Month: November 2024

TWO PEOPLE EXCHANGING SALIVA (FRANCE)

By Marc S. Sanders

For a short film with a running time of only thirty-five minutes, Two People Exchanging Saliva (aka DEUX PERSONNES ÉCHANGEANT DE LA SALIVE) offers a lot to tell within its absurdist universe thanks to writers/directors Natalie Musteata and Alexandre Singh.  Reflecting on the film, which I saw during the After Dark collection of shorts at the 2024 AFI Film Festival, my list of imagery grows longer and longer and I am grateful for it.  There’s much to remember, even nearly a full week after seeing the film.

Shot within a department store located off the Champs-Élysées within the heart of Paris, the film is a gorgeous black and white presentation with striking lighting to illuminate a wide collection of settings.  Shoe racks never looked so ethereal.  A staircase leading upward feels very curious.  Piles of cardboard boxes feels terrifying before I even know what they are to personify.  Yet, the oddities that Musteata and Singh introduce are what tempts you to learn more about the rules they have set up for this fictional cosmos.

Malaise (Luàna Bajrami) is a salesperson at this store and like the rest of the staff, she must exhale her breath directly into the nose of a security guard before starting her shift.  She is suppressed by a domineering supervisor, Pétulante (Aurélie Boquien).  It cannot be more apparent that Pétulante feels threatened by her best customer’s favorability for Malaise.  That customer is Angine (Zar Amir Ebrahimi).  Among these three ladies, this comes off like a common soap opera love triangle that has been seen many times before.  Yet, the writers/directors throw some spice at this centerpiece.

Within this world, kissing is outlawed, punishable by death.  Hence the necessary requirement for a breath smell.  Ingest some garlic or other reprehensible aromatic food to divert any temptation from breaking the law.  Furthermore, products are sold at a cost of slaps to the face.  Several players exhibit the scabs and bruises, as well as nosebleeds, that evidence their purchases.  Looking at Angine it’s easy to see she is certainly a high-priced shopper.

With these set ups in place, the story can take off and rely on bold imagery.  We witness Malaise’s fear of what can happen if she commits to her attraction for Angine when the apparent crime of kissing occurs within the store.  We fear that Pétulante will pounce on prohibitive kissing in order to win her prized client back while getting her underling, Malaise, permanently out of the picture.  We see the great lengths of tormented slapping Angine endures in order to have another shopping experience with the innocent Malaise. 

The film serves reminders of the nature of punishment if a kiss is committed between two people.  The criminals are literally boxed up and disposed in a junk heap of other boxes that encase people just like them.  Musteata and Singh’s most powerful shots are of this pile of boxes dumped into a landfill toppling one over the other.  It’s like something from George A Romero film, like Night Of The Living Dead.  No big effects here.  Nothing that looks like a large expense beyond collecting a enormous supply of cardboard boxes.  Yet, when piled together in an outdoor area under the shine of their black and white cinematography from Alexandra de Saint Blanquat, it’s terribly haunting.

My wife and I got to speak with Natalie Musteata and Alexandre Singh on a few occasions during the 2024 AFI Film Festival.  They explained how the idea of this dystopian universe came to them while quarantining in their New York home during Covid.  They went through the steps of obtaining financial backing and they discovered that it would be more cost effective to shoot the picture in France than in the United States.  As well, they had access to a department store in Paris after it had closed for the night.  They went through the process of setting their scenes, rehearsing their actors, coordinating lighting and camera positioning within the few hours available to them before sunrise when the store would reopen.  Listening to them, I could envision the tight scheduling pressures they must have experienced in making this film.

I also find it interesting that they assembled this film during Covid. Simply shaking hands with others was highly discouraged to avoid a spread of disease. Highly charged debates on reproductive rights are so prominent right now too.  In Two People Exchanging Saliva, it’s not hand shaking that is impermissible, it’s something much worse, but also more intimate – kissing.  As well, in order to live off of materialism, one must fall victim to an abuse of their bodies, and they have the marks to show for it just beneath their eyes and across their profiles.  In this world, people are limited and exposed to the will of a domineering enforcement.  I salute the allegories found in the short film.  It may sound silly on the surface.  Natalie and Alex even laughed while explaining the plot of their film before we had a chance to see it.  Still, it is not altogether farfetched.  When can we live truly independently without a threat of punishment, when all we want is a will to live and love with one another?

Two People Exchanging Saliva was the winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 2024 AFI Film Festival, and I could not be happier for the filmmakers’ accolades.  It’s worthy of its merits.  If you can find this outstanding short film I highly encourage you to take a little over a half hour out of your day to experience something entirely unique, while beautifully presented. 

Seek out your local art houses for a film short festival coming soon.  Two People Exchanging Saliva should be included in any collection that’s being offered.  Now I’m hoping an Oscar nomination is on the horizon for Natalie and Alex.  Bon Chance!!!!

JUROR #2

By Marc S. Sanders

Since Unforgiven, director Clint Eastwood has sought out projects that have an intrinsic message or a question of morality.  That film seemed to channel the second half of his career that has spanned over a half a century.  Before, many of his films sensationalized the quiet killer or the silent tough guy with the six shooter gunplay and cracking fists. After the movie won Best Picture in 1992, movies like A Perfect World, Letters From Iwo Jima and Mystic River were not developed for simply the sake of escapist entertainment.  There was something to ponder after the stories wrapped up. 

Eastwood’s latest film, and supposedly his last, is Juror #2 and to the best of my recollection, I believe it is the first time the actor/director brings his experience to a courtroom.  Some of his more recent efforts have been questionable and not up to his best standards (Cry Macho), but Juror #2 is one of the best films he’s directed, and perhaps the best picture I’ve seen this year so far. 

Nicholas Hoult plays Justin Kemp, an expectant father with his wife Allison (Zoey Deutch).  He has just been selected for jury duty in a Savannah, Georgia courthouse.  Justin is Juror #2.  The case centers on trying a man for the murder of his girlfriend who was found bloodied and bruised in a rocky, wooded canal beneath a bridge.  Earlier that night, the couple were witnessed at a local watering hole having a drunken argument.  She walked off in the dead of night in the pouring rain.  The man was seen going after her.

Coincidentally, Justin was at this same bar.  He drove off in his car around the same time, but he accidentally hit what he thought was a deer.  The incident was hardly considered again until the opening statements were heard in court a year later.  Suddenly, the young man is putting two and two together and questioning if in fact he hit a deer.  Now Juror #2 embarks on a test of morality while sometimes adopting a Twelve Angry Men narrative.  Justin might appear as noble as Henry Fonda, but is he the culpable one?

Juror #2 assembles a good cast of characters.  Toni Collette is the prosecuting attorney, Faith Killebrew, who is also campaigning for an important election.  Collette has that deep southern twang, but the earth tone suits she wears along with her firm body language exude a tough exterior.  You believe Collete’s character is compartmentalizing this trial away from her chances of election.  The opposing attorney, Eric Resnick (Chris Messina, who I’d like to see in more films), is apt to imply the true motive behind Faith’s pursuit of trying his client.  Is it for personal gain, because Eric truly believes his client is innocent.  The evidence and facts add up to reasonable doubt.

Eastwood, with a script by Jonathan A Abrams, places his film in a variety of on set locations around Savannah.  Personally, it was fun recognizing certain areas following a recent weekend getaway my wife and I took to the storied town.  There are flashback pieces to the night in question at the bar and the crime scene.  Beautiful locales within the historic squares of Savannah are also covered in addition to the river boats near the docks.  Much of the picture occurs in the jury room where the group of twelve deliberate.  Leslie Bibb is charming as the Jury Foreperson.  However, Justin tries to find ways to allow his peers to consider other possibilities.  The only one on his side is a well-cast J.K. Simmons.  Simmons has the deep crackling voice that absorbs you into what he’s believes versus everyone else in the room.  Against him are jurors played by Cedric Yarbough and Chikako Fukuyama, also well cast.  What seems like an easy wrap up case of declaring a guilty verdict turns into a dead heat of 10 to 2, and eventually even Faith the prosecutor is personally questioning what occurred.

Juror #2 is very well cast film.  None of the actors are stand out marquee names, which works as an advantage.  They all appear common.  They don’t look like movie stars and thus it is easier to buy them in their roles.  After seeing the film at the 2024 AFI Film Festival, the gentleman sitting next to me had to surrender to a friendly debate we had.  He tried to point out plot holes in the film but I had an answer for each element he questioned.  Juror #2 is solid in its storytelling.  The motives that characters like Justin and Faith and even the respective jurors stand by all have a validity to their lines of thinking.  Therefore, Abrams’ script works well at arguing two sides of the same coin and the picture concludes with an opportunity to think about it long after it’s over.  Hanging threads to solid conundrums are a favorite factor of mine.

A story currently circulating in the trade papers is that Juror #2 is only being released in fifty theatres nationwide.  This is Warner Brothers’ decision and it’s a terrible shame.  When the debate of streaming versus exclusive theatrical releases is continuously being put into question, this is a sure sign of movie theatres eventually becoming obsolete. What a pleasure it was to watch Clint Eastwood’s film among crowd at the famed Grauman’s Chinese Theater (aka TCL Theatre) in Hollywood, California.  The audience was completely engaged, applauding as names appeared in the credits and laughing at the intended cues provided by the director and screenwriter.  To see a film, any film in a theatre, is a unique experience when it can be embraced among a crowd of movie lovers. 

If Robert Zemeckis’ Here can be released nationwide in thousands of venues, there is no reason why a well-made Clint Eastwood picture can not have the same treatment.  Movie houses were never designed to offer only the latest Marvel or Transformers film.

My hope is that the ongoing, widespread positive reception that Eastwood’s final film is receiving is noticed thereby building some traction for Warner Brothers to consider going wider with exposure.  At the very least, the famed studio owes it to arguably its most prized filmmaker and actor.  Time after time, the WB logo appears just ahead of Eastwood’s own Malpaso studio credit.  There is no Warner Brothers without Clint Eastwood and to close out his legendary career commands a bigger recognition. 

At the very least, Warner Brothers needs to recollect what occurred with a film like The Shawshank Redemption.  No one saw it in theatres and it had a terrible initial box office.  Some argue it was the title that turned people off.  Maybe.  Yet, think about the admiration that movie continues to garner thirty years later.  Warner Brothers needs to pay more attention to the quality they possess in their library.

At any rate, my hat off to Mr. Clint Eastwood – a pioneer filmmaker and one of the last survivors of a filmmaking yesteryear.  He began directing in 1971 with the thriller Play Misty For Me, and at age 94, he has only enhanced his meticulous dedication to drawing a crowd in while directing sensational casts.  Along with Harrison Ford and Steven Spielberg, I have followed Clint Eastwood’s career all my life.  Beginning with seeing Dirty Harry at age 8, I grew up on his imposing stature and his reliance on silent performances.  The first R rated film I saw in theatres was Sudden Impact.  Beyond being a Producer, Director and Actor, he is also a film composer.  Clint Eastwood is one of the few multi-talented people within the history of Hollywood, but no one compares to him.  You’re likely never to hear someone say that guy reminds me of Clint Eastwood, because there is only one Clint Eastwood. 

I am only blessed because I still have yet to see every one of his films.  If Juror #2 is his last effort, it’s a noble and solid ending to his run.  Yet, I’m glad I know I still have more to uncover in Clint Eastwood’s celebrated career.

NOTE: The murder victim is portrayed by Francesca Eastwood, Clint’s daughter.  As well, look for a blink and miss it moment where the director makes his way down a staircase while JK Simmons and Toni Collette share a scene together.  Eastwood is full bearded but there is no doubt that’s the guy.

PERSONAL NOTE: On the closing night of the 2024 AFI Film Festival, I had the pleasure to meet actors Cedric Yarbaugh, Amy Aquino and Zele Avradopoulos following the film and it was such a treat to hear how much they appreciated Mr. Eastwood as a director. All three were consistent in their admiration for the filmmaker describing him as patient, quiet, and a master of his craft who continuously worked with the same crew on one film after another. It was a real treat to chat with them. I also saw Nicholas Hoult walk by me three times and because I simply didn’t recognize him, I regret not asking him for a quick chat and photo as well. Yet, he and Toni Collette introduced the film which included a quick impersonation of Clint on the phone offering the role to him. Everyone was positively charming. This was such a memorable moviegoing experience. I’ll treasure the memory always.