The OA

Far and OA

The OA
By Zal Batmanglij & Brit Marling
2016 USA

I’ve talked about actress Brit Marling before on this blog, both in her co-creative role with Zal Batmanglij and in her work with various other people, in some amazing films such as Sound Of My Voice (reviewed here), The East (reviewed here), Another Earth (reviewed here) and I Origins (reviewed here). I’ve quickly become hooked on the kind of work she and the performers/people behind the cameras that she works with does in movies and so, when I heard that she and Zal had co-created a TV series together, I got kind of excited and desperately wanted to see it. Alas, regular readers will know I’m not fan of streaming channel specific media and the kind of exclusivity that comes with it to subscribers so it looked like I wasn’t going to get a chance to see this one. Luckily, a friend gave me a way of seeing this and I was, once again, blown away by the kind of work this actress gets involved with.

Now, this is going to be a very tricky series to write about... partially because Batmanglij and Marling are about promoting the world of ideas and cultivating it in the collective mind of their audience, rather than presenting a standard kind of narrative which quickly crosses t’s, dots i’s and generally explains all there is to be found in a way that’s specific to a creator. Rather, they take some ideas, run with them and have an uncanny knack of getting you to ask questions about what you are being presented with and then leaving things for you to ponder on and draw your own conclusions from. That’s often the most powerful kind of evocative cinematic experience a writer/director can gift you with and, I have to say, The OA is one of the few television series’ I’ve seen which manages to do just that.

The other reason it’s a tricky thing to write about is because I really don’t want to give you any spoilers here. In fact, I’m not even going to tell you what The OA actually means or stands for. You have to find that out for yourself as you go on this, quite compelling journey of a TV show. So, yeah, I’m sorry if this is a short review but I don’t want to say too much about it. What I will do, though, is give you the basic plot set up so you can make your mind up as to whether you want to see this. So, I'm flagging a very slight and small spoiler from the first episode here although, frankly, I think knowing the start of the basic premise is just going to make you want to watch this one even more. So, if you want to know nothing about the plot at all... just skip this next paragraph.

The story starts at a point in the present when a dishevelled Prairie Johnson (played by Brit Marling) is seen running through traffic on a crowded bridge and jumping into the waters below. She is fished out and she has somehow survived this. Her parents (played by Scott Wilson and Alice Krige) are informed that she is at a hospital, declaring her real name is The OA. Prairie has been missing for around eight years and her parents are anxious to see her. Here’s the kicker though. When they get to the hospital to visit her, Prairie is asking the doctors and nurses surrounding her who these two people are. It’s okay though, explains her father to those assembled, it’s just that she’s never actually seen us before. It turns out, you see, that before Prairie went missing... she was totally blind. Not any more though.

And if that’s not an intriguing start to a story then, I don’t know what is.

Don’t want to say too much more about the narrative other than it tells a lot of things in flashback and then crosscuts to what is happening to Prairie in the present, as she struggles to not tell the FBI too much about what’s happened to her in the last eight years. Instead, she tells what’s happened slowly, night by night as the series progresses, to a bunch of five misfits who are finding a place to belong with her, in some ways. They are played by Patrick Gibson, Phyllis Smith, Brendan Meyer, Brandon Perea and Ian Alexander and, true, some of these characters are a little like walking clichés but I think that’s kind of deliberate because it helps provide something familiar to the audience to help sweeten the pill of some of the truly wild turnings this show goes down as Prairie tells her story. And clichéd or not, they’re very much 3D characters, for the most part and, as you’d expect from this creative team... they’ve picked some really great actors for these parts. Oh... and Jason Isaacs has an important role to play here too but... yeah, can’t really tell you what if I want to remain relatively spoiler free here.

The series, like the films I mentioned above, is not a thrill a minute ride which will have you speeding along with it. Instead it does things at its own pace and takes its time to pull you in while slowly putting little layers of background information in place about the various characters. And as it does so, it pushes you into the slow moving but inexorable creative current that runs through the centre of the story and doesn’t let you go until you’re ejected. Also, it doesn’t, like nearly all formula television, feel bound to a consistent running time from episode to episode. Instead, like the chapters in a book (and I think it might have been Batmanglij who made this point in an interview), each episode finds its own perfect running time for the information it wants to convey. So some episodes may run for over an hour whereas, one particular episode, only lasts little over a half an hour. One episode might have the opening credits near the start... another may not start on them until almost at the end of the show. It feels weird at times but it does the job so I really couldn’t complain about this.

The story does build to a kind of natural conclusion but one which leaves many things unanswered... as you will be expecting by the time you get there... although it also has a brilliant kind of double stance on the way things play out. The last episode does kinda pull the rug out from under the audience (and some of the other characters too) while also giving you something which slips that rug right back under your feet again, depending on how your brain decodes the art in front of you. Something which I suspect will get redefined a little anyway during the second series, which I believe was released last week (don’t know if I’ll get to see it though).

Not much more to say on The OA for now, other than it has some nice musical moments and some truly spectacular special effects sequences at times. One of the best shows on TV of recent years, for sure and that’s something I’d totally expect when I see Britt Marling’s name connected to something. Certainly a hard recommend from me if you are, unlike myself, someone who watches a lot of TV rather than film. And definitely something I’d say hunt out if you’re a film fan too, while I think of it. Don’t miss out on this one.

Sound Of My Voice

Culting Edge

Sound Of My Voice 
2011 USA
Directed by Zal Batmanglij
20th Century Fox 
DVD Region 2

Warning: Very minor spoilers and, perhaps, some intriguing 
and compelling reasons for you to check this movie out.

Still on my Brit Marling kick, it seems, after first discovering her in the movie The East (reviewed here), rediscovering her in the beyond excellent I Origins (reviewed here) and further compounding my obsession with her performances in the amazing Another Earth (reviewed here). Sound of My Voice once again finds her in a film she’s co-written with a director (as she did on The East and Another Earth) and in this one she plays the part of the main antagonist... if you can call Maggie, the character she plays, such a strong word. My personal take on this movie is that you can do that but, honestly, this movie is not a stranger to the idea of an audience taking away with them what they also bring... I’ll briefly touch on that a little later.

I’ve read synopses which describe this movie as being shot like a documentary but, take it from me, it really isn’t. I don’t know if people are getting confused about that because it employs a lot of hand held camera footage or whether it’s because the two main protagonists, a young couple, are documentary film-makers. It’s not something I can really comment on. The two characters in question are called Peter, as played by Christopher Denham, and Lorna, as played by Nicole Vicius and they, like all the actors and actresses in this film, are absolutely brilliant. Playing their characters as naturalistically as possible to augment the “fly on the wall” kind of reality you get from the hand held camera work and the choice of footage used in the final cut.

Peter and Lorna have spent a lot of time trying to penetrate into the heart of a secret cult run by the mysterious Maggie, played by the aforementioned Brit Marling, who is a phenomenal presence in this movie, even though our sympathies are with Peter and Lorna for the duration of the film. It starts with Peter and Lorna going through the dubious steps required, including blindfolded and restrained travel followed by a very long and ritualistic secret handshake, to get to their first meeting... along with other new ‘recruits’ into Maggie’s cult following. As the film progresses, the issues of how a leader of such a cult comes to have a large amount of power over her followers and the ways in which trust, influence and persuasion break down a follower’s resistance to the idea of the leader’s spiel is explored as we see Maggie using various methods to gain the respect and awe of the majority of her followers.

Her initial hook to her group of new recruits is simple... she is a traveller from the year 2054, who has somehow, beyond her understanding, awoken in our time and is amassing followers she can lead to survive the struggle which she knows is ahead for the human race as a species. Which, you have to admit, is a good hook. However, it doesn’t wear out its welcome as quickly as you might think because the film, in a very brief time, takes you on a journey of discovery along with Peter and Lorna and doesn’t present the information in as clear cut or straightforward manner as you would need to make a quick judgement on the truth, or possibly lack of, in Maggie’s words and pitch.

Actually, maybe that’s a bad way to put it. The film very much starts you off in the camp that, yes, this is all a con but the brilliance of the movie is such that it leaves you in a place where you’re both not quite sure what you just watched and where there is no real closure to be had unless you have very strong opinions about the characters... one way or another.

There are three strands to the movie and the main strand is Peter and Lorna trying to get a scoop on the cult and hopefully put a stop to Maggie’s influence over her followers in the hopes that nobody will be harmed. However, there are also two other things going on, one with a little girl in the school that Peter teaches at for his day job and another of a lady who may, or may not, be working for a government intelligence agency... although this is certainly how she presents herself when she asks Lorna to help her gain access to Maggie towards the end of the movie. The thing is, the doubt as to whether Maggie is actually telling the truth or not, after she treats certain members of her congregation quite ruthlessly in certain scenes and which make you believe she certainly isn’t who she claims to be, stems from the intersection of both the little girl at school and the government agent’ strands of the story line.

I’m very happy to say that Batmanglij and Marlin give you no easy, clear cut answers. The possible identity of the little girl, which I won’t reveal here, and something she does towards the end of the movie certainly pitch the story in a certain direction but, one of the things you have to remember and which the audience has been primed for all the way through, is that the way these kinds of cult leaders usually operate is by conning their audience of followers and, because of that basic air of caution thrown in to the mix where this film is concerned, you can’t rule out any possibility that the little girl is already a part of the con and perhaps that’s the reason for her seemingly frequent periods of narcolepsy at school. Are they genuine or are they because she’s been staying up until the small hours every night.

The other element is the government agent, who gives Lorna a very definite spin but who has already gone into full James Bond mode when it comes to taking precautions in her hotel room in a scene earlier in the movie. It seems innocent enough when the character first reveals herself to Lorna but, when you think back on the film, you wonder if perhaps there’s also a connection with this character and our future in the year 2054.

The film is part of a proposed trilogy of movies about Maggie but it’s been made clear that the writers aren’t expecting to get any funding to make a second or third movie in the sequence... I get the impression this wasn’t a big hit at the box office and, in some ways, I can see why. This movie won’t be giving you any real closure and, as you probably know, a lot of people don’t like the absence of the plot ‘all finished off’ and packaged nicely with a gift tag saying “this is what just happened”.

And then you think about the follower who takes Lorna into the woods and what she shows her there and you think... well hang on a minute. What, really, is going on here?

My one and only piece of negative criticism of Sound Of My Voice is that there’s a point towards the end where Lorna makes a decision (again, I’m not going to tell you what it is) which is motivated by the actions of Peter, but which seem, to me at least, to be way too hasty in terms of what we know about the history of these two characters and it does seem a little rushed when, honestly, the film could have afforded to spend a little more time exploring the building up and exploration of Lorna’s motivations at this point.

That being said, you can’t fault the performances, the direction, the camera work or the editing and it’s certainly a film which I would recommend to anyone interested in cinema as both art and entertainment (not that I really believe there’s any difference between those two terms, in point of fact). So there you have it, a film which may, or may not, be a science fiction film but which is, certainly, a true gem of a character piece with personalities you can believe in. A big clap to all the artists involved and I hope, someday, somebody will stump up some cash so we can really find out what happens to Maggie... and what year she’s from.

The East

Eastern Promise

The East
2013 USA/UK
Directed by Zal Batmanglij
Playing at cinemas now.

Warning: Light spoilers in this one.

Okay. So I’m gonna find it hard going constructing a review for this particular film because The East, as it turns out, is almost a perfect movie going experience. A film of some small but not insubstantial power and put together with a kind of European sensitivity, applied to an almost Hollywood package.

Now I’ve seen this movie described as a thriller or an eco thriller by a number of people but, to be honest, although there are a few sequences of tension scattered throughout the whole shenanigans, it has to be said that it’s more of an environmental awareness and bonding movie which just happens to use some of the trappings of the post-forties thriller movie within its chemical make-up, to hang a narrative around the central idea of a main protagonist whose world view changes when she comes into close contact with, for want of a better terminology, a bunch of eco terrorists.

The main protagonist, Sarah (played by Brit Marling), is an undercover spy for a big private security firm (the type of firm who are kind of on a level with the FBI etc) and her job is to find a new eco terrorist threat group called The East and penetrate them to a level where she can gain intelligence (and possibly avert disaster) for some of her boss’ high level clients. As such, all the common spy gimmicks like false cover phone numbers, hidden shoe phones and the like are employed, quite neatly and pretty much unobtrusively, as it happens, throughout the main narrative thrust of the movie. I can see why these kinds of tropes were used, to be honest. Modern audiences are more likely to go see a movie which claims to be a thriller rather than a huggy, clean environment cult movie... so that kind of misdirection gets my vote. I only saw the movie, to be honest, because I’d actually seen the trailer for it (for once) and I loved what I was seeing... though again, the trailer is pretty much mostly culled from the first five minutes of the movie and makes it look much more of a documentary than it actually is.

The direction is assured and the editing superb. Combining a variety of styles to give it the cinema verite feel it lacks in actual content, ranging from slow but hand held camera work to fast cuts and a series of montage sequences comprising still photographs taking relevant points to tell its... well story is probably not the right word here, but certainly it gives you a sense of what the director wants you to get into your head.

The performances are also absolutely amazing, with Brit Marling being outstanding and ably backed up by Alexander Skarsgard (who really is becoming as much of a name as his famous dad), Ellen Page, Toby Kebbell and, my real main reason for seeing this film, Patricia Clarkson, who does an excellent job in, sadly, only a few scenes scattered throughout the movie, as Sarah’s unflinching boss.

My two slight criticisms are as follows.

The movie at one point plays out the old “Parable Of The Long Spoons”... that’s the one where the people in Hell starve because they can’t work out what the people in Heaven, in exactly the same circumstances, have worked out... you can feed each other and get to the food. I’d be really surprised in this day and age if people are not familiar with this old story, which used to do the rounds everywhere, and so I found it odd that the drawn out sequence (which is a kind of task set as an initial indoctrination into The East) is kinda played for tension and surprise... when the solution is so obvious. Also, since the solution is so obvious, one wonders why a sophisticated employee of a security firm such as Sarah would not already know the solution to her predicament. This kind of stretched the plausibility of the character a little for me, it has to be said.

My only other gripe is with the narrative element of the film. It uses this thriller narrative to hook people into the real issues and that’s fair enough... but did it have to be so obvious a narrative? Honestly, as soon as the leader of the cult said that their would be three jams (aka terrorist hits) involving big companies, it seemed pretty obvious to me what the identity of the third company would turn out to be and the moral dilemma it would place on one of the central characters in the movie. However, the nice thing about the ending of the movie... the very ending after the leader of The East has fled the clutches of the FBI, is that the main protagonist presents you with a third narrative option that I didn’t really figure out. Don’t get me wrong, it’s no mind blowing twist or reveal... that’s not what this movie is about. But it is a nice option and makes for a slightly under-the-radar ending and certainly it helps elevate the movie to something I found really solid as opposed to relying on yet another structural cliché.

The East is a youth movie about the kinds of concerns that probably should be important to people. It’s message is sound and, if the character dynamics are a bit hackneyed, it doesn’t really matter because the execution of these clichés is, for the most part, impeccable. Definitely a solid watch and a strong recommendation from me. Head east if you want a slice of morality served up with your entertainment.