AUTUMN SONATA(1978)
You may remember that scene from MARRIAGE STORY where Scarlet Johansson is told by her divorce lawyer( an excellent turn by Laura Dern) that in a marital relationship, the man’s faults can always be dismissed as a whim or one-off thing; but for the mother/wife/woman, to even admit to consuming a simple glass of wine can entail dereliction of duty. That’s just, in a nutshell, the world of hypocrisy we all occupy where women are supposed to be paragons of virtue.
In AUTUMN SONATA, that painful thought reached out to me as a perennially neglected, now 40 year old daughter ( Liv Ullmann) lashes out at her absent mother ( Ingrid Bergman); but that is before she composes herself and reasons with the complex dynamics of their interpersonal bond. This Ingmar Bergman chamber piece harnesses its indoor settings and sombre lighting hence to look at both sides, knowing it’s easy to pick one-dimensional rationales because we identify those points with our own parents. The genealogy of regrets runs through generations. But what really happens when a woman pursuing a successful career is held accountable for her own sense of self-definition? How can we look at one life and differing opinions without prejudice or gender bias in the same breath?
AUTUMN SONATA, within its silent frames, bubbles with multiplicity of emotions and can be relatable with any adult who has expressed disappointment with how our elders treat us. A gamut of viewpoints opens up a can of worms here, done with care, delicacy and poignant truth-telling. One scene, where the daughter fixates her gaze at her mother as she brilliantly plays the piano, courses through with despair, admiration, regret and unjustified malice balanced by the reverence a child has for a parent. All this is achieved by Ms. Ullmann’s depth of understanding and naturalistic expressions. In that moment, this personal account becomes sublimely universal. With excellent turns by LENA NYMAN and HALVAR BJORK too, AUTUMN SONATA stays with us.
**
THE MUDGE BOY (2003)
CAST: EMILE HIRSCH, RICHARD JENKINS, TOM GUIRY.
Looking at childhood and its ritualized aura of coming of age tropes can always make one touch low points of stereotypical categorization, overlooking the fabric of real conflicts and hardly is there an internalized tilt towards pushing the envelope further. Teenage sexuality is often a taboo topic but I guess by writing about it, we gradually break that mould. A movie that touches on those frayed nerves in singularly uncompromising tones is THE MUDGE BOY (2003)
The movie, which focuses on Duncan Mudge (Emile Hirsch), marks a departure from the adult world for him as in the very first scene we are witness to his mother’s untimely death. A world sans motherly love, compassion and fortitude is a barren, sterile foliage and a moral dump yard for us ; it is equally so for Duncan. It is the space where the fourteen year old farm boy finds himself placed, in a man’s menagerie alien to his soft and sombre demeanour ( how I hate it when the term ‘soft’ is peddled as a bad trait or one equated with weakness in the context of males because it makes no sense; the film hence tries to look at the very stereotypes attached with notions of boyhood starting from that point. I use it because it is a normal trait for both genders, as normal as inherent compassion and capacity for imagination)
This sudden rupture in familial security distances him further from his father, a man given to few words or expressions exhibiting his grief. Naturally, Mudge Sr.(Richard Jenkins) has to hold back his sentimental outpouring to stack up against the larger world and make a decent living as a rural farmer in a mechanized demographic. This masculine posture and emotional stance is society’s way of imputing his weak spots and riding the crest of gender specificity. To cry over his loss will earn him brickbats instead of sympathy. He has learnt this the hard way but it’s this mute flow of internal conditioning and stifling control that renders him completely absent from his son’s domain. His mother’s loss has been a colossal one and life-altering for him, especially at a critical juncture of his adolescence. This state of personal change is one of a profound identity crisis. Duncan, hence, reels under pressure and copes with this turnaround by dressing up in Mama’s suits and gowns, down to his ‘girlish’ timbre and mannerisms, much to his father’s dismay.
**
This rude awakening, however, is seen as a passing phase. Looking closely at the movie’s foregrounding, it’s evident Duncan’s introverted nature and lack of ‘masculine aggression’ gave the uncouth, brassy kids of his culture free reign to bully and sequester him. His so-called ‘queer'( a word used by others as an invective in reference to him) transformation further makes him a scapegoat. I’m glad today queer comes to be used as a collective embrace for those deemed by our closed-minded societies as odd or non-conforming to certain preconceived rules.
Duncan is so lonely hence that he has made friends with his solitude and sought perfect companionship with a non-human, the farm chicken simply named Chicken by him. His rare flashes of pure happiness are seen in the bird’s presence.
***
Within this quagmire, his friendship with the loutish and simultaneously tender Perry (Tom Guiry ) uncorks latent passions in both. Duncan eventually confounds Perry as the latter cannot curb his attraction towards him, a threat to his acquired bravado and ‘heterosexuality’. Society and worldly laws are at the back of his mind and we understand that. In a scene crackling with subtle erotic charge, Duncan touches and feels Perry’s rippling muscles when they both go swimming, their bare bodies serving their discovery as a train passes by, the clatter coinciding with the awkwardness and surge of sexual discovery in both. Perry recoils in that given moment, stunned and yet deeply touched by Duncan’s acknowledgement of his physical appeal. It’s one of the most practical assessments of adolescent desires bubbling to the surface and is subtly filmed, with great dignity befitting the age group it seeks to address. Perry defends, castigates and pines for the sweet and honest Duncan, who, he knows, is miles away from the dysfunction of his peers and his own abusive father. His contrasting mood swings and hormonal ticks make him term Duncan a faggot. Fear of a backlash and challenge to his assigned sexual status strain him. However, it comes to a head when he forces his physicality on the meek Duncan, in a disturbing episode that rattles both.
This motif of forbidden desires punctuates the story’s bold strokes and emphatic impact since it encapsulates everything that comes before and after. These young boys essentially grapple with terms of acceptance and future adult storm for their differences of orientation which inform them of their present status as well. The milieu they occupy is one of misogyny and male dominance. THE MUDGE BOY, to me then, is a powerful indictment of male ego from which Duncan is miles apart even though his own Pa acknowledges that “he can’t even get into trouble like a normal boy.” There is care and concern for him from the father who knows the ways of a big, bad world beyond that of the already constricting small town they live in.
**
The most tragic outcome of this crossfire ensues when Duncan, in a bid to prove his manliness, mangles the permanence of his deep bond with Chicken, a harrowing and heart- rending event that joins both father and son in an embrace of long overdue intimacy. It can symbolize building bridges and signaling bugles for Duncan’s human growth and also assent on the parent’s part irrespective of his orientation, opening up the vista for his future choices.
Director Michael Burke has an astute and sensitive eye for studying the depths of his characters’ predicaments. Struggling with sexuality is a normal though hushed strand of growing up and he looks at it not as a taboo but as a necessary, individual arc incremental to understanding the pain and dilemmas of souls like Duncan and Perry.
Shears of moral decorum and manhood constitute this teenage domain with parallel lines of urgency and an honest look, not a disapproving stare.
The three principal actors justify every nuance of this realistic and understated drama, essential for widening our horizons and worldviews. THE MUDGE BOY is as poignant and universal to a teenager as to an adult. Maybe Duncan’s life script had shown traces of his altered status prior to his mother’s death but his tragedy works as an outlet for sharing his concerns. The present state matters in his depiction.
***
13TH , STRONG ISLAND ( NETFLIX ORIGINAL DOCUMENTARIES – 2016, 2017) and I’M NOT YOUR NEGRO(2016)
‘Land of the Free’ as a concept to define the American consciousness has now been denuded of that fantastical paradigm. These three documentaries strip away the facade of equality, so vehemently endorsed in its regard, by harking back at how pop culture is as complicit in fanning divisions as racialized groups. In STRONG ISLAND, painful family recountings get captured on camera juxtaposed with other photographic imagery of better days, to corral a whole timeline of injustice passed down through generations, whether passively or explicitly.
Ava Duvernay, Yance Ford and Raoul Peck are brave new filmmakers who turn the gaze inwards before scattering the whole panorama of a nation interspersed with figures, events and the modern -day standpoint on race relations. Their treatment and storytelling will haunt us to the very bones.
***
THE VAST OF NIGHT(2020)
Behold then the gripping, nocturnal effect of THE VAST OF NIGHT, a film that toys with science fiction tropes and the very pertinent fears associated with extra-terrestrial life. But director Andrew Patterson turns the cliches on its head by making it a study of voice patterns, documenting opinions of people privy to the town’s prior history and through close ups, spare lighting and its absorbing 1950s setting successfully concocts an almost Hitchcockian style of visual hypnosis.
By further including the voice of an African American war veteran ( Bruce Davis) and a perpetually grieving mother ( Gail Cronauer), its two teenage protagonists ( Sierra McCormick and Jake Horowitz) end up becoming listeners trying to make head and tail of a mysterious signal on the radio, uncovering layers within a town of merely hundreds.
Extended scenes, tracking shots and a naturalistic rhythm make this an unique take on everything we have come to expect from a generic story such as this. I found this mode of storytelling here thoroughly engaging as also the no fuss style of performances being perfectly suited to a post- modern break with conventions.
*****
All clips are courtesy YouTube.
An Awadh Boy's Panorama : tracing words on these filigreed, discerning fingertips. 