The latest film releases are Killers of the Flower Moon, The Persian Version, More Than Ever, and Divinity. Weighing in are Witney Seibold, contributor to SlashFilm and co-host of the podcast “Critically Acclaimed,” and Carlos Aguilar, film reviewer for the Los Angeles Times and AV Club.
Killers of the Flower Moon
Directed by Martin Scorsese, this Western crime drama stars Leonardo DiCaprio as war veteran Ernest, who develops a tumultuous relationship with a rich Osage woman. Broadly, the film is about the violent exploitation of Indigenous people in the U.S. It is also based on David Grant’s 2017 nonfiction book of the same name. (Sidenote: the Osage murders spawned the formation of the FBI).
Seibold: “This movie is 208 minutes long. It is sprawling. I think this is just Scorsese letting his characters and letting the story unfold in a really natural way. So you're in for a long haul, but you're not going to be bored. … This is Martin Scorsese trying to finally get right what he whiffed with Gangs of New York. He was really trying to tell a story of how the origins of America were really built on this corrupt base of wealth, crime, and white supremacy. And I feel like with Killers of the Flower Moon, he finally nails it. He's finally getting in with these characters. He is revealing that if it weren't for a few ambitious, incredibly greedy people, that a lot of organized crime — and a lot of more toxic things that exist in our country — wouldn't exist.”
Aguilar: “Lily Gladstone feels like the heart of the film. There's barely any dialogue in her performance, but she feels like the only source of a righteous voice in this ocean of terrible people who are finding ways to get ahead. But I do hope that people seek it out on the big screen because I feel like being enraptured by it for three hours, uninterrupted, on the big screen really is the way that you can take in all of the moving parts that he's doing, and also to appreciate Rodrigo Prieto’s cinematography, which is outstanding here. There are some scenes with fire that are just breathtaking and really make you wonder about the magic that it is — the creation of the images for the cinema.”
The Persian Version
This follows a conservative mother and her bisexual Iranian American daughter – an aspiring filmmaker who wants to be the “Iranian American Martin Scorsese.”
Aguilar: “At times, when we go into some of the larger flashbacks that the movie includes, we get in too deep into the memory and forget that we need to go back to the present story. But other than that, I really did enjoy the film, and I felt like it captures that complicated feeling of appreciating your parents’ sacrifice, all the things they've done for you to have a better life in this country, and for her to be a filmmaker, and for her to be able to express her sexual orientation and identity the way she wants to. But at the same time wishing that they could see you for who you are, and have a two-way street between child and parents.”
Seibold: “I was a little less enamored of The Persian Version. I feel like all of the set pieces that are set in the present with Leila, the main character, she’s played by Layla Mohammadi, are actually a little bit contrived. There's a lot of fourth-wall breaking. She addresses the camera a lot, she's really flippant-funny and tries to make a lot of references. And then we see flashbacks from her perspective of growing up with her mother in the 80s and the 90s, and how their relationship came to be a little bit strained. It's not until we're actually looking at Shireen, her mother, that we start getting flashbacks from her perspective, that the movie really starts to take shape. And I like that entire portion. Everything else feels a little bit too flip. … It's a bit of a mixed bag.”
More Than Ever
This English and French-language film follows a couple who must grapple with terminal illness and the end of life. It premiered at the Cannes Film Festival.
Seibold: “It's not just a tear jerker. This is actually a pretty serious look at facing the end of one's life. Vicky Krieps plays Hélène, and she's really fantastic, as a woman who knows she is going to die. … A lot of this has to do with her wanting to essentially be alone for her final days, which of course, causes a lot of tension with her husband. … It's contemplative, it is a little bit contradictory because we don't know how we're going to feel at the end of our lives.”
Aguilar: “It really is an interesting example of the chatter that's happening online against the use of sex scenes in films. And some people will argue against them, whether a film needs them or not. And I feel like there are two sections in this movie that are so integral … for us to understand who she is, and how she feels, and how she understands her womanhood and her desire and her willing[ness] to continue going. So I do think … those sexual encounters that she has with her husband are unspoken, really examples of who this character is.”
Divinity
In this sci-fi thriller, a mogul is trying to achieve immortality when two brothers abduct him.
Seibold: “The aesthetic is ‘you've had maybe too much of a certain substance and you're seeing a midnight movie on a Saturday night in 1983.’ This is prime, midnight movie material and it is fantastic. The grainy, 16 millimeter black and white photography just looks great. The plot is not going to make any sense. It is aggressively strange, but that makes it incredibly unique.”
Aguilar: “It's shot in black and white, on film. It's beautifully done. [It] uses stop-motion animation mixed with live action for an incredible fight sequence near its resolution that I think is really the stand-out of this film. It’s very imaginative and bold and … the kind of film that really makes you excited about new voices and independent film. It goes over the rails in interesting ways, even if at times, the themes and ideas might be jumbled.”