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

