The Guilty

It’s impossible to take one’s eyes off Jakob Cedergren, the main actor in Gustav Möller’s terrific debut feature The Guilty. He’s virtually in every frame of this economical and very effectively made Danish one-location thriller, recalling films such as Rodrigo Cortes’ Buried or Steven Knight’s Locke. Playing police officer Asger Holm, Cedergren conveys a lot with his face — the boredom of having to take one emergency call after the other, the anguish and frustration at not able to help callers more pro-actively, and the anger at something not going according to plan. His plan.

After a botched police operation, Asger has been demoted in rank, taken off the streets and made to take distress calls at the office. It’s clear from the beginning that he doesn’t belong here, but he can’t do much about it. What’s not clear though is the reason for him being in this situation; his case is going to be heard in court soon and, until then, he’s not to be let out on the beat. One day, a woman calls him and she appears to have been kidnapped, calling him from inside a car. Asger gets over-involved with her predicament; he barks out instructions to fellow officers over the phone, he repeatedly consoles her and he even connects with her little daughter who is waiting back at home, wondering when mommy will come back to her.

This is a high-stakes piece that doesn’t rely on big action. In fact, the viewer is constantly reminded of the fact that this isn’t a Hollywood picture. Asger is no larger-than-life superhero. He’s only doing his duty, prone to making mistakes just like every other person. Especially when it’s a serious situation such as this, where every second counts. And when he realises that something has seriously gone wrong, he doesn’t break out of the office. He doesn’t attempt to find the car. He doesn’t turn into Tom Cruise. He stays put by the receiver. There’s something very European about that.

Möller and his co-writer Emil Nygaard Albertsen have added some unexpected, heart-in-mouth twists to the narrative, further adding to the tension — what a vibrant and wholly unique cinema experience The Guilty is.

A Danish one-location film, a Coen Brothers sextet of short films and a Saudi film about a wife whose husband is about to take a second wife were some of the most outstanding offerings at the recently concluded London Film Festival

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

Originally conceived as a mini-series and now being released as one singular anthology film by Netflix, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is the Coen Brothers once more cementing their reputation of being in a league of their own. Here they offer six unconnected short films, all set in the Old West. At its core, each tale is concerned with the absurdity of the human condition, the frailty of it, the inevitability of death, having to survive in a dog-eat-dog world. It’s ultraviolent, ridiculously funny, with a talented cast to die for.

Tim Blake Nelson sets the tone in the first vignette, playing the titular outlaw Buster Scruggs, who loves to sing and loves even more to shoot opponents straight in the face. He’s such a Coen-esque character; there simply needs to be more Buster Scruggs material — perhaps an origin film? Even though this first portion is very short, it’s full of outstanding (and outlandish) scenes. And that ending is just on the right side of weird.

If you think the beginning is brutal, well, it’s only the beginning. But amidst all the bullets and bloodshed, there are great actors pitching in some fantastic performances. James Franco stars as a man on the run in the tragicomic Near Algodones, having escaped a hanging only to be caught again. Tom Waits, in the segment All Gold Canyon, plays a man panning for gold in solitude. He’s electrifying on screen, holding the viewer’s attention right until the very last shot. The same goes for Zoe Kazan, the only female character of note in this ensemble. She plays The Gal Who Got Rattled, with a shock ending that completely rattles the audience.

Meal Ticket and The Mortal Remains complete the sextet. These are perhaps less violent in nature than the four aforementioned ones, but they are all the more bleak. In Meal Ticket, Liam Neeson plays the owner of a travelling theatre. When he chances upon a man without any arms or legs, he takes him under his wing. And Brendan Gleeson plays a bounty hunter in the ambiguous The Mortal Remains, with an ending that is truly haunting.

With The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, the Coen Brothers prove that they are above the entire “film vs. TV” debate. The medium becomes irrelevant with the kind of content they make. It works on any screen, no matter how big or small. One could imagine this becoming a film series with differing genres.

Amra and the Second Marriage

After wowing audiences at film festivals around the world with his charming debut feature Barakah meets Barakah, Saudi Arabian filmmaker Mahmoud Sabbagh is back with his sophomore film Amra and the Second Marriage. His latest certainly has more bite than his previous work, with light-hearted romance making way for more sarcasm and dark satire.

Like its title suggests, Amra and the Second Marriage is the story of middle-aged woman (Alshaima’a Tayeb), who becomes more and more frustrated at the prospect of her husband deciding to take a second, much younger wife. Despite the couple having had three daughters, Amra hasn’t been able to give birth to a son. So this new wife is supposed to provide a male heir. Everyone in Amra’s community supports this marriage, and curses her for not doing so herself. But why should she? It’s her family, her husband and she does everything for them. This is what she gets in return?

Sabbagh is once more concerned with societal ills in Saudi Arabia, but this time his focus isn’t on challenging notions of masculinity, like he did with Barakah Meets Barakah. He’s more interested in questioning certain customs oppressing women. He unapologetically goes to bat for Amra, boldly taking the viewer into her headspace. One gets to hear what Amra is thinking, what she’s praying for, and what she wants to do to the new wife. There are some magical realist moments throughout the film, which lighten the mood. Thanks to Sabbagh’s able direction, they never come off as tacky. And thankfully, Amra and the Second Marriage isn’t a preachy film. Sabbagh isn’t giving moral lectures. Amra might be a woman scorned, but she isn’t at all helpless. Our TV and film writers could learn a thing or two from her.

Published in Dawn, ICON, November 25th, 2018