As pointed out by Jonathan Romney reviewing Secrets & Lies1, Mike Leigh’s ability in ‘pinning down all the nuances of behaviour and decor that immediately locate a character socially and emotionally’ is a device ‘that can easily lead to caricature,’ or rather—I’d dare rephrasing—to the misinterpretation of the author’s intentions. Career Girls is a good example. I am completely sure that such types exist—in fact, I might be one—but I can’t help receiving all the performances in the film as a little over the top. Do I find this as ‘irritating’ as many legitimately might? Maybe not, and yet that does create some distance between me and the characters. Had I watched this on stage, where physical space is an element of theatre, I wouldn’t have been bothered as much. But in a film, where the lens put me in a far more intimate, if not intrusive, position, I couldn’t avoid constantly acknowledging the craft.
What I still enjoyed of the film is its pace, its not rushing for an obvious payoff. Locating in the same area of Naked, the lack of a perceived plot stands as proof of trust towards the characters, the actors, and ultimately the audience. Talking to Amy Raphael about it, Mike Leigh appropriately speaks of a certain inventive freedom, which I think it’s palpable. ‘I don’t really want to use the word ethereal, but that would kind of explain what the film’s about. It’s something to do with what Hannah and Annie are experiencing.’2
Its improbable series of coincidences contributes to the metaphorical—‘maybe spiritual,’ in Leigh’s words again—dimension of the film. Career Girls is about the long journey from our twenties to our thirties, and therefore adultness. Our perspective changes more in that decade than any other in our life. We might look at Ricky as a funny lovable guy in uni years, but no doubt we see his tragedy when we meet him again in the narrative present days, as do Hannah and Annie. But the film also seems to remind us that where we are is always a lot closer to where we came than to where we are headed. I am not sure if I like the notion, but while I write it I begrudgingly admit it is fascinatingly as true as Leigh’s dramatic depiction of our unconscious need for roots.
1.Secrets and Lies, Jonathan Romney (The Guardian, 23 May 1996). 2. From Mike Leigh on Mike Leigh, Edited by Amy Raphael (Faber, 2021).
Never a line was drawn more squiggly between life and fiction than the imaginary one that connects all Pedro Costa’s films—life being that of his model characters, the people his oeuvre is the visual log of a continuous collaboration and a mutual growth, whether human or creative. That very line, thin or thick or blurred, is the mark that defines Costa’s cinema as it finds its shape between the narrative and the documentary, to eventually land on the more stylised approach of his recent works.If on its ragged surface Ossos deals with inner demons and outer hardships, underneath it seems to dig into the different depths of the theme of memory. ‘Give her a kiss, she remembers you,’ we hear say at some point out of the blue. And as that line stays suspended in thin air, almost trapped in a cage of bricks, more connections arise. It is ultimately the prospect of memory what looms over the desperate denial of two tormented parents. But it is also memory what the film itself is capturing of a district soon to be destroyed. And it’s again memory what an inescapable fate has already made of its inhabitants—one more to be rejected by the relentless noise produced by our society.
There is a shot towards the end of Happy Together—no spolier—where somebody is seen from afar through a long lens. The camera is spinning around him making the background move fast behind and creating an attractive effect. Having found particular favour among action directors in recent years and being the environment I work in more knowledgeable on such films than, say, Hong Kong independent ones, I had always heard this referred to as the Michael Bay shot. It is therefore with unspeakable relief that I feel now allowed to call it—at least in private, not to sound snobbish—the Wong Kar-wai shot.
Regardless of Happy Together having actual primacy in the use of telephoto tracking—I have no idea and couldn’t care less—one of the many aspects it fascinated me for is how the camera language is inventively explored without ever letting the narrative be upstaged by pure aesthetic choices. This results in a superbly composed visual storytelling that follows the characters along their emotional turmoils, and us with them.
In Happy Together the force of nature looms in the form of longing and distant memories over the tiny, dimly lit urban spaces in which its animal souls wander. Steamy kitchens, shabby flats, smokey locals, and narrow streets is where life gets caged, or where to tango steps it gets poisoned with passion.
