Two of my life’s passions, which I have avidly continued pursuing, are film and politics. On Sunday I read a column in the Times by the politically perceptive Frank Bruni about Republican shamelessness when it comes to the impeachment proceedings. He wrote: “Do they reason that American politics has reached a nadir of such fundamental hypocrisy and overweening partisanship that no one regards the pledge [to administer “impartial justice”] as anything but window dressing?” It’s obvious that facts, evidence and the adherence to the Constitution mean nothing to them any more, and all sense of decency has been trampled on in the name of preserving Trump and the party in power.
The party supports every outrage, lie and misbegotten policy Trump engages in, for he seems to have turned them all into ventriloquist dummies mouthing his lines. Clearly it’s not conservatism with its belief in tradition and the rule of law that they adhere to, but a form of right wing populism where there are no restraints on the behavior of their erratic, impulsive and ignorant leader. Trump has too easily bullied them into submission. Or were they just waiting for the moment they could leave bipartisanship behind and cut themselves off from the rules they once paid lip service to? But all one’s criticism and condemnation of the Republicans and Trump sometimes feel like shouting into the void. He has the most cynical of politicos, McConnell, backing him, an unwavering base and, given all that has occurred, still has the chance in 2020 to pick up enough votes from white men in the same Rust Belt states to win again.
So, I turn to writing about two films I just saw. One I watched on TCM, “Les Rendez-vous d’Anna” (1978) was directed by Chantal Akerman, a Belgian avant-garde documentary and narrative filmmaker. I respected a number of Akerman’s films (especially “Jeanne Dielman”) for their formal originality, but rarely took pleasure in them. “Les Rendez-vous d’Anna” focuses on affectless filmmaker Anna (Aurore Clement) who desultorily travels through West Germany, Belgium and France to promote her new film. Neither plot nor action is central in an Akerman film. The filmmaker encounters strangers, a friend, a lover, and her mother (whom she has not seen for three years) on her trip, but she always feels solitary and detached. Some of the people she meets add to the film’s sense of alienation by revealing their painful inner lives to her. She listens blankly without offering any sympathetic response. Akerman tends to long tracking shots shot from a moving train, repeated shots of Anna from the back looking out the window into the street, empty spaces and characters that often barely look at each other. Akerman’s style sometimes feels repetitive, but the film is haunting, and though there is little exposition, I feel I know who Anna is. It ends perfectly with a solitary Anna listening to messages on her answering machine from friends and lovers. We know she won’t answer any of them.
I’m struck by how different the very personal and deeply felt Akerman film is from the Golden Globe-winning and Academy Award-nominated “Joker.” It’s a new origin story for Batman’s most famous supervillain, and a comic book film with serious aspirations. Joaquin Phoenix plays Arthur Fleck, a pathetic loser/victim and loner in Gotham City sometime in the early 1980s when New York was under siege by crime, corruption and poverty. Arthur is a former inpatient at a psychiatric facility but is now allowed to live with his elderly mother in a slum area that looks like the Bronx, and dreams of being a comedian. Arthur works as a clown who is beaten by street thugs until he gets a hold of a gun. The film then begins to blatantly imitate its betters — Scorsese’s “Taxi Driver” and “King of Comedy” (the latter’s star, Robert De Niro, even appears as a late night host) — as Fleck turns into a sociopath taking revenge on the society that wronged him.
Phoenix provides a virtuoso performance — all strange movements and a neurological condition that makes him liable to break into screeching laughter at inopportune moments.
Other strengths of the film are its use of city locations and interiors — apartment corridors, clubs — that carry the look of film noir. The final part of the film turns into gratuitous violence and a nihilistic political rebellion of the poor wearing clown masks against the rich. It seems constructed for violent spectacle rather than having any social meaning. “Joker” may be a striking film on the surface, but it’s nothing more than a stylish work devoid of substance.
