Two Days, One Night
The Belgian Dardenne brothers have scored a hit with “Two Days, One Night” which is tense and constricting, unfolding and seeming to pulse like a horror film, akin to Roman Polanski.
Marion Cotillard stars as Sandra, a Belgian woman who works at a solar energy plant. One day she wakes drowsily to find out that her job is in question. Unknown to her, a vote was held, brought about by superior Jean-Marc (Oliver Gourmet) who tells the crew that they will get a bonus if Sandra is laid off, as she is the so called “weakest link.” Understandably, she is shaken and sick by the news. Through the course of the story, it comes to light that Sandra battles with clinical depression and is under constant threat of being undermined in skill and importance.
She resolves to journey house to house, in a journey to overturn the vote and have another ballot.
Marion Cotillard is wonderful here, clearly deserving of her Best Actress Oscar Nomination. She is a mass of quivering muscle, a tight and grooved interpretation of a Kathe Kollwitz woodcut. Her very forehead ripples with pain and ache.
Each house-visit is a guilty step even though Sandra has done nothing at all to deserve her circumstance. Every face pities and accuses. Only her husband Manu (Fabrizio Rongione) supports her and even he grows distant by the worry, anxiety and need.
In one scene, Sandra pleads her case which enrages a co-worker and causes him to strike an innocent colleague. As he falls unconscious. Sandra grows increasingly anxious and guilty as she becomes the unwitting conjurer of domestic violence and ill-will.
In her red bow tie shirt, she is a spool of maternal twine, falling beyond repair, her face a rictus of sensitivity and care.
Her friend Anne (Christelle Cornil) leaves her husband over the situation.
Although a noose tightly closes in claustrophobia and distrust, especially when Sandra shuts the coffin-like workplace door, the events in “Two Days, One Night” are no “Black Swan” scare-fest, but very plausible.
The predicament slowly unfolds with one meeting after the other, with all encounters springing discontent without warning.
This film is the most vivid interpretation of Kafka that I have found. Sandra’s last seen step over the asphalt reveals a rip in the black road, a single cement scar.
Creepily, the sight will have you wishing for the more fantastical fictions of Gregor Samsa, rather than the fears and arbitrary dramas of life itself.
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The 2015 Oscar Shorts: Live Action
With the Oscar Live Action Shorts, one can usually count on rich characters from around the world. This year’s entries are no exception. Once again, the entries lean towards existentialism and haunt, but there is also no lack of comedy.
In Hu Wei’s “Butter Lamp” from China, families from a Tibetan village are photographed with various backdrops. Sometimes they are in Disneyland, or an electronic market. At other times, the family members are under a banner of chairman Mao. During one scene, a grandfather is photographed in a sparkling leisure suit as a young boy almost strangles a yak. The film teases our perceptions, do we respond to the inhabitants differently when posed with alternate backdrops?
Next, from Northern Ireland, “Boogaloo and Graham” tell the story of two boys raising spunky baby chicks amid the harshness of the IRA. The violence of 1970s Belfast is touched upon with most of the momentum and energy going to these wisecracking brothers as they raise two ordinary chickens. With its cute and quirky repartee between father and son, it is a bit of The Little Rascals mixed with the natural realism of “In the Name of the Father.” Although the most frivolous of the selection, it provides solid chuckles.
For some tense viewing from the UK, there is “The Phone Call” detailing a sad call at a crisis center. Sally Hawkins stars as a counselor who takes the call and actor Jim Broadbent is the presence on the other end. The receiver gets more and more absorbed by the strangely breaking yet energetic voice. The flavor of this film owes a debt to Michael Haneke of “Amour.”
“Parvaneh” is an immigration themed drama about an Afghan teen (Nissa Kashani) who wants to send money to her sick grandfather by any means. The sheltered girl is tantalized by the neon glamour of cosmetics and western fashion, in addition to being befriended by a goth girl (Cheryl Graf) who takes her to a Switzerland rave party, but danger still lurks everywhere. Mascara only temporarily cloaks the uncertainty.
Apprehension is alive and well in a most successful offering by Israel entitled “Aya” about a young woman (Sarah Adler) who decides to give a reserved music critic (Ulrich Thompsen) a chauffeur ride, entirely by chance. While things start easily enough, Aya is keen to play an odd cat and mouse power play with her random passenger. The film’s director Oded Binnun keeps us guessing, is she a sociopath or a fragile soul tired of routine. In its happenstance, playful quirkiness and mystery, this short clearly outshines the others.
However, regardless of taste and preference, this year’s shorts, true to form, offer something for every eye.
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