Dark Russian Springtime: Mr. Jones
Once it became clear I wasn't going to get any substantive work done yesterday, I decided to sit down finally and watch Mr Jones, which I'd bought off Google Play a couple weeks ago and not yet got round to.
It was a good enough movie that I've been thinking about it all day, though mostly, I have to admit, about how the script could have been better. It wasn't bad at all, it just could have done what it was aiming to do a little more effectively. Trying to figure out where it fell short has been occupying a fair amount of mental RAM, which I confess is a bit of a relief after everything that's been going on.
I should start with what the film does well. From the opening scene, where Mr Jones warns a room of politicians about the rise of Hitler, only to be laughed off and assured the cartoon firebrand will come to his senses when he has to get down to the business of governing, it does not even make the polite pretense of being about anything other than Now. The director is Polish with first-hand experience of communism, and she very urgently wants us to know that communism is Not OK. In fact the whole undertaking of the film seems to be her trying to convince armchair socialists in Western countries that their idealism of revolutionary Russia is severely misplaced. There were so many people in the 1930s who were so desperate for communism to be a success that, voluntarily or involuntarily, they allowed horrible things to happen For the Cause. Perhaps the greatest success of the film is communicating this side of things.
As for technical particulars, it is excellently shot, by someone who both knows what they're doing and has a distinct style. It meets the parameters of Dark Russian Springtime in every respect: It's Russian (obvs), it takes place in March, and while the story is dark as expected, the picture is dark too - the lower end of the dynamic range seems all compressed down to black, which gives almost a Mignola chiaroscuro effect, and plays to the theme of truth emerging from ignorance. Another nice thematic touch is how eating sounds are enhanced - at its core the film revolves around a famine, but well before we get there, every slurp and chew and swallow is subtly emphasised. That is art! I respect that.
The reviews I've read mostly focus on the depiction of the Holodomor, the ruinous famine imposed on Ukraine. It is indeed horrific, not only in the starving and dead strewn about the snow, but the intensity of the police state, which is still firing on all cylinders as the population dies under its feet. It did everything it could do to communicate the reality of the situation as bluntly as possible, but for me at least, it lacked a certain oomph that would have really taken it home, and that, I think, is down to storytelling.
The script tells the story cohesively and concretely. I was never at a loss as to what was happening or why, what characters' motivations were, all that basic stuff. However, it was short on emotional undercurrents, and it's the emotional orchestration of a movie that gets under your skin and takes its message to your heart. I am the first to roll my eyes at structure-obsessed screenwriters, but the purpose of structure is to provide that emotional framework - the reason the formula dissected in screenwriting books works is because it tells you how to order, time, and deliver your beats in an effective way that takes the audience on an emotional journey. The problem with screenwriting books is that there is more than one way to structure a film effectively; so long as you are taking the audience on that emotional journey it doesn't really matter which route you take. Mr Jones has a lot of good waypoints, in isolation, but it's a bit like someone giving you a itinerary of their holiday instead of telling stories from it. The famine is, indeed, horrible. The images presented there make this abundantly clear. But it is not couched in an emotional journey in such a way as to make the most of the horror, to make it a deep pit in the guts of the tale - it is just a horror in and of itself, and counts on the horrific images alone to put that pit in your gut. Maybe that works for most people. I really wanted to feel it, though. Whether this could have been done with reapportioning attention to different parts of the story, or maybe even approaching the acting differently, I don't know. (The acting wasn't bad at all, it was just ... samey.)
All in all, a well-made and diverting film with an important message, but a bit too exclusively cerebral for the subject matter, for my tastes. Still better than a lot of films I've seen recently, though, so if you're in the mood for something bleak and haven't just eaten, give it a spin. If nothing else, it is a good reminder of how much worse everything could be.
It was a good enough movie that I've been thinking about it all day, though mostly, I have to admit, about how the script could have been better. It wasn't bad at all, it just could have done what it was aiming to do a little more effectively. Trying to figure out where it fell short has been occupying a fair amount of mental RAM, which I confess is a bit of a relief after everything that's been going on.
I should start with what the film does well. From the opening scene, where Mr Jones warns a room of politicians about the rise of Hitler, only to be laughed off and assured the cartoon firebrand will come to his senses when he has to get down to the business of governing, it does not even make the polite pretense of being about anything other than Now. The director is Polish with first-hand experience of communism, and she very urgently wants us to know that communism is Not OK. In fact the whole undertaking of the film seems to be her trying to convince armchair socialists in Western countries that their idealism of revolutionary Russia is severely misplaced. There were so many people in the 1930s who were so desperate for communism to be a success that, voluntarily or involuntarily, they allowed horrible things to happen For the Cause. Perhaps the greatest success of the film is communicating this side of things.
As for technical particulars, it is excellently shot, by someone who both knows what they're doing and has a distinct style. It meets the parameters of Dark Russian Springtime in every respect: It's Russian (obvs), it takes place in March, and while the story is dark as expected, the picture is dark too - the lower end of the dynamic range seems all compressed down to black, which gives almost a Mignola chiaroscuro effect, and plays to the theme of truth emerging from ignorance. Another nice thematic touch is how eating sounds are enhanced - at its core the film revolves around a famine, but well before we get there, every slurp and chew and swallow is subtly emphasised. That is art! I respect that.
The reviews I've read mostly focus on the depiction of the Holodomor, the ruinous famine imposed on Ukraine. It is indeed horrific, not only in the starving and dead strewn about the snow, but the intensity of the police state, which is still firing on all cylinders as the population dies under its feet. It did everything it could do to communicate the reality of the situation as bluntly as possible, but for me at least, it lacked a certain oomph that would have really taken it home, and that, I think, is down to storytelling.
The script tells the story cohesively and concretely. I was never at a loss as to what was happening or why, what characters' motivations were, all that basic stuff. However, it was short on emotional undercurrents, and it's the emotional orchestration of a movie that gets under your skin and takes its message to your heart. I am the first to roll my eyes at structure-obsessed screenwriters, but the purpose of structure is to provide that emotional framework - the reason the formula dissected in screenwriting books works is because it tells you how to order, time, and deliver your beats in an effective way that takes the audience on an emotional journey. The problem with screenwriting books is that there is more than one way to structure a film effectively; so long as you are taking the audience on that emotional journey it doesn't really matter which route you take. Mr Jones has a lot of good waypoints, in isolation, but it's a bit like someone giving you a itinerary of their holiday instead of telling stories from it. The famine is, indeed, horrible. The images presented there make this abundantly clear. But it is not couched in an emotional journey in such a way as to make the most of the horror, to make it a deep pit in the guts of the tale - it is just a horror in and of itself, and counts on the horrific images alone to put that pit in your gut. Maybe that works for most people. I really wanted to feel it, though. Whether this could have been done with reapportioning attention to different parts of the story, or maybe even approaching the acting differently, I don't know. (The acting wasn't bad at all, it was just ... samey.)
All in all, a well-made and diverting film with an important message, but a bit too exclusively cerebral for the subject matter, for my tastes. Still better than a lot of films I've seen recently, though, so if you're in the mood for something bleak and haven't just eaten, give it a spin. If nothing else, it is a good reminder of how much worse everything could be.