Blue Heron

thetakeup: You are now entering the Take Up, a place together when the film is over. I'm your host, Joshua Ray, and I'm here with my co-host, the managing editor of the TakeUp.com, Andrew Wyatt. Hello, Andrew.
Andrew: Hello.
thetakeup: Every episode we decide if one film gets to enter the takeup's permanent cinema today. We are talking about Sophie Romvari's new film Blue Heron, one of the best films of the year, according to many critics. We'll see if we agree, and then we'll have one more thing. Something I was don't remember. And my brain is mush. I just watched a Claude Chabrol. You know, I'm on the thing.
Andrew: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
thetakeup: Starring Donald Sutherland, Donald Pleasant's, David Hemmings, but it's about an incestuous love triangle between some teenagers, and one of course is brutally murdered. It was one of the most like tonally confused and
Andrew: For me, that describes all Chabral to me. Like
thetakeup: Well well well so it sounds like it, but it was made in Quebec, we think,
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: but like half the it it feels like an argento in that it's like half of it is dubbed, half of it is and it was just
Andrew: I got you.
thetakeup: like a thoroughly mixed up, confusing time because like watching the cousins fuck, I you know
Andrew: Mm. What wait what year is this?
thetakeup: Nineteen seventy eight, but it was so like barely released, it didn't come out in the states until nineteen eighty one. It's called Blood Relatives. That is not a recommendation. it's a
Andrew: Good title though.
thetakeup: Blood Relatives. But
Andrew: For for a for a movie about incest and murder?
thetakeup: Yeah, I th I thought it was more VC Andrews than Alfred Hitchcock.
Andrew: yeah, that that's but I like that juicy juicy pulpiness.
thetakeup: Yeah, me too. That's why he's kinda like my comfort food right now. Plus
Andrew: Mm.
thetakeup: I get to just like live in France. So we're back with a another film about a filmmaker wading through their grief. I I mean, I don't mean to not sound excited to talk about this, but I feel like I might turn this into an hour-long therapy session. I don't have anyone here, so thanks, Andrew. We're talking about
Andrew: No, that's per that's permissible. That's permissible. That's that's one of the functions of cinema is to serve as a vessel for our own issues.
thetakeup: So do you want to talk about that first? Because
Andrew: What?
thetakeup: that is something I really want to talk about with you w and it comes to this particular film and
Andrew: Okay.
thetakeup: films like After Sun that films that elicit the the the the cry reaction.
Andrew: Okay.
thetakeup: why do I I feel like as a critic I might elevate those films that successfully elicit that particular emotion from me over others. And is that okay?
Andrew: Well, what why do you why are you suspicious of that? I mean, I know you had so you I what I know about you as a film viewer and a film critic is that you bristle sometimes at feelings of emotional manipulation on on the part when if you feel emotionally manipulated by a film, you sometimes bristle at that. So I I understand why you
thetakeup: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. The the network beliefs.
Andrew: I'm sorry, I understand why you are suspicious when you have that sensation of yourself. But maybe it's not a good idea to second guess. Our emotions.
thetakeup: huh well.
Andrew: Not to not to turn this into therapy, but
thetakeup: No, I said it was fine. That's why I wanted to talk about it. No, I I guess the real and you're right. No, the okay, so the manipulation is something. And
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: this film, After Sun and films like Drive My Car. I mean, we're talking about w films that I know are great, like I know, but also tap into something very specific and I kind of identify with them.
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: I wonder if I don't elevate them because I identify with them and if that is a like an anti intellectual reaction.
Andrew: I don't I I'm really resistant to treating it in that sort of binary way. I I think you need we could all stand to be a little bit more honest with ourselves about our reactions to things to art, I think, in general.
thetakeup: Mm. Yeah.
Andrew: but I but I think about this speci in terms of this specific, I hate to hate to call it a subgenre, but this the specific idea of films that we feel deeply moved by for reasons that are intensely personal. I mean, doesn't that go to The ethos that we have always talked about with the takeup and our personal film philosophies, that subjective experience and personal connection to material is often an essential part of understanding why something works or doesn't work for you. As as opposed to understanding why it works, understanding your own reactions, I think is more is a more productive thing than setting it aside and saying, well. Cynically setting aside and saying, well, I've I was just manipulated, so I could discard that as a non-intellectual, non-cerebral reaction, and let's just forget about that.
thetakeup: But I wanna I wanna kind of cordon off the idea of the manipulation and that I don't feel manipulated by this film after sun, drive my car, petite maman films that
Andrew: Mm-hmm. yeah.
thetakeup: I think of recently that specifically I mean, we're talking about my my mom's death and like the
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: grief, the great grief that I've been going through in the past five years and like dealing with that. And and I think like even While I was growing up, I would kind of respond to those kind of stories because I had an older parent, you know. But
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: I think we can set aside something like I don't know. I haven't seen this in a long time. The notebook, The Tearjerker, like
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: as a genre, and talk about these films that actually do make me cry because
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: I I like can identify with them. And I cry for Other reasons. I cry at like beautifully constructed things too.
Andrew: Yeah, yeah.
thetakeup: I mean like great art, right? But I can
Andrew: Yeah.
thetakeup: also like get deeply touched in a way where like I just don't want to think that elevates something because I identify with this and therefore it makes it great. But I can say it does allow me to say that this thing is honest and this contains truth in it.
Andrew: I think so. Let me say something about that. I think, and to get us more maybe more focused on Blue Heron, I think what you're saying there, the honesty is important because with something like particularly this film and Aftersun, take up canon, canonized Aftersun, TM,
thetakeup: No.
Andrew: that there's an honesty and a sort of fumbling uncertainty on the part of the filmmakers themselves about.
thetakeup: Yeah.
Andrew: their own project that I
thetakeup: Right.
Andrew: think really, and maybe it is all maybe, maybe we need to be more cynical, and maybe it all is a pose, but they're with both of those films, and I think particularly with this one, I definitely get a sense that the filmmaker is working out their shit and maybe not even sure while they're making the thing, they're not even sure if the thing is the right vessel, right way to be working out their shit. There's an ambivalent there's an ambivalence and uncertainty about it. That comes part in parcel with grief about a a questioning, a self reflection, a s a constant doubt, self doubt that I think is expressed in the film object itself, which I think is really essential to getting at that With the word use
thetakeup: The sense of of of like centering yourself, like finding the locus of of like my my narrative and what is the truth and what is like reality, how do I find that in this fiction world? That's
Andrew: Right.
thetakeup: so So we're talking about the We
Andrew: What?
thetakeup: are talking about the we did I say the title of it? We're talking
Andrew: Yeah.
thetakeup: about the film. Blue Heron, the the debut feature from Sophie Romvari. Romvari, yeah. Hungarian born filmmaker immigrant.
Andrew: No, I think she is she's Hungarian by ethnicity, but she's the only member of her family who was born in Canada, I believe I
thetakeup: Who was born in Canada? Okay.
Andrew: believe, is my under impression.
thetakeup: Okay. Well, I've spent most of the day with her. because
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: on the Criterion channel, not only is Blue Heron now streaming there, but most of her shorts are there too. and it's interesting that you bring up the idea of, you know, kind of what this film is about because a lot and the the word that you used is pose, right? And I interested in talking about positioning oneself in front of the camera and being completely naked emotionally.
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: Because several of her short films ha have her do that. And her calling card short, which was a breakout it played at s festivals called Still Processing. I
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: love that kind of the double meaning on that.
Andrew: Yeah, it's pretty clever.
thetakeup: it's it's r it's she's a very clever filmmaker, we should say, and I think she
Andrew: Mm. But
thetakeup: car carries that part and parcel with a a really kind of feeling cinema too. Like she has a really trick she's got tricks up her sleeve, but also they're not for nothing. anyway, still processing is is about this very subject
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: and is
Andrew: But without the remove, I watched it yesterday as well, and it it's without the remove of the of the slight the the slight fictional gloss that she puts on it in Blue Heron, it's completely gone and still processing. It's a more straightforward, maybe not straightforward, but a more obviously autodoc.
thetakeup: don't yeah. Yeah, sure. But that that makes total sense where she's she's processing old camera negatives of her brother or h of her family as they're growing up and talking about the the kind of relatively new ish grief she has over the loss of her two brothers.
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: and in Blue Heron, this is a you know ostensibly fiction. film about a family that is we we join them in media res where they're they're moving to a a new house and it's a small family. There are four children, three children of that are biologically the two parents and
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: one who is the fathers from marriage. Do I have that right? Mothers from marriage. Thank you. Yes, because that
Andrew: N the mothers from the previous parent. Or or a rel or a previous relationship of some kind.
thetakeup: Yeah. anyway, so who also has like apparent behavioral issues. And so the film centers really on the experience of the youngest child. and with that it then shifts into a different film that I think We don't necessarily have to talk about them separately, but there is something that happens midway through the film, a little bit more than midway through the film, where we find ourselves with an older version of that child, and she is a a filmmaker who's wanting to make a documentary about her upbringing.
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: And the trick that happens is that she essentially time travels, and that's not
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: in a science fiction way, it is in a like very poetic way,
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: to take the place of the person who the social worker who recommended sending her problem brother off.
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: And that's pretty much the entire film there, but it is a film about the kind of mundane details about textures, smells and and tastes like the sensations of growing up and then looking back and finding what the narrative was there or at least attempting to.
Andrew: Mm-hmm. one thing I loved, I also watched her little interview on that's currently on the Criterion Channel, the Meet the Filmmakers series that they do, where they usually like a ten to fifteen minute thing about a featured film. And she said something that really stuck with me, which is that one of the things she's really invest interested in investigating with her filmmaking is how film can be used to try to evoke a memory or a sense a sense memory or a place or time a place place or time from the past, but specifically how she's interested in the fact that it's always going to fail on some level. That like she's fascinated with it, she's obsessed with it, it's it's a recurring theme in all her work, and yet she fundamentally recognizes that it's a futile endeavor, that there's something always imperfect and flawed and off about it, which I really like. I like that idea that she's she's laboring at it, but she also acknowledges that she's there's something Sisophean about it and that she's she's never really going to achieve that perfect recreation because you can't, because it's impossible.
thetakeup: But grasping towards it seems very important for her.
Andrew: yeah.
thetakeup: She's such she's so skilled, like seemingly preternaturally skilled. I knew that when as it turns out, the camera is sitting inside of the moving truck,
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: and you can just barely see the door up. Just the
Andrew: Yeah, that little line bla line of light,
thetakeup: You just see a
Andrew: yeah.
thetakeup: line of light. And that was so evocative to me. Like I've never sat in the back of a moving truck with with the door almost shut. But she just sits and lingers in that. She does a lot of lingering in this. And I it was just instantly, I I can f feel everything in that. Like I I totally understand what this means here.
Andrew: Mm-hmm. Yeah, there's I mean, the opening sequence I think is whatever else it does really well. It's also a pretty great like late 90s memory palace movie
thetakeup: Yeah.
Andrew: about the textures and the feelings of being sort of at the very end of the analog age. but since her brother's her oldest brother, Jerem in the film, his name is Jeremy, the oldest brother's problems, and I think that they There's a lot of problem with like diagnosis is a big part of the problem that's burbling under the surface here and inadequacy
thetakeup: Mm-hmm.
Andrew: of service and inadequacy of assistance. But watching the performance and how it's presented, oppositional defiant disorder seems to be partly what's going on here. But one of the things Yeah.
thetakeup: I think that comes up in a conversation that she she creates a panel that that's before she goes to play social worker. She
Andrew: Yeah.
thetakeup: has a panel and it it seems like th those people are really social workers like that y
Andrew: Yeah, I don't know. Like they certainly seemed if they're actors, they did a great job of pretending not to be actors. Like it feels like she actually called in half a dozen social Canadian social workers and talked to them about with with expertise specifically in juvenile behavior.
thetakeup: Mm-hmm.
Andrew: one of the I was gonna say one of things I loved about that opening maybe the opening half is excuse me, how slowly like I went into this not necessarily knowing what this movie was about. I thought I knew that it was kind of a memory movie. But how slowly we get to picture that the that Jeremy is the problem, that that the way that his behav the the cues from his behavior we get maybe in like the first 15 to 20 minutes in the movie only slowly path pull back the curtain on just how deep-rooted and unsettling and how destabilizing to this family his behavior has become. But they she doesn't she doesn't open with a big
thetakeup: And violent and scary. Violent and scary, yeah.
Andrew: Yeah, and but she doesn't op a different kind of film could have opened with a set piece where we get to see Jeremy like blowing up and behaving in a horrible way. And she doesn't do that. She gives she eases us into it and gives us clues the same way a family would notice clues that a member of their family is maybe not well. She kind of does that for us as viewers.
thetakeup: Yeah, a f of family, but in particular the l the youngest. And we're always kind of in the watcher.
Andrew: The watcher. The wa the the one who observes, yeah.
thetakeup: th we're always sort of in her subjective viewpoint, even when she's not present. You see arguments between mom and dad, in Hungarian and from outside windows. there's a great distance, a long focal lens used. Seemingly,
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: you know, I'm no expert. But I think that's really important. And that you get that not first that he was a nightmare and a very like frightening person.
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: You get first that he's her brother. Like there's a there's an undying kind of love there. And the heartbreak of it is the process by which your heart is broken over the course of the film. when you see how hit the the kind of oppositional defiance disorder hit it made manifest and there's moments where I you know, I I wouldn't be able I I would make the same decision I think as an adult. Like if
Andrew: Yeah.
thetakeup: my child, my grown child, gets on the roof and is acting like he might jump. you know, or is arrested for sh shoplifting. But even those things like, you know, the the negotiation of the filmmaker and the memories of this little girl, that is essentially what is happening at any given moment in this film.
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: And the imagination behind what what was the process of making that decision, trying to put yourself in the place of others is ultimately what storytelling is about, right? Is like
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: the the act of empathy is creating a character in order to figure out how minds work. And
Andrew: But it's also about that connection between her past and present self. I mean, the other cat the the the brother the mystery of the brother, the mystery of Jeremy is is maybe the more central one. But there is also this idea that Sasha, that as she names herself in this film, adult Sasha is trying to reach back to younger Sasha as a character who's maybe a little bit obscure to her as an adult. She's like, what was I thinking? Trying to remember what she thought about this situation, trying to recall how did I think about this when I was eight years old? I can't quite remember it. She says a couple times in this film, I that part of time of my life I don't have clear memories of. which is again, the vividness of that first half sort of belies that. But I think she's being honest that she's saying that she's having a hard time not just not recalling the feeling of drinking from the hose in, you know, suburban Canada in the late 90s. What she's having trouble remembering is how did I feel about this situation? How did what what
thetakeup: How did it happen? How how did it
Andrew: Yeah.
thetakeup: get so bad?
Andrew: doing forensics on her own family's crisis and disintegration, I think, is a fascinating way to view it. But it's a connec it's a connection back to a a somebody who is completely inaccessible to now to her now due to his death, but it's also tr seeking a connection to her younger self. this sort of vanished person that she was, which I which I think it's so specific and so personal and so obviously emotionally raw, but Also so universal. Don't we all do that? Don't we all think back to the person that we what we were when we were children and try to remember what did we know and what didn't we know? Wha what how did we feel about the world back then when we were like that? It's just such a beautifully humanitarian, again, we've talked about this with lots of other films before. The universal through the specific is always an essential and powerful way to approach this kind of material.
thetakeup: Yeah. And there you know, there are other films that are about childhood that don't necessarily take a child's perspective that take like a more remove
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: that are also great and have that, but that this works in that way is so spellblinding. there's no
Andrew: Did you did you ever see a film? the the so the the the obvious comp is something like After Sun or All of us Strangers, which I know you didn't like as much. but did you ever see a film, a documentary film called Rewind from the I think it was the late 2010s?
thetakeup: No, tell me about it.
Andrew: this is a a filmmaker, it's absolutely stunning film. I think it was through PBS's independent lens. a filmmaker named Sasha Neulinger, who is a former child actor. And he made a film about his own childhood and the abuse that he suffered and from a relative, I believe it was. And the film the reason I thought of it is because his father in real life had the same impulse that Sophie's father had, which is to document everything with photographs and and camcorder. And he his f her father got his first camcorder and then basically just filmed everything all the time. So Mullinger takes the film, he goes back to his parents' house, his father's past at this point, and he's he uncovers all this footage that his father shot and tries to do forensics on his own sexual abuse and says, Can I find clues in the material about what happened to me? Is there things around the margins when that person shows up in the in on the screen? Is there is there was there a sign about what happened? Was there a sign about what this man did to me and my sister that I wasn't aware of at the time? And the I so again, the idea of using archival material of looking back and trying to excavate something or learn something, you know, and it sort of just like it reminded me a lot of that because I think just like Newlinger does, this director, Buharin, is trying to she It almost feels like she didn't know what she was gonna find. She started digging through this material, and you can see that in still processing. She didn't know what was in her her parents' sort of glut of material. And she and we watch her in still processing look at some of these photos in real time for the first time in you know 30 years. And her reactions just they're the I don't I again I said pose earlier, but I can't believe they're fake because the the reactions are just too. deeply felt and honest in how they're presented. It feels like it it's almost
thetakeup: Yeah, you were
Andrew: it almost feels bad to be watching it because we're watching a woman like having these this stuff come flooding back to her in real time. It's it's it's very difficult to watch.
thetakeup: It is difficult to watch, but She put the camera there. That's another thing I wanna talk about in
Andrew: Yeah, of course you did. Yeah.
thetakeup: in these kind of like selfie vows. And I wanna mention, did you ever see Jonathan Quetz's Tarnation? Do you remember that? It's a similar thing, but it's like queer
Andrew: No. Hmm.
thetakeup: punk version of of that. And
Andrew: okay.
thetakeup: his mother, who's diagnosed with schizophrenia, and then he made a follow-up to it too and And it's yeah, very beautiful. I love these kind of investigations even when they get pretty tough. but yeah, centering yourself, the filmmaker in it, how does that feel to you? And does it did you watch skill processing
Andrew: I mean I don't mind it as long
thetakeup: before or after this?
Andrew: After I had heard of I actually had was was aware of Still Processing for a few years now as being this like really important
thetakeup: Mm-hmm.
Andrew: short film. but i I didn't I watched Blue Hair and then immediately sat down and watched Still Processing. So I w I I was aware of its reputation, but I didn't really know much about it. I mean I'm not really
thetakeup: Me too. I think it played true false the last year. We were there.
Andrew: That sounds right. I mean, I don't really have strong feelings about it one way or the other. I think that there's a tendency, again, I'm trying to resist sort of binary thinking about this. There's a t one side you could say. You know, people should be making films, especially young independent filmmakers, should be making films about things that they know. And what do you know or maybe want to know better than yourself and your own family and your own history? So I think that's a valid, that's an entirely valid approach to filmmaking. The the other side is of course you could say that like there's always something inherently self-centering and narcissistic about making movies over and over about yourself and your family. I don't really buy either I don't think there's I don't really buy either argument. I don't believe that the that this film or this type of film is narcissistic, but I also don't buy that there's always inherent worth in mooking movies about yourself to the exclusion of other other subjects. I think filmmakers like this, like Rumbari, who have skill at this, I always enjoy watching them d tackle this kind of material. Does that make sense?
thetakeup: It does, and there's a big difference between what she's doing and still processing and centering it on herself and creating a version of it in order to work through it. not to I mean these f films are linked, they they have to
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: be but i it's also different from Jafar Panahi doing this is not a film.
Andrew: Right, right.
thetakeup: So so all of these things are very different. Or again, Fellini and eight and a half.
Andrew: Right.
thetakeup: I mean, that in and of itself is like is kind of definitionally narcissistic.
Andrew: Except he's so except he's so autocritical in it, you know.
thetakeup: Yeah. Sh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. but but I guess there's something here that it's like if I initially bristle at it, it's because
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: it's it's almost like too emotionally naked. And then I get kind of like I try and overcome that and pretty successfully do it because I think she's s she's so gifted. I
Andrew: I I will say that I think the I had the idea what this film was up to, right? Like so you're watching the first half. You you alluded to this earlier, the sort of the shift.
thetakeup: When did you have the idea that it was up to this?
Andrew: Well, no w no what I was saying is I'm watching the first half and I'm just like, okay, I think I know what this movie is now. And then of course comes the break point we as you indicated, where we leap forward in time to adult Sasha and as a filmmaker trying to interrogate this from a distance. And I At that point, I said, okay, now I know what this movie's up to. now that we're settled into the second half. But I really but I really
thetakeup: Ha ha ha.
Andrew: wanna you talked about the the sort of twit I hate to call it a twist, but it is kind of a a swerve. The magical realist swerve of her going to her old house and knocking on the door. And it right up until the moment, right
thetakeup: But you th you are thinking.
Andrew: up until the moment that her old dad walks through the door.
thetakeup: Okay.
Andrew: And as a young man, I thought that this was gonna be her like talking to her older parents or something. And
thetakeup: Bro,
Andrew: The the breathlessness the breathlessness of that magic
thetakeup: I thought I was like
Andrew: trick is so great.
thetakeup: I thought the magic trick was that they didn't bother to put them into makeup. Like I still
Andrew: Yeah.
thetakeup: wasn't. It still was not clocking to me.
Andrew: Yeah.
thetakeup: like but the second she goes in there and starts talking, I I broke. I fucking broke.
Andrew: She's well he he he says something on the doorstep like hi you must be the social worker and I was like wait a minute what are we doing here?
thetakeup: You yeah, you must be, yeah. So it's Yeah. But throughout that, I mean, there are so many moments we could talk about the unbroken take of her interrogating her mother.
Andrew: Yeah.
thetakeup: That is just so beautifully done because that performer is so the the the casting here is is incredible. but there's just a small moment where she joins her younger self on the bed. just to watch TV with her like family.
Andrew: Yeah.
thetakeup: And there's something like so kind of sweet and comforting and but also it's also something like for the current Sophie, it's like there were there were good times too, you know?
Andrew: Yeah, I mean there's nothing just there's nothing awful happening in that moment. Her brother is laying right there, she's laying right there, her other brothers are there, and they're just kids watching TV quietly. but it's a powerful again, like, and this goes back to like why Petite Mamon works so well. Isn't there something essential and universal about that? The idea that we could reach out and lay a hand on ourselves as children and say, it's it's gonna be okay, kid. It's gonna be okay. Like, it's such a I'm getting misty just thinking about it. It's it's it's a powerful image. It's a power it is manipulative. Is it manipulative? I don't really care. Because when it's done effectively, it really cuts to the quick of something essential about being human.
thetakeup: Yeah. I you know, I don't find these those two particular examples and many of the examples we've brought up as particularly manipulative. especially petite moment. shit
Andrew: Yeah.
thetakeup: Fuck. Well now I'm thinking about that. and I hadn't really thought about the linkage between these two because it's quite yeah, quite literally, you know. I anyway. Sorry I got inside my head for a moment. but
Andrew: Well, I think Petit Petit My Mom, you know, foregrounds the magical realism of its conceit more robustly and more right at
thetakeup: It is a
Andrew: the outset. This is a film that sort of holds back the the magic trick a little bit, maybe till the last third, which I think is an interesting approach.
thetakeup: And it's not it it doesn't even have like a conceit to it. Like petite
Andrew: No.
thetakeup: mama, like that is kind of like go through this magical thing and this happens, right? But that's the conceit that gets you there. But this is like I am going to spend this time doing this. And it's kind of like also I thought about Senectochy, New York.
Andrew: Right, right.
thetakeup: And the living inside the life, your version of your life and
Andrew: I mean, think about think about the logistics of how this that whole like last third sequence is made. It's not just that Romvari had to go find a house and a f cast a family
thetakeup: Mm-hmm.
Andrew: and how eerie that must have felt to her, that she's trying to find somebody who's who who works from a filmmaking like narrative filmmaking perspective and can act, but it also has to be something that pings something for her as a as a person. About her memory. She has to find a house that feels like the house that she grew up in. She has to find people who ping something in her memories about her own family. And then she has to cast an actress for herself and then insert that actress into that memory. That, like, I can't even imagine what's going through your head as a filmmaker when you're doing that.
thetakeup: Yeah. And there are a lot of films, fiction, nonfiction films that deal with this kind of like process
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: of investigating one's own life through through art.
Andrew: Well, I mean, we can't bring up synacticing without bringing up the rehearsal, which is its own kind of wacky version of this. Or adaptation, right.
thetakeup: Or adaptation. I mean, there are just so many ways of there's so many ways of comparing and contrasting. And ultimately, I I wanna resist the comparisons because I do think this is a really special film.
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: but it's really hard because it is sort of in the it i it's in the shadow of these other great films.
Andrew: But again, I'm really glad that I went into it not necessarily knowing what it was gonna be doing. Because if if you had told me, go watch I think you said something about After Sun, that was my only indication that maybe something tragic or awful was gonna happen. But for the most part I went into this not knowing what it was up to. And if I had gone into it with a laundry list of other films to compare it to, maybe the effect wouldn't have have been as profound as it was.
thetakeup: Would you have expected to compare it to any of the films that we've mentioned? I I did not know.
Andrew: No, not really, but
thetakeup: but it's a yeah, it's a very special film that I'm I I I think there are some things that are centered that I might find a little like too cute.
Andrew: Such as
thetakeup: The Blue Heron. I mean, I I I l I like that idea, the kind of like totem. that she carries
Andrew: Mm.
thetakeup: with her, but it's like just kind of big symbolism. Also the maps, the brothers' maps. I I like those as
Andrew: Okay, let me ask about the maps.
thetakeup: visual, as like a visual symbol, but
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: I don't particularly love visual symbols, period. But
Andrew: Well, the maps I think are really fascinating. They don't lean on them too hard, except in some aspects. They're there in his room. Every time they show his room, you can see them. And we get a couple shots or sequences where we see him sort of labor hunched over and laboring on them. but they they incorporated into the production design,
thetakeup: Well the in the title cards are the You don't know what they are.
Andrew: yeah, of the of the the title sequences. What I was sort of questioning, and I couldn't tell by looking at them, is Is he mapping the towns that they've so they've implied that they've moved around a lot. So is he mapping the towns that they're in as a sort of like a way to center himself when he arrives in a new place? Or are these completely fictional, like more like a paracosm he's creating fictional towns and just sort of mapping out fantasies for himself? I
thetakeup: That's what I got hung up on and and thinking about that because I think it's both and whatever you want it to
Andrew: Mm.
thetakeup: be. just having like those dual kind of symbols, like dual totems of representations of a brother, but that's also something that people have as you know, as unsentimental I am about physical objects.
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: People carry things with them. You know, I have my mother's d diamond ring that she had on, you know, I I I carry it with me.
Andrew: Right. I think I think with the keychain in particular, I didn't mind it because of how low-key it is, because it's not like it was a s it was it
thetakeup: It's they're all low key, yes.
Andrew: wasn't a favored possession of Jeremy. It was something Jeremy stole from a from a nature preserve and then sort of
thetakeup: Whole and was like here.
Andrew: dropped it, yeah, dropped it surreptitiously in her lap on a beach day, and that was the end of it. It never came up again. But then we get the the obviously Right, right, right.
thetakeup: But it takes on so much meaning for her. And he's so unaware of it. That's what makes it it's such an interesting object, is he's completely unaware of what it will end up representing. There is a single shot in this, it is the very last shot, I believe, where there's
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: more kind of like trickery, like past me, future me, that I was I was kind of like, okay, enough.
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: but these are like small things, really.
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: that I think others might be able to lean on to mount a defense against it a and say that maybe it is a little too or not a little too it's like definitional navel gazing but or Twee even.
Andrew: I mean, there is a certain Canadianness of it all in that respect.
thetakeup: okay, okay.
Andrew: That c a closing indie rock folk song over the credits, you know, and everything. Like like that
thetakeup: Sir Sir
Andrew: there is there's a definite Canadianness to it. But I again I don't mind it.
thetakeup: Can we talk about that? Can we can we talk about that? I was a very bad audience member.
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: The opening chords of that, I out loud said nope. I
Andrew: Ha ha.
thetakeup: immediately lost it. Just immediately fucking lost it. It's Daniel Johnston's Some Things Last.
Andrew: Right. I mean, she also
thetakeup: Motherfuck.
Andrew: uses Simon and Garfunkel's bookends in the short film. I mean, but
thetakeup: Yeah, yeah, yeah. which is great.
Andrew: I d again, I don't mind any of this because the film a the filmmaking the formal aspects of the filmmaking are so strong. The emotional honesty and the willingness to excavate something so personal are so s are so obvious and the result again The overall result to me is so achingly conveyed. It's just it it's a deeply exquisite film, I think, in that respect. And I mean that not in not just in the sense of that it's beautiful, but in the sense of how it there's something piercing about it, right? in a in
thetakeup: Mm, mm-hmm. Yeah, piercing it.
Andrew: a way in a way that all good emotionally films l of this type where we have an emotional deeply emotional reaction to it. But to circle back to your maybe in closing here, let's circle back to your original question. Is it like why do you feel I guess interested in hearing maybe your your off the cuff answer, why do you feel suspicious of yourself when you have those kinds of emotional?
thetakeup: I guess it's a more it's like an est question of aesthetics, like a
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: philosophical question, and it's a question of like valuing something because I identify with it, as opposed to being able to value something because I know I can see its greatness.
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: And so and I am Am I imbuing something with greatness? Because I I d
Andrew: That's fair. I I think my pushback against that is that I don't really think there is an idea of objective greatness. The things the things that you think of as great that maybe have nothing to do with your own personal experiences, but you can look at them and say, wow, that's a phenomenal art object. I'd say that's still a subjective experience in a way. Like I would resist putting into the idea of one box holds objectively great works of art and the other box holds things that mean something to me personally. And view it maybe more as a spectrum.
thetakeup: Th this is me like kind of just thinking through all that and going back to that, you know, original question, which might be a dorm room conversation of like Sorry subjective is criticism subjective. But
Andrew: No, these are these are the I think these are the eternal questions that we critics have to to wrestle with. I mean, we've seen before, I think both of us have seen before where like we walk out of a film in tears and two weeks later we're like, Yeah, it was okay. It wasn't the greatest thing. It wasn't the greatest thing ever made. like things fade, things change.
thetakeup: But I'm also think I'm also not really I really don't believe any my question to be true and I apologize for that. Like I I
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: I know that my premise is like coming from a place of just overthinking. U and because I think the the like
Andrew: But I think that I think the exercise it's worth it asking the question for rhetorical purposes if nothing else.
thetakeup: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And thinking of like the favorites and the greatest conversation, I don't have that conversation. Like
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: the ten is the ten, baby. So I think we should talk about something in making the kind of canon that we make, right?
Andrew: Yeah.
thetakeup: There's a conversation about is this film so wildly different? From after sun. Does that matter? Because
Andrew: Are we saying that we don't want two similar films in the canon?
thetakeup: I'm asking the question. I'm asking that question. I'm asking the question, is it are they like twinned films in your mind too? They are. They are so similar and yet I experienced them so differently.
Andrew: Yeah, I c I mean, it's hard not to see them as joined at the hip in some ways, artistically. I had slightly different reactions to them. I think, you know, this really gets granular, but there is something different between a parent and a sibling in terms of how we view those people over time and how we process grief. And it's a that's a very fine distinction in films that are otherwise, as you say, very similar. but for me the the the sensations that it elicit that these two films elicit are slightly different.
thetakeup: They are slightly different and they're going about them in different ways, even though they are like ostensibly films
Andrew: Mm.
thetakeup: that reveal themselves to be about their creators and their troubled childhoods and their their these memory palaces. I
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: don't care. Ultimately, I don't care about that question, I think.
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: And I just kind of pose it because I was thinking about it earlier. And that, well, first of all, it If that's the case, I guess we gotta get rid of one of welfare or hospital.
Andrew: Yeah. We just like off the cuff put two wisemans at without even really thinking about it.
thetakeup: Right. And and Suspiria Suspiria. But
Andrew: Right.
thetakeup: those are that these are all very different. okay. Side side thing.
Andrew: But but those two films but those two films are in conversation with each other. Like Suspiri and Suspiri are in conversation with each other s very explicitly. Two different filmmakers making the sa quote unquote same film in two radically different ways. The welfare hospital thing was just because a we're we're big wiseman heads, obviously, but because they both films came up so much during the conversation, it felt like we couldn't not put them in as a package. In this case, I think it's a really instructive to see two filmmakers from different backgrounds, both English language filmmakers, granted, but two filmmakers from different backgrounds making a same sort of subtype of film, but using their own unique firm world approaches and unique experiences to inform it.
thetakeup: So let me ask you then, do you vote this one in?
Andrew: I'm I'm wavering. I'm really tempted to actually. How many votes do I have how many votes do I have? Remind me.
thetakeup: well I don't know either. We both have seven for the rest of the year. I am going to say I am not going to vote this again.
Andrew: I am.
thetakeup: All right. I am fine with
Andrew: I like I like this film a lot. I I'm I'm actually starting to so the Canon our canon take up canon is now getting sufficiently robust that I'm actually starting to think of it in two categories, which is the current release category and the older quote unquote older films category, where older might be three years ago.
thetakeup: That's kinda how I'm keeping them straight in my head too.
Andrew: But yeah, I think I I am gonna vote for this because partly because again, I think it's an incredibly strong piece of filmmaking for a featured debut. I mean, obviously Rivari's worked really hard for years now on short films trying to sort of hone her technique, hone her message, hone her ideas. but but it Yeah.
thetakeup: Yeah, but like I said, pretinaturally talented from the jump. I mean, watch. I would recommend anyone who goes to Criterion Channel or sees this physical beauty. I'm sure there's a release soon.
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: they haven't already announced it. I don't know. I don't remember. but the the shorts are are really strong that are available on Criterion Channel.
Andrew: Yeah, I I like this film a lot and I think it doesn't hurt to have more current films that leave a strong impression in there. I think it doesn't hurt to have another woman filmmaker in the mix. so for all those reasons and the fact that despite myself, I did get a little it was a little dusty in there at the end.
thetakeup: A little well I was I was gagged, mama. I was sent I was gooped. Anyway, okay. So I'm gonna do it and
Andrew: I've got the list open already.
thetakeup: What if I voted no 'cause I didn't want to think of the list. No, I'm kidding. I'm kidding.
Andrew: You're you're bumping up against I gotta keep it short so I can keep doing this stupid stunt.
thetakeup: Alright. You're at six, I'm at seven. six seven. fun. okay. No country. Nope. We gotta s we gotta do it right. Far from
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: heaven, no country for old men, taxi driver, rushmore the graduate, one battle after another, misrecordia, the secret agent, Sisperius, Sysperia, Resurrection. After Sun, Messiah of Evil. Now I'm doubting that I've missed some, but I don't think I have. Your son, Messiah of Evil, Zodiac, how could I
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: call it you girl? Man with a movie camera, The Last Laugh, Welfare Hospital, Armavep, Killer of Sheep. We we had two guests. Army of Shadows. the prestige. And Blue Heron.
Andrew: Yep. And we'll hear it.
thetakeup: Fuck. We're
Andrew: Wow.
thetakeup: I wonder at what point we're gonna
Andrew: You you're just gonna br break the you're gonna get to the point where your your mnemonic devices are failing, so
thetakeup: yeah. Yeah. All right. Well that's exciting. Blue Heron, welcome. You have good company. okay. Well
Andrew: Not bad so not bad Sophie Romvari, your first feature film made it in.
thetakeup: What if you All right, we've got one more thing. And every week we ride up with one more thing. I just give you a list of what? How many is that now? Twenty-five things? It was a lot it's a long
Andrew: Jesus, I know.
thetakeup: list. but here's one more thing. I think I go first this time. I have been reading the book Sky Daddy by Kate Folk. Do you know
Andrew: Okay.
thetakeup: about Sky Daddy?
Andrew: No, I I have like three different things that that book could be about in my mind.
thetakeup: And I'm so tempted to have you list those three things. Because
Andrew: Ha ha.
thetakeup: I wonder if it's one of the things this is about a young woman who has a fascination with airplanes. And her
Andrew: Okay.
thetakeup: was this what you were thinking?
Andrew: No.
thetakeup: It is a sexual fetish that moves beyond that. She has the thing where What is it is it's even defined in the book where
Andrew: Mm.
thetakeup: she is in love with an inanimate object and she
Andrew: yeah.
thetakeup: has a fantasy that one day she will marry an airplane and the ceremony is that it crashes with her inside of it, therefore wedding them forever together. And it is very funny. It is very Sharp about obsessive behaviors. About thank you,
Andrew: Objectophilia is what you're talking about.
thetakeup: objectophilia. it is also very smart about neurodivergence, I think,
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: and about the way our minds and memories work, but it's also just So funny, so outrageous. I think it's just a really it's a it's a fun and quick read too. I don't know
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: a lot about Kate Nash, but my friend Jordan recommended that I read this because she explained this premise to me and I was like, come on, you know I love like white women in an existential crisis. Like that's the kind of book I always want to read. I I'm mostly kidding. but it's
Andrew: Do you do you know do you know about the game the video game Date Everything? Have you heard about this? Not to send this off onto
thetakeup: No, no. Can I
Andrew: a tangent. I need you to look into this after this podcast.
thetakeup: Okay, I will. Date everything. I'm not typing
Andrew: Date everything with an exclamation point.
thetakeup: Okay, I can't I can't look at that right now.
Andrew: I need I know, I just needed to put plant the
thetakeup: I'm looking at
Andrew: seed so you could look it up later.
thetakeup: Okay, I will look it up later. Definitely later. It's made by Sassy Chap Games. Anyway, definitely later. but y yeah, so definitely recommend it for the adventurous reader. I mean, she is very sexually aroused by by airplanes, so there are long passages of her erotic her objectophilia, we will say, but that's Sky
Andrew: Yeah.
thetakeup: Daddy by Kate. Did I say
Andrew: That's amazing.
thetakeup: Nash?
Andrew: I think you did. Different person. Different person.
thetakeup: That is a completely different person. It's no no no no. I said cake folk. I said cape folk.
Andrew: When did this book when did this novel come out? What year is this?
thetakeup: just recently and I think it's been relatively
Andrew: Okay.
thetakeup: it came out last year, and it's somewhat of a sensation, I think, you know, when you kind of give that premise. And but I have been walking around the Paris Metro with a copy of Sky Daddy, and an elderly woman did ask me what it was about, and I said, Non Francais Non France.
Andrew: Probably easier.
thetakeup: Yeah, yes. Yeah, I don't quite have those words yet. But so you can find that you know, in a bookstore, in a brick
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: and mortar bookstore that you go to and you
Andrew: Please.
thetakeup: have a stack of other things that you get there too, but that's Sky Daddy. you can find me at OK Josh Ray and at the Take Up STL. And what about you, Andrew?
Andrew: I recently saw the film The Currents. this is a new drama from a Swiss Argentine director named Milagros Mumenthaler. I quite liked it. I'm not recommending it as like a great film, but I'm recommending it as a very interesting film. I saw at
thetakeup: Mm-hmm.
Andrew: the Webster film series this weekend. how to describe this. So this is about a woman. It's a it's a I'll I'll call it a psychological portraiture film, or some people are describing it as a psychological thriller. I don't really see the thriller elements at all, but it's a psychological drama, let's say. And it's about this woman, maybe thirty something. her job's a little ambiguous to me. I think she's like a production designer for theater. So she and she seems to be like really well known and respected in her field and like it's it's a g She's a she's a very desirable get for a theater to be able to use her. And at the beginning of the film, she's in she's Argentinian, but she's in Switzerland to receive an award. And she goes to a ceremony, she gets a little trophy, she a bunch of people like ooh and over her, and she walks around this. I think she's in she must be in Zurich or Bern or some other big city, and she walks around. after the ceremony and jumps into the freezing river for no apparent reason whatsoever, off a bridge. And she survives and goes back to her hotel and then goes back to Buenos Aires and goes about her life. But this changes her in profound ways, or maybe it just unlocks something that was always there. the The proximal effect is that she develops a very strange and severe hydrophobia where she can't even like wash her hair or be in contact with water at all, because of how thoroughly this experience has discombobulated her. But really, it's it's a film about depression and existential sort of alienation and dissociation. And the film strongly implies and then eventually sort of opens up and acknowledges openly that this woman has been Having mental health issues for a long time that she had inherited from her mother, and have has sort of repressed them or kept them under control for a long time. And this sort of impulsive, intrusive thoughts suicide attempt question mark in Switzerland has unlocked something, and her whole reality starts to sort of unravel a bit. Her relationship with her husband and her daughter, young daughter, and everybody around her starts to suffer and She's her behavior becomes erratic. I don't want to spoil too much much else about what happens, but I really enjoyed it. it does sort to do some interesting things in its second half that start to become sort of magical realist or surrealist that I wasn't 100% on board with because
thetakeup: Yeah.
Andrew: I think it sort of draws focus away from the intensity of the psychological drama of just sort of keeping the camera focused on this woman and what she's going through. But those you can argue that those magical realist flourishes are part of her. perspective. but for the most part
thetakeup: This sounds very carnival of souls, and yellow.
Andrew: Yeah, not not that intense not that intense and not that horror horror coded, but yeah.
thetakeup: Do you know Christian Petzold's early film Yella?
Andrew: I've heard about it, I haven't seen it, yeah.
thetakeup: It's his ref on Carnival of Souls
Andrew: okay.
thetakeup: with Nina Haas. Can you get your butt on that? It is very much your thing. Very much your thing.
Andrew: Okay. It sounds sounds like my jam. Pets all the Nina Os, I'm there. the strongest thing I will say about it, again, the filmmaking technique is very good. it it shoots I think it's supposed to be Buenos Aires, it shoots this sort of urban Argentine landscape really beautifully. but w without sort of neglecting the grunginess. And the the real feature is the lead actress, Isabel, I'm gonna say her name if I can. Isabel Ami Gonzalezolo. She's phenomenal. So much of the movie is about her face in like tight close-ups and watching her sort of semi-blank reactions to things and trying to puzzle out what's going on in her head because she's not a hundred percent sure what's going on with her either. so that from that alone, if you like that kind of psychological drama and that kind of like intense character study, I think it's worth it's worth seeking out. Right now it's in it would just I started hearing about this film back in January and it's just now starting to creep out into theatrical release, but I think we'll see I'm hearing that we'll see a VOD or home release sometime in this fall.
thetakeup: Just so people know, like when we make the recommendations or the main films, we always put like just watch.com links to the films so that you can get an up-to-date version of where to find what we've been talking about, and not every single thing that we talk about, because we talk about a lot. but we will link the currents in the show notes and so you'll be able to see if it's playing near you or if it's available online. We do that all the time. But we're here for you.
Andrew: You can find me at AYET seventy six on Letterboxd Blue Sky and on the TakeUp dot com.
thetakeup: Very cool. Well, we are taking a a week off because we're preparing our big pre-Cannon Lala Pub precannon Palooza pre p something. we're gonna be going back and taking a look at the I don't Jubilee, yeah.
Andrew: Jubilee, let's call it. Yeah.
thetakeup: The 70some, eighty some films. We've covered a lot we've had a lot of episodes films before.
Andrew: Here's a question for you, Wowy episodes are we on right now? I think
thetakeup: You know
Andrew: we're creeping up on a hundred.
thetakeup: We we we may have passed it and I said
Andrew: shit.
thetakeup: absolutely nothing about it.
Andrew: shit.
thetakeup: We have had one hundred and four episodes.
Andrew: shit, we passed it. We didn't even say anything. well.
thetakeup: Okay, but we've had bonus episodes. Hold on. I'm doing this math right now. We've
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: had one. Two
Andrew: Riveting podcasting here, folks.
thetakeup: we had one episode split into two.
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: You know what?
Andrew: Mm-hmm.
thetakeup: That's gonna be our hundredth episode. If I
Andrew: This will be
thetakeup: I'm not kidding. I am not kidding. Because
Andrew: Wow.
thetakeup: we had four bonus episodes that I'm I'm calling them bonus episodes. I get to do the math. This is our podcast.
Andrew: You could go retroactively go back and number them too if you wanted to, I suppose.
thetakeup: I suppose exactly.
Andrew: All right. So we're taking next week off and then we're reconvening for a sort of omni omnibus episode. Yeah.
thetakeup: For our 100th question mark episode in which we add some number of films to the take up canon, not too bigy, because Josh has a thing where he likes to play a game and remember them. I don't know. I don't know. But we'll have a lot of fun there. So until then, thank you to Ethan Tarantella for for being our star master guide editor man. Kayla McCullough for being that check. Team music by AMP. And you know, I'll see ya in a hundred minutes, a hundred weeks, one hundred. It's our one hundred palopalooza Bye.