Every month, Establishing Shot brings you a selection of films from our group of regular bloggers. Even though these films aren’t currently being screened at the IU Cinema, this series reflects the varied programming that can be found at the Cinema and demonstrates the eclectic tastes of the bloggers. Each contributor has picked one film that they saw this month that they couldn’t wait to share with others. Keep reading to find out what discoveries these cinephiles have made, as well as some of the old friends they’ve revisited.
Noni Ford, contributor | Yes, God, Yes (2019)
While Yes, God, Yes could be categorized as a religious coming-of-age drama, the religious aspects of it can be a placeholder for any growing pains most teens experience as they begin to break away from an upbringing they’ve known. Our lead character Alice, a trusting, devout Catholic teen, grapples throughout the film with both the peer pressure and religious expectations constantly imposed on her once a sexual rumor about her runs rampant amongst her school. In this first part of the story it’s quite easy to make a comparison to Easy A. Although the latter film’s heroine leans into the role of seductress and uses the rumor as a business venture, Yes, God, Yes instead takes the story into a more realistic realm where Alice becomes ostracized and openly mocked until she takes it upon herself to go to a school-sponsored camp retreat with her best friend. Her plan to use the retreat as a means to rehab her image doesn’t quite go to plan, however.
The film has a slightly subtler comedic voice but make no mistake there are definitely comedic beats as the characters soberly nod along to every religious directive and testimonial given. One of the sadder parts of the story, though, is the way the faculty and religious leaders in the story begin to believe the rumor and start to shame Alice along with her classmates. While she’s clearly not the type to rebel and curse out her fellow teens, she finds ways to fight back and gain a new perspective of the world inside her church and school. A sweeter scene in the film is delivered when she gets the chance to have a conversation with an ex-Catholic woman who imparts some words of advice which push Alice into action in the last third of the movie.
After the retreat she’s clearly a changed girl, and although we don’t get to see what’s next for her or how she decides to define her religious affiliation as an adult we can tell she’s in a better place. She has a handle on her guilt and more confidence in her decisions. As a viewer, I really appreciated the way the film dealt with portraying a young woman coming into her own while still staying true to herself. I’m pretty used to seeing daring, bold, and fearless teens onscreen and it was nice to see a more realistic depiction of girlhood full of hesitation, meekness, and uncertainty. Natalia Dyer did a great job portraying the character’s anxiety and rare moments of bravery and pluckiness.
Jack Miller, contributor | The Magician (1958)
In 1957, Ingmar Bergman broke onto the international film scene with two of his most famous films, The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries. His next film, the baroque Ansiktet (which translates to The Face, though it was released in the US and continues to circulate under the less-abstract title The Magician) remains a lesser-known work than those two early juggernauts. This complex and ironic film deals with a band of traveling performers (among them Bergman regulars Max von Sydow and Ingrid Thulin) who allege to have supernatural abilities and powers of clairvoyance. Their claims are met by a mixture of disbelief and hysteria by a group of townspeople, some of whom fall under a kind of spell during the magicians’ stay, while others become obsessed with the prospect of “unmasking” the group as a barrel of charlatans.
The film traffics in ideas that can be traced back to nineteenth century European Romanticism — namely, the dialectic between reason and non-rationality, science and magic, belief and superstition. But what’s brilliant about the film is that Bergman never allows himself to settle at the end of either of these poles; the viewer is just as confounded as the frightened townspeople in trying to make heads or tails of the central characters. The film seems to suggest that these apparently opposing ideas are perhaps just two sides of the same coin. The pirouettes that Bergman makes between light and darkness in his later, acclaimed films can be glimpsed in a more embryonic form here.
Michaela Owens, Editor | Body Heat (1981)
When I watched Lawrence Kasdan’s Body Heat for the first time this month, I was fully expecting it to not live up to its hype. The film has been touted as one of the finest (and sweatiest) neo-noirs ever made, with sizzling performances from William Hurt and Kathleen Turner that threaten to melt the screen, but I figured it wouldn’t entirely click with me, as most neo-noirs tend to do.
I’ve never been happier to be wrong.
Brilliantly evoking classic noir while retaining a timelessness and eroticism that are hard to find nowadays, the plot is simple enough and will certainly be familiar to fans of Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity — a married woman and her lover decide to kill her wealthy husband for the inheritance — but what struck me were the characters and Kasdan’s incredible script. Hurt is perfect as the not-too-bright lawyer who becomes caught up in an affair that everyone knows was trouble from the start, while Mickey Rourke makes the absolute most out of his two brief scenes and Ted Danson almost steals the show as Hurt’s quirky best friend and the local deputy assistant prosecutor. (I will forever be obsessed with the way Danson’s character was constantly dancing in and out of scenes for no reason other than it was weird and silly and beautiful.)
But really, the true star of Body Heat is Kathleen Turner, that husky-voiced goddess who deserves way more praise than she has ever gotten. To divulge more about her character might spoil some of the film’s twists, so I’ll just say that I firmly believe her turn as femme fatale Matty Walker could go toe to toe with Barbara Stanwyck’s Phyllis Dietrichson or Rita Hayworth’s Elsa Bannister — she is that much of a knockout.
Laura Ivins, contributor | Mad God (2021)
A man in a gas mask descends into cruel landscapes to plant a bomb. Along the way we see gruesome chimeras and workers driven to death in industries we don’t understand. Life is cheap here, and it’s not certain whether we’re plunging through layers of hell or a man-made abyss of industrialization. Perhaps these are the same thing.
Phil Tippett’s stop-motion labor of love is both visceral and inscrutable. I’m not certain I fully understand the plot, but I found the horrific world mesmerizing. The creatures that populate the hellish city live in a world of bloody consumption; they will either rip something else to shreds, or else they are the ones consumed. There’s little to be hopeful about. But out of the gore of an Alien-esque impregnation and a vivisection that leaves a nurse catatonic emerges alchemy that creates a universe.
In interviews, Tippett talks about hating the movie because of the impact it had on his mental health. His process for creating it echoes surrealist praxis, allowing his unconscious to lead him into what he calls a “dream structure” for the film, though none of the images are taken directly from dreams. Tippett allows the viewer to create their own allegories for the imagery, imagery that is both concrete in its depictions of body viscera but opaque in the meanings behind it.
Jesse Pasternack, contributor | Obvious Child (2014)
Actor Jenny Slate is having a great summer as the voice of the titular character in Marcel the Shell with Shoes On (2022). That film has been receiving acclaim as one of the best of the year and is the latest to make good use of Slate’s endearing charisma and skills as a lead actor. But the first one to do so, Obvious Child (2014), remains one of her best. It is a wonderful showcase for Slate that is funny, moving and, thanks to its frank depiction of abortion, more relevant than ever.
Obvious Child is about a stand-up comedian in her twenties named Donna (Slate). After a bad breakup, she has sex with a sweet guy named Max (Jake Lacy). Donna soon learns that she is pregnant, and makes an appointment to get an abortion. As her appointment (which is on Valentine’s Day) draws nearer, Donna grapples with her feelings for Max and what she wants out of life.
This movie, which was one of the first that I saw at the IU Cinema, is fantastic. Slate gives a star-making performance that radiates with charisma and vulnerability in equal measure. She’s also not afraid to lean into the pricklier edges of Donna’s personality, which helps make her one of the more realistic protagonists in a romantic comedy.
That sense of realism extends to the technical aspects of Obvious Child’s charm. It makes great use of real New York City locations such as Unoppressive Non-Imperialist Bargain Books as well as its many beautiful streets and parks. Writer/director Gillian Robespierre and her cinematographer Chris Teague (who went on to become the DP for the instant NYC classic Only Murders in the Building) make New York City look as lovely and charming as it has in any of the great classics that were shot there.
When it came out, Obvious Child received a lot of attention for its depiction of abortion. Robespierre makes the great decision to present Donna’s decision to terminate her pregnancy for what it is: one which is hers and hers alone. Robespierre is also wise to make some of the film’s other female characters people who have had an abortion as well, which results in the film being more interesting from a narrative perspective. One late scene in which Donna’s mother Nancy (Polly Draper) talks about her experience having an illegal abortion is a reminder of the generational differences that exist between American women, or at least they did until the Supreme Court’s recent decision to overturn Roe V. Wade.
No one narrative film can capture every abortion story. Obvious Child doesn’t, and it never tries to do so. If it did, it would take dozens of hours and tell the stories of other people who have abortions, including transgender men and trans-masculine nonbinary people. But what makes it so good is that it never claims to be a very important film about abortion. Instead, it’s a charming comedy about a woman who becomes surer of herself as a comedian and a person who just happens to get an abortion because it is right for her. That idea, and the belief that people should have the right to decide what to do with their bodies in terms of their reproductive health, is one I support. If you agree with me, please make a donation to the Hoosier Abortion Fund.