[TrueFaith77]

63.Decision to Leave (Park Chan-wook); grade: F
64.The Banshees of Inisherin (Martin McDonagh); grade: F
67.Peaceful (Emmanuelle Bercot); grade: A

Decision to Leave (Park Chan-wook)
The Banshees of Inisherin (Martin McDonagh)
Befitting their cultural fate, let's dispatch with them quickly: Park Chan-wook’s Decision to Leave and Martin McDonagh’s The Banshees of Inisherin argue for euthanasia (suicide) as a cover for the filmmakers’ advocacy of eugenics (genocide)--and are both too atrocious to afford more words.

Peaceful (Emmanuelle Bercot)
Leave it to the French to restore dignity and meaning to the process of death in the upcoming Francois Ozon film Everything Went Fine and, now, Emmanuelle Bercot’s bravely emotional Peaceful. As with her superb Standing Tall, about juvenile delinquents, Bercot transforms the instructional social-issue movie into art. She structures the film around the seasons—like Andre Techine’s Being 17. Reminding of Robert Altman (A Prairie Home Companion) or Patrice Chereau (Son frere), Bercot achieves resonances through the poetic integrity of her actors' performances (a testament to the value of an individual life). Reminding me a bit of Chereau, Benoît Magimel plays an acting teacher diagnosed with terminal cancer—coaxing vulnerability from his students (teaching them to hug, to say goodbye, to achieve “presence”). Similarly, at the hospital, staff go through exercises to cope with and improve their treatment of terminal patients—including musical performances. The staff also plays for the patients, accompanying tango dancers invited to entertain them. The motif of performance reaches many emotional peaks related to Magimel’s existential—spiritual—dilemma. A student with a crush plays Hermia in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Lou Lampros delivering my favorite scene of the year, in which three character's communicate Shakespearean levels of ardor). There's an impromptu performance by staff and patients of “Go Down Moses” (a deliverance) and, finally, a pop benediction (courtesy Prince) that resolves the film’s Oedipal conflicts—an overpowering mother, 2 generations of absent fathers. The resonances build and build so that p.o.v. shots of a plane’s trail in the sky and a reclined—exhausted—view of the Hospital on a rainy night generate spectator empathy for the dying and the grieving. The images of transfusion blood in tubes represents two meanings of the gift of the life. A shot of a mother cradling a baby in her arms provides the impetus for what might be the summation moment of Catherine Deneuve’s iconic career, which again (as in Standing Tall), Bercot integrates into the fabric of the family drama--she plays Magimel's mother. As her grandson, Oscar Morgan achieves “presence” (when his mother asks if he needs her, he replies, “I always need you”). As Magimel's doctor, Gabriel A. Sara conveys the empathy undergirding hospital protocol, while as the head nurse, Cecile de France, achieves the empathy that breaks protocol. Magimel registers the import of every moment befalling his character—and, like an actor, seizes them as opportunities to make meaning. Through it all, Deneuve's humility sets the stage for her family’s redemption. It's the year's most moving film.