Mengedegna

This is an odd film. It builds on the real beauty of the island of Mauritius, implying a high level of realism. It's set during the period (most of the 18th century, up to the British takeover in 1810) of French domination (when it was known as the Isle-de-France) and depicts the horrors of its plantation economy, producing sugar off the backs (with a flogging depicted with sickening realism) of enslaved Africans, all of which is historically accurate. But the actors portraying the victims are from West Africa (primarily Wolof speakers from the area now known as Senegal, but other West African groups are mentioned), which is historically absurd, as the logistics of moving all those humans all those thousands of miles would have made no economic sense. (The enslaved population of Mauritius was of East African and Malagasy origin.)

These absurdities aside, and despite some outstanding acting, mainly by the two Senegalese protagonists, Ibrahima M'Bayi and Anna Diakhere Thiandoum, the plot is much too heavy-handed. Colette Cottin appears to be a fine actress, but casting her as white female hunter of escaped "maroons" is too preposterous to be sustained. Benoît Magimel , one of the finest actors in present-day French cinema, is here cast as a wealthy holder of a large plantation concession who has a few scruples about the fate of his enslaved workforce, but not too many. He has put on many kilos since he was last seen on U. S. screens in another island-based parable, Alberto Serra's "Pacification", a far superior (if often a little too enigmatic) film. Here, he is assigned a role just a step or two above a walk-on, a sad waste of his tremendous talent.

The film's intentions -- depicting the dynamics of enslavement on the many islands that produced sugar for the teacups of Europe -- are noble, and the world of those enslaved as seen from their perspective is hugely worthy of cinematic representation, but this film is too jejune, melodramatic, and uncomfortably situated between realism and nonsense. Are there really no Mauritian actors, speaking the island's form of Creole, that the producers had to bring in Wolof speakers from the opposite ends of the African world? The point may be that there are commonalities between the plantation system on Mauritius and on the Caribbean islands (where many of the enslaved would originally have been forcibly transported from Senegal and the rest of West Africa) that a bit of poetic license is permissible? But if I were from Mauritius, and a descendant from the groups that really were enslaved there (now a minority, whereas the island's current majority has its origins on the Indian subcontinent, whose ancestors were brought in by the British as indentured plantation workers) , I would feel insulted. Mauritius is a real place (of amazing beauty, as shown here), with its own specific history, and it deserves to be represented as such, not as an abstraction. The blurring of those two lines gives the film a silliness that the subject matter does not deserve, worsened by an overcooked and illogical screenplay in which the actors must struggle, with only intermittent success, to be more than gross caricatures.

I often find Soderbergh a little too pat and obvious. (Not here.

Reasons to really like "Presence":

1. The terrific cinematography (which SS apparently did himself). Even leaving aside the much-mentioned and very well-conceived POV issue, every frame has meaning and substance, and so many are of the draw-you-in kind for which I'm a sucker. The exterior shots from inside are particularly stunning, reminding me of the best of Gus Van Sant, for example. I also appreciate Soderbergh's outstanding use, going back to "Sex, Lives & Videotape") of wide angle lenses that, in this case, draw you in more than they alienate you, creating a sense that you are eavesdropping and yet, very skillfully, mostly keeping the characters central and in focus except when it makes sense not to. In contrast to a film like "The Zone of Interest", where the technique is distancing -- deliberately so, for justifiable reasons, yet in ways I found unhelpful.

2. The editing. The montage in short, sharp, telling takes, with clear indications of elapsed time, is perfect. Things move swiftly, but with more than enough substance in each clip to keep you engaged.

3. The social commentary is understated and and all the more brilliant for it. The intra-family relationships may be Bergman-lite, but they are very telling. And we are actually (quite amazingly) incited to like the unseen character. And all the acting is pitch perfect, even unto the minor characters.

4. High diversity marks. So much of a fuss was understandably made a couple of years ago about how Asian actors are typecast and marginalized. Here they are, laudably, banalized. There is one passing reference to something Korean, just to orient us, but no trace of kimchi or of anything to distinguish this mixed family from any other in its solidly American social caste.

The only reason I can think of not to like the film is, of course, that the Teenage Boy Anti-Defamation Society has its work cut out for it. (And aspects of that, in the end, I did find just a little too pat and out of character with the rest of the film.)

But on the whole, this is as good an American film as I have seen this year, surpassed only in quality and substance by "The Nickel Boys", which has a different approach, also terrific, to POV issues and is, of course, less commercial and far more direct, even brutal, in its social commentary.

I was curious to see what Pedro Almodóvar would do differently in his first non-Spanish-language film, built around two of the most talented actors working today. The answer, alas: it's disappointing. There are many ways in which "The Room Next Door" lacks what makes Almodóvar's work so distinctive - the spontaneity, the sense of improvisation, the comic timing, the fizzy ensemble work -- but this film's main fault, as I see it, is that it's just plain overwritten, something that is rare in his previous work.

The screenplay (which he is credited with writing) was adapted from a novel by Sigrid Nunez that I have not read, but it sounds like vast swatches of the dialogue were lifted verbatim from it, with much that is ponderous and stilted, slowing down and emptying the film, where Almodóvar's work is usually characterized by lapidary dialogues and madcap forward movement, plunging you into the characters' world with little exposition - as a viewer, you are kind of just there, hanging on for dear life, and figuring out relationships and social context as you go, grabbing at what you can. Even in films that deal with dark subjects ("Pain and Glory" or "Bad Education" come to mind), the action and its background unfold in convincing ways (even when these are actually crazy if you stop and think about them) that draw on our intuition and empathy and depend only marginally on extended expository narration.

Here, it is the opposite: the characters talk and explain on and on, with a few awkward flashbacks to establish context. Little is left to our imaginations. So, while some of the usual Almodóvarian hallmarks are there, particularly in the exquisite use of saturated, cunningly coordinated color and in the tastefulness of many of the sets and costumes (here with lots of lovely still lifes of flowers and fruits), these are reduced to props - they don't serve to tell the story and overwhelm you into accepting the reality of his crazily artificial visual worlds in the way they do in most of his films. And the computer-generated backdrops of New York feel completely artificial and thus become meaningless. Almodóvar's films certainly have plots, often quite convoluted (which is part of the fun), but they don't feel plot-driven, even when they are. "The Room Next Door", on the other hand, is all about its plot, and it is the weaker for it.

With talents like Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore (plus the estimable John Turturro) in front of the camera, there have to be, and are, some great, often very moving, moments - how could there not be, especially given the plot's central premise and the way it both reinforces and strains a longstanding , close friendship in its final days? But the wordiness of this screenplay undermines Swinton, in particular. Her awesome strength lies in her powerful, enigmatic presence and in her understatement. In my unscientific assay, she speaks as much dialogue here as she has done in at least the last three or four of her films (the ones I've seen, that is) combined. Think of her stunning performances in another fairly recent film about the fraught relationship between two women, "The Eternal Daughter" (2022), in which she plays, devastatingly, both an aging mother and her middle-aged daughter. The relationship between the two is subtle, shifting, complex, rich and involving - and yet so little of that is based on explicit dialogue. Or take her terrific performance in "Memoria" (2021), the enigmatic masterpiece of cosmic messaging by one of the greatest of all non-verbal directors, Apichatpong Weerasethakul. These are the kinds of films in which Swinton flourishes, going all the way back to "Orlando" (1992). (She did make "The Human Voice", speaking an extended monologue by Jean Cocteau - remarkable, and showing her versatility, but not characteristic of her.) In "The Room Next Door", she is required to deliver page after page of stilted - downright unnatural - prose in ways that are uncomfortable to watch and that are alienating, at least for this viewer. (This is all made worse by the upper-class, educated-American accent Swinton is required to employ. It's impeccably observed, as you would expect from her. But, as is so often the case with actors speaking lines in accents that are not their own, you sense that a lot of the energy that should be going into the interpretation is instead being directed into making sure they get the accent right. That is definitely the case here, especially since so many of her monologues are delivered in exceedingly tight shots.)

So I speak in sadness, as someone who's been an unconditional admirer of Almodóvar going back to the 1980s. His films have always been based on his own very peculiar, very specific vision of a Spanish culture that may never have existed in reality, but in which he makes us want to believe. Stepping out of that into English and into such a different, and less compelling, American world appears to have been a mistake. Let's hope that Almodóvar, as he pursues his amazing, extended, and rich career, will quickly go back to being himself, not the unnatural, wordy, uncompelling version that we are given here. This one, I fear, was a mistake.