The Faces of ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER

    

A piercing close up of Chase Infiniti, one of the film's finest performances

*this review contains loose thematic spoilers and some allusions to the film's ending*

    As loaded a quote as it may be, when Jean-Luc Godard said, “all you need to make a movie is a girl and a gun,” he did so with a maddening simplicity equaled only by its political fervor. The default conceit of the statement speaks to both a narrative efficiency that perhaps ought to be considered more frequently in movies yet subtextually also to the exploitative nature of the artform itself. In something of blunt summary: all you need to make a movie is something that will satisfy an audience’s fetishes; something pretty to look at, be it an actor or an image, and something of inherent drama, i.e. something exciting, even something violent. Cinema has, of course, long been considered and dissected for its inherent voyeurism and while Godard’s classic consideration worked as a mission statement for his pictures, most of his early period features can be distilled almost completely to this sentiment, it is this other side of the coin that perhaps is more instructive in our modern landscape. Beyond the making of films, maybe Godard was offering almost a lament that cinema had never, and maybe could not, extend beyond its innate exploitative impulses. Not only are a girl and a gun all you need for a film, perhaps they are all that a film could ever aspire to achieve.

    With that backdrop, into that world, not unlike its central daughter character, arrives One Battle After Another, perhaps the first Paul Thomas Anderson film that in its most basic rendering could perhaps be reduced to this sentiment. The previous films of PTA have hardly been known for their simplicity, from his early work peddling in grandiosity, hordes of characters and often successfully landing platitudes of human nature to his “weed Dad” current period, the tapestries he weaves demonstrate a clear mastery, pardon the pun, of the cinematic form, even if the fetishistic mania Godard may have equal parts endorsed and criticized is a typical hallmark of his pictures. PTA is a filmmaker of clear visual virtuosity who understands the power of an image, one who is not afraid to include them, a conviction, be it thanks to corporate interference or otherwise, all too rare these days, yet even as his images are frequently flourished with grace notes and even overt text of humanity, the films all at least flirt with provocation and often exist ultimately within exploitation. Yes, there have, until now, seldom been guns in his pictures, and while there are many complex women across the Anderson filmography, it is men who take center stage in his films, perhaps no small reason for why his fan base is so predominately male dominated.

Anna Karina with a gun in Jean-Luc Godard's Pierrot Le Fou

Teyana Taylor with a gun in one of One Battle After Another's most instantly memorable images

    One Battle After Another centers itself around a man as well, nor does the picture break free of this reading of Godard’s constraints, falling guilty of similar pitfalls. The film certainly dabbles in fetishistic/exploitative tropes, and not unlike other inspired works such as New-Wave Godard, or even early Bob Dylan, seizes the trappings of revolutionary action without aligning itself clearly to any specific political movement. The film, itself a multi-million dollar corporate endeavor (indeed a product though my esteem for the picture gives me a perhaps unearned hesitance to employ that word openly), is compromised in its very existence from making any kind of truly revolutionary statement, though its execution is imperfect even in what it can depict.

    And yet, perhaps by virtue of sheer cinematic mastery, One Battle After Another emerges as the most emotionally resonant, indeed crowd pleasing, and yes politically sound, film of Anderson's career, and likely of the whole year. The film, if still failing to align itself with a more clear political worldview as something like Eddington did earlier this year, reframes its considerations upon an intimate, cross generational setting, allowing for the ideas to be dramatized rather than simply stated. The film is one of distinct personality, informed by the wealth of cinematic history. No, none of these elements free the film fully, but its ultimate victory is found even despite a plot distilled of the girl and the gun variety, of the exploitation, due to true commitment to genuine inspiration, and perhaps even then action. The previous generation, of revolutionaries that the film depicts, of activists, of filmmakers, of artists, indeed did not, and are not today, finishing the job. The previous generation has failed and the enemy, as hapless as they are, is ever powerful. However, in this resignation, One Battle After Another, sees resolution and a future. If one generation can no longer remember the passwords, the next generation might finally invent some new ones.

    This, of course, is a contradiction. How can a film guilty of Godard’s sins and warnings, still result in a success? To those that reject this conclusion, I do offer understanding, yet in response, I have a few considerations of my own. For one, to be imperfect is to be human, and to be human is, especially in our world today, something if not indeed vital, a beautiful thing. This is not a statement in defense of the film’s (and especially any of the real life participant’s) shortcomings but rather a praise of its efforts, which I find worthwhile. Supporting my sentiment is certainly the film’s mesmerizing execution and style which in and of itself provides some evidence.

    In exploring the cinematic achievements of the film one could choose to highlight the array of career best performances, the beautiful camera work and editing, even the impeccable Jonny Greenwood score, yet I think yet another legendary director’s quote might illuminate further one of the reasons I found the film ultimately remarkable. It would only take a cursory glance at the films of Ingmar Bergman for there to be little shock when hearing he believed that “...the human face is the most important subject of cinema,” yet, even if that sentiment may seem simplistic, all too often the human face is underused if not outright neglected. In my Utah Film Center workshops with elementary schools, it is the close-up of a face that I try to highlight above all else. When demonstrating these close-ups, I implore the class to describe to me why a director might choose to employ a close-up and while the answers are sometimes not immediately forthcoming, eventually, no matter the grade level, someone points out that you can see the emotions of a person far more resonantly when they are filmed in a close-up.

a close-up

    The human face is then its own vehicle of spectacle. While there is perhaps nothing more commonplace, the cinema is a uniquely suited artform to maximize its view. We are afforded a chance to witness our own like visages in a larger and more specific context than what would be possible to us in daily life. It is then, perhaps even more than anything special effects or narrative hijinks can produce, the default spectacle maker of the cinematic form, evidenced across the history of the medium. Thus, it begs the question, if the human face remains one the greatest assets in the artform, and one that is relatively inexpensive, except for in the case of Leonardo Dicaprio, why is it so often neglected? A mere perusal through the frames of the average Hollywood blockbuster, will reveal very seldom today does the camera truly invest itself with any degree of closeness or intimacy, settling for the more easily salvaged, and ever comfortable, medium compositions of average coverage. Even in something that might qualify as a close-up, the shots hardly attempt to peer into the intimacy of the performer. One mainstream exception to this would be Oppenheimer recently and now again with One Battle After Another, where frame after frame allows the camera to truly interact with the faces of its characters. Indeed the central spectacle, and in turn conflict, of the film is played out almost exclusively through a montage of human faces, its grand scale not reduced but indeed elevated in the process. Even during the film’s climactic, utterly genius, car chase, the movie never loses sight of the close-up, and in so doing the vital undercurrent of the film at large.

 

I'm thinking we may not appreciate Benicio del Toro enough

I would have loved even more Regina Hall

    This one choice by Anderson, ends up allowing the film’s metaphorical consideration to land. This is a film of would-be political fervor, especially in aesthetics, and indeed “hot button” ideas. Some of them land well, others, especially some related to Black representation, land with varying degrees of inauthenticity and exploitation, yet the film’s central emotion, and as such its central thesis, remains intact within the carefully framed, dynamically edited and wondrously performed faces of its characters. Yes, Perfidia deserved perhaps more screentime and certainly less fetishizing, but the performance Teyana Taylor gives is not only magnetizing but deeply nuanced. Chase Infiniti bursts onto the screen in her debut, seizing the film’s third act, and likely deserving more of the second, yet her power is never in doubt by virtue of her performance, and the camera’s willingness to actually depict it. Never has Regina Hall been this concerned or conflicted. Never has Benicio del Toro provided so much solace. Never has Sean Penn’s (with his, as one friend observed, Hideo Kojima like name) lower jaw moved in such a way. And in what is surely a culmination of recent pathetic men, never has Leo succeeded so fully upon a line of comedic desperation and genuine humanistic pathos.

    Ultimately, One Battle After Another is an imperfect, and yet perfect, film. I was enraptured with it upon my first viewing and I was enraptured with upon my second viewing, even if I did feel more aware of its failures. Yet, failure is perhaps the most vital pain with which the film paints. Leo’s Bob Ferguson is by all means a failure, and yet, in all his pathetic running and forgetting and tumbling, there is indeed grace in his actions. Teyana Taylor’s Perfidia is guilty of a myriad of lapses, yet she lives for something and passes that fervor onto the future. Even Penn’s Lockjaw ends up a failure, consumed by the very machine he upholds (a wrinkle perhaps more finely executed and expanded upon in this year’s season of Andor). Infiniti’s Willa, and Benicio’s Sensei, are then perhaps the film's only characters to not fail, yet in their success we find the film’s great inspiration. The cause continues. Maybe Godard was right, maybe all a movie can be is an exploitative, fetishistic, exercise in capitalism, yet as One Battle After Another exemplifies, what to me seems to be, the absolute best a film can be today, it does so in full belief that the films of tomorrow will be better, and in that I take inspiration.

I've seen One Battle After Another in IMAX twice already which I can't recommend enough.