Chris At The Pictures

★ ½ ☆ ☆ ☆

After the big budget blowout of Noah, Darren Aronofsky returns to simpler times with this deliberately provocative tale of a man and woman (Javier Bardem and Jennifer Lawrence, whose characters remain unnamed) living peaceful, but soon-to-be interrupted lives. Basking in their Eden-like seclusion, Lawrence’s eponymous matriarch sets about restoring the house (with which she shares a mysterious, organic connection), while Bardem plays a troubled poet looking to write his masterwork. Just as inspiration appears to strike, an unknown couple (Ed Harris and Michelle Pfeiffer) stumble upon the pair, bringing with them the unspoken threat of upset and destruction.

For all it’s unclear narrative strokes and ambiguous dialogue, mother! is not a subtle film. The instant it’s central metaphor takes root, it's nigh-on impossible to focus on anything else. The intended discomfort and tension as Harris and Pfeiffer encroach upon the couple’s handiwork is totally undermined by an allegory so ham-fisted you could slice it up and serve it in sandwiches.

That a film so steeped in parable and analogy is playing in multiplexes should be something to celebrate, making Aranofsky’s failure to combine symbolism with a compelling story that much more infuriating. The overriding thesis of the film – at least, as it was apparent to me – is one I sympathise with, but I can’t see it winning over the average movie-goer. As evidenced by the movie’s plummeting CinemaScore across the pond, they’re likely to remain resolutely alienated by a mood piece comprised mostly of Jennifer Lawrence gasping and shrieking at the camera.

To see Lawrence return to comparatively ‘out there’ cinema after her string of mainstream roles is an exciting prospect, and sadly remains just that: something still to come. Her role here (to use the word ‘character’ seems generous considering her deployment as reflection or caricature) gives us nothing but fear and loathing, of which she gave ample demonstration across all four instalments of the Hunger Games series.

Pfieffer tries to save what she can (largely through a particularly delicate method of sipping lemonade), but it’s a hopeless effort. She – along with Harris and brief spells from Dohmnall Gleeson and Kristen Wiig – becomes just another face in the crown of walking, talking emblems that slowly but surely begin to overwhelm the isolated abode.

This increasingly fraught and claustrophobic home-invasion section of the film is where things truly go to pot. In terms of pure technical construction, there should be much to admire as time, space and bodies fast-forward, tighten and twist in a finale clearly designed to shock and awe. The established composition of mother! (a repetitive, clumsy and dull array of close-ups and over-the-shoulder shots) instead consigns us to crock and bore.

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

Ambivalence from on high is keenly and coldly felt in this, the new film from Martin Scorsese. In 17th century Japan, a Portuguese priest named Father Ferreira (Liam Neeson, in the second film this week that steals him away from the Taken template) renounces his faith before the Buddhist inquisitors. Refusing to believe the report, Fathers Rodriguez (Andrew Garfield) and Garrupe (Adam Driver) leave immediately for Japan to seek Ferreira and discover the truth, hoping to preach Catholicism as they travel (now is a good time to make your own Apostatise Now joke).

A reference to Coppola’s adaptation of Heart of Darkness sounds flippant, but it’s not entirely wasteful: based on a novel by Shūsaku Endō, Silence is a film concerned primarily with a crisis of faith, with the deconstruction of one’s most closely-held values by a maddening, tortuous odyssey across unyielding pastures in search of a once revered elder. Maddening is the key adjective here, because, for all the striking imagery and heightened sense of desolation, Silence is inherently frustrating in many areas.

It's a very philosophical film in the sense that it provokes an awful lot of deep and searching questions, but never seems particularly interested in finding or offering any answers. As Rodriguez and Garrupe delve further into an increasingly hostile land, all sorts of issues are raised: the morality of imperialism, if the existence of God can ever really be divined, and whether there's any need to spread Christianity when the native population are so entrenched in their Buddhist values (what's the worship of one suffering idol to another?).

Perhaps this stems from the fact I'm not a believer, but the personal religious plights left me oddly unmoved. Certainly the images of the two Padres cowering in firelit caverns are very evocative and the landscapes are astonishingly captured, but from the first frame I felt distanced from any sense of torment or emotional agony. This problem emerges from the film's distinct lack of stylistic verve in other aspects: cinematography asides, the personal drama and even moments of horror are played as implacably as the stone replication of Christ on the cross. Garfield, Driver and Yôsuke Kubozuka (who plays Kichijiro, an eternal sinner who pleads confession to Rodriguez many times) are all exceptional, but there's nothing showy or visceral about their performances. For my money, there's not enough of Driver - who I would have loved to take the central role - but I understand that Garfield has the more marketable credentials (and face).

A traditional score is replaced with ambient birdsong or the creaking of trees, and it's this particular departure from emotional (one might even say manipulative) filmmaking that only served to distance me further. It's a supremely unsettling absence that makes every scene bleed into the next with a lessened sense of dramatic heft. Perhaps I'm too used to having symphonic signposts? The realism of only using diegetic sound is admirable for this kind of story, but, at the end of the day, Scorsese isn't making The Hurt Locker.

With engagement lessened still, my ability to identify with Rodriguez' plight dipped. The absence of God is felt from the very start, as his messengers are killed and his worshippers are tortured, strung up, and left to the mercy of nature. There's no descent for us as there is for Rodriguez, no matter how well Garfield might sell it, and boy does he make a good attempt. As I said, it's not a grandstanding turn, but one of small gestures. When Rodriguez is first confronted by cold, hunger or danger of death, he sits open-limbed, in total faith that whatever his fate, God will provide. When his belief begins to unwind, he starts to retract, to curl up, clutching his arms around his chest because he fears that his own Earthly body is all that's left to protect him.

It's a very earnest display, smattered occasionally with hard cuts to a famous painting of Jesus on the cross, a comparison (or juxtaposition, depending on your own interpretation) that elicited some laughter in the screening, shortly followed by two patrons leaving altogether. While I didn't laugh, I can understand the reaction: moments such as Garrupe diving into the sea to save persecuted believers or a beheading performed by the Japanese grand inquisitor are played with such a straight face that you search for any kind of emotional reaction.

Any catharsis achieved along the way is all to do with anguish, there’s no celebration or even release. Everything slowly grinds to a halt with what must be twenty minutes left to go (or perhaps it felt that long because very little happens, a new narrator is introduced and the once free-flowing story devolves into a sliced-and-diced mess), and I almost found myself getting bored, which is not something you ever expect from a Scorsese film. For all the self-indulgence of The Wolf of Wall Street, I was never fidgeting to keep myself awake.

But all those issues considered, I can't honestly call Silence a bad film. It's beautifully mounted and intelligently conversational, with phenomenal acting... I only hope others found more engagement with its thematic struggle. For those not of a religious persuasion, I fear it's destined to linger long in the mind, but short in the heart.