David R. Walker

Archive for the ‘Chloe Zhao’ Category

Hamnet

Director: Chloe Zhao

Cast: Jessie Buckley, Paul Mescal, Joe Alwyn, Emily Watson, David Wilmot, Jacobi Jupe, Noah Jupe, Olivia Lynes, Bodhi Rae Breathnach

Running Time: 2 hours and 5 minutes

Film Rating: 9.5 out of 10

Oscar winning director Chloe Zhao weaves her cinematic magic in a beautiful yet gut wrenching masterpiece of a film, Hamnet based upon the acclaimed novel by Maggie O’Farrell and produced by Steven Spielberg, Pippa Harris and Sam Mendes amongst others.

Set in Stratford upon Avon and London, Hamnet traces the early life of William Shakespeare, his courting of the headstrong and pastoral Agnes through their wedding and subsequent birth of their three children. While Will is away in London quietly becoming one of England’s greatest playwrights that ever lived, Agnes is dealing with her three children – Susanna played by Bodhi Rae Breathnach and twins Hamnet, the only boy played by Jacobi Jupe and his sister Judith played by Olivia Lynes.

With an absent father, Agnes in a breath taking performance by Jessie Buckley who deserves every acting accolade under the sun, discovers that Judith the weaker of the twins contracts the pestilence brought to England from Europe in 1596. Her twin brother Hamnet is distraught that his sister is sick but also that his mysteriously brooding and famous father is continually absent. But Shakespeare told Hamnet to be brave.

In an effort to cure his sister of her devastating illness, Hamnet shares a bed with his sick sister.  

There is no greater strain on a marriage than the loss of a child and director Chloe Zhao paints a beautiful portrait of a young couple trying to survive a terrible tragedy. When Agnes is paralyzed by grief, her brother Bartholomew played by Joe Alwyn (The Brutalist) urges his sister to go to London to see what accomplishments young Shakespeare has created. Agnes’s stepmother tells her that Shakespeare has written a new play and it’s not a comedy but a tragedy, a monumental meditation on mortality, betrayal and grief. Hamlet, one of the greatest and most complex plays ever written.

Oscar nominee Paul Mescal (Aftersun) is brilliant as the ambitious and frustrated playwright William Shakespeare who has to sacrifice being with his family in order to achieve literary fame. At the emotional centre of Hamnet is Agnes, a heart wrenching performance by Oscar nominee Jessie Buckley (The Lost Daughter) who is so angry at what the fates have given her, even though her destiny of only having two surviving children is chillingly fulfilled.

On every level Hamnet is a masterpiece from superb performances by the two main leads, to the remarkable young actors including brothers Jacobi Jupe playing young Hamnet and Noah Jupe playing the fictional character of Hamlet to the recreation of the Globe Theatre.

A masterful adaptation of a beautiful novel, Hamnet is an authentic and classic film portraying how grief can tear families apart but how literary success and fame can serve as a method of dealing with such untimely tragedy.

The last half of Hamnet is captivating, from its production design by Fiona Crombie who also did The Favourite to the musical score by Max Richter to the excellent Elizabethan costumes by Malgosia Turzanska.

Hamnet will appeal to lovers of Shakespeare and literary films which are skilfully told. In this case it is the sacrifice of a child that is the origin of a famous tragedy. Hamnet is immersive viewing, extremely sad but absolutely brilliant. Director Chloe Zhao is a master of her craft.

Hamnet gets a film rating of 9.5 out of 10 and is highly recommended for anyone that loves film and theatre. A masterpiece that Shakespeare would be proud of.

93rd Academy Awards took place on Sunday 25th April 2021 at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, the Union Station in Los Angeles, California and at The British Film Institute in London, United Kingdom

Best Picture: Nomadland

Best Director: Chloe Zhao – Nomadland

Best Actor: Anthony Hopkins – The Father

Best Actress: Frances McDormand – Nomadland

Best Supporting Actor: Daniel Kaluuya – Judas and the Black Messiah

Best Supporting Actress: Yuh-Jung Youn – Minari

Best Original Screenplay: Emerald Fennell –Promising Young Woman

Best Adapted Screenplay: Florian Zeller and Christopher Hampton – The Father

Best Cinematography: Erik Messerschmidt – Mank

Best Costume Design: Ann Roth – Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

Best Make up & Hairstyling: Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

Best Visual Effects: Tenet

Best Film Editing: Mikkel E. G. Nielsen – Sound of Metal

Best Sound: Sound of Metal

Best Production Design: Mank

Best Documentary Feature:  My Octopus Teacher (South Africa)

Best Documentary Short Subject: Colette

Best Live Action Short Film: Two Distant Strangers directed by Trevon Free and Martin Desmond Roe

Best Original Score: Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross and Jon Bastiste – Soul  

Best Original Song: Fight for You – Judas and the Black Messiah

Best Animated Feature Film: Soul

Best Animated Short Film: If Anything Happens I Love You

Best Foreign Language Film: Another Round – directed by Thomas Vinterberg (Denmark)

Nomadland

Director: Chloe Zhao

Cast: Frances McDormand, David Strathairn

Beijing born and London and Los Angeles educated Chinese American director Chloe Zhao has made an extraordinary film Nomadland about the vanishing frontier, about the concept of homelessness and leading a nomadic existence, shot in some extraordinary locations in America including Arizona and South Dakota.

Backed up by an extraordinary performance by two time Oscar winner Frances McDormand (Fargo, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri) as the widowed Fern, who repels from any form of human commitment and prompted by the sudden death of her husband and the economic collapse of their hometown, Empire, Nevada after a major factory shutdown in 2011 as a result of the aftereffects of the 2008 financial crisis, Fern bravely embraces all the hardship and wonder of the nomadic lifestyle in the vast outback of America.

Frances McDormand is in every scene of Nomadland under the expert direction of a genius director Chloe Zhao who has made a beautiful picaresque tale about loss, hardship and the human desire to explore. Fern is completely against settling down in a property but prefers her nomadic lifestyle driving around America in an old van kitted for human habitation, picking up odd jobs at various locations including ironically the pantheon of American capitalism, the giant online shopping and delivery company Amazon.

Fern’s journey is peppered with intimate encounters with real nomad travellers, as they briefly discuss their life and their journey whether it’s towards love or death.

The most extraordinary encounter is the scene with herself and a young guy from Wisconsin who is trying to write to his love in another state and Fern suggests a Shakespearean sonnet, number 18 – Shall I compare thee to a Summer’s Day? Fern recites the entire sonnet as Zhao expertly edits a beautiful montage of gorgeous scenes, bringing an elevated harmony to a life which is essentially that of a pioneer.

Nomadland is beautifully shot, brilliantly edited and superbly acted by both Frances McDormand and her male counterpart Dave played by Oscar nominee David Strathairn (Good Night and Good Luck) a fellow nomad who ultimately decides to settle down with his son and grandson in a beautiful home in South Dakota, a betrayal to Fern who sees giving into a static life as relinquishing her nomadic life and more significantly her freedom, her ability to travel wherever and not be tied down to a fixed abode.

In Nomadland, director Chloe Zhao chooses to focus not on Millennials or 40 somethings but on the elderly, on the sixty somethings that are grappling with the death of a spouse or a child, to that age group which has suffered loss and have been turfed out of the capitalist cycle, that have been disposed of and are ultimately dispossessed.

Nomadland is a gorgeous, fascinating film, complex, intimate and ravishing, held together by a superb performance by Frances McDormand who makes Fern the embodiment of all that bitterness of a ruined town like Empire, Nevada which becomes symbolic of a vanishing frontier.

Nomadland gets a film rating of 9.5 out of 10 and is highly recommended.

Took place on Sunday 11^th April 2021 at the Royal Albert Hall in London, England

Best Film: Nomadland

Best Director: Chloe Zhao

Best Actor: Anthony Hopkins – The Father

Best Actress: Frances McDorman – Nomadland

Best Supporting Actor: Daniel Kaluuya – Judas and the Black Messiah

Best Supporting Actress: Yuh-Jung Youn – Minari

Best British Film: Promising Young Woman

Best Original Screenplay: Emerald Fennell – Promising Young Woman

Best Adapted Screenplay: Christopher Hampton and Florian Zeller – The Father

Best Costume Design: Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

Best Visual Effects: Tenet

Best Foreign Language Film: Another Round directed by Thomas Vinterberg (Denmark)

Took Place on Sunday the 28th February 2021 in Los Angeles and New York and hosted virtually by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association – Here are the 2021 Golden Globe Winners in the Film Categories:

Best Film Drama: Nomadland

Best Film, M/C: Borat Subsequent Moviefilm

Best Director: Chloe Zhao – Nomadland

Best Actor Drama: Chadwick Boseman – Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

Best Actress Drama: Andra Day – The United States vs Billie Holiday

Best Actor, M/C: Sasha Baron Cohen – Borat Subsequent Moviefilm

Best Actress, M/C: Rosamund Pike – I Care a Lot

Best Supporting Actor: Daniel Kaluuya – Judas and the Black Messiah

Best Supporting Actress: Jodie Foster – The Mauritanian

Best Foreign Language Film: Minari – Korea

Best Original Screenplay – Aaron Sorkin – The Trial of the Chicago 7

Best Animated Feature: Soul