NARCISSISM | Big Apple Reviews

THE ARTIST’S WIFE – movie review

Posted on July 4, 2020 by harveycritic

THE ARTIST’S WIFE
Strand Releasing
Reviewed for Shockya.com & BigAppleReviews.net linked from Rotten Tomatoes by: Harvey Karten
Director: Tom Dolby
Screenwriter: Nicole Brending, Tom Dolby, Abdi Nazemian
Cast: Lena Olin, Bruce Dern
Screened at: Critics’ link, NYC, 2/28/20
Opens: April 3, 2020

The Artist's Wife (2019)

Memo to women asked to give up promising careers to support their husband’s rise to prominence: think twice before doing this. No, don’t even think about it. You have a responsibility to develop your own talents. If you want to give some time to aiding the man in your life, fine. (Of course you want to be reasonably sure that you have the talent to get your own fifteen minutes of fame.)

The principal character, Joan Castleman, is like the title woman in Björn Runge’s 2017 movie the wife—that’s the woman who wrote the books credited to her husband who won the Nobel that she should have picked up. Claire Smythson (Lena Olin) gave up her potential in order to support the career of her world-famous painter husband Richard Smythson (Bruce Dern). This is the kind of story that is up the alley of director Tom Dolby, whose sophomore movie recalls his work on “Last Weekend,” whose Celia Green (Patricia Clarkson), a wealthy matriarch, is forced to reevaluate her role in the family. In both cases, it’s better late than never.

In “The Artist’s Wife,” Richard is as narcissistic as Jonathan Pryce’s character, Joe Castleman in “The Wife.” They live in a luxurious, modern California house, one large room devoted to the large canvasses that absorb the dramatic colors of Richard’s contemporary paintings. Not all is well. For one thing, Richard has never “been there” for his estranged daughter, Angela Smythson (Juliet Rylance), nor does his six-year-old grandson Gogo (Ravi Cabot-Conyers) have memories of the celebrity artist. Angela’s stepmother, Claire, has triple duty. She has spent much of her life supporting her famous husband’s career; she is trying to bring Angela back into the family fold; and now she must cope with her husband’s progressing dementia. For his part, the Alzheimer’s-sufferer is acting off-the-wall, delivering profanities to his class of young painters, even smashing the work of one of the young men in the group. In one scene he has trashed his own living room, leaving Claire to pick up the pieces just as she is trying to deal with the new challenges of her aging husband.

Tom Dolby, using a script that he co-wrote with Nicole Brending and Abdi Nazemian, could have tured this into a soap, particularly given the sometimes obtrusive piano pounding on the soundtrack, but instead lifts the material into art in a way similar to that exercised by Eugene O’Neill in his classic family drama “Long Day’s Journey Into Night.” In a triumphant conclusion Claire may be on the way to giving herself some of the fame that her husband might never have enjoyed save for the loving support of his wife. And with a sensitive, nuanced performance by the classically trained, Stockholm-born Lena Olin in a drama that opens as a chamber piece, then brings in other members of the extended family, “The Artist’s Wife” is likely to be compared favorably to the award-winning “The Wife.”

Story – B+
Acting – A-
Technical – B+
Overall – B+

PIG (Khook) – movie review

Posted on January 6, 2019 by harveycritic

PIG (Khook)
Reviewed for Shockya.com & BigAppleReviews.net by: Harvey Karten
Director: Mani Haghighi
Screenwriter: Mani Haghighi
Cast: Hasan Majuni, Leila Hatami, Leili Rashidi, Parinaz Izadyar, Mina Jafarzadeh
Screened at: Critics’ Link, NYC, 1/6/19
Opens: January 11, 2019 at Iranian Film Festival in NY: at IFC Center, 323 6th Avenue

How do you like your Iranian movies? Do you favor meditative ones in the Ingmar Bergman style with a focus on the regrets of old age? Then Bahman Farmanara’s “Tale of the Sea” is your glass of sharbat. If instead you prefer absurdist dark comedy, Coen Brothers’ fashion? Then go for “Pig.” “Pig,” or “Khook” as the picture is known in Farsi, is a hallucinatory look at the high-end folks of Tehran, people who visit museums that show modern art and those whom Trump supporters would consider elitist. These are the well-to-do, BMW-owning artists, in this case represented by Hasan Kasmai (Hasan Majuni), a filmmaker who was blacklisted by the government. People in the know about global politics will pick up that Kasmai stands in for the real-life Jafar Panahi, a filmmaker who was unable to get a job because the politicians did not like his alleged propaganda against the government and who in 2011 smuggled a video out to the Cannes Festival by hiding the flash drive inside a cake.

Writer-director Mani Haghighi, whose “Men at Work” is an allegorical take on four middle-aged men on a ski trip, continues his wont to hide political commentary in a similar allegorical form, this time gives us “Pig,” a barb against the narcissism of artists, a trait that we in the U.S. know well given the current administration in the White House.

To get his message across, Haghighi employs the darkly comic theme of murder, wherein a killer decapitates artists before or after cutting off their heads. One filmmaker, the blacklisted Hasan Kasmai, feels slighted that he still keeps his head, wondering whether he is really in the top tier of his profession if he is being ignored by the murderer. Perhaps Haghighi is saying that some high-up officials are themselves being headless, persecuting those with whom they disagree.

“Pig” can be considered a horror film only as a stretch. When we see a few heads on the curbside and in the morgue with missing torsos, we are not in the company of filmmakers like Wes Craven and Rob Zombie who give their largely teen base the blood and guts that they eagerly lap up. When Hasan, the film’s principal subject, is not lamenting the injunction on his film making, using his time to shoot commercials, he is having an affair with leading lady Shiva (Leila Hatami). But Shiva, tired of being without employment because of the ban on her lover and director’s art, goes over to filmmaker Saidi (Ali Mosoffa) to Hasan’s displeasure.

Still, Hasan is pursued, even stalked for roles in movies yet to come, by Annie (Parinaz Izadyar). At the same time Hasan is himself babied by his rifle-toting mother, who will play a major role toward the story’s conclusion. Hip audience members will recall Chekhov’s insight that a gun shown in Act I will be used in Act III.

Among the visual candy on hand is an extended insecticide commercial, the all-female crew of bugs dressed in red with yellow boots, ultimately to be killed off by a huge, misty cloud. A dig at social media, in this case Instagram (Iran does not allow Facebook), sets Hasan up as the murderer by capturing him in scenes that could lead to his prosecution. Despite the thematic importance of this film, Hasan Majuni in the lead role becomes tiresome with a half hour to go. He is unlikable; an obese, temper-tantrum baby wearing silly T-shirts including one advertising Black Sabbath, an English rock group named after Mario Bava’s 1963 film of the same name.

There’s an elephant in the room. We in the U.S., told repeatedly that Iran is an authoritarian state that denies freedom to women and would not tolerate a movie critical of its repressive laws, may be surprised to note that men and women who are not related are seen chatting freely, driving cars, and observing so-called corrupt abstract art which was banned by totalitarian governments like Germany in the thirties and the Soviet Union under communism.

“Pig” is among the films exhibited beginning Jan. 10, 2019 in New York, enjoying the first Iranian Festival contributions this year. Shot on location in Tehran with sharp images by Mahmoud Kalari, the picture is in Farsi with English subtitles.

Story – B-
Acting – B
Technical – B
Overall – B