(Reviews of Christmas Eve in Miller's Point; The Last Dance; and Memories of a Burning Body)
CHRISTMAS EVE IN MILLER'S POINT.
If Robert Altman had ever made a festive feature, it might have looked something like Tyler Thomas Taormina's Christmas Eve in Miller's Point. Having become a critical favourite with Ham on Rye (2019) and Happer's Comet (2022), the 34 year-old writer-director seeks to celebrate the communal nature of the holidays, while also exploring the individual joys and woes that go into making a shared experience.
Heading towards the Balsano family home on Long Island, Andrew (Justin Longo) gazes through the rear window at the fairy lights and glimmering decorations adorning the houses along the route. Ricky Nelson's `Fools Rush In' plays on the soundtrack, as father Lenny (Ben Shenkman) jokes about perfecting his `extended family face', while mother Kathleen (Maria Dizzia) urges teenage daughter Emily (Matilda Fleming) to make an effort as everyone will be watching and judging.
Loaded up with presents to put under the tree, Emily slouches inside, while Andrew stops dead in his tracks in terror of the thought of all the kisses he is going to get from ageing female relatives. Having greeted everyone effusively, Kathleen can barely summon a civil word for her own mother, Antonia (Mary Reistetter), who is sitting alone in the room with the player piano with fellow outcast, Eric (Brendan Burt).
Lenny is dragged into the kitchen for a beer by host Matthew (John Trischetti, Jr.), where they find Ronald (Steve Alleva) fussing over the green beans and joshing Ray (Tony Savino) for making his traditional salami stick contribution to the feast. Teasing aside, Matthew wants to have a serious word with his siblings, as he and wife Bev (Grege Morris) are finding it increasingly difficult to look after the ailing Antonia and they believe the time has come to put her in a care home and sell the house.
Ray is appalled by the suggestion and offers to take his mother in. But sister Elyse (Maria Carucci) can see how Matthew and Bev are entitled to their own life and she hopes they can find a middle ground. Puffing on a cigar, Elyse's daughter, Victoria (Jordan Barringer), is ignored when she tries to voice an opinion. But, when the uncles learn that her husband, Ty (Leo Chan), is going to set up a computer business, they are full of advice because they have plenty of experience of wheeler-dealing.
Feeling too old to stay with the younger children getting excited about Santa,
Andrew drifts into the den, where his cousins are watching Ricky (Austin Lago) play a video game that ends with the announcement that the terrorists have won and that democracy is dead. Ricky's pet iguana has gone missing and he persuades one of Ty's sons to venture into the basement to find it. It's so dark that he doesn't see the `For Sale' sign lying on the floor.
Emily has also found a haven away from the hubbub with her cousin, Michelle (Francesca Scorsese). They chatter happily and make a fuss of their grandmother, while Emily plays up to Auntie Bev because she knows it will annoy Kathleen. She tells Elyse that Emily is at that awkward age and needs a little magic to put her back on the right path.
After everyone has done the rounds and partaken of a few drinks, clan members young and old wrap up warmly to wait for Santa to pass through the neighbourhood from the town's Christmas parade. A few grumbles can be heard, as gathered crowd is kept waiting. But, eventually, a large truck festooned in lights rumbles past with a roar that causes one of the younger boys to roar more loudly than Kevin McCallister ever did in Home Alone (1990). Elyse and Ronald's son, Bruce (Chris Lazzaro), is proud that some of his fellow volunteer firefighters were riding the rear of the vehicle and waving to the onlookers.
Back indoors, the widowed Ray hands Ricky an envelope containing the latest chapter of the novel he's writing. He has turned to the teenager for advice, but he casually leaves the manuscript on the hall table rather than keeping his promise to let no one else see it. After everyone huddles around the TV to watch a video of past Balsano celebrations, Aunt Isabelle (JoJo Cincinnati) says grace and name checks the various family members who are gone but not forgotten.
A top shot shows a table groaning under the weight of the dishes that Ronald has prepared, as the grown-ups tuck in after the younger kids have been served at their own table. The family dog rushes to the window and stands with its paws against the glass watching a deer on the lawn.
Once everyone has eaten their fill, Bruce stands to make a toast. He laments the fact he got into trouble and was never able to realise his dream of becoming an actor. But he reminds everyone of what family means to Italian Americans and hopes for many more happy gatherings in the future. He heads to the piano to belt out some carols (rather resentfully noting that Eric is an equally skillful pianist), as the booze flows and everyone tucks into puddings and opens presents before going for the customary post-prandial stroll.
Kathleen is concerned that she's not seen Emily for a while and is unconvinced when Andrew claims she's having a nap. In fact, she has joined Michelle's friends, Craig (Leo Hervey) and Sasha (Ava Francesca Renne), in making a bolt for the bagel shop on the edge of town. Owner Mrs Mott (Laura Wernette) complains to Officer Gibson (Michael Cera) and Sergeant Brooks (Greg Turkington) about the freegans stealing food from her dumpster. But they take a laisser faire approach to law enforcement and simply sit in contemplative silence listening to the kids chattering about Christmas being a consumerist conspiracy that they want nothing to do with.
As Aunt Isabelle falls asleep on Antonia's stairlift, she sits alone in her room as if aware that Matthew has already sold the house and that this will be the last time that everyone will be able to grab a handful of green and red M&Ms from the ornate glass bowl and revisit yesterday by gazing with wonder at the large dolls house and the train set. As if to underline the sense that an unrepeatable moment is passing without anyone realising, someone finds Ray's chapter and starts to read it aloud. Initially, people snigger at the purple prose. But they fall silent, as the profundity of his simple sentiments strikes home.
Back in the outside world, Michelle's pals have moved on to a small store selling liquor. As they hatch a plan to persuade the owner to sell them a few bottles without ID, Michelle flirts with bagel waitress Lynn (Elsie Fisher), who has tagged along with them. They hook up when the teens start pairing off for a little front seat canoodling and Emily is happy to find herself alone with Marty (Tyler Diamond). However, she is feeling guilty about the fact that she didn't give her mother her Secret Santa gift and allowed it to be cleared off the table with the leftovers.
Despite being watched by Mrs Mott, Emily breaks into the dumpster and searches for the bright red tinsel paper through the translucent plastic of the rubbish bags. She grabs one and flees into the woods as snow starts to fall, prompting Mrs Mott to call the cops. Gibson and Brooks are grateful for the distraction (having just had a round-about conversation about the wisdom of acting upon their mutual attraction) and they detain Splint (Sawyer Spielberg) and his pals (Billy Mcshane and Gregory Falatek), who have been hanging around in the cemetery. They play with the siren sounds of the squad car while the officers take Mrs Mott's statement before one of the trio paraphrases Tiny Tim's words about Christmas cheer in a reminder that the poor are still very much with us.
Without realising that the parcel has fallen out of her bag, Emily trudges back to the house. The children are trying to sleep, but are too excited. But Kathleen has dozed off on the bed where her daughter was supposed to be napping. Andrew looks at his mother and stares out of the window at the half moon dominating the sky. Life will go on, just not as before.
Produced by the Omnes Films collective that Taormina founded with Cameron Lund (who acquits himself exemplarily behind the camera in capturing reality and blurring of recollection), this is a film that will enchant some and exasperate others. Set a few years into the new millennium, the action feels elusively timeless, despite the presence of numerous specific details in Paris Peterson's wondrous production design, which manages to be gaudy and glorious at the same time. Never has a festive hearth seemed to welcoming and stifling at the same time, as the older family members dwell on past connections and events while their teenagers are eager to get out and make some memories of their own.
The emotional push and pull that Taormina and co-writer Eric Berger have achieved will have viewers of a certain age choking on moments of recognition from their own family Christmases, as they remember cherished rituals and absent relations. Yet he doesn't shy away from clichés and caricatures, as innocence and experience jostle in every scene as Taormina skims over exchanges and incidents that would form the core of a dozen of the Hallmark melodramas that the director professes to like so much (providing they don't have militaristic subtexts).
He also cites Taiwanese maestro Hou Hsiao-Hsien as an inspiration, although others will find themselves spotting details from Frank Capra, Vincente Minnelli, Douglas Sirk, Ingmar Bergman, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Joe Dante, and Greg Mottola. It's hard to miss the influence of Kenneth Anger's Scorpio Rising (1963), however, as music supervisors Ollie White and Tom Stanford have lifted several cuts from its soundtrack, including `Fools Rush In' and Peggy March's Wind-Up Doll'. Amidst the festive favourites and easy listening gems, however, Showaddywaddy's 1974 hit, `Hey Rock and Roll' is a most welcome and unexpected showstopper.
For all the full-force cosiness of the domestic scenes, Taormina deftly scuffs the nostalgic sheen by reminding us that, for too many, this isn't necessarily the season to be jolly. But he also leaves us with the poignant reminder that Christmas should be a time for gratitude for what we have because there can be no guarantees that it will always be there.
THE LAST DANCE
Forty years after The Funeral (1984), Juzo Itami's witty insight into Japanese burial customs and the nature of grief, Hong Kong director Anselm Chan Mou-yin explores similar territory from a Taoist perspective and with life-affirming grace in The Last Dance. This is the acclaimed screenwriter's third feature behind the camera after Ready o/r Knot (2021) and Ready o/r Rot (2023) and comes with the added appeal of the pairing of two Cantonese comedy icons, Dayo Wong and Michael Hui.
Laden with debts after Covid accounted for his wedding planning company, Dominic Ngai (Dayo Wong) is offered a chance to change professions when Ming (Paul Chun), the uncle of his long-suffering girlfriend Jade (Catherine Chau), announces his retirement and offers Dominic his share in a funeral business in the Hung Hom district. His octogenarian partner is sceptical, however, as the cantankerous Master Man Kwok (Michael Hui) takes his responsibilities very seriously, particularly the Taoist tradition known as `breaking hell's gates', which sees a priest wave a flaming sword to symbolise his charging into the underworld to break its gates and free the trapped souls of the departed so that they can reincarnate.
Dominic himself has misgivings after he assists Ming at a bone collection ceremony that requires him to assist in the removal of residual sinews. Moreover, things get off to a bad start when Dominic and assistant Suey (Chung Suet Ying) try to clear up the office and throw out Man's favourite bamboo chair. He also disapproves of the idea of selling souvenirs, although son Ben (Chu Pak Hong) is more accommodating and tells Dominic not to let his father's temper unsettle him. However, Dominic makes another blunder when he comes to supper with the family and offends the vegetarian Man by bringing a suckling pig.
Daughter Yuet (Michelle Wai) also struggles to impress Man. She is a paramedic, but he chides her and her sister-in-law because he adheres to the old Taoist tradition that menstrual blood hinders the process of reincarnation. Yuet is having an affair with a married doctor and often works night shifts, which means that Man slips out without seeing her, even though she brings his favourite pastries for breakfast and maintains the shrine to her late mother.
As he needs to make money to pay his creditors, Dominic tries to coax clients into having expensive services and pushes the tacky merchandise he has ordered. However, he doesn't do his background research into his first big service and offends the bereaved by bringing a bright yellow paper Maserati offering into the funeral hall without knowing that the deceased had perished in a car crash. Master Man tells Dominic that he isn't suited to the funeral business, as he doesn't care about the rituals or the feelings of the bereaved.
They fall out again when Miss Yan (Rosa Maria Velasco) asks for her son to be preserved in the hope of a future medical miracle and Man refuses to have anything to do with mummification, as it goes against Taoist belief in reincarnation. However, as the boy has been in the morgue for six months ago and the body has started to decay, Man helps Dominic with the process when the stench drives the other employees away. Nevertheless, Man is angry at creating a wandering ghost in order to satisfy the selfishness of the mother, who should let go if she genuinely loves her child.
Man's obduracy gets Yuet down and she confides in Lin (Elaine Jin), the elderly restaurateur who offers soup and sympathy. However, Yuet is concerned about her health and urges Lin to take her pills and contact her if she ever feels unwell. Ben has worries of his own, as Mandy is a Catholic and wants their son to attend a church school. This means Ben (who is also a Taoist priest) will have to convert and he knows that his father will be furious. Dominic overhears a conversation and promises to keep Ben's secret if he becomes his ally.
Realising that he can't keep winging things, Dominic starts to learn about cleansing rituals and to prepare a body for burial. As he gains a greater respect for death, Yuet blames herself for failing to revive Lin, even though colleague On (Thor Lok) assures her that she had done all she could. She watches as Dominic makes a sensitive job of making-up Lin's face before placing her spectacles inside the casket. He leaves her alone, as the coffin glides along the conveyor belt at the end of the simple service that no one else had attended, even though Lin had been so proud that her shop was at the heart of the community.
Dominic is placed in an awkward position when Lai (Michael Ning) orders a funeral for his late wife, but is too preoccupied with his business to pay much attention to the details. This distresses Soso (Rachel Leung), the deceased's best friend, who is crestfallen when Lai has her barred from the funeral home because he doesn't want her touching the body. Taking a dislike to the boorish husband, Dominic allows Soso to watch her friend being laid out and she kisses her forehead before slipping a diamond ring on to her wedding finger.
Man takes this as a sign that Dominic is beginning to understand the business on a human level. Despite feeling betrayed by Ben's baptism, he commends Dominic for helping Soso find closure after her friend's painful illness and they wind up singing a sentimental song together that further strengthens their bond.
No sooner has Dominic started to find his place than Man has a stroke during an argument about Ben conducting a service when he is now a Catholic. At the hospital, Man opts not to see his children, who argue in the corridor when Ben announces that he is emigrating to Australia to give his son a chance to escape the funeral business that he has always hated. When Yuet accuses him of being selfish, he claims that she had always been their father's favourite and had been denied nothing, while he had become a priest in an effort to please Man, who found fault with everything he did. Yuet insists that she would have become a priest if Taoism had accepted women and wonders how she is going to be able to care for Man on her own.
Returning home in a wheelchair to find that Ben has already left, Man refuses to let Yuet wash him when he wets himself, as he insists that women are unclean. They struggle when she tries to undress him and he strikes her. However, he falls out of his chair when reaching for the shower tap and reluctantly accepts his daughter's assistance. Yuet is further embarrassed when her lover's wife slaps her face when she's out with her father and she explains while washing his hair how hard it has been living in his shadow.
When Dominic pays a visit, Man gives him the deeds to the business and confides that his nickname, `Hello', is a contraction of `Hell to deal with'. They laugh and sing an old song about a bamboo plant, as they have realised they have more in common than they had expected. But Dominic discovers that he and Jade are not on the same wavelength, as she is pregnant and wants to keep the baby, but he feels he is too old in his fifties to be a good father. He explains that it would be irresponsible to stack the odds against a child who will end up wasting his life to care for them, if they even reach old age. However, Jade wants to be a mother and refuses to let her last chance slip.
One morning, Yuet finds Man dead in his bed. She calls Dominic, who is devastated to lose his father figure and burns the bamboo chair while reading a letter in which Man asks him to ensure that Ben and Yuet officiate at his funeral so that this final gesture can go some way to atoning for the fact that he had been such a poor father. At the funeral, some traditionalists join the Taoist priests in objecting to a woman breaking hell's gates. But Dominic insists and Ben allows his sister to complete the ritual after reading a letter from Master Man begging her forgiveness.
As Dominic leaves with Jade reconciled to becoming a father because he has come to recognise that each minute of life is precious, the film ends with a view of the Hong Kong skyline, as the couple drive into their future. It's a cheesy end to a film riven with sentimental set-pieces, fortune cookie philosophising, and mawkish music. But that none of this makes this film any less poignant or effective in reminding us about the brevity and value of life and the need to treat people with respect when they're with us as well as when they're gone.
In a curious way, the message echoes that of Christmas Eve in Miller's Point, as another young film-maker reflects on the validity of tradition and the wisdom required to know when change is in order. Anselm Chen is less fleet of foot in his direction, while his screenplay is more blatant in its reliance on melodrama. But deftly uses gentle humour to temper the more obvious contrivances, as he weaves together familial and funereal subplots in leaving the audience with plenty to contemplate.
Although he ensures that Michael Hui and Dayo Wong (acting together for the first time since Hui directed them in The Magic Touch in 1992) have a number of increasingly warm scenes together, Chan and co-writer Cheng Wai-kei also entrust the excellent Michelle Wai with the insights into the status of women in society hamstrung by culturally ingrained misogyny. Less room is left for Catherine Chau and her right to motherhood. But Chan does end by suggesting that Dominic has learned enough to repeat his mentor's mistakes.
Anthony Pun's camera discreetly alights on the details of a ceremonial rite that is listed on the First Intangible Cultural Heritage Inventory of Hong Kong, while editors William Chang and Curran Pang produce a number of reverential montages showing how Dominic comes to acquire and appreciate his new skills. But Chu Wan-pin's music always seems to be one notch too many on the dial, with the result that the audience is persistently being told how to feel. On the plus side, however, Lee Pik-kwan's costumes and Yiu Hon-man's production design give the picture authenticity and class.
MEMORIES OF A BURNING BODY.
Having been nominated for a Goya in Spain with her feature debut, The Awakening of Ants (2019), Antonella Sudasassi Furniss won the Panorama Audience Award at the Berlin Film Festival with her sophomore outing, Memories of a Burning Body. A poetic and occasionally spicy meditation on the taboos surrounding female sexuality that have stifled generations of women worldwide, this involving docudrma has been described by its Costa Rican director as a series of `conversations I never had with my grandmothers'.
The film flows around the testimony given anonymously off camera by three women over the age of 65 - Ana, Patricia, and Mayela - one of whom sets the tone with the wonderful revelation that sex with an old man at her age would be `like putting a marshmallow in a piggy bank'. However, as the self-reflexive prologue explains, the trio will be represented on screen by The Woman (Sol Carballo), who is being made up in preparation to play a composite character who also has a mid-life (Paulina Bernini Viquez) and a tweenage (Juliana Filloy Bogantes) counterpart.
As The Woman potters around a house whose walls are covered in photographs and whose surfaces are filled with keepsakes, the voices share their recollections with a mix of relief and trepidation at being able to speak freely. One confides that she was an innocent child who liked being female, yet came to regret having been born the wrong sex in an unbalanced world. Another recalls living on a farm with pigs and chickens, and a few hens appear on the desktop with The Woman seeming not to notice them.
Inspired by a song the voices have remembered, she puts an LP on the record player and lights flicker in an adjoining room, as we go back to childhood for a story about a chaste romance with the boy next door who used to send her sweets wrapped in paper so they could share kisses by sucking them. They had taken a ride on a Ferris wheel at the fair and had linked little fingers at the top. However, her mother was waiting for her and she got a whipping.
As The Woman prepares for bed, a voice confides that she had endured a nightmarish menopause. She knew it was a signal that she was `over the hill' and that she needed to start preparing for her funeral by being nicer to people, so that it was well attended. Getting up, The Woman breaks a vase and pulls down the curtain rail to illustrate how life goes once you reach a certain age, especially if you are alone.
Looking at herself in the bathroom mirror, The Woman touches her skin, as the voices describe their own effects of ageing. After showering, The Woman struggles with the door catch and it reminds her of the time when she was 11 that a couple had locked her in a room and made her watch while they had sex. The woman had made her wash the man and the voices reflect on hissed threats to say nothing about underage incidents that left a lifetime's legacy. Determined not to be imprisoned by the memories, The Woman fetches a hammer and prises off the catch before striding along the corridor opening all of the doors.
One of the women remembers wanting to report an assault by a relative, but she was told that she must have instigated the touch by dressing provocatively or flirting with her uncle or cousin. She was made to blame herself and the thought of such bullying prompts The Woman to throw some papers on to the floor and tear images out of her photo album because they reminded her of the menfolk who had harassed her with impunity. Another voice reveals that she had worn dowdy clothing as a girl to protect herself from unwanted advances. Looking into the camera, The Woman asks why no one listens before she starts tidying up the mess she has made.
Receiving phone invitations to go for coffee or food, The Woman turns them down because she has such things at home. A voice remembers her mother bringing her new-born brother home and refusing to let her hold him or answer questions about where babies came from. The trio remember the hopeless sex education classes from the nuns at school and the burning shame they felt on getting their first periods. In addition to the teachers skirting the facts of life, the women also learned little from their mothers, who forced them to help in the kitchen and adhere to a stricter code of discipline than their brothers who were indulged like little princes.
A young man comes to collect boxes of stuff The Woman is giving away and her younger self slips past them with a couple of friends to experiment with make-up and gossip about boys. One remembers almost orgasming during a date at the pictures, but they were told nothing about attraction and desire and knew only about guilt and shame, as they were supposed to be virgins on their wedding day and devote themselves to satisfying their husband's every whim in the kitchen or in the bedroom. Fantasies were forbidden, as was masturbation. But the three women admit to enjoying the sensation of bringing pleasure to their own bodies - in stark contrast to The Woman's wedding night, when she had to ask her new husband (who was the first man she ever danced with) if he had done it right when she felt nothing when he mounted her in a frenzy of kisses, lust, and ignorance.
Pregnancy came as a complete surprise to one of the trio, as she had been taught so little. Scenes from the marriage play out over the recollection, as The Woman has her daughter and endures an identity crisis because nothing had prepared her to be a mother. She felt helpless at how to raise the child and explains that she was always surprised by how much motherhood taught her about herself. But she did it alone, as her husband had work and came home exhausted and demanding his supper.
Suddenly, we jump forward to the present. Two of the voices describe the arrangements they have with gentlemen friends, as The Woman prepares to welcome her visitor. They dance and chat, as the voices joke about refusing to co-habit because all the excitement and respectfulness disappears and they have to put up with bad breath, smelly feet, and farts. One says this is the best time of her life, as she has freedom to do whatever she likes on her own terms. It's taken a long time, but she is finally in control.
As a young mother, however, one of the voices was continuously raped by her husband. When she was hospitalised, her father told her she had ignored his warnings and that she had to bear her cross. Such was her fear that she stopped visiting the doctor and was lucky to survive cervical cancer. Yet the brutality didn't stop for 17 years and The Woman stares directly into the lens, as we hear the distressing testimony. Despite wanting to die, the speaker found the strength to contact people who could help her obtain a divorce and start again. She admits the middle phase of her life was tough, but surviving it has made the present all the sweeter.
Dramatically lit shots of women who have clearly had similar experiences close a film that leaves a deep impression, not only because of the graphic detail of the voiceovers, but also because of the ingenuity of Furniss's staging in a confined space that encompasses three lifetimes of memories, regrets, and resolutions. Amparo Baez Infante's production design is a work of art, at the interiors shape-shift to reflect the décor suitable to The Woman's youth, marriage, and old age. Andrés Campos Sánchez's camerawork and Bernat Aragonés's editing are also judged to tee, while Juano Damiani's score has a discretion to match its fluidity.
But it's Furniss's intricate direction that truly makes this a celebration of the meaning of womanhood, as she has Paulina Bernini Viquez and Juliana Filloy Bogantes wandering in and out of Sol Carballo's space like spectres in her imagination. All three excel in forging and sustaining a single character without resorting to victimhood from the tripartite testimonies and mention should also be made to the deft playing of Liliana Biamonte and Gabriel Araya as The Woman's parents, Juan Luis Araya as her callous husband, and Leonardo Perucci as the charming silver fox.
Despite culling episodes from three separate lives, Furniss avoids making The Woman's story seem tele-novelettishly eventful by keeping trite nostalgia at bay during the trip down an often winding and benighted memory lane. But she also allows the words of the unseen Ana, Patricia and Mayela to hit home with a blend of honesty and humour that will resonate with many female viewers and leave those males in the audience with plenty to ponder about the sins of their fathers and the persistence of repressive patriarchal attitudes and unearned privileges in the second decade of the 21st century. Surely no man can hear the words, `it's been really difficult to unlearn everything we've been taught about being a woman, and to just be human beings' and not be deeply saddened and ashamed?
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