Month: November 2024

VIFF 2024 Review: The Piano Lesson

Jon The Blogcentric1 Comment
Samuel L. Jackson (left) and Ray Fisher (right) are among those that debate the heirloom status of a piano in The Piano Lesson.

You feel that? That’s your family. That’s your blood.

Every year, the VIFF features films that are bound to spark a lot of Oscar buzz. One that I saw is The Piano Lesson. The story and acting are bound to stimulate a lot of buzz this Oscar season.

The film begins during the Fourth-Of-July 1911 in a Mississippi town. As the white residents are celebrating, an African-American resident and a group of his friends are trying to put a piano in a truck. Why? After the fireworks and celebrations, the white residents burn Sutter’s house down and kill the African-American man inside.

The film moves forward to the summer of 1936 right in the middle of the depression. Boy Willie and Lymon have arrived in Pittsburgh and stop at the Doaker Charles household: household of his uncle. Unfortunately, Boy Willie tells sister Berneice about the death of Sutter back in Mississippi. Berneice, who’s recently widowed, is infuriated and demand her brother leave, accusing him of shoving Sutter down a well. Before Boy Willie leaves, he wakes her daughter Maretha as Berneice claims to see Sutter’s ghost.

In the Doaker Charles household, Lymon notices that piano that was saved. It’s not just any piano but engraved on it are the images of Willie’s and Berneice’s ancestors. Ancestors who were enslaved and carved in so they’re never forgotten. On a piano Willie wants to sell to buy Sutter’s land. Land where his ancestors toiled as those slaves engraved on that piano. Doaker Charles insists Berneice won’t comply and Berneice is infuriated with the plan as well as Willie’s prospective buyers list. Despite the fallout, Willie believes he will convince her but as Maretha comes to Willie at the piano, he teaches her a few things. Including the boogie-woogie.

As Wining Boy visits with Doaker, Boy Willie and Lymon return to announce they found a buyer. Not only is Boy Willie told Sutter will cheat him, but pasts and future desires come to light. It’s revealed the story of Lymon and Boy Willie’s terms in prison are exposed. Although they want to buy Sutter’s land, Lymon wants to be up North because of better treatment, but Willie reminds him that despite the North is not as racist, it still exists. As Wining Boy, who made a career as an entertainer, is asked to play the piano, Wining Boy declines feeling being solely as a piano player is nothing but a burden.

The story of the piano is finally told by Doaker. The piano was an anniversary present from Sutter to his wife. The piano was bought in a slave trade and a mother and child were the currency. Over time, Mrs. Sutter missed the slaves and Mr. Sutter had the sold slaves’ husband/father carve their likeness in the piano as he was a carpenter. On that Fourth of July 1911, it was Boy Willie’s father who stole the piano and he was killed by the whites in retaliation. Willie brushes the stories aside as something from the past but as Willie and Lymon try to move the piano to weigh it, Sutter’s ghost is heard. Berneice tries to stop Willie from ‘selling his soul’ but as the two argue, Mareitha is exposed to the ghosts and screams in terror.

The next day, Doaker tells Wining Boy that he saw the ghost of Sutter playing the piano and feels Berneice should discard the ‘cursed’ piano before it can traumatize more of the family. Wining Boy doesn’t agree. After a successful watermelon sale by Willie and Lymon, Wining Boy tries to distract them of their opportunism by selling them is suit and shoes, claiming it attracts women. That same day, Reverend Avery Brown meets with Berneice. He’s been hoping to win her love and tells her she needs to stop hurting over the past, especially her husband’s death. Berenice changes the subject by trying to get Brown to be a reverend and try to get the ghosts out of the house. Instead, Avery tells her by the piano not to be afraid of her family’s spirits. Berneice then tells Rev. Brown the story of the piano. It’s a story that involves her father’s blood and her mother’s tears and she refuses to expose her hurt to all.

Boy Willie returns to the house with Grace: a woman he just hooked up with. An infuriated Berneice demands them out. Just as they leave, Lymon enters. Lymon is disheartened over his feeling he’s not that good at attracting women and confesses his feeling to women to Berneice. Berneice kissed Lymon and is finally comfortable with letting go of her late husband.

The following morning Boy Willie and Lymon are ready to take the piano for selling but Uncle Doaker stops him. Boy Willie confronts Doaker and tells him how he’s determined to sell it. The day of the selling of the piano is inching closer and closer and Willie is excited without caring what Berneice things. That is, until Berneice enters with her late husband’s gun. As Doaker and Rev. Brown see the confrontation, they urge the two to talk it out. Right there, the ghost of Sutter is revealed to all in the house. Rev. Brown tries to pray the ghost out of the house but doesn’t succeed. As Berenice sees this, she then knows she needs to play the piano again as a plea to her ancestors. As she finally play it, the ghost of Sutton disappears and the calm returns to the house. Willie then decides to move back to Mississippi but tells Berenice to keep playing or else he and Sutter will return. Before leaving, Mareitha is given a lesson.

There’s no question the story is about racism. It’s a unique story as it is about one set of family members who are originally from Mississippi, which was a slave state and still faces harsh hostile racism, and another set of family who live in Pittsburgh, which never was a slave state but had its own racism. The story is also about a piano. Carved on the piano are the ancestors of the family. Ancestors who were slaves. One set of the family wants the piano kept because the images of the ancestors maintain a link to the family blood. Others of the family want it sold because it’s an ugly reminder of the slavery their ancestors have endured. Past memories even come to the point images of ghosts of the family are involved. They don’t know how to deal with this. In the meantime, it’s in the middle of the Great Depression where buying the recently-deceased slave owner’s land depends on the sale of the piano.

August Wilson did an excellent job when he wrote this play. The piano lesson isn’t just about a young girl being taught how to play the piano on a family piano. It’s an excellent story about how an African-American family, and their struggle to deal with racism and their family’s horrific past are all encompassed in a single piano. We have Berneice who values the piano. She knows her grandfather carved the family in it, her father died so it can be theirs, but she’s reluctant to play it. There’s Boy Willie who wants to sell the piano so he can buy Sutter’s land. Already there’s a case of the difficulty of dealing with a past of slavery. Berneice considers the piano sacred and a symbol of her family. Boy Willie sees it as a bad memory of slavery and he feels selling it to buy the land his ancestors were enslaved on will be revenge. A case of a brother and sister who don’t know how to deal with the past. Berneice being widowed and having to deal with the ghost of Sutter adds to its theme. It’s right in the moment of the ghost’s presence that both Berneice and Boy Willie have to make resolve both with their family’s past of slavery and the past as a whole.

Those that have seen the play before will be able to understand the film well. The scenes that were added in the film adds to the story and helps those that have never seen the stage play before get a better sense of all that happened in the past. Those that have never seen the play before and may not attend theatre as of may find the story a bit confusing. They may not understand about the piano or the presence of ghosts and even get confused of what genre the film is.

This is the third of three plays of August Wilson Denzel Washington has helped bring to screen. The thing is of the three, this is the film that’s the least fluid and the least together. This is also the first feature length film done by his son Malcolm. Malcolm has mostly directed short films in the past. His lack of experience shows in directing an unsteady adaptation of the play. The adaptation he co-wrote with Virgil Williams who is more experienced at writing is a good adaptation to the screen but its imperfections are noticeable.

One thing that shines biggest in the film is the acting. The best coming from Danielle Deadwyler. She did an excellent job of playing the troubled Berneice who first can’t seem to let go or make resolve with tragedies of the past, but finds it in herself at the end. Her performance was the strongest quality. Also excellent is the performance of John David Washington. He does a great job of playing the character most confused with the situation and what to do with it, and the need to stop having a hard heart. Also excellent is Samuel L. Jackson as the uncle trying to settle the score and try to get Boy Willie to leave his stubbornness behind.. His role as a man caught in the middle of a difficult problem helped add to the film as well. The production design by David Bomba, the costuming from Francine Jamison-Tanchuk and the music from Alexandre Desplat also add to the story and the times.

The Piano Lesson is another ambitious effort to bring August Wilson’s greatest plays to the screen. The film is adapted well but the errors are noticeable. The best thing is the acting is top calibre. Those who watch it will be impressed.

VIFF 2024 Review: Flow (Straume)

Jon The Blogcentric3 Comments
A small dark grey cat (far right) tries to lead animals to shelter after a massive tidal wave in the animated film Flow.

Is it possible to like an animated film with absolutely no human dialogue? The Latvian film Flow attempts to do just that.

For the sake of this film, I will give the animal characters names related to their species. For example, I will refer to the cat as Cat, the main dog in the story as Dog and the capybara as Capybara. The black cat lives on an island in a post-human Earth that is full of animal species. Cat lives his life daily chasing and eating fish, playing with other species and avoiding being chased by wild dogs, predatory birds and a giant whale beneath the river. Cat also makes himself comfortable in one area that was a human home and has statues which appears to make cats God-like. He takes delight in the many things in the house from the bed to the glass balls to the cat drawings.

Then suddenly, a huge tsunami overtakes the area leaving an ocean-like body of water behind without land or a flat surface. Just the roofs of buildings showing through. Cat tries to stay afloat on whatever he can from one of the glass balls to something wooden but soon notices a stray sailboat and a chance for refuge. He tries to jump, but misses and appears to be sucked to the surface of this new ocean. Instead something mysterious carries him up and he’s able to find his way to the back of a whale. Whale is able to float high enough for Cat to make his way on the boat. Finally some refuge.

There’s one problem. The boat also has a capybara, a lemur and a secretary bird. Cat fears for his life but Capybara assures him no one will hurt him. As they sail along with no hope of the water’s subsiding in sight, the animals try to live in the boat the best way they can with no knowledge of how to deal with these changes. The capybara is easily tired, but protective. The lemur takes great interest in the human items in the boat and becomes greedy with them. The bird becomes arrogant. Cat steers the boat but faces competition from other animals, especial Lemur. Then in another boat, they notice a lone Labrador dog. Cat is afraid to have him on board, but the dog is let on board and is warned by Capybara not to mess with Cat.

Over time, Cat becomes friends with Lemur, Bird, Capybara and Dog. Problems still arise, though. As they search for land, Cat gets hungry. Bird helps him find fish but Dog eats it. Lemur gets protective of his possessions. There’s also trying to find land for all of them and fear of Whale capsizing the boat every time he surfaces. One land they spotted was where a flock of elks walked around in a circle, but it was too underwater. Soon land is spotted and Cat gets out, but is met with a flock of secretary birds. Bird comes to his defense and tries to fight the leader. Bird is left weakened by the fight as the other birds fly off and returns with Cat and others to the boat. Cat sees a tall pillar and tries to go to the top with Bird. Soon a great spirit world happens which carries Bird up to the heavens.

The animals must sail on. Soon they notice another stray boat that has four other dogs: Dog’s friends. They are scared on the boat but they are let on. Dog gives his dog friends the warning do not harm cat! Soon the water subsides quickly and land is spotted. Cat jumps out and explores the land. Soon he tries to look for all his friends from the boat. He can’t find them. Even as he sees a group of lemurs, he can’t find Lemur. Then he notices the boat in the branch of a tree in a valley that’s about to fall into the river far below. The water subsided so fast, it left the sailboat stuck in that tree and the other animals unable to get out. Cat comes to the rescue. As each other animal comes out, they try and assist the others before the tree with the boat falls into the river. They succeed, but Dog’s dog friends leave him behind. They have each other. They also notice another problem with the wave subsiding, but it all works out in the end.

Reflecting back on this film, I don’t think this film has a sociopolitical message in it. I’ve seen entertainment of beings on an Earth without humans before. I feel it’s just a story that presents it well with a lot of moments of humor and a lot of moments of wonder. The film possesses two key ingredients for making an animated film work. The first is dazzling graphics. One thing I look for in an animated film is for it to take you to another world or mesmerize you. This film succeeds in delivering mesmerizing images to capture the viewer’s imagination. The world created in this film is a world of mystery and wonder and makes the story.

The second key ingredient in this film is an excellent story. It’s funny that there is no human dialogue — just animal noises — but you get the messages by the animals’ body language to each other and the ways they communicate with their animal sounds. You just have to watch the film itself and you will get the messages very clearly. The story itself appears to be a mesh of the Biblical Noah’s Ark story and the film The Life Of Pi. You can sense those aspects in the story. The story also keeps you wondering what will happen next. Will this world stay mostly underwater? Or will the flood subside? How will the animals live on? You’re left wondering throughout.

This film also got me thinking of how animals are depicted in animation. I’ve seen a lot of animated films and television shows and I can honestly say I have never seen one where animals are 100% with their animal characteristics. You’ll always sense some human characteristics in the characters. I’m sure throughout your childhood, you’ve seen cartoons of talking animals with human movements. Those are the least animal-like in cartoons. Also there have been many where animals still use their animal noises but move and behave in human manner. In this film, the animals all have a good amount of their animal characteristics in them. The more human characteristics all come out at the right times. I could not sense one instance where there was the wrong type of behavior for the characters.

This film is an excellent accomplishment for Latvian animator Gints Zilbalodis. All of his previous animated films have been wordless from shorts like Followers and Oasis to his first feature: 2019’s Away. It’s an accomplishment of a film which he not only directs, but he co-wrote with Matiss Kaza, co-produced, co-composed the score with Rihards Zalupe and did the cinematography, art direction and film editing all himself! The film is also a big improvement from his first attempt at a wordless animated feature in Away. Here the story makes better sense and the visuals are as good at telling the story as they are eye catching. If any film should have Disney looking over its shoulder, it’s this film here!

Interesting to note this film is Latvia’s entry in this year’s Oscar race for Best International Feature Film. I find it interesting that under the rules, or lack of such a rule, a film without any human dialogue is allowed to be entered into this category. In the past and when the category was titled Best Foreign Language Film, the category consisted of solid rules like the film had to be in the nation’s national language or have at least some dialogue of it if another language dominates. Will this film lead to revisions in language rules in this Oscar category? Only time will tell. Outside of the Oscars, this film has won many an award and nomination like animated feature awards at film festivals in Guadalajara, Ottawa and Silk Road. It’s also won other film festival awards like Best Picture and the Audience Award in Athens, the Bright Horizons Award in Melbourne and various awards at the Annecy Animated Film Festival. Other noteworthy nominations include Un Certain Regard at the Cannes Film Festival and European Animated Feature for the upcoming European Film Awards.

Flow is an incredible film and an excellent story. The visuals and the animal interactions do a great job of telling the story for you and the images are a delight to see.