Whiplash
Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash focuses on Andrew, a talented drummer at a prestigious music academy who aspires to be one of The Greats. Andrew (Miles Teller of The Spectacular Now) enters the orbit of Terence Fletcher, an exacting, verbally and physically abusive instructor (J.K. Simmons) who conducts the school’s elite studio band. A thrilling battle of wills begins as Terence torments Andrew in his pursuit of legendary status, to the point of leaving blood on the drum kit.
Simmons was clearly pushed to recapture the ferocious energy he showed in his days as Vern Schillinger on the HBO series Oz. His performance, part of the film’s wonderful immersion in the world of making music, builds from a steady, compelling drumbeat to a very satisfying crescendo. Beyond that, credit goes to Chazelle for neither soft-pedaling the damage that the instructor inflicts nor dressing up the murkiness of the “win” that teacher and student are fighting for.
Whiplash—which played like gangbusters with the audience—is the feature-length expansion of the short film by the same title that played here last year. Among this year’s shorts, the 17-minute Dawn marked the directorial debut of Rose McGowan. In this Fifties period piece, a sheltered teenage girl longs for an escape from her life. A hunky gas station attendant begins charming Dawn, giving hope that he might be her way out, but she soon discovers that getting what she wanted might have a finality she wasn’t counting on. The film is very polished on a production level, and there’s a sense that McGowan had a great deal of production support. However, it’s far more than a simple vanity project.
The Double
In The Double, Richard Ayoade’s second feature, Jesse Eisenberg plays Simon James, a sad-sack office drone in a mundane data-collection job. The only excitement in his life comes from his co-worker Hannah (Mia Wasikowska), who lives in the apartment building across from his. He watches her every night through a telescope and tries to muster enough courage to speak to her. One night, he witnesses a man in her building jump to his death. The next day, a new, charismatic employee—who looks just like him and is named James Simon—begins working at his office. Simon’s double finds success immediately, eventually taking credit for his counterpart’s work and attracting Hannah’s attention. Simon himself quickly begins to lose his own identity to the point of all but disappearing.
Based on Dostoyevsky’s 1846 novella, the film’s strengths center on the nightmarish dystopia that Richard Ayoade has created through excellent production and sound design. It’s so oppressively intolerable that you hope that Eisenberg’s character won’t simply overcome his double, but everything else around him too. In this respect, it reminded me of Adam Rifkin’s 1991 film The Dark Backward. The Double is a fascinating piece of filmmaking, with the emphasis squarely on the “dark” and not the “comic.”
Wetlands
Finally, in David Wnendt’s Wetlands, Helen (Carla Juri) is a German teenager obsessed with her bodily fluids and hungry for sexual adventure. After cutting herself badly while trying to relieve the pressure of a hemorrhoid, she lands herself in the hospital. There she begins a playful flirtation with a nurse, whom she teases with tales of seducing boys with the scent of her unwashed vagina, masturbation experiments, and swapping used tampons with her friend. Through flashbacks, we gradually gain insight into her behavior and of her cruelly jealous mother and distant, distracted father.
Wetlands is unnerving and uncompromising in its display of blood and other things that come out of one’s body. It might be one of the most disgusting films you could hope (or hope not) to see. But it also manages to be captivating and engaging, largely thanks to Juri, who exudes sweetness and sincerity. The film is practically made to order for a steady stream of walk-outs, but I also believe that its fans will be devoted and enthusiastic. I know that I am.