Nuestro tiempo [Our Time] (Carlos Reygadas, 2018)

[lacritfan]

Carlos Reygadas’ Nuestro Tiempo

[dda1996a]

Having seen all his films except Silent Light and hearing him talk two days in a row really put me off Reygadas (who I think is one of the most empty art-house directors there are, and the most blatant Tarkovsky rip-off, wait till you hear the guy vomit everything Tarkovsky wrote about in Sculpting in Time) but then I read peoples reaction to Silent Light and have second thoughts. At least it's good to see he's moving away from things like Battle in Heaven

[Aunt Peg]

Drakes Avenue are releasing Carlos Reygadas' Our Time on Blu Ray (and DVD) on 23 September.

[zedz]

Drakes Avenue are releasing Carlos Reygadas' Our Time on Blu Ray (and DVD) on 23 September.

I watched this last night and liked it a lot. It has similar traits to Post Tenebras Lux, but is a lot more grounded and focussed. It's a very modern relationship drama (and, given the casting, presumably something of a psychodrama) partially tricked out as a western, and I was totally involved for three hours. There's a fair bit of ambient ranch business before the films settles on its subject: an 'open' relationship where the 'openness' barely masks a need for control. When Ester engages in a casual external romance, control-freak Juan becomes unmoored. He claims it's because she wasn't up-front about it, but it becomes clear that the sting goes a lot deeper than that. His need to regain control is such that he resorts to trying to orchestrate her infidelity, which drives the second half of the film. There are a couple of scenes that come off as gauche (in particular a great stalking scene late in the film that degenerates into a clumsy confrontation), but that's as much an expression of the characters and material as it is of the filmmaking. The film is punctuated by gorgeous set-pieces (and, as you'd expect from Reygadas, twilights), like the evocation of a boring car drive where the focus on the mechanics of driving drifts into an erotic reverie, or the misty closing cattle sequence.

I assume that Reygadas has attracted criticism for alleged hubris in casting himself and his wife in the lead roles, but they're both good in the roles, and this is clearly an extremely personal film for them, so I don't see any problem. And Reygadas' character, at any rate, comes off very badly in the film, so it's hardly a vanity project.

Reaction to the film seems to have been muted or mixed, but if you liked his previous work this is a fine continuation of what makes him such an interesting filmmaker.

Oblique warning: I stayed to the very end of the credits to confirm that no animals were harmed during the making of the film. They weren't. (There's a shocking bull attack early in the film that gave me pause.)

[jsteffe]

zedz, I greatly admired Our Time as well and felt that some of the criticism is misplaced as a projection of current cultural discourses around gender relations. Such a perspective in itself is perfectly natural and expected, and even obvious given the film's subject matter. But in some cases it has resulted in people overlooking the film's complexities and nuances. The Variety and AV Club reviews in particular come to mind. I respect Regyadas's decision to cast himself and his wife Natalia López in the lead roles, along with their children, and I think their performances are fine. They are clearly playing characters - it's not just self-regarding autobiographical psychodrama.

For me, the husband may have the most screen time, but our real sympathies lie with the wife. She is the true emotional center underneath the surface, and she is the one character who grows over the course of the film. The most important scene in the entire film is where she attends a classical music concert - a timpani concerto.

SpoilerShow

When Ester watches the female timpanist perform, it causes her to realize the extent to which she has sacrificed her own identity for her husband and family, and how she has squandered her own potential as a result. At least, that is my interpretation.

Many things are unstated, and we have to read between the lines, but it's there if you look. The fact that Mike D'Angelo calls the concert scene, along with other scenes, a "random rhythmic interlude" suggests that he was not actively engaging with the film.

Arguably, some aspects of the film work better than others, but that is partly a result of Reygadas continuing to experiment and take risks. Working with non-professional actors has some downsides, but so does having professionals do actor stuff before the camera. I think Reygadas ultimately made the right decision to cast the film they way he did. I also really liked how the film shifted to an epistolary format in the second half, but felt that the use of the daughter's voice at one point was jarring, if charming. It may be an imperfect film, but it's beautiful in its imperfection.

[zedz]

zedz, I greatly admired Our Time as well and felt that some of the criticism is misplaced as a projection of current cultural discourses around gender relations. Such a perspective in itself is perfectly natural and expected, and even obvious given the film's subject matter. But in some cases it has resulted in people overlooking the film's complexities and nuances. The Variety and AV Club reviews in particular come to mind. I respect Regyadas's decision to cast himself and his wife Natalia López in the lead roles, along with their children, and I think their performances are fine. They are clearly playing characters - it's not just self-regarding autobiographical psychodrama.

For me, the husband may have the most screen time, but our real sympathies lie with the wife. She is the true emotional center underneath the surface, and she is the one character who grows over the course of the film. The most important scene in the entire film is where she attends a classical music concert - a timpani concerto.

SpoilerShow

When Ester watches the female timpanist perform, it causes her to realize the extent to which she has sacrificed her own identity for her husband and family, and how she has squandered her own potential as a result. At least, that is my interpretation.

Many things are unstated, and we have to read between the lines, but it's there if you look. The fact that Mike D'Angelo calls the concert scene, along with other scenes, a "random rhythmic interlude" suggests that he was not actively engaging with the film.

Arguably, some aspects of the film work better than others, but that is partly a result of Reygadas continuing to experiment and take risks. Working with non-professional actors has some downsides, but so does having professionals do actor stuff before the camera. I think Reygadas ultimately made the right decision to cast the film they way he did. I also really liked how the film shifted to an epistolary format in the second half, but felt that the use of the daughter's voice at one point was jarring, if charming. It may be an imperfect film, but it's beautiful in its imperfection.

Great points. I liked the touch of diegetic letters (and texts) generally being read in the voice of the reader rather than the writer (which is, of course, closer to the psychological truth). I suspect that Reygadas was wary that professional actors might have tried to make the characters either too ingratiating or too overtly dramatic. Actually, I think the 'confrontation' scene comes off as problematic because it's too conventionally dramatic, whereas the main dynamic of the film is passive aggression. (The use of words like 'love' and 'darling' in the dialogue gets really hollowed out and needling as the film progresses, but that's in our reception of them, not particularly in their delivery.)

Another dimension of the (brilliant) scene you spoilered is that

SpoilerShow

Ester is publically namechecked as one of three "remarkable" women in attendance, and then is entirely defined in terms of how remarkable her husband is, unlike the other two. That speech also momentarily makes her suspect that her husband is deceiving her, in that the conductor announces that he's currently on his way to Canada to accept a literary award, when he isn't.

That concert sequence features wonderful music and wonderful montage, especially when the film slightly detaches from the concert to roam around and outside the concert hall, getting further and further away from the action as the ambient musique concrete of the city enhances and - very nearly, but not quite - overwhelms the concerto, before returning inside. Bravura filmmaking.

[kubelkind]

Good to finally see some love for this as it was one of my favourites from this year also. Can't understand why Reygadas gets so much flak. His films are wild and uneven but thats their strength for me, he really takes you on a journey. The UK trailer for this was perfectly awful, focusing mainly on the confrontation scene and making the film look like a maelstrom of fiery male rage and drunken brawling. I actually laughed out loud at the cinema when I saw it, it was so remote from my experience of watching the film.

[knives]

For me this was easily Reygadas' best film and a healthy step away from the more tiresome elements that cropped up in Post Tenebras Lux. By grounding his metaphysics in a story that not only is so real world, but also is thematically real world (trust in a relationship is probably the most fundamental theme there is) in a way he's never really tried before. That makes scenes like the goring ox which are so figurative more powerful than ever before. The psychology of their relationship opens up to a world cosmically removed from the relationship. The attack is both a comment for the audience to understand Ester and Juan through and a sign that the world doesn't care about their specific relationship and will send them (or at least the audience) new emotional effectors regardless of what they desire or would be thematically appropriate.

That's why, for example during their first major disagreement, played beautifully in tones given the children, the wind blasting sand around and preventing Reygadas from missing his mark at first is a wonderful mess to keep in. This is a film which survives by its messiness. That also probably suits how I watched the film. My hearing's not the best and so I got the Mexican DVD because it included subtitles in the extras. Unfortunately it turns out the subtitles were only for English language dialogue leaving me more stranded than I'd have liked to listening to the film.

[dda1996a]

I share your enthusiasm, but have you skipped Silent Light? Even Reygadas admits this and Silent Light are basically two parts of the same story. (The film does as well)

[knives]

It was the first film of his that I saw. I actually thought this had more in common with Japon which only served to highlight his artistic growth for me.

[dda1996a]

It does a little bit, but one of my favorite aspects of it is how it re-contextualizes Silent Light into Reygadas' own private life, which is one aspect of this movie that I find very interesting (that if the line between art and real life)

[knives]

I guess I don't take seriously the claims this is autobiographical so any reading dependent on that isn't compelling to me. Superficially I see the connection, but sick Eros strikes me as a small part of the film's larger goals with the mix of urban and rural being more valuable as a theme in Reygadas' work.

[dda1996a]

It's clearly not all based on the truth; I highly doubt Lopez would have agreed to it. But I do think a lot of is. The open relationship is also present in Post Tenebras Lux for example. But the past relationship mentioned here is very clearly the one dramatized in Silent Light.
But I just disagree with you regarding Reygadas'. Like Dumont, he is clearly at his best in the wilderness (even though both know how to photograph any space), and even in Japon there barely is any urban spaces (and it's too much of a Solaris ripoff to my eyes in it's first half). The only film of his that can be considered Urban is Battle for Heaven, and that is for me one of the worst art house films I have seen.

To be honest, like my feelings toward Dumont, I largely like both when they are compassionate and not so single-minded set on the Violence/Sex agenda. I'd take Reygadas' Silent Light and this way above the others (same with Dumont and Cammille, Hajdewich, and L'humanite)

[knives]

The main character in Japon is urban and urban characters play a very valuable role in Silent Light. I'll try to search for it, but years ago there was a great essay published which discusses Reygadas' economic language in relation to his urban/ rural language.