The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Wednesday, November 21, 2018 — 5A
JUNE PICTURES
SARAH KUNKEL / DAILY
ARTIST PROFILE
‘Wildlife’ asks too much
How many of our parents’ fires
can we be expected to put out?
When we get close enough to
know their fires — when we begin
to act as their friends — do we lose
them as parents?
Paul
Dano’s
contemplative
directorial debut “Wildlife” (an
adaptation of Richard Ford’s
novel of the same name) engages
with questions that shake familial
dynamics to their core, as the
film refracts the dissolution of a
marriage through the struggling
couples’ son.
In 1960s, small-town Montana,
Jerry Brinson (Jake Gyllenhaal,
“Nightcrawler”) loses his job as
a golf pro. In his despair, Jerry
decides to take a job fighting
the wildfire raging nearby and
sets his family’s tailspin in
motion. Fourteen-year-old Joe
(Ed Oxenbould, “The Visit”)
consequently becomes the sole
witness to his mother Jeanette’s
(Carey Mulligan, “An Education”)
rage in response to his father’s
rash decision, as well as her
primary confidant. Though the
ensuing story hinges on his
parents’ reactions to misfortune,
in the spirit of the novel that
inspired the film, it nonetheless
foregrounds
Joe’s
experience.
In doing so, it dares to tell the
familiar tale of marital discord in
an unfamiliar, important way. At
the same time, however, Dano’s
consistently contemplative tone
makes for a complicated viewing
experience.
Cinematographer
Diego
García’s (“Neon Bull”) inventive
camerawork
does
much
of
the work of emphasizing the
underrepresented
perspective
Joe embodies. Take, for instance,
how
conversations
are
shot.
During pivotal dialogues — his
father’s boss firing him, his
parents arguing over his father’s
decision to go fight the wildfire —
the camera redirects and zooms
in on Joe’s face, prioritizing Joe’s
witnessing of conversations over
other characters’ participation in
them, reminding audiences how
children are inevitably mired
in their parents’ actions and
reactions.
While the filmmakers endeavor
to respect Joe’s perspective, Jerry
and Jeannette are often too selfish
to realize they cross the line in
terms of what they say to and do
in front of Joe. In that sense, they
use him like a sounding board
and treat him like a sponge. In
one
unsettling
sequence,
his
mother brings him to the house
of the man (Ed Camp, “Loving”)
with whom she’s committing
adultery. His father later forces
him to retell and thus relive
this traumatic experience. As
countless other examples of his
parents’ overstepping accumulate,
you wonder: How much more can
the boy possibly take?
Over time, however, viewers
might ask the same of the
filmmakers.
Oxenbould
does
the best he can with his how-
could-you-do-that-in-front-of-me
face, but the film does not give
him the chance to show much
range.
Relatedly,
Oxenbould’s
Joe lacks perhaps not depth, but
breadth. Though his parents
use him like a sponge, had the
filmmakers allowed him to leak
every once in a while, to break
from his constant facial register,
to snap, perhaps he would have
seemed a little more lifelike and
a little less superhuman with
some bottomless capacity for his
parents’ problems.
Dano’s
consistently
contemplative
tone
likewise
compromises the statements he
seeks to make in “Wildlife.” There
is such a thing as contemplative
to the point of losing touch with
your audience, and “Wildlife”
always hovers on the verge of such
a breakdown. For example, even
the aforementioned technique
used to capture conversations
begins to feel overused with
time. Can inventive camerawork
compensate for cryptic dialogue?
Can it tell us all we need to know
about a character? Can it prop
up visual motifs — e.g. wildfires,
portraiture and frames within
frames — that one cannot help but
suspect might be symptomatic of
the book-to-film adaptation?
“Wildlife” does not concern
itself with providing audience
members any relief or gratification.
The brutal honesty of the film
is demanding, and its refusal of
gratification requires much post-
viewing reflection and turmoil
to arrive at any resolutions, no
matter
how
provocative
and
necessary the questions regarding
selfishness
and
parent-child
dynamics within a marriage may
be. While “Wildlife” may ask a
lot of the viewer, the question
each viewer has to ask in turn is
whether “Wildlife” gave enough.
JULIANNA MORANO
Daily Arts Writer
FILM REVIEW
“Wildlife”
Michigan Theater
June Pictures
On the corner of Fletcher and
South Thayer St. lies 202 South
Thayer — a quaint building often
overshadowed by the Modern
Language Building and North
Quad, with whom it shares the
intersection. Inside is the Institute
for the Humanities (among other
offices) and the art gallery situated
immediately to the left when one
enters through the doors.
This
semester
alone,
the
Institute for the Humanities has
backed two powerful exhibitions
tackling
contemporary
social
and political issues. In Sept. and
Oct., the gallery hosted Esmaa
Mohamoud’s “The Draft” — a
series of staged photographs that
comment on Black representation
in public spaces. The Institute
was also the driving force behind
“Luzinterruptus: Literature and
Traffic,” the one night instillation
of 10,000 books on Liberty Street.
Now, the Institute is hosting
Gideon Mendel’s “Deluge,” a video
installation contained within his
“Drowning World” project — a
photograph and video based work
that confronts the consequences of
climate change through floods.
Mendel got his start as a
photographer
in
his
home
country of South Africa in the
1980s. Mendel was known as a
“struggle photographer,” a term
for a small group of South African
photographers documenting the
drastic changes and hardships the
country was undergoing during
the final years of apartheid. This
dedication to chronicling adversity
and sociopolitical issues can be
seen throughout the rest of his
career. Mendel has produced photo
series on the HIV crisis, disabled
children in Africa and the “Jungle”
refugee camp in Calais, France. For
the past 10 years, Mendel’s primary
focus has been on his “Drowning
World” project.
“Deluge” is a tactfully edited
five-screen
installation.
When
one sits in front of the screens and
watches the 12 minute artwork
from front to back, the extreme
attention to detail is immediately
recognizable.
“(‘Deluge’) puts together all
the narrative concepts of the
Drowning World Project,” Mendel
said in an interview with The Daily.
Indeed, within “Deluge” there are
aspects of all three photo series in
“Drowning World”: “Submerged
Portraits,”
“Floodlines”
and
“Watermarks.”
The video begins with all five
screens displaying a “Floodline”
against
various
buildings
at
equal height. We then are moved
through the flooded cities and
landscapes. People slowly start to
appear in the frames, and we begin
to comprehend the toll the water
has taken on the communities. On
each screen, several beautifully
composed “Submerged Portraits”
JOSEPH FRALEY
Daily Blog Editor
Gideon Mendel’s ‘Deluge’:
Finding beauty in the flood
are shown one after another. A
full day pases before we start to
migrate into people’s homes with
them.
In
this
moment,
Mandel
positions his camera in such a way
that the viewer feels that they are
physically entering the house with
the homeowner for the first time
since the flood. The work ends
with a collage of “Watermark”
pictures with the sound of water
rushing in the background. Mandel
describes “Deluge” as “a journey,”
and I certainly agree. The journey
grants a holistic view of the flood’s
impact.
Adjacent to the gallery space is a
multipurpose room, which Gideon
described as: “is in conversation
with the other room,” where some
of his work is also on display. It
is a space he has “been given the
opportunity to do whatever he
wants with.”
With this freedom, he has
chosen to include images from the
three photo series of the project,
as well as display a looping video
titled: “67 film clips of South
Carolina.” The South Carolina
footage serves as a window into
Gideon’s process. We can hear
him giving instruction to subjects,
commenting on the nature of his
shots and moving through the
spaces.
The first thing I noticed about
the
“Submerged
Portraits”
displayed in the multipurpose
room was the monotony of each
subject’s gaze into the camera.
Gideon describes it as, “a moment
of connection” with the subject.
It would be easy for each person’s
face to illustrate pain or hope, but
the poker-faced expression of every
flood victim causes a conversation
to take place between them and
the viewer. What are they feeling?
Where do they go from here?
All of these people throughout
the world are experiencing the
ramifications of global warming
in tandem. They live thousands of
miles apart and their suffering is
separated by years, but they are all
linked through the water’s seizure
of their homes.
“(Gideon’s work) forces us to
ask ourselves difficult questions,”
gallery curator Amanda Krugliak
said in an interview with The
Daily.
A primary reason I find Gideon’s
work alluring is the aesthetic
quality that damage adds to the
pictures and videos. On the back
wall of the multipurpose room is
a group of framed “Watermark”
pictures. The “Watermarks” are
old family photos that have been
damaged by the flooding water.
Although what originally took up
the frame is mostly destroyed, the
water has added color and texture
to the photographs that otherwise
would be absent. The distortion
of the pictures lure the viewer in
and begs the questions: What is
our position as an audience if we’re
enjoying Gideon capturing the
plight of these people, and does the
audience become morally corrupt?
Perhaps what Gideon provides
is, as Krugliak put it, “a face” for
the drowning world. Flooding in
Europe and the United States alone
has rapidly increased over the past
10 years due to climate change, and
the curve is exponential. By 2040,
it’s estimated that the total flood
days in one year for 30 U.S. coastal
cities will multiply by 18-fold.
It’s easy for us to dismiss
flooding as a result of climate
change, especially when, here
in Michigan, we aren’t directly
subjected to its effects. Part of the
reason Krugliak chose to exhibit
Gideon’s work was to “show us
something that would connect us
to what’s going on beyond here.”
The aesthetic quality of Gideon’s
work forces us to pay attention, to
wash away our apathy and imagine
if our own spaces underwent a
wave of destruction.
SARAH KUNKEL / DAILY
Here’s a take from a former
Daily Arts writer: Why do we tend
to gravitate towards an artist’s
pre-fame albums rather than the
ones made once they’re signed
to a big label? Shafii originally
used Chief Keef’s Finally Rich and
Playboi Carti’s Die Lit as examples,
but Anderson .Paak’s Oxnard,
also falls into this category and
simultaneously
complicates
it.
Months before the album came
out, when “Bubblin’” was released
as a single, it was obvious .Paak
was headed in the direction of “I’m
rich now.” Everything about the
single plays into extravagance and
ostentation: “I been, broker way
longer than I been rich so until it
levels out / I’ma take your mama to
the Marriott and wear it out.” He’s
wearing a fur coat in the music
video and straddling an ATM. He
models himself after Salvador Dali
while spraying cash. But the thing
about .Paak’s excessiveness is that
it’s fun. You can’t be upset about
his cheekiness when the music
and the rapping reaches towards
perfection.
Despite three singles which
continually raised the stakes for
this album (“Bubblin,” “Tints”
and “Who R U?”) Oxnard doesn’t
meet the standards .Paak has set
for himself. Malibu — his second
album, which he independently
released in 2016 before being
signed to Dr. Dre’s label — was a
masterpiece, and because of its
commercial success, the world
was finally introduced to .Paak’s
signature rasp and R&B. This
was his come up, and combined
with his debut Venice, .Paak
drew attention from Dre as well
as countless other artists whose
songs he’d soon have features on.
But Oxnard, no longer his come up
but his claim to fame, he tries to
do too much, making the 14-track
album drag on rather than breeze
through.
There are high points to
Oxnard: The opening track, “The
Chase,” is a breathlessly beautiful
combination of neo-jazz and soul
that has .Paak stumbling over his
words as a chorus of drums and
flutes unfolds in the background.
We are eased into “Headlow,”
“Tints”
and
“Who
R
U?”
seamlessly, and the direction .Paak
is taking with the album is clear.
There seems to be a break down
of his traditional R&B sound.
His flow is slower, he’s taking
his time on these tracks, but the
payoff is still sultry and smooth. “6
Summers,” one of the high points
of the album, takes on the role of
the album’s most overtly political
track: “Trump’s got a love child,
and I hope that bitch is buckwild.”
Even at his most serious, Cheeky
Andy remains cheeky, and these
are the lyrics that will be following
the presidency around for the next
six summers or until Trump is out
of office.
It’s after these first few tracks
that the album starts to dip off.
“Saviers Road” and “Smile/Petty,”
while incorporating more funk-
styled influence than we’ve heard
from .Paak in the past, seem to
hold .Paak back from what he’s
good at. He never hits his stride
with them, and the same can be
said for “Mansa Musa.” Between
the Dr. Dre and Cocoa Sarai
features, the song comes across as
more of a “King Kunta” pastiche.
There are points when it feels like
.Paak is going to hit the flow that
both made Malibu a triumph and,
more recently, made “Bubblin’”
a summer essential, but he never
quite gets there.
It
must
be
said
that
in
comparison
to
the
flawless
features .Paak always delivers to
other artist’s music, they don’t
do the same for him. For such a
feature-heavy album, there are
only a few who seem to match
.Paak’s rhythm and vocals. Kadhja
Bonet, Pusha T and Snoop Dogg
deliver, while J. Cole, Q-Tip and BJ
The Chicago Kid fall and falter. On
“Brother’s Keeper” Pusha T brings
Daytona to Oxnard. The guitar and
drums fall heavy, leading to an
immersive and sprawling track
that sets it apart from the light-
hearted songs to come before it.
But from the heaviness comes
a breath of fresh air: “Brother’s
Keeper” which ends in .Paak’s
desperate voice calling, “How I
ever, ever let you go?” takes a left
turn and sends us straight into
Snoop Dogg’s “blunts.” Hand him
his mink, .Paak.
Is this a going to be a bad take?
Maybe, but I genuinely think
that the Snoop Dogg feature on
Oxnard is the best of them all.
In the Pitchfork review, Torii
MacAdams calls Snoop Dogg the
Willie Nelson of rap music these
days. And, despite this being an
extremely Pitchfork claim to make
in a hip-hop review, it holds some
truth. Snoop comes through on
“Anywhere”
and
immediately
lightens the mood, and beside
Kendrick Lamar on “Tints,” he
seems to be the only collaborator
on the album who can match
.Paak’s smooth lyricism. It’s the
California
double-feature
the
second half of this album needed
to stay afloat.
Where .Paak succeeds on this
album, his collaborators appear
to fail and vice versa. “Trippy” is
a funk-infused, sprawling song
that has potential until J.Cole
comes in with no regard for the
tone of the song and marrs it. The
Q-Tip feature places him second
to Snoop and sounds, if anything,
uncomfortable. But even when
.Paak isn’t doing his best, he’s
still doing better than most. We
saw him on his rise, praised this
new R&B sound a Cali-raised
boy gifted us with on Venice and
Malibu and expected even more
from an album born and bred in
.Paak’s nouveau riche lifestyle. In
trying to do too much though, in
trying to bring this “I’m rich now”
extravagance to Oxnard, .Paak
falls short.
NATALIE ZAK
Daily Arts Writer
Oxnard
Anderson .Paak
Aftermath
Entertainment
Anderon .Paak’s ‘Oxnard’
offers funk but little else
ALBUM REVIEW