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35 Shots Of Rum

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1 star:		(3)

 

 

In French director Claire Denis' 35 Shots of Rum, the world becomes, in author Sharon Salzberg's phrase, "transparent and illuminated, as though lit from within". It is a film of infinite tenderness in which the characters lives are delicately interwoven to build a tapestry of interconnectedness that signals life's inevitable passages. Reminiscent of Hou Hsiao-hsien's Café Lumiére with its intimate depiction of city life and the coming and going of trains, 35 Shots of Rum pays homage to Yasujiro Ozu in its story of the relationship between Lionel (Alex Descas), a train conductor of African descent whose striking features convey a sense of stoic dignity and his student daughter Josephine (Mati Diop) who is eager to assert her independence.

Like the relationship of Chishu Ryu and Setsuko Hara in Ozu's films, the focus is on the mundane occurrences of everyday life, the quiet intimacies in which meaning is revealed only by implication. While the characters are black, their lives are comfortably middle class and the only suggestion of racial issues is a classroom scene where Jo talks about how "the global South" is indebted to the industrial north. Set to a lovely score by the British band "Tindersticks" and gloriously choreographed by cinematographer Agnes Godard, the film opens with a ten minute montage of the crisscrossing of trains of the RER, the system that connects Paris to its suburbs.

Interspersed are close-up shots of Josephine, Lionel, and his co-worker René (Julieth Mars Toussaint) whose immanent retirement signals a depressing change in his life. As the scene shifts to a small Paris apartment, like a married couple, Lionel and Josephine settle into a domestic routine of cooking, cleaning, and showering, their relationship of father and daughter not made clear until we see a photograph of a younger Jo and her German mother. This initial opaqueness seems to pervade a film that relies on the viewer to fill in the blanks. It is clear from the outset, however, that Lionel is dependent on his daughter and fears her eventual departure.

Although he tells her reassuringly, "Don't feel I need to be looked after...Just feel free", he also lets her know her that "We have everything here. Why go looking elsewhere?" His happiness is threatened by upstairs neighbor Noé (Gregoire Colin), a scruffy-looking young man who lives with his cat and does not hide his feelings for Jo even while vowing to move to Gabon for a job. We are also introduced to Gabrielle (Nicole Dogué), a taxi driver who is attached to Lionel and may have been his lover. This unlikely quartet form an extended family and their deep seated feelings for each other are revealed in an illuminating scene in a café after their car breaks down in route to a concert.

Lionel's conflicted feelings about his daughter's growing up become apparent when the intimate dance between father and daughter to the song "Night Shift" by the Commodores is interrupted by Noé who cuts in and immediately ups the romantic ante. Lionel's jealousy is also reflected by Gabrielle shortly afterwards as she watches Lionel dancing with the café's attractive hostess. In an unexpected trip to Germany to visit a friend (or sister) of Jo's late mother's, the inner lives of the characters and the bonds that hold people together are further explored although little happens on the surface.

To say that 35 Shots of Rum is a film of mystery belies the fact that it is also quite accessible though in a very rich and subtle way. Its achievement lies in its ability to create memorable characters and fully involve us in their lives without relying on extended conflict, outward displays of emotion, or even a coherent narrative, drawing its power from its creation of magic through silences, glances, and a loving warmth that lingers in the memory. It is one of Denis' best films.

Over this past decade I've had the privilege of adopting a new term when describing certain films; pure. Not very many films can achieve this specific title, because it takes something extra special to tap into that very human quality needed to display moments of such purity. This isn't to be confused with another term I enjoy bestowing upon deserving films, `organic', which is similar but not the same thing. No, this decade I can think of very few films that deserve to be defined as `pure'. `Lost in Translation' and `Once' instantly come to mind.

You can add '35 Rhums' to that list.

'35 Rhums' is not a film for everyone. As I can see from some reviews (here and on other sites as well), the nature of this film is not one that will appeal to everyone. It is slow and there doesn't seem to be a definite plot (since this is far more of an internal and emotional film than one needing any defined structure). I think too, this is such an exclusive theme that one kind of has to be a part of it to understand it fully. Now I have not seen the 1949 Asian film from which this film was inspired (Ozu's `Banshun' or `Late Spring') but I am intrigued now and will certainly attempt to get my hands on it. That film, as well as '35 Rhums', deals very particularly with the father/daughter dynamic.

In '35 Rhums' we are introduced (rather casually, as is the nature of this beautiful film) to Lionel, an aging train conductor who is a widower and currently residing with his daughter, Josephine. The film basically lays right there, allowing the audience to observe them as they interact and as situations within their lives move them to grow as individuals. Lionel needs to let go and allow his daughter to gain some independence. This is something that will be difficult for Lionel, but through interactions with others he comes to an understanding of the importance of the eventualities of life.

What is so amazing about this film is that nothing is really defined. We gather the dynamics of the relationship between Lionel and Josephine through pure observation. Nothing is outlined and or fed to us. I think that is also the biggest complaint for many people. They have to really pay attention to understand the layers of this film. Because nothing is made `black and white' for us, it could be easy to dismiss this film as pointless, but that would be a grave misunderstanding.

It is life at its purist.

That isn't to say that there are no indications of the films central theme and moral. Director Claire Denis beautifully weaves in clues as to the emotional contemplations of her characters. By subtly yet profoundly weaving in a storyline concerning a retired co-worker of Lionel's, she underlines the loneliness that comes from aging; that separation from those around him and the fear that it instills.

The performances here are all beautifully connected. Every character understands their place. We are not given too much information about each person. We simply observe their relationships and draw our own conclusions, which is a nice change of pace from the average film. Alex Descas and Mati Diop are beautifully matched as father and daughter, showcasing a tender and affectionate relationship that hints at layers of frustration. While they are undoubtedly connected they also subconsciously understand that they are holding one another back. My favorite performance here comes from Nicole Dogue. Her handling of Gabrielle is just plain beautiful. She has the right amount of flirtatious concern that allows her to become that character we can never shake from our minds. We can feel the pain that brims under the surface as she realizes she can never be all that she aspires to become.

I urge you to take a look at this masterpiece. Breathe it in and let is rest on your heart. This is one of the most beautifully moving films I've seen this decade; a powerfully understanding film that continues to haunt me the more I think of it.

An elegant, sorrowful slice of working-class Paris, 35 Shots of Rum is director Claire Denis, one of France's great auteurs, trying the Mike Leigh template on for size and finding it fits her snugly. Train engineer Lionel (Alex Descas) and Josephine (Mati Diop) are father and daughter living comfortably - if not fully - in a boxy high-rise apartment. Taxi driver Gabrielle (Nicole Dogus) and world traveler Noe (Gregoire Colin) are close, long-time neighbors. Denis doesn't force a single moment between the four, who have been friends for years, but are now forced with confronting buried emotions that, once unearthed, buzz like an electric wire.

Descas is terrific as the brooding Lionel, who covets and judges and speaks more with his eyes than his . Originally from West Africa, he appears to have learned stoicism as a means of surviving in Europe. Josephine is the apple hanging close to the tree, both in temperament and worldview. Their scenes together are tender - with a hint of tension. It boils over one night at an African café as two characters dance to the Commodores. Later, father and daughter take a trip that serves as Lionel's admittance that Jo is smart, capable and pretty, and bound for a life apart from him.

Politics sit in the foreground - Jo is an economics student debating slavery reparations and the global economy - but Denis acutely juxtaposes those academic debates with captures of working-class life: A low-key retirement party for one of Lionel's suddenly-rootless co-workers; a bowl of hot soup at lunch; and the title scene, where Lionel drowns his happiness? pain? in quick gulps of cheap booze, to the tinkling of a jazz piano. Denis has crafted a rarity in recent cinema: An eminently comfortable film that's equally soothing and sad.

First let me say I was born in Canada, understand French, and am partial to French and Quebecois films. In fact this movie was playing in theaters in Montreal the last time I visited home, and I vowed to see it one day but had to wait until it came out on DVD.

I got it for Christmas 2010 and after 10 minutes I realized this was a huge waste of money. The movie opens with an inordinately long silent stretch of train tracks going by (the father is a train conductor) and I knew I was in trouble. There is obviously a close relationship between father and daughter, but rarely did I feel the warmth that other reviewers say they were bathed in, because conversation is absolutely minimal between the main characters and they all seem bored and apathetic with plenty of "meaningful" pauses to light a cigarette.

It's almost like the director tries to be as oblique and "clever" as possible by making us guess what the characters are really thinking, with only hints being given. An example of this absurdity is when the girl's supposed boyfriend, after claiming that his cat is the only thing that keeps in in Paris, comes home to find the cat dead...then in front of his guests, unceremoniously grabs it by the scruff of the neck, throws it in the trash, and continues with the conversation without missing a beat. I died laughing....except it was unintentionally funny.

I did enjoy the earlier movie "Chocolat" also directed by Claire Denis, but this one missed the mark. Although the film does convey the sense of alienation that some immigrants must feel in cold rainy Paris, there are much better French language films out there.

We meet Lionel on a platform waiting for a train to come. Lionel is a quiet, stoic-looking middle aged man and also as we find out a train conductor who lives in the suburbs of Paris. He is a widower who lives with his daughter, Josephine, a young woman attending university. Their next door neighbor Gabrielle is Lionel's former lover and she still harbors feelings for Lionel. Josephine is in love with Noe, her childhood friend. These are all facts we discover as Claire Denis, the director of 35 Shots of Rum, invites us to join in the lives of her characters. I stress the fact that we, the viewers, are joining in their lives because there are no Hollywood introductions or pointless preambles used as guide posts to keep this story moving. As in life, events unfold and we are left to our own faculties to decipher what they mean.

This is a movie about transitions and endings. Lionel's colleague Rene retires from work to find that he has nothing else left to live for. He wishes he had died younger so he would not have to continue living a life without any meaning. Watching Rene go through this, Lionel himself begins to realize how little he has besides his daughter. She is every thing in his life and is now at the age where she has to start thinking about starting her own life. No one tells us this, least of all Lionel, who is a man of routines and follows them even in moments of tremendous grief. We learn this through stolen moments as when Josephine is ironing her father's shirt. He tells her he can iron the shirt himself -- he can take care of himself, she should worry about herself.

35 Shots of Rum is made with such clarity and professionalism that the actors, writers, and director build a powerful and moving picture by simply allowing the characters to speak for themselves. Gabrielle's feelings for Lionel become quite apparent in one scene when Lionel leaves her behind to take another woman on to the dance floor. Gabrielle's hurt feelings are not expressed through any words or tears as they would go against her character. These feelings reveal themselves with a brief expression on Gabrielle's face that we just happen to catch.

This movie is a gem.

Something is off about many of the synopses I've read for this film:

Imdb: "The relationship between a father and daughter is complicated by the arrival of a handsome young man."

Netflix: "This heartfelt slice-of-life drama by filmmaker Claire Denis tells the story of widower Lionel (Alex Descas), a train driver, and his grown daughter, Sophie (Mati Diop). The two spend most of their time together, but change is in the cards. A neighbor (Grégoire Colin) becomes attracted to Sophie, a family friend retires and Lionel tries to maintain a friendship with his ex-girlfriend (Nicole Dogue)."

Metacritic: "A widowed conductor, looking forward to retirement, lives with his grown daughter in a Paris suburb. When a neighbor starts to show interest in his "little girl", the conductor tries to adjust."

None of the synopses are "wrong" so to speak, but I think trying, with a series of brief words, to make explicit what is deeply implicit in the film does a certain injustice to the film's story, if story is what it can be called. It is a film, in so many ways, in which nothing really happens, and all of the above synopses seem to be trying to explain the film in terms of "what happens." Part of the problem with those synopses, unless you are already a fan of the director, is that they fail to stir up any kind of interest because "what happens" sounds, well, pretty boring, right? I couldn't help but be reminded, with those synopses, of the Seinfeld episode, "The Comeback," in which Elaine, rents a film, with a title, clearly inspired by art-house cinema, called The Pain and the Yearning, and the film's description is "An old woman experiences pain and yearning." 35 Rhums might sound, if you try to describe it, very much like The Pain and the Yearning. And if you try to describe it with any kind of enthusiasm to your friends, they'll perhaps think a) your life must be very dull indeed, b) you are a film snob who has lost touch with reality, or c) you are trying to be a film snob and not fooling anybody.

35 Rhums, I think, defies any succinctly worded description; it must be experienced on its own terms and in its own time. But if one is willing to do that -let the film be what it is - the reward is immense. I admit, when I first sat down to watch it, I had to make a conscious effort to relax into the pace of the film. During the first several minutes - watching train tracks run and weave, watching a man smoking a cigarette, watching the tracks again, from day into night - I knew I would have to re-set my internal film metronome; the pacing and storytelling of this would be much different than the film I had seen most previously, Star Trek, every scene of which urged me to BE EXCITED. (And Star Trek was, actually, a lot of fun. )

After having said 35 Rhums is not a film that submits easily to words, I guess I'm going to have the audacity now to try to write about it. I expect I'll fail in many ways, but I want to try nonetheless because the experience of the film was such an extraordinary one, and I want to try to respond in some way. I had a halting conversation afterwards with the friend I was with - we both began sentences and finished them lamely and then sat in silence. And then tried to speak again. However much we failed, though, to express ourselves and our thoughts, our silences were peaceful somehow, not awkward. That may say more about our friendship, which is a close one, than about the film, but I think it does say something about the film, too, which had nestled its way somehow into our experience of being for that evening.

But I haven't said much about the film itself yet. As the synopses indicate, it is, indeed, about a father and a daughter who live together in an apartment in Paris or on the outskirts of Paris, certainly not the Paris of films we usually see, but one that is contained by the bounds of the rather small lives this father, Lionel, a train driver, and his daughter, Josephine, a student. And so what we see is relative to their day-to-day life - their apartment, the train tracks, a favorite bar/café, a classroom, a neighbor's apartment. The film beautifully, in small ways and with very few words, builds our conception of the relationship between the two and of the significance of each to the other - the buying of a rice cooker, the cooking and sharing of a meal, the fetching of slippers, the listening to the sounds of each other going about some household task - we don't need to be told that these two, in their quiet rhythm of life in the apartment, are deeply at home with one another.

Their bond and the satisfaction of that bond is set against three other characters in the film who live, in contrast, in a kind of isolation and loneliness: Gabrielle, a neighbor, who drives a taxi by day, who seems cheery and kind, but who is alone when at home, and though she seems to have known Lionel and Josephine for a significant amount of time, cannot quite break into the bond they share, though clearly she longs to; Noe, another neighbor, a young man, who lives alone in his dead parents' apartment, and whom we first meet when he comes home, hears music coming from Lionel and Josephine's apartment, and begins to move towards their door, but backs away and continues up the stairs, stumbling over a bike before he enters he own dark, untidy apartment; and last, Rene, a co-worker of Lionel's, forced into retirement, and even while surrounded by his well-wishing co-workers giving their loving farewell gifts, cannot quite hide his loneliness and despair. Each of these three are alone, and while they live, continuing on the track set before them, they seem to go doggedly, without purpose.

Lionel and Josephine's relationship alone is what perhaps keeps them from the same lonely isolation and purposelessness. Lionel's job is a job, that's all; he seems to genuinely care for his fellow workers, but one doesn't sense anything deeper in the relationships beyond the general camaraderie that comes from sharing a particular job's world. Josephine appears to be a diligent student; she speaks intelligently and with some interest in the classroom; she plays soccer; she has a job - but as with Lionel, these activities don't seem to bring her any particular purpose or joy. Josephine might be Noe, had both, instead of one, of her parents died; Lionel might be Rene if he did not have Josephine. Their love for and care for each other is a gravitational center to which they can always, and do, return. But Josephine is a young woman at the beginning of life and Lionel is closing in on the end of his, and it's clear, the film says to us, that they cannot remain indefinitely in this circle of quiet warmth that they are to each other - and they are both conscious of this.

Noe's and Josephine's attraction to one another is one indicator of the inevitable break between Lionel and Josephine that must happen at some point. And I love the way the film sets up this tension among the three characters, a tension that is both immediate - in the sense that the three must interact with each other in social situations - and far-reaching because it indicates something deeper, something that must eventually change between the father and daughter.

Noe is an odd character. While I felt at home with Lionel and Josephine - though both are to some extent inscrutable, not least because they speak so little - Noe's presence brings an unease to the film, both because of who he is personally and because of what his presence indicates for Lionel and Josephine. The unease stems partly from physical space of his apartment - uncared for and untidy, old couches and bits of trash on the floor - he doesn't seem to belong there. He never has milk; he doesn't know where his aspirin is and when he's asked for some, he shuffles for it aimlessly among the random items on his shelf. He leaves his window open when he leaves for a few days, and Lionel must go up and shut it when it begins to bang in the wind at night. Noe's apartment stands in another contrast to the neat, if small and rather spare, space where Lionel and Josephine live. Their space clearly belongs to them in the way that a home belongs to people who love each other - the home is cared for because they care for each other and that space is an extension of themselves, for each other. Noe would never paint his walls as Josephine has done to hers.

And yet, Noe is not, in the end, a character one mistrusts - he is directionless and alone, and who he is builds our unease, but he is certainly not a threat because of who he is personally - the threat that he is comes primarily from his potential in breaking up what has been a close party of two. The film delicately moves us back and forth between an unease with Noe and an attraction for Noe (and he is decidedly attractive), a back and forth that surely mirrors Josephine's own feelings. One scene perfectly captures this back and forth - a scene in which Lionel, Josephine, Noe, and Gabrielle are all together - "together as a family again" as Gabrielle says at one point with a forced brightness and longing - Noe kisses Josephine, and she kisses him back, but then pushes him away; but when he begins to leave - as if accepting her rejection - she pulls him back to her, and they sit down together, at an awkward distance, against a wall. The scene is beautifully understated - the feeling and drama runs almost entirely beneath the surface, but it says so much about the primary tension in the film. With Josephine, we feel it's so difficult to know what to want - we want Noe for her, and yet we do not want her to leave the solid warmth and security of the relationship with her father. We know what she is leaving - we do not know, quite, what she is moving towards. We know, only, that she will need to move soon.

The film builds so slowly and with such small moments (indeed, it didn't feel as if it was even building at all), I was not quite prepared for the emotional impact of the end. To say it held emotional impact is strange, however, because nothing really happens - nothing specifically on screen, that is. The genius of the film is such that it was able to overwhelm me at the end by virtue of the small moments that had come before and to make me weep when that "nothing" of the end happened - when Lionel's friend plays the piano and I hear the sounds of a party in the background, when Lionel drinks his 35 shots, and when Lionel takes the rice cooker out of the package from which it had never been removed. Those nothings were, beautifully, everything.

Very well made with subtle performances but, as good as it is at what it does, it doesn't sufficiently repay the viewer's investment in watching the movie.

What is this about? Who are these people? What are their relationships to each other? What do they want?

These questions were going through my mind for most of this film. I don't mind films that get off to a slow start, but this one got off to no start: they had no story.

Worse, the whole thing was like an Emily Dickinson poem, in the sense that you got the sense the director was daring you to guess what the theme of the movie was. Incest? Adultery? I knew nothing, nothing about this film before starting it other than that critics loved it. Had no idea what the theme was. Spent the entire film trying to guess what they were trying to get at.

One thing I concluded was that the director had no idea, either. Sheesh, what incompetent direction. Notice how, for example, when the chick is walking through the parking structure, he uses "monster-cam" behind her head to create a sense of foreboding? For a long time I wasn't sure if this was going to be serial killer film or what. It's not that I'm dumb: it's just a question of one incompetent miscue after another on the part of the director. For the first 40 minutes or so of the film, I thought that the father and his daughter were husband and wife. If that wasn't intentional on the part of the director, then there is something wrong with the director.

Mind you, whoever recorded and mixed the sound knew what they were doing. That was one excellent aspect of this film.

I fell asleep about half-way thru, which is rare, so the movie must have really stunk. Lots of train tracks. Not much dialogue. Guy killing himself due to retirement (huh?) Filmed somewhere in France where everyone is Afro-Franco (where's that?) Really slow moving; not much plot. The movie could have used some zombies or giant ants in it to fill in the really boring parts (most of the movie). This movie could only be enjoyed by the nerdiest of art nerds or the brain dead. Much worse than "Manos: Hands of Fate", and that's saying a lot. Maybe even worse than "The Room." Recommended only for the lame.