Trailblazing director Sally Potter’s newest quick movie “Look At Me,” a verbal battle of wills between a combative rock drummer (Javier Bardem) and the harried director of a fundraising gala (Chris Rock), is a passionate Trump-era time capsule that includes two mesmerizing performances from its leads.
The quick was initially conceived as a part of Potter’s profoundly private 2020 movie “The Roads Not Taken,” which starred Bardem as a Mexican-American man named Leo whose dementia sees him touring inside his thoughts by previous selections and Elle Fanning as his grown daughter tasked together with his care. Early on within the filmmaking course of, Potter realized that this sequence wouldn’t match into what would develop into that movie’s nonlinear, triptych construction.
Taken by itself, exterior the story created for Leo within the authentic movie, “Look At Me” throws viewers immediately right into a tense scene already in movement. Harnessing all this power, Bardem’s irascible drummer is burly and brusque. He’s an artist at the beginning, who doesn’t need to be merely the beat for a dancer (Savion Glover). He’s additionally an addict who has burned many bridges on his rocky street to restoration.
In his function because the gala director, Rock reminds us that he’s able to a layered, nuanced efficiency given the correct materials. His direct, matter-of-fact approach of talking matches Leo’s combativeness, revealing a extra advanced relationship between the 2 males than simply employer-employee. Slowly we be taught the reality behind how these two males know one another and the depths of their connection. The friction and later concord between Bardem and Rock are deeply felt and poetically shot.
Cinematographer Robbie Ryan makes use of expressive lighting – wealthy hues of main blue and pink – in addition to an enveloping darkness to set the temper for the quick. It’s indignant, and it’s passionate, with an undercurrent of each a deep unhappiness and a resilience of spirit. Potter, who additionally educated as a dancer, usually has Ryan’s digital camera comply with her actors as if they’re companions in a dance with the machine, imbuing the movie with an simple verve. This playful motion contrasts properly with the brutalist cement room wherein the gala is to happen, in addition to the isolating vacancy of the cityscape that envelopes Leo.
The movie’s satirical setting – a fundraising gala the place Bardem (taking part in Mexican) and Glover are requested to carry out in literal cages – serves to lampoon well-meaning liberals who use the identical grammar as these they oppose (on this case the atrocious actions towards undocumented immigrants by the Trump administration). That we by no means see the precise wealthy elites they’re set to carry out for might be greatest, as the main focus just isn’t on them however on those that should commodify themselves and their trauma to be able to not solely survive however reside richly on this harsh world.
Whereas the central metaphor is a bit on the nostril, and the ultimate scene within the movie is nearly as patronizing because the well-meaning liberals she’s satirizing, the dedicated and impassioned performances from each Bardem and Rock maintain “Look At Me” from sinking into treacly territory.
Potter has lengthy flown beneath the radar as one of many nice filmmakers of the final forty years. From her startling debut “The Gold Diggers” to her best-known movie “Orlando” and every thing in between, Potter has experimented with kind and tone, and construction, by no means repeating herself and at all times grounding her movies within the politics of being alive.
Her newest quick, “Look At Me,” serves as a reminder of her expertise as a visible storyteller and her dedication to utilizing movie to handle energy buildings. A reminder that you may’t— and shouldn’t ever— look away from them. [B]
