With only four feature films to his credit Ari Aster has already become one of those directors whose name screams 'auteur' or maybe just 'cult' as he hasn't quite cut it yet at the box-office, (his detractors will say he's been working his way down since his first feature "Hereditary" and since nothing he's done since has been as successful either critically or commercially, they may he right), but if his subsequent films haven't quite nailed it there are few American filmmakers this ambitious.
A genre director Aster has always worked outside the box, subverting our expectations at every turn. Fundamentally he makes horror movies but they are not like anything else in the field. These are nightmares that sneak up on you and his latest, "Eddington" has its own nightmare already built into its scenario. Set in 2020 Covid has hit America if not the small town of Eddington, at least according to its covid-denying sheriff, (another superb Joaquin Phoenix performance), whose stance pits him against the town's mayor, (Pedro Pascal), so Joaquin decides to run for mayor, too. Meanwhile far from Eddington the Black Lives Matter movement is gaining ground and suddenly it seems the outside world is coming to town and not in a good way.
A black and bloody comedy "Eddington", like "Midsommar" and "Beau is Afraid" before it, can't quite sustain its length nor can Aster fully tie the many threads of his plot satisfactorily together but if you want to call this a failure it's definitely a brilliant one; smart, crazy, prescient and displaying real imagination. It also confirms its writer/director as someone whose films are fast becoming 'event' movies and who surely must have a masterpiece waiting in the wings.
No comments:
Post a Comment