Hunter Livingston | Heatwave / 2021

the intrusive mother who finally has nothing to say

by Douglas Messerli

 

Hunter Livingston (screenwriter and director) Heatwave / 2021

 

Avery Shaffer’s (William Lund) mother Michelle (Alicia Harding) is more than a little annoying, she is a demanding figure, as he puts it “always there,” calling out for him to clean the pool and do other chores. It is as if the young teenager has no longer any life but fulfilling the needs of his endlessly demanding mother.

     Even worse, a heatwave as descended upon his community, and the air conditioning is no longer properly running.

     His mother does work hard in the garden and elsewhere, but accuses him of speaking on the phone to his girlfriend, when he might have already been done with chores.

     But then, quite by accident, he meets a classmate from his school that he has never before known, a cute boy named Peyton (Chad Eargle). But just as he begins to get to know him, his mother’s harsh voice demands that he finish up his work. Without even knowing it, she has become a kind of harridan who cannot stop her commands her actually even deal with his son’s youthful angst and she endlessly makes beds and does household chores. She is a kind of disgusting model of the hard-working mom, without even imagining that her son might be seeking out something other in his life.

    As he checks out the pages of his school yearbook, Avery is in a sweat about more that just the high temperatures and lack of proper air-conditioning. Without a husband obviously, Michelle attempts to fix the air conditioning unit herself, frustrated that her son can’t even produce the right wrench. But she is also curious about the new boy which she has just noticed, and wonders why he might not hang out with him.

     But, of course, they are not real friends, despite his interest in the handsome classmate whom he doesn’t even remember. “You two should “hook up” some time.” He attempts to explain to her what that phrase actually means, while at the very same moment, wishing that he might actually do so.

     He explains that in his world, it means to have sex with somebody, for which she apologizes, but still encourages a friendship, which perhaps he might actually desire. He dives into the sink just to cool himself off, obviously from the heat, but just as certainly from what might be happening within.

     His busybody mother also comments that he should invite his female friend over for dinner, something she has evidently done many a time. He explains she is merely close friend and that they are not dating. He argues that she never listens to what he says, but she insists she does listen. She just thought their relationship was something more. He explains that he can actually “talk to her,” his mother feeling the rejection of her own skills at communication which so many parents to feel when their children turn the age when they feel they have no sympathetic skills anymore. It clearly hurts.

      Avery recognizes, however, that he has in fact hurt her and before going to sleep speaks through the crack of her room, wishing her goodnight and telling her he loves her. This is a good son despite their perceived differences and this time in his life.

     But Avery can’t sleep and again opens his computer to check on his previously unknown classmate, Peyton, becoming somewhat obsessed with him. Avery is slowly realizing that his true attraction is to other boys, but his has no guidance, and given the heavy presence in his life of his mother, he feels alienated, unable to even express himself.

     All is left to him is to masturbate, but the intruding mother, hearing the beep of their ill-functioning air-conditioner even enters his room to complain, interrupting even the one imaginative possibility this young man has.

     She is “always there,” a force to be constantly reckoned with.

     Once more we see him cleaning the pool as his mother returns home with groceries. This time she enters his room with the excuse of making his bed. But that doesn’t stop her from eyeing his computer.

     Later in the day she demands his help after another visit to the grocers, as he empties the sacks and put the provisions away in cupboards. But to his amazement, she gently rubs, just for a moment, his back, a gesture of love.

     Back in his room, trying to cool down with the fan, he discovers his computer open, still on. And he realizes of course that he has seen his recent visits to the images of Peyton.

     Nothing has been said, but we know she has recognized and finally accepted her son for who he is. She has, after all, listened. And he suddenly perceives that same thing.

      If this is not great filmmaking, it is the nonetheless, one of the best of senior graduate projects from the numerous film schools across the nation, this one from the noted program at New York University, The Tisch School of Film. The quality of this short film is excellent, and its subtle messages are worth listening to. It’s almost a model of student filmmaking.

 

Los Angeles, September 1, 2026

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (September 2026).

John Ford | Four Sons / 1928

mother bernle's tests

by Douglas Messerli

 

Herman Bin, H. H. Caldwell, and Katherine Hilliker (credits), Philip Klein (adaptation, from a story, "Grandma Bernle Learns Her Letters" by I. A. R. Wylie), John Ford (director) Four Sons / 1928

 

John Ford's significant silent war movie, Four Sons, begins in an absolutely idyllic Bavaria, replete with Bavarian costumes, a comical postman, a goat-bearded schoolmaster, a rotund cafe proprietor, and numerous others coming directly out of a Hollywood costume shop. Myself, I have never quite cozyied up to Bavarian stereotypes, but Ford presents them as part of an idyllic German lifestyle, at the center of which the fortunate Mother Bernle (Margaret Mann), whose birthday is the focus of the first few scenes, as she celebrates with the village types and, most importantly, with her strapping four sons, one, already a soldier, the others pleasant fellows beloved by the village maidens. Yet during these celebratory acts, it is she, more than any others, who seems to be on the giving end, sharing her new baked honey-cakes with neighborhood children and cooking for the masses. 

     Into this gentle world, Ford tosses the Major von Somm (Earle Foxe), a new commander who is as ruthless and evil as any film villain, and who will remind some of the later Nazi character-types of World War II movies. Poor Bavaria, however, has no concept yet of the horrors they are about to face, as they lovingly sing and dance (absolutely charming numbers) in celebration of Mother Bernle and their own traditions.

    By accident one of the sons, Joseph (the handsome James Hall), has already crossed paths with the new commander, and has had his face slapped simply because some straw has fallen from the wagon in which he sat. Joseph is stunned by the incident, but ignores its implications since he is hoping to soon immigrate to the US. The family, however, has little money, and his chances of leaving seem slim, until Mother Bernle reaches into a secret box in which she has saved up some money that will allow him his dreams.

     The elder soldier brother is a bit stunned by the news, but Franz (Francis X. Bushman Jr.) and the young Andreas (George Meeker) seem in support of his adventure. Mother Bernle's celebration, accordingly becomes less a birthday party than a going-away party that hints at the push and pulls that will greet this family over the next years.

     Hardly has Joseph begun his journey before the two eldest sons, Johann and Franz, are drafted and sent to the Russian front with Major von Somm. While life continues somewhat normally in the village, the women can be seen packing boxes to send to the soldiers at the front. And Mother Bernle is quite willing to give up her own ration of soup to the nearby children, leaving only bread for herself and Andreas.

    Meanwhile, Joseph writes that he is doing well in the US, is about to open a delicatessen and, most important—for Mother Bernle—has fallen in love. She feels blessed, and through the film, turns to God with thanks, no matter what she faces. But her numerous tests are about to begin. Her friend the postman has the terrible task of delivering a black-edged letter, suggesting that someone has died. When Andreas reads her the letter, we discover that both of her sons have been killed in battle!

     In the US, which is still neutral in the war, Joseph further achieves success, demonstrated by his wife, Annabelle (June Colyer), bathing their fat and healthy new baby. Joseph's iceman friend (Jack Pennick) ribs him for his devotion.

     The German front is proceeding, and suffering has now reached the villages. With the loss of two sons, Mother Bernle appears more like a homeless woman than the hustling hausfrau of earlier scenes. Even worse, she is soon visited by the Major, chastising her for producing a "traitor" in Joseph. Ignoring the fact that she has already given the war two sons, he suggests that he cut off her rations and demands her youngest, Anders, appear at the barracks the following morning. Although she begs him to leave her the one son she has left, it is clearly pointless.

     One of the saddest and most beautiful scenes of the film represents her peering into the barracks window as Andreas' beautiful curls are shorn, leaving his head bald. Her attempt to deliver him food as the train pulls off is surely sentimental, but poignant through Mann's understated acting and Ford's attentive direction. 

     Joseph, as he know, has gone to war, and deep in the trenches with his former-iceman friend, he hears the cries of the nearby Germans, one of them calling out "Mütterchen, Mütterchen" into the night. As the other's fall asleep, Joseph sneaks out into the field, discovering a German soldier dying nearby. Joseph gives him some water as the young soldier reaches out in thanks, seeming to recognize his temporary savior. It is Andreas who dies in his arms.

     Again, the postman has the impossible task of delivery, which Ford, through the Expressionist device of a shadow of the postman and his envelope upon the wall, plays out as a tableau before the actual delivery. This final test for the old woman seems almost unbearable.

     The war has ended, and joy somehow returns to the little Bavarian village, although for Mother Bernle it is clearly too late.

     Returning home to the US, Joseph finds, much to his delight, that his wife has expanded the business and turned his small deli into a great restaurant and financial success. In Ford's hands, the jazz rhythms of the city seem almost to counterbalance the earlier harmony of the small European village. Here, despite the frenetic pushes and shoves of the city-folk, all the citizens appear friendly and helpful, a far cry from later depictions of American city-life. Joseph's return to his family is an event of great joy—save one small issue, brought up by his now speaking son, "Where's Grandma?"

     Joseph sends off a letter to his mother to come and live with them. But before she can be permitted to leave she must learn the English alphabet. She attends the local classroom, but is slow in learning it, and, as the day of examination appears, is obviously nervous. Through the encouragement, whispers and other machinations of her young fellow students, she stumbles through the English alphabet, giving rise to city-wide celebration.

    Once in Ellis Island, however, she is asked to repeat the alphabet before she can exit that door and enter the new world. Suddenly Mother Bernle cannot remember anything. While her family, who has come fetch her, waits, she and they are told she must stay overnight to attempt the recitation again the next morning. After all her numerous tests of faith and commitment to life, she has failed.

    The family bleakly returns home, only to be told by telephone that their mother has somehow escaped the island to enter the city. Mother Bernle, accordingly, has yet further tests to face as she enters the mêlée of crowds, the squeeze of subway body and faces, and the general distraction of city activity. Ford uses her final test as a kind of mise-en-scene of every immigrant come to New York, the challenges of that experience condensed into this final test for the old lady. She finally has no choice but to sit upon the curb of a street in complete dismay and despair of ever finding her last son.

     Police discover her and gently take her away. Despairing of finding their mother, for whom husband and wife have been on the hunt, they return home to discover the sleeping woman with their son upon her lap, a piece of the celebration cake eaten in their absence. Mother Bernle can finally enjoy her own being.

     There is no question that Four Sons is a sentimental, even at times maudlin story, but Ford and his actors most often rise above the simple piety of character and action to convey moving images of a vastly changing world in which even the old must transform themselves in order to survive.

 

Los Angeles, September 4, 2011

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (September 2011) and Reading Films: My International Cinema (Los Angeles, Green Integer, 2012).

 

Béla Tarr | A Torinói Ló (The Turin Horse) / 2011

work horses

by Douglas Messerli

 

Béla Tarr and László Krasnahorkai (screenplay), Béla Tarr (director) A Torinói Ló (The Turin Horse) / 2011

 

Tarr's great farewell to cinema direction begins with a kind of prologue, telling the story of Friedrich Nietzsche:

 

                       In Turin on 3rd January, 1889, Friedrich Nietzsche steps out of the

                       doorway of number six, Via Carlo Albert. Not far from him, the driver

                       if a hansom cab is having trouble with a stubborn horse. Despite all

                       his urging, the horse refuses to move, whereupon the driver loses his

                       patience and takes his whip to it. Nietzsche comes up to the throng

                       and puts an end to the brutal scene, throwing his arms around the horse's

                       neck, sobbing. His landlord takes him home, he lies motionless and

                       silent for two days on a divan until he mutters the obligatory last words,

                       and lives for another ten years, silent and demented, cared for by his

                       mother and sisters. We do not know what happened to the horse.

 

     The story that follows is not the story of Nietzsche's horse. This horse leads only a small peasant cart, not a hansom cab. And the action of Tarr's film clearly takes place on a small Hungarian farm, where the nearest town is miles off. The prologue merely sets the tone for Tarr's darkly brooding tale, filmed in black and white, the kind of life that the driver of the Turin horse might have lived were we able to follow him home.

    From the very beginning of Krasnahorkai's and Tarr's bleak story, a wind storm has suddenly come up, as the peasant Ohlsdorfer (János Derzsi) pulls both horse and cart for the final few miles home. Home is stone barn and house with only the most rudimentary of pieces of furniture: two beds, a large table, a stove which is constantly afire, a work bench, and little else. The floor is dirt.

   The moment Ohlsdorfer enters the yard, his dutiful daughter (Erika Bók) appears, almost ritualistically helping him to unharness their horse, before leading him into the barn, where she serves him up a meal of straw. With her father, the two open the larger doors to the barn, wheeling the small cart into place therein.

     When the two return to the house, the wind ceaselessly blowing up a torrent of leaves and other matter, the old man stands passively, as she, piece by piece, undresses him down his underwear and redresses him it what will be his housewear, the clothes which he will also wear to bed. During this process we gradually perceive that the older man is crippled in his right arm and hand, the reason for his daughter's participation in dress.

 

    She then puts two potatoes into a pot of water, cooking them until they are edible. Together the two sit, with only a salt cellar and their plates of potatoes upon the table, peeling away the potato skins with their fingers, breaking the potatoes into smaller pieces, and eating them hot, blowing from time to time on the potato pieces to cool them so that can put them into their mouths. This "potato-eating" scene is repeated again and again in Tarr's film, revealing not only their extraordinarily limited diet, but the horrifying repetition of their lives. Together they live a life not much better than cave-dwellers.

     The wind continues, and both father and daughter are nervous about the unusual event. For the first time in their lives, they cannot hear the sound of the wood worms, a strange phenomenon which neither can explain. Not much else is spoken. These two live in silence, with only a few commands coming from the father's lips. "Go to bed," etc.

     The next morning, their routine is made even more apparent, as the daughter, after dressing and quickly splashing water across her face, takes up two buckets, pushing through the whirling winds to the well, where she cautiously fills them before covering over the well and returning to the house. After the reverse of the ritual of the evening before, stripping her father of his house clothes and dressing him for the outside, they quickly drink a swig of brandy before retrieving the horse from the barn, pulling out the cart, and carefully hooking the horse up to it—the endless wind blowing their hair and other debris across their vision. This particular morning, however, the horse will not budge. Like the Turin driver, Ohlsdorfer grows angry and whips the animal, who still stubbornly refuses move. The daughter comes to the horse's rescue: "Can't you see she will not move?"

     Their actions with cart and horse are repeated and they return to the house, she to do the laundry, he to work on a belt. The storm continues, worsening. And what continues might be described as a musical dirge for the remainder of their lives.

     With only 30 long takes, Tarr repeats these actions, with very slight alterations, demonstrating the near total repetition and emptiness of their lives.  Over a period of six long days these two go about their chores—chores little different from the demands they previously put upon their horse Ricsi—and, we soon realize, fruitlessly enacting patterns of a destitute lives. Occasionally something happens: a neighbor stops by for more brandy, prophesying the end of the noble and the good in the world. A band of gypsies drives to the well, pulling up the bucket for a free drink, whereupon the daughter and father chase them off. But little else but the slow enactments of their engrained patterns occurs. The cold prevents them from ever completely undressing; the lack of facilities results in no opportunities to bathe; there is no time for anything but to survive.

   As the days move forward, however, so do some of their major resources begin to decline or disappear. The horse refuses to eat or drink, dying before their very eyes. The well suddenly goes dry.

   As things grow worse, the father orders up the handcart, as they quickly pack up necessities, and, tethering the horse to the cart, move off across the landscape with the nameless daughter serving as the horse. We see them as they disappear from camera view, only to reappear, returning to the house. The wind has been too much for them to survive a trip into the nearby village.

     Near the end of the film, everything is plunged into darkness, as their lamps, full of oil, refuse to light. Even the embers of the stove grow dim

     The two sit at table, the father attempting to eat a cold potato, while the daughter frozenly looks down, like the horse, refusing to eat. The storm suddenly stops, but so too, apparently, do their lives. They too have died in harness.

     In the AFI Fest showing of this film, several in the audience whispered how apocalyptic the film seemed, as the host asked Tarr about just such elements in all of his films, particularly in this one, which Tarr proclaims will be his last.

     Tarr, an energetic and self-effacing man, laughed. "Look, the apocalypse always occurs with fire and brimstone. Do you see any of that in this film? No, this does not represent the apocalypse, only life, where day after day we repeat ourselves, while things happen out of our control, and time gets smaller and smaller. This is life, not the end the world."

     A member of the audience asked about how he was able to get the storm to so forcefully blow during the several days of shooting. Again, Tarr laughed: "We used old-fashioned wind machines, but I asked the peasants from a local village to control them, and they did a far better job than film professionals. They knew the lay of the land."

    For me, the most interesting answer was Tarr's reply to why he shot in black and white. His argument, summarized, was that it declared that this was not "real" life but the artist's vision. In short, he seemed to arguing for the theatricality that black and white allows. "And I like the palette, black, white, and all those grays in between. Here we are next to the Kodak building, the film makers with all of their too bright reds, blues, greens. It fits my vision."

     Rankled by being asked again why he was giving up film directing, Tarr repeated, "I have had a great career, and done everything I wanted to try. And I have now come full circle. I want to keep that reputation in tact instead of just repeating myself, giving you more shit I've already finished with."

     The theater, I might add, was filled, a third showing added to the schedule. "The sun is shining out there," Tarr pointed to the street, "so I am so appreciative that all of you have come inside to see my dark and windy film. Perhaps it is not a real film; maybe a little more or a little less."

 

Los Angeles, November 10, 2011

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (November 2011) and Reading Films: My International Cinema (Los Angeles: Green Integer, 2014).

Kon Ichikawa | 細雪 (Sasame-yuki) (The Makioka Sisters) / 1983

swallowing the poison

by Douglas Messerli

 

Shinya Hidaka and Kon Ichikawa (writers), based on the novel Sasame-yuki by Tanizaki Junichirō, Kon Ichikawa (director) 細雪 (Sasame-yuki) (The Makioka Sisters) / 1983

 

Ichikawa’s beautifully filmed adaptation of Tanizaki’s masterwork begins in what is described as 1938 Osaka, at a time when families—in particular the noted Makioka family—join in strolls under the cherry blossoms. These first scenes of the film, rendered in the kind of oversaturated, but slightly fading images that we associate with the cinematic travelogues of the 1940s and early 1950s immediately tells us that this formal display of beauty represented by both the flowers and the carefully chosen kimono costumes of the major characters is a thing of the past, something that will not last.

     Indeed, there is a kind of fragility to all of Ichikawa’s scenes throughout the movie, a quality of the film, in its extended close-ups of characters and theatrically presented glimpses into family life, that makes us sense we are witnessing something that at any moment might collapse.

     Although Japan is at war throughout much of the film, and the shortages of food and products is every now and then mentioned, one would hardly know from the manner in which these sisters live that Japan was suffering any hardships. Daughters of a renowned shipbuilding father, the four Makioka sisters live in two houses, the larger house ruled over by the eldest, Tsuruko, her businessman husband (who has taken the Makioka family name) and their several children; the slightly smaller home is ruled by Sachiko, a more open-minded and practical woman, married to an accountant (who also is now a Makioka). Because of issues relating to a family “scandal”—the youngest sister Taeko has attempted to elope but the newspapers has mistakenly published the name of the third eldest sister, the quite properly behaved Yukiko—the two have moved out of Tsuruko’s rule and into Sachiko’s smaller domain.

       The plot of this complex interweaving of family life, in some respects, bares resemblance to a grand soap-opera; but unlike, say, the American play August: Osage County I review later in this volume, the family battles and sexual intrigues, for the most part, in the work are kept at the level of a whisper. And for that reason, the narrative, at times, is purposely thwarted as characters again and again are cut off in conversation and forced to recover their restraint as servants and other family members come and go; these people most certainly do “duke it out,” so to speak, but smile and bow as they thrust in the knife. The tension this creates demands the viewer pay attention to every word and gesture of this wonderfully talented ensemble, as politesse is subtly transformed into bitter hate, as love quietly acquiesces to despair and pain.

      On the surface, the major actions of these sisters center around the third eldest daughter as they attempt to marry her off to a suitable suitor before the independently-minded Taeko ruins all chances of family respectability—something that matters intensely to the Makioka brood.

     It is fascinating to watch the procedures as the family meets each potential husband for Yukiko. The formal first meeting with the suitor and family members, however, is repeated in more and more informal settings as Yukiko turns down each marriage offer. The final meeting, with a handsome, young man of a noted family, is a somewhat embarrassing get-together at the man’s own home. Higashiya seems to have tried out every career before becoming a worker in a aeronautics factory, but with him, sitting in the least formal of settings, Yukiko finally finds love.

     Taeko, meanwhile, who desires to become a doll-maker, and who lives alternatively with a young “rich kid” without any money and a photographer using her, it appears, to gain a studio, ultimately runs away from home again, this time with the owner of a local bar. When she tells her sister that she now is able to earn money by being a seamstress, we can only note the pained look of Sachiko, as she gently turns away, trying to hide her feelings of shame.

      It is this subtlety of feeling and expression along with the genuine love between the sisters and their husbands that saves this work from becoming a Dallas or August: Osage County, and rescues Tanizaki’s great study of mid-20th century Japanese life from a more course expression of stereotypes. Although Tsuruko may imperiously resist her husband’s decision to move his family from Osaka to Toyko, she ultimately gives in to his wishes, seemingly recognizing that despite her desires she cannot continue to live in the past. Although Sachiko clearly suffers over her husband’s illicit affair with Yukiko, she wisely refuses to transform it into a crisis, quietly determining to marry off her sister as quickly as possible.

        What is so touching about the relationships of these people is that none of them, except perhaps Taeko, will survive another year. As the fine, melting snow drifting to earth at the end of this film (the original title, Sasame-yuki, means just that: a fine, melting snow) these fragile women, dressed in their elegant wrappings, will likely be unable to suffer through the post-war destruction of Japan. In the last narrative sequence of the film, we witness Sachiko’s husband Teinosuke alone in a restaurant, drinking himself into oblivion as tears fall from his eyes. He has lost his illicit sexual partner, yes, but he seems also to be lapping up what he himself describes as “the poison” he and his family must soon swallow. It is their world, the world of people like the Makiokas, after all, that sent Japan into war.

      The final images, set to an almost militantly sweet melody, return us to the picture-postcard world of the early part of the movie, images that we recognize no longer can exist.   

 

  

Los Angeles, June 25, 2008

Reprinted from Nth Position [England] (August 2008) and Reading Films: My International Cinema (Los Angeles: Green Integer, 2012).