Three Wintry Film Recommendations
Force Majeure (Turist) - Ruben Östlund (2014)
Force Majeure, or to Swedish viewers known by its original title Turist, is the fourth feature from Swedish provocateur Ruben Östlund. Taking place in the French ski resort of Les Arcs, it depicts a Swedish family’s holiday taking an unpleasant turn when the father, struck by panic as a controlled avalanche appears to spiral out of hand, abandons his family. Although the avalanche turns out to be nothing more than a bad scare, the family trip takes off in an uncomfortable direction because of the father’s actions.
Ruben Östlund has made a name for himself through exposing the pathetic, insecure being hiding behind the façade that we humans are so desperate to maintain. As he has described it himself, all his movies are about people trying to avoid losing face; in particular he tends to like putting the comfortable middle-to-upper classes in the fire zone. Perhaps, none of his other movies does this as clearly as Force Majeure, where he takes aim at society’s perception of male and especially paternal bravery. A lot of the film’s excellence lies in how the conflict just simmers underneath the surface for the majority of the runtime, tastefully refusing to hand out quick payoffs. As he so often does, Östlund chooses to frame the increasingly uncomfortable scenes with static long takes, cynically observing his characters as they little by little reach their respective breaking points. The long takes also serve as dramatic devices: they lock us in, the viewers, with the characters and the awkward situations they are in. Instead of letting us get away from the misery, Östlunds lets the scene go on for a little longer than he “should”, and a yet a little longer after that. On a final note, besides social commentary and satiric brilliance, it is a highly entertaining film, filled with humor, memorable scenes and beautiful cinematography capturing the snow-white Alpine scenery.
Inside Llewyn Davis - Joel & Ethan Coen (2013)
In the current movie climate we are drenched in music biopics. Queen, Elton John, Elvis; it seems to be the case that each and every one who has left their footprints in the history of music also deserves a film depicting their life. How much humbler is then the arena for the failed prodigies, the rejects, the artists who dream big but never make it out of the starting blocks? That’s where movies like Inside Llewyn Davis come in.
Characterized by the Coen brothers’ trademark balance between comedy and tragedy, we follow Llewyn Davis, an aspiring musician trying to navigate the folk scene in Greenwich Village in the winter of 1961. We follow him as he scutters between auditions, sleeps on couches in draughty apartments and drifts around on snowy streets. He personifies all starving artists who are close to, or already have, given up: in a ”what could have been”-moment close to the end, we see a young Bob Dylan take the stage in a nightclub where Llewyn was thrown out the night before. The sullen truth is that the vast majority of people never become Bob Dylans; instead, most become Llewyn Davises. Oscar Isaac delivers a laconic, muted performance and shines in the shoes of the titular character. The Coen brothers have always had a knack for writing memorable, off-beat characters, and just because of that, Llewyn Davis stands out even more for how incredibly normal he is. He’s just like any other lonesome, slightly depressed but dreamy guy you could bump into at any time. He’s not an angel either, but lazy and often stuck-up against others, but it’s just because of those realistic attributes that we relate to him even more, and are even more emotionally affected by his failures and misfortunes. Inside Llewyn Davis might seem plotless, but its lack of direction is precisely the point: the film itself possesses the same meandering spirit as its main character, as he drifts around looking for something he can’t seem to find no matter how hard he tries. It is a beautiful yet so melancholic film, but in a calm, soothing way. And by the way, the songs are great!
The Ascent - Larisa Shepitko (1977)
If Force Majeure and Inside Llewyn Davis (depending on who you ask, of course) are fairly well-known, this third recommendation belongs to the realm of arthouse cinema as much as anything. Set during WWII, it follows two Soviet partisans forced deep into German territory on a mission to gather food, but as things start to go wrong, the journey soon turns into a fight for life and death in the midst of the ruthless Russian winter.
Unflinchingly depicting the horrors of war, The Ascent belongs in (although it is quite unknown to the wider public) the pantheon of war films. Unusually enough for a war movie, it doesn’t offer a lot of political commentary on its subject, perhaps surprisingly, considering the state-owned, Soviet production company Mosfilm produced it. Even though the Germans for natural reasons are portrayed as the villains, the film does not spend any time discussing political ideologies. Instead, it revolves around one deceivingly simple theme: survival. While Force Majeure is about to which lengths a person is willing to go to avoid being ridiculed, The Ascent is about what a human is capable of doing in order to live one more day. Few films manage to depict the psychological toll war takes on a person: with claustrophobic camera angles, pressed up tight against the actors’ faces, we feel their disillusion and fear as if we were there ourselves. We feel each gunshot breeze by our heads, we feel the freezing cold rubbing against our faces, and we hear the soldiers’ hyperventilation next to us as they crawl through the snow. Death is constantly lurking around the corner, and the dread grabs hold of the viewer from the get-go. The movie culminates in the bleakest of endings, which doesn’t showcase as much as a glimmer of faith in the goodness of either humanity or the universe at large. A true masterpiece, albeit an underseen one.