces men and harms them deeply too.

I came across a recent review that seemed to be arguing that Ken should have his own movie - because this movie is called 'Barbie' and it should be only about her!!! and I found this to be quite a reductive approach because if you're trying to examine patriarchy and gender roles (forget race or ethnicity guys, that's pushing it right now) - then we need as many narratives as possible in there, and it was very interesting to see a 'Ken'. I did not feel that he 'took over' filmic space meant for 'Barbie', or that his presence or storyline detracted from the larger narrative - in fact, often, he was the most entertaining, compelling aspect of the film. I love Margot Robbie and she's done an excellent job, but I think the film overpromises - as does much of the discourse/reviewing around it. It's a fun watch, surely and you'll be singing along and you'll love the visuals - kinda made me think of Katy Perry's California Gurls a bit (I could think of other references too but eh?) - but it's a surface level film. You kinda get what you see, and not much else. And that's alright, perhaps, because it is a film by a company that essentially makes these dolls that many of us spent our lives idealizing (and yes, breaking etc etc). So yeah, thanks Greta Gerwig but you did a lot better with your earlier films. Feminism doesn't really need Barbie at the moment, I think.

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I'm all done here, in a bit of a rushed manner. I also semi-watched this film Unpregnant on the plane but I don't really have much to say except I'm glad I didn't finish because it didn't make me feel anything at all, really. Average, average, below average?

As for this coming month, let's see where the watching and viewing takes me. You know, we're currently watching Good Omens together. Made in Heaven just came out. I also finished Wellmania. Perhaps time for another post, in a little bit. I hope these anecdotes get a little more interesting as we go, and perhaps more critical/well informed.

~ U

[jeremystrele]

Danie Mellor Takes Us Beyond What Our Eyes Can See

Danie Mellor Takes Us Beyond What Our Eyes Can See

Art

Tyson Yunkaporta

Installation view of Danie Mellor‘s current exhibition ‘The Landspace: [all the debils are here]’ at Tolarno Galleries in Melbourne. Artwork pictured: ‘Landstory’. Photo – Andrew Curtis.

The exhibition runs until September 29th. Photo – Andrew Curtis.

Snake-eye view in infrared works:  ‘An Answer To The Romantic Struggle’, ‘Shadow Dancing’ and ‘A River Of History’. Photo – Andrew Curtis.

Contemporary artist Danie Mellor. Photo – Andrew Curtis.

Danie’s ‘Dystopia [all the debils are here]’. Photo – Andrew Curtis.

Photo – Andrew Curtis.

Artworks: ‘Beneath Towering Palms’, The Thick Detail of History,’ and ‘A lakeside Romance’. Photo – Andrew Curtis.

Installation view. Photo – Andrew Curtis.

The Landstory, nine-panel diasec echoes Sid Nolan’s ‘Riverbend’. Photo – Andrew Curtis.

Installation View. Photo – Andrew Curtis.

This continent may boast the most ancient landscapes on the planet, but there are new sites of creation here as well, sites where spirit and matter are still in flux, where you have no guarantee of emerging as the same person you were when you went in.

In the vibrant, volcanic tablelands between Kuranda and Atherton in far north Queensland, Dreaming stories are tangible creation histories interwoven with the empirical data of geologists, a youthful rainforest born from a volcanic tempest only ten millennia ago. Concealed beneath that verdant canopy, spirit sheds mythic frames like a serpent’s skin and twists alongside vines and strangler figs through the proud, fragile structures of settler narratives. When you walk there, you have the unsettling feeling that the place is seeing more of you than you are seeing of it.

Mamu/Ngajon artist Danie Mellor emerges from this otherworld, like a blackbird carrying shiny shells from his country, seeding images from north to south in The Landspace: [all the debils are here], his latest exhibition at Tolarno Galleries in Melbourne. This collection of snake-eye view photography in infrared reveals hidden dimensions coexisting in that dappled forest light, multiple worlds unseen in the mundane spectrum of human sight, combining modern photography with the archival images and cultural objects of his ancestral peers.

Danie says the infrared spectrum offers scientific evidence of the existence of realities beyond what our eyes can see, potentially validating Aboriginal cosmologies. ‘It is proof – here is an unseen world of presence and knowledge and phenomena.’ Evolutionary biologists say that humans can see more varieties of green than any other colour, as a survival mechanism to identify predators hiding in grasses and undergrowth. It is deliciously unnerving to be stripped of this ancestral defence system as you view Danie’s infrared jungle.

Sometimes when you visit the tiger enclosure at the zoo, you can’t see the predator at first, and when you spot him hidden in the ferns, you realise with a start that he has been watching you all along. Be prepared for Danie’s work to stalk you in the same way, because indeed, ‘Hell is empty and all the devils are here.’ You may be blissfully viewing a landscape scene and suddenly notice eyes, then a shoulder, and then (much too late) that shaking spear. Skulls are sequestered throughout, but this story of tragedy cuts both ways. Watch your back when you first enter – a woven funerary basket is hovering in a clearing behind you like some unthinkable palaeolithic ghost technology, an ancient drone waiting to seize you in its Pleiadean pincers.

Next, The Song Cycle consists of four panels depicting a late wet season waterfall scene. Rock, tree, water, human figures. Ripples. You are disturbing something, intruding as you view it. Danie tells me what I am having trouble naming, describing it perfectly as ‘ruffling something in their world.’ The Indigenous subjects have agency, returning gaze from within the frame, laden with that enquiry which forms the cornerstone of Indigenous protocol: ‘Who are you? Where you going?’ Reflections in the water offer a clue to decoding the visual and cultural language of the entire exhibition, which involves perceiving the gallery space itself as part of the artwork. The old man standing in the water directs you to look downwards, to what lies beneath your feet.

The laws of thermodynamics become confused here, and the arrow of time is shattered as you realise that these compositions were formed with the reflective, black floors of this particular gallery as part of the frame. But you know the photographs were taken in a different time and place, and you struggle to sequence this process while puzzling over a jumble of inverted letters on an aluminium panel, decipherable only when you look at the reflected image on the floor.

DIST OPIA

In that moment the timeline clicks into place, but it is anything but linear. Through Danie’s lens, you get to stand in two different places and moments at once. Or three or four, depending on how many layers of that red jungle you are capable of navigating without losing yourself. A good anchor-point might be to ponder on how this piece sits in dialogue with Juan Davila’s Utopia.

Several such parallels are drawn with the work of non-Indigenous masters, connecting with and subtly disrupting the narrative of Australian art history. For example, The Landstory, a nine-panel diasec mounted chromogenic print on metallic photographic paper, echoes Sid Nolan’s Riverbend, which had a profound effect on Danie when he first viewed it. ‘There was a depth, a ghostliness that stayed with me,’ he says.

Danie is reworking the modernism injected into landscapes by artists like Nolan and Boyd, reimagining frames and cultural lenses to enhance the relevance and inclusivity of the genre. He describes it not as an act of decolonisation, but as a ‘meeting point between Indigenous stories of place and institutional art history.’ In this work, language itself is his canvas, as he inserts the Aboriginal English ‘debil’ into a quote from Shakespeare’s The Tempest and rebrands ‘landscape’ as ‘Landspace‘.

Danie describes Landspace as a departure from both traditional and modern landscape forms, in that it is ‘not tied down to arts histories and theories, although it is inclusive of them. It is a complete story of social and cultural histories, multiple narratives playing out in a place.’

It is a praxis more than a medium or theory, and as such is difficult to articulate. He insists it is something that you must come to over time, ‘walking country with Elders in a place over and over, eventually perceiving those unseen layers until you begin walking into, not through, the landscape. You still reference the passing of time, but it is not time-based – it is a continuity formed through relations, an intimacy with place.’

That intimacy with place, connection to country, is not something that simply drops onto you from the sky. It takes a lot of work and is a particularly tough struggle within the confines of urban environments and bodily schema that don’t quite match the archival photos of your ancestors. But luckily Danie Mellor has done that work for us in The Landspace: [all the debils are here], enabling all visitors to stand in overlapping times and places, dangerous spaces, journeying beyond fight or flight and emerging unscathed, but certainly changed.

The Landspace: [all the debils are here] by Danie Mellor August 25th to September 29th Tolarno Galleries Level 4, 104 Exhibition Street Melbourne, Victoria