“Remake”
Ross McElwee’s “Remake” opens with a wry proposition: a Hollywood producer wants to turn McElwee’s 1986 documentary, “Sherman’s March” — the filmmaker’s meandering meditation on love, Southern culture, and romantic rejection — into a conventional scripted feature, perhaps even a comedy. Questions abound: Who would play McElwee? How could its accidental encounters and intimate revelations be scripted? McElwee picked up a camera to document the cinematic transformation but, as both efforts inched forward, McElwee’s film takes on a more painful tone. The Cambridge-based filmmaker’s lens turns inward on decades of footage of his son Adrian, who died from a fentanyl overdose in 2016 at age 27, eight years into McElwee’s project. In the rewinds, we watch Adrian grow from an imaginative, playful child into a sullen teenager and then a young man struggling with addiction, mental-health issues, and the burden of finding his own identity — particularly as an aspiring filmmaker living in the shadow of a celebrated documentarian father.
McElwee, an avuncular, reflective man whose deeply personal work has always blurred the line between home movie, essay, and autobiography, does not spare himself. Had the camera brought father and son closer, or placed an obstructive lens between them? Did appearing in his father’s films distort Adrian’s understanding of reality? And did Ross’s attempts to mentor Adrian — from “Sherman’s March,” we know his own father never encouraged his filmmaking — carry expectations the son could not meet?
For anyone who has seen “Sherman’s March,” the notion of turning the captivating documentary into anything else would seem improbable, if not wrong — but the outcome will surprise you. And that’s the gentle initial humor of “Remake,” underscored by McElwee’s patient cynicism. While there are moments of joy and tenderness with Adrian, those images — the two at Cannes with Adrian shooting his own mockumentary about a film honcho, Haskell-Wexler style — take on a secondary weight as the catalyst for “Remake” gets pushed to the corners of the frame. It’s a devastating film about the way grief slowly and surely guts you. “Remake” is as much a loving memorial as it is an agonizing act of self-interrogation. Some things can be remembered, revisited, and even remade — but never repaired.
Streaming on PBS and available on various VOD platforms including Prime Video
“The Runner”
Streaming giants use a soft-shoe tactic when they get stuck with a stinker that has big-name stars attached — no press or fanfare. The movie just shows up quietly in your watch queue one day, dropping like a tree in the forest. Last week, it was “The Whisper Man,” starring Oscar winners Robert De Niro and Michael Keaton on Netflix. This week, it’s “The Runner” on Prime Video with “Wonder Woman” portrayer Gal Gadot as Maia Marten, a London attorney and single mom squeezing in a run between dropping her young son off at school and heading to court, where she’s prosecuting a notorious kingpin who could go to prison for life. Halfway through her loop, Maia gets a call: Her diabetic son has been kidnapped, in a near coma, and will die if Maia does not release the key witness, held at a secret location. The mysterious voice on the phone belongs to chameleon actor Damian Lewis — so good as Steve McQueen in “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood” (2019), and more recently, as British General Bernard Law Montgomery in “Pressure” — playing the feathery operator in the service of the crime syndicate looking to subvert the court case. Directed by the capable hand of Kevin Macdonald (“The Last King of Scotland,” “Touching the Void”), the film becomes a rote race against the clock, as Maia sprints through crowded London roadways (she can’t use a car or a tram), occasionally stealing other people’s cells (her phone is under a hacker’s control) to try to contact authorities. There’s an unnecessary backstory about Maia being an Olympic-level pentathlete with an abusive coach and father. As the runner, Gadot is angular and lithe, but the film is so mono-dimensional that you get bored long before Maia starts to huff and puff. Macdonald keeps the editing on pace and the action filled with cadence and purpose, although some of the slo-mo and jittery flashbacks detract. Despite the game effort, the ill-conceived premise should never have made it to the starting line.
Streaming on Amazon Prime
“Filipiñana”
In “Filipiñana,” the audacious feature debut from filmmaker Rafael Manuel, rotting mangoes dot the otherwise immaculately manicured greens of a private golf course outside of Manila. It’s a handy encapsulation of the film, which slowly reveals the sickly underbelly of the verdant resort. Seventeen-year-old Isabel (Jorybell Agoto) is a “tee-girl,” whose job is to crouch inches from the swinging golf clubs in the driving range and place fresh balls on the tees. (She’s frequently framed between the legs of her wealthy, male clients, as if to drive home her subservience.) Through Isabel’s eyes, we get to know some of the other figures at the club: the charismatic owner and his disaffected ex-beauty queen wife; a lecherous businessman coaxing his college-educated niece to return from New York and rejoin Manila’s high society; a nanny searching the grounds for a missing girl. All are filtered through Isabel’s wry, observant gaze, as her simple task of returning a misplaced driver to the club’s owner becomes a surreal odyssey through increasingly pronounced class divisions.
Superficially, “Filipiñana” might be classified as “slow cinema.” Manuel tells his story patiently through long, unbroken takes, frequently silent but for the droning of cicadas and the chittering of sprinklers. Manuel and cinematographer Xenia Patricia shoot the proceedings in eye-popping, saturated color, allowing viewers to practically feel the sweltering heat and smell the fresh-cut grass. The dialogue is spare and deliberate, with long pauses between terse lines. If you were only half-paying attention, you might find the film relaxing.
But for all its gentle rhythms, “Filipiñana” harbors a bitingly satirical humor that rivals “Triangle of Sadness” (2022). In one early standout sequence, the workers at the club go about their morning chores with the lockstep syncopation of an MGM musical, cleaning up for the oblivious elite. Later, a horrifying discovery on the club’s grounds is dismissed with an even more horrifying callousness, as if it were just another unsightly branch to be pruned and discarded. At the center of it all is Agoto, who plays Isabel with a beguiling deadpan that masks a deep sadness. Though we don’t learn the extent of Isabel’s connection to the club until the film’s final moments, she serves as the perfect window to this deceptively alien world. With “Filipiñana,” Manuel establishes himself as a unique voice in world cinema, and it will be thrilling to see where he goes next. (Oscar Goff)
Playing at the Brattle Theatre through Wednesday, 9/16
A stronger
Please consider making a financial contribution to maintain, expand and improve Cambridge Day.
We are now a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and all donations are tax deductible.
Please consider a recurring contribution.
