Hold the Dark (2018)

Director: Jeremy Saulnier
Writers: Macon Blair, William Giraldi (Novel)
DOP: Magnus Nordenhof Jønck
Cast: Jeffry Wright, Alexander Skarsgård, James Badge Dale, Riley Keough

After the death of three children in an Alaskan village, suspected to be killed by wolves, writer Russell Core is hired by the mother of a missing six year old boy to track down and kill the wolf.

It is the latest from independent filmmaker Jeremy Saulnier which dropped on Netflix this weekend. It was the revenge thriller Blue Ruin which got him noticed and he followed up that with the excellent 'Green Room'. Both are violent genre films and the latter was an attempt to subvert some of the genre tropes. This is the first time he is working with a significant budget and he gets to mix several genres (western, noir, revenge thriller) here on an epic scale. Like 'Wind River' from last year, it is set in cold conditions and with native Americans and cops involved around a murder case. But the treatment couldn't be any different. Saulnier subverts the expectations by having racial groups play against type while it was the total opposite in Wind River, which was exactly my problem with the latter.

The makers have chosen to leave many things mysterious for the audience by choosing to not explain things. But is is not a deliberate effort to leave things open-enbed with they themselves not having a theory to explain it all. Sufficient clues are given and you get a tremendous pay-off when you figure it out. But the downside to that is that plenty won't do and will end up getting disappointed with it. I'll put my theory below with a spoiler alert. Overall the film is a great watch if you are a fan of ambiguous films and it will eventually go down as a cult classic. Performances are excellent and the violence is relentless. I'm really glad that films like this and Annihilation are getting made due to Netflix since we're never gonna get theatre releases here anyway for them as they are not shitty DC/Marvel films.

Rating: 4.25/5

                   ****SPOILER ALERT****

The kid being sickly, her eyes being supposedly same as her husband's and him being with her ever since she could remember: they all mean that there is incest involved and they are siblings. Russell describes how the wolves he sighted in the wild was eating one of their own and referred to it as savaging. That is what they are gonna do with the body after retrieving it at the end. It still doesn't explain the actions taken by the mother after the killing and it could be that she was having second thoughts. All the killings are people who got in the way. Them being Nordic in origin I think is a reference to the American discovery as Vikings are supposed to have reached America before Columbus did.

Green Room (2015)

Director: Jeremy Saulnier
Writer: Jeremy Saulnier
DOP: Sean Porter
Cast: Anton Yelchin, Imogen Poots, Patrick Stewart

A punk rock band is forced to fight for survival after witnessing a murder at a Neo-Nazi skinhead bar, which is quite secluded. They're trapped in the Green Room with a bunch of skinheads headed by their leader, Darcy played by Patrick Stewart, waiting outside to deal with them.

What prolongs the situation is that Darcy does not want any more people becoming aware of the murder and they initially try to lure the band out of the Green Room. Saulnier had called it the third film in his 'Inept protagonist' trilogy or 'Clusterfuck trilogy'. I have seen the second one, pretty well received 'Blue Ruin', which I found to be pretty good but little overrated. Not sure if I will find it better if I re-watch it now. The ineptness of the band members in dealing with the situation comes out well and that is quite realistic. Compared to them, the neo-nazis are pretty regimented and tactical. They're not portrayed as super smart super villains. Horror films are so associated with the supernatural these days that it was quite refreshing to see one that is purely situational. I didn't think of it much as a horror film while watching it but it is definitely aimed as a deliberate effort to subvert the genre clichés. There is even one instance where they think out loud that they should split up.

This is the second film I've seen recently where the protagonist/s are making dumb decisions one after the other. But Connie from Good Times gave us the impression that he is quite smart by making those decisions super quick with full conviction. In Green Room, we're aware that the decisions are dumb even as they make them. Overall, it is a very good watch if you can stomach the gore.

Rating: 3.5/5

Blue Ruin (2013)

Director: Jeremy Saulnier
Writer:    Jeremy Saulneir
Cast:       Macon Blair, Devin Ratray, Amy Hargreaves

A mysterious outsider's quiet life is turned upside down when he returns to his childhood town to carry out an act of vengeance. Proving himself an amateur assassin, he winds up in a brutal fight to protect his estranged family.

Film was crowd-funded through kickstarter and was screened at the Cannes where it won the FIPRESCI prize. Macon Blair plays the awkward assassin and the fact that he is not a well known actor helps us to relate to him imagining it to be how we will also behave if we dare to do it. I was reminded of the Malayalam film 'Thazhvaram' which was also a revenge film.  I liked Thazhvaram but thought it would have been a greater film if they hadn't shown the flashback to justify the revenge act. 

In Blue Ruin the back story is not shown but alluded to by the characters in their conversations. The film loses its steam in terms of the intrigue as it progresses with the characters and their motivations established. Still its a great watch. The great thing about it is that even though the protagonist has a noble end, if we think about it, we will realize that he fucked up big time by creating a needless shitstorm. To be fair he had no way of knowing.

Rating: 3.5/5