“35 Shots of Rum” hit arthouses about two weeks ago in very-limited arthouse release. But it’s quickly become one of our favorite movies of the year so you need to pay close attention and track down this marvelous piece of cinema that examines the quiet mysteries of interpersonal relationships. — ed
The work of Parisian auteur Claire Denis has been cause célébre for many film critics over the last two decades. Her adoring supporters do backflips with the arrival of each one of her films, while detractors bemoan her frequent tendency to favor oblique narratives and veiled expression (read: emotional and thematic complexity). Now, Denis is 61 years old, and with each new film she gravitates away from the “provocateur” tag slung at her years ago, a label which never really fit her in the first place. Of her nine films thus far, only one (the bloody, vampire-erotica cautionary tale “Trouble Every Day”) could really offend anyone, and it’s also her worst film: a mixed attempt at moody euro-horror that’s more notable for its certifiably provocative ideas (the thin line between sex and violence), as well as its orchestral-jazz score by Tindersticks’ Stuart Staples and the sumptuous, rosy lensing of Denis’ trusted cinematographer, Agnes Godard. The auteur calls on both names again to add mood and texture to her new film, the delicate family drama “35 Shots of Rum.”
Denis regular Alex Descas plays black, middle-aged Lionel, a train operator living in a modest Parisian apartment with his shy, virginal daughter Jo (Mati Diop). Lionel begins to worry he may have sheltered his daughter too much as she, already in college, seems unwilling to strike out on her own. But when he urges her to “just feel free,” he later has difficulty accepting that freedom as she tries to exercise it. It’s a relationship as real and unsentimental as any depicted on the screen, and recalls the father-daughter bond of Yasujiro Ozu’s classic “Late Spring,” if only because “35 Shots of Rum” is in fact meant as an homage to the Japanese master. Which is fitting since Denis, like Ozu, is intent on taking her time, letting the scenes between Lionel and Jo play out with graceful precision; she pays extra attention to the way one’s hand strokes the other’s, and gives a soulful charge to a father’s long gaze at his daughter. And if you’re wired right, in Denis’ unhurried rhythms you’ll find a reflection of life effortlessly captured, a mastery exemplified in the extended centerpiece at the heart of “35 Shots of Rum.”
The occasion of a concert brings together Lionel, Jo, Tall French and Oily neighbor Noé (Grégoire Colin), and their landlord Gabby (Nicole Dogue). Noé’s advances toward Jo have been received with trepidation thus far, and Gabby’s heart-on-her-sleeve affections for Lionel, whose also her old fame, have fared just as poorly, but their night together will bring all these emotions to a boil. It starts when the car breaks down on the way to the concert in the middle of a torrential rain. Through the window they spy the vibrant red curtain of a small café, almost magically suggesting a warm paradise away from the misfortunes of their night.
Inside, a radiant hostess offers them towels to dry their bodies, which glisten in the café’s hot yellow light. “Siboney” creeps through the jukebox as Lionel dances playfully with Gabby, and then affectionately with his daughter. Lionel eyes the beautiful hostess and she notices him back. Then, just as The Commodores’ soulful and seductive “Night Shift” wafts in, the whole mood of the room changes. Noé cuts in on Lionel to dance with Jo and the two kiss. Lionel looks on disapprovingly, then takes the hand of the hostess and they dance together slowly. Gabby, from her seat at the bar, looks crushed. But if it sounds like a melancholy scene, it isn’t; there’s too much love in this room for bad vibes to drag it down, and as a lyric from the indelible “Night Shift confirms, “It’s gonna be alright.”
A stretch toward the end of “35 Shots of Rum” is almost as good. Jo drives to Germany with her father to visit her mother’s grave, and a flow of naturally beautiful images passes across the screen: Jo and Lionel adorn the grave with flowers; they camp out under the stars in a patch of tall grass, as Jo suggests, “We could live like this forever”; and finally, a parade of children with glowing red lanterns march over a hill set against a sunset-orange sky. The film heads back to Paris for its equally stunning coda, and it all ends on a note of uncertainty about the future, as any film which hopes to capture real life probably should.
Where Denis chooses to take her career from here feels just as uncertain; ’35 Shots’ seems like the end of an era for the auteur. Her prior films found characters unable to directly express how they feel, hindered by race or class distinction, stubbornness, jealousy, or an unfortunate disorder (the sexual-desire-cum-violent-impulse of “Trouble Every Day”). “35 Shots of Rum” then feels like the point at which her characters stop groping around for the right gesture — at least comparatively — and find a way to express how they feel. And since Denis has spent more than two decades studying and parsing that obscure object of desire, a little openness is something she’s thoroughly earned. [A] –Sam C. Mac
