I absolutely love Rebecca Hall as an actress but I have serious
problems with her directing/writing work in _Passing_. Initially
I was pleasantly surprised by the sweet, nuclear family dynamics
of a wealty African American household in Harlem. The family of
four has an immaculate, 4-story brown-stone-like mansion, a wife
and mother (Tessa Thompson) who organizes social events, and
even a maid. Slowly though, her shallowness becomes apparent;
there is nothing but parties and dancing events on her plate, and
she tries to drown out conservations regarding race-based violence
in the South which her husband (Andre Holland) brings up to
educate their two sons. Yet every single conservation in the
film seems to be about race. Her old acquaintance Clare Beller,
passing as White and with a racist husband in tow, shows up,
which at least adds jealousy to the mix. Clare isn't any less
shallow and boring than the rest, but everyone (including the
critics) seem to treat her as a visiting royalty; the hushand
fawns on his wife's romantic rival endlessly.

In the last reel, I finally realize that Thompson's character
isn't a heroine; she is just the equal-opportunity haute
bourgeoisie to be unmasked as a monster and taken down. There
is no character in the film who is particularly sympathetic or
even interesting. Which makes for a very odd passion project
for director-writer Rebecca Hall, a head-girl at Oxford and
noted for the intelligence of the characters she plays. I am
not a fan of the nuclear family stick-together-and-beating-off-
intruder Lifetime fare, but this story leaves an even worse
aftertaste.

Perhaps Hall's main focus is on the film-making craft? But the
4:3 ratio B&W cinematography doesn't look all that special to
me (I saw it in a theater), and the camera work and framing
also seem only average. Anglo-American actresses just don't seem
to have that innate visual cinematic sixth-sense the French seem
to have. But maybe she will get it later ... Melanie Laurent's
directorial debut may not be a visual masterpiece either. I'd
like to see Jessica Chastain direct, though. She is rumored to
be an art-film nerd.

Maybe I'm hard on _Passing_ because I just saw Benoit Jacquot's
masterful _Suzanna Andler_, about a 1960 bourgeoisie woman
which he does not pre-judge. What a formal masterpiece that
is. More on that later.

-----------------------------------------------------------

I can't say I have ever loved Bruno Dumont. I admire his
films for their seriousness. _Slack Bay_ tries to be funny,
and it is not a favorite. The best part is definitely
Binoche's broad comedic turn; she gamely turns in slapstick
that I don't know she is capable of. In the DVD interview
she semi-complains about Dumont's female characters that
she plays, they seem to be all hysterics (she is in _Camille
Claudel 1915_). The worst part of the film is the cannibalism
motif, this time with the servant class eating the feckless
rich. I condemned this cliche in Korean films and I condemn
this here. Maybe the misanthrope Michael Haneke is really
smarter than the rest of us. While the supposedly left-leaning
film-makers focus on dubious class-warfare messaging, Haneke's
_Funny Games_ predicted the January 6th violent uprising by
NASCAR-watching right-wingers against our increasingly
decadent democracy. If only he had the foresight to show
that these uprisings were engineered by even richer, even
more elite demagogues!

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