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Under discussion:

The Wrestler  (2008)

Darren Aronofky’s handheld camera follows Mickey Rourke from behind for the first several scenes of The Wrestler. It’s apparently impossible for contemporary directors to use this technique without someone suggesting that they ripped it from a Dardenne film, but its use in The Wrestler feels very different from its use in, say, L’Enfant: it doesn’t produce the same sense of a tension that could break if the camera ever allowed its subject to get too far away. In fact, several times, the camera just stops while Rourke keeps moving, allowing us to appreciate the full physicality of the actor’s performance long before we ever see his face. There must be a cerebral component to the way Rourke approached becoming aging wrestler Randy “The Ram” Robinson, because otherwise I doubt he’d have been able to so deftly navigate the character’s expansive emotional arc while still nailing all the jokes. But this performance goes way beyond the brain, or the precision with which Rourke transformed his appearance, or even the naturalism with which he performs the wrestling choreography. This is a performance that seems to start and end in the cardiovascular system, making everything Rourke actually does seem effortless. As if he’s just breathing it.

A wrestling superstar in the 80s (famous enough, at his peak, to have his own 8-bit representation jumping off the ropes in a Nintendo game), 20 years later Randy is barely holding it together, sleeping in a van when his trailer is padlocked for failure to pay rent, unloading boxes at a supermarket to make the cash from small-time meets stretch to cover his bleach, tanning and human growth hormone habits. Randy remains fiercely committed to the sport, even though his body’s not what it used to be, and even though the sport –– at least on a mainstream, big-money level –– no longer has much interest in him. With the 20th anniversary coming up of Randy’s biggest fight, a face-off with an Iranian flag-waving wrestler by the name of The Ayatollah, Randy’s producer approaches him with “two words: Re. Match.” This gives Randy something to work on other than the hot-and-cold affections of aging stripper Pam (Marisa Tomei), but when a particularly intense fight results in serious injury, Randy has to turn off autopilot and reevaluate his options.
That this all manages, for the most part, to avoid sports film fall-rise cliches and veer into unexpected directions whilst exploring a wide range of feeling, is a minor miracle. It’s a cliche to say that Rourke’s performance is “fearless” but, well, it is. But it only works as well as it does because of the economy of The Wrestler’s construction, the stealthiness of Aronofsky’s craft.

You might have heard that The Wrestler doesn’t look or feel much like a Darren Aronofsky film. This has, most often, been said with relief by people who had grown skeptical of the filmmaker who, with Requiem for a Dream and then The Fountain, tried critical patience with his perceived bottomless indulgence for visual trickery. It’s true that The Wrestler’s style is, at least compared to Aronofsky’s previous two films, bare-bones, and the cutting is relatively sedate. But in its own way, it’s just as much of a film built on setpieces as Requiem, and just as dependent on style to draw lines between inner lives and external action and circumstance.

At the NYFF press conference, Aronofsky acknowledged that the goal was to stick to “the documentary style” as much as possible. This goes beyond the almost always hand-held camera: the wrestling scenes were shot at “real” meets staged by the production, with real current and former wrestlers as extras and as Rourke’s opponents, Tomei learned from and danced alongside professional strippers. There is something undeniably farcical about a name-brand filmmaker (whose wife is currently on the cover of VOGUE, no less), dropping two movie stars into facsimiles of lower-class American life, produced with the “realism” of non-fiction film in mind.

But it works. The documentary tropes end up playing as a drag, which tempers the absurdity of the nuts and bolts of Pam and Randy’s jobs and lives, and makes their more melodramatic moments seem all the more plausible. And Aronofsky know when he can get away with dropping these tropes (as when Randy makes an entrance at his supermarket job to the sound of a crowd cheering in anticipation) and when he can’t. The stylistic quick-change allows us to transform back and forth between objective observer and subjective participant. As a filmmaker, you could say Aronofsky has moved from digital surrealism to a photorealist presentation of a hyperreal world.

If Aronofsky gets away with his constructed reality, its a testament to the work of screenwriter (and former Onion writer) Rob Siegel that The Wrestler’s characterizations can be comical, but never really condescending. And in the ways in which Randy and Pam find common ground, the filmmakers carry across a subtext of cultural critique. At the risk of giving too much away, both Randy and Pam traffic in a kind of fear of intimacy for a living: they take on personas that are very much about what their bodies look like and how they can move and what kind of power they can exert, and they perform for crowds looking for a kind of vicarious thrill, but their admirers never see anything but the surface. Both past their prime to some extent, at one point the pair bond on their mutual nostalgia for the 80s, particularly the music, which Randy says was all about having fun. “And then that pussy Cobain had to come along and ruin it for everyone,” he gripes. “The 90s sucked,” Pam agrees.

The Wrestler is about two people whose professions are in someway dependent on 80s ideas of gender and entertainment and escape, who were left behind in a way when pop culture took a turn away from fantasy, towards something supposedly more authentic, more real. But fantasy is a tool that most of us use to deal with reality. This has been, in some way, the subject of each of Aronofsky’s films, which makes The Wrestlerone of a piece.

Under discussion:

Irina Palm  (2008)

In the 9/21 edition of The NY Times Magazine, Randy Cohen, a.k.a. “The Ethicist,” responding to a writer inquiring about the morality of a professor patronizing a strip club, offered this little admonishment, “Nobody should attend strip clubs, those purveyors of sexism as entertainment. Strip shows are to gender what minstrel shows are to race. But while I endorse your conclusion about these sad displays…”

To which I respond, Oh, brother. (Yes, who better an expert on female strippers than a gay guy who pens a column for The Grey Lady?) Between this sweeping, condescending – not to mention unethical – judgment of “gentlemen’s clubs,” and the latest crackdown on NYC’s houses of domination (which sent the NY Post into a “slap-happy” tizzy) I needed an uplifting, sex-positive view of the industry ASAP. So what better time to Netflix over to London to try out Irina Palm?

Sam Garbarski’s lovely gem of a film starring Marianne Faithfull as a grandmother who chooses prostitution to pay for travel expenses to Australia for a last-ditch operation for her sick grandson, is really a journey to self-empowerment, as Faithfull’s Maggie saves both her grandson and herself through the discovery of her own sexuality. Faithfull’s portrayal of a working class widow forced to take matters into her own hands (or rather “palm”) for the first time in her life is as honest and nuanced as anything the royal acting dames of England have done in recent years. Even in her sixties, Faithfull – Mick Jagger’s ex and the great-great-niece of “Venus in Furs” author Leopold von Sacher-Masoch – knows she has eroticism in her blood, which she smartly downplays in favor of her maternal side, letting her natural sexiness merely peek out from beneath a frumpy winter coat and dowdy hairdo.

After being turned down at the bank and at the unemployment office for being too old, desperate Maggie sees a sign for a “hostess” position in a storefront. Walking through a garishly lit hallway to the beat of a throbbing sound system she finds she has stumbled into a seedy strip club, and right into the office of club owner Miki, played by the equally middle-aged, equally sexy Miki Manojlovic (best known for his work with Emir Kusturica). They have a hilarious exchange from across Miki’s desk, which begins when Maggie is told that “hostess” is a euphemism. “Do you know what a euphemism is?” Miki inquires. “No,” Maggie hesitantly replies. “I didn’t either – my lawyer had to tell me,” Miki deadpans then defines the word before adding, “Hostess is a euphemism for whore.” Without missing a beat he asks to see her hands, swiftly decides she’s got great jack off mitts, smooth and sensual. The shaken Maggie demurs, gets up and makes her way towards the door, only to be stopped in her tracks by Miki’s offer – six hundred a week to start.

Inevitably, the lure of easy money returns Maggie to “Sexy World”, its no frills “live nude show” sign out front, where she’s taught the lucrative skill of jerking off guys through a glory hole in a wall by Luisa, a pretty bored brunette with an Eastern European accent. The camera stays on Luisa’s upper torso and face as she matter-of-factly explains her ritualized method, some anonymous dude on the other side panting and moaning until she ends with “Remember, you are in control,” as we hear the guy come. Luisa shrugs, washes up and in her no nonsense way squirts lotion onto Maggie’s palm before taking the terrified woman through the motions, the look on Maggie’s mortified face funny and endearing. Riding home on the bus at the end of the day Maggie can’t stop staring at her hands, these suddenly foreign objects of sex and desire (and female power).

What follows is a wonderful workaday scene worthy of the Dardenne brothers as Maggie, seated alone in the dark dingy room, presses the red button that signals for the next customer, waits, then lotions up and begins on the unseen dick, her movements as awkward as if she were kneading bread with one hand. Her wrist begins to ache as if she were working on a factory assembly line until finally the day shift is over, the club morphing into an evening strip joint. On her way out she runs into Luisa who befriends the still unsure woman, takes her for a drink. Maggie returns the kind gesture by opening up, confiding in her colleague how she became the “wanking widow.”

But Maggie’s new life can’t help but clash with the old. Her equally sheltered, frumpy friends express surprise that she landed a job. “A job? Maggie can’t do anything, can she?” one gossips snidely to another before the camera cuts to Maggie in her small sparse room, making a load of money off men’s loads. She becomes virtually transformed by prostitution – finds her “calling,” the one thing she’s better at than anyone else – and begins to glamorize a bit, a touch of lipstick now that she’s been christened “Irina Palm.” After Miki covertly “tries her out” and decides he wants her to work more days and longer hours Maggie seizes the opportunity with a good dose of chutzpah – says she needs 6,000 pounds right away, agreeing to work for the next eight weeks, earning 800 per week and letting him keep the rest as interest. Miki reaches out to shake on the deal after adding his own provision that if she cheats him he’ll kill her. As their hands meet the realization that Maggie’s hand job talent is her trump card, giving her an empowerment she’s never been allowed before, is crystal clear. This is a woman who finally knows her worth.

As the men line up to experience the notorious “Irina Palm,” Maggie starts to take pride in both her work and herself, nailing a scenic picture to an empty wall, placing a vase of flowers next to the lotion on the table. The job becomes nearly as humdrum as secretarial work with Maggie easily flipping through the pages of a magazine with her free hand, tuning out the orgasms. She even gets “penis elbow” (a carpal tunnel cousin to “tennis elbow”), which forces her to wear a sling and switch to her left palm. And still the men come and come.

Including Dave, owner of a rival Soho strip club called Sex-O-Rama, who upon discovering Irina’s identity offers Maggie a job that will give her 15% of the earnings of the girls she trains plus her own salary. Shocked that she’s so in demand Maggie’s even more stunned when, after disclosing that she still owes Miki, Dave assures her, “I’ll take care of it.” With bargaining chips galore Maggie returns to tell Miki of Dave’s offer. A jealous Miki abruptly dismisses her but just as quickly changes his mind and chases her down, which leads to the pair having dinner together. The tale of Maggie’s sexual awakening begins to expand into a sweet love story between two middle-aged industry workers each growing to mutually respect the other.

Which gives Maggie an even greater freedom, the strength to be herself without shame. Emboldened she joins her old maid friends for afternoon tea and tells all, taking special pride in the fact that Miki “the club owner” says she has the best right hand in London. “I’m Irina Palm. I’m the best,” she announces her face aglow (a bittersweet statement as Faithfull never lets us forget that this is the first time in Maggie’s life she’s ever been good at anything). “Irina Palm?” an incredulous frump wonders. “Stage name,” Maggie continues. “Everyone has one. Oh, these look delicious, Jane. Did you make them yourself?” she adds, picking up a pastry. Of course, the gossipy women can’t help but inquire about methods, about length, until Maggie, having had enough, stretches her arm. “Touch of penis elbow,” she sighs then takes her leave.

Now that Maggie’s able to call her friends on their bullshit – even publicly lets snobby Jane know she knew all about her affair with her dead husband “and how much you like to be spanked,” as he confessed before he died – and in the next instant confidently go about her shopping, she’s become a new woman. She’s strong enough to feel the pain of her son, who discovers the origin of the money for his own son’s operation and orders her to quit, ride it out, then reclaim her life for herself. Her last minute decision not to ship off with the family to Australia, but to return to “Sexy World” bags in hand, the stoic Miki rushing over to kiss her passionately for the very first time, is not only touching – it’s the power of sex at its unapologetic peak.

This review originally appeared during the Sundance Film Festival. Ballast opens in New York today.

Ballast is the kind of movie that I’m predisposed to enjoy––a slow, score-free and sometimes actually silent character study, offering the chance to spend some time watching real-ish people floating in and out of a crisis point, demanding that we engage by refusing to pander for that engagement––and yet its wonders still crept up on me. But falling for a movie is like falling for anything, I guess; you don’t really know it’s happening until the undeniable gut punch.

For me, that moment came about two thirds of the way through Ballast, with a shot of a young boy lying on the floor, listening to adults speak off camera while absentmindedly stroking the belly of a giant dog. Like every shot in Lance Hammer’s feature directorial debut, it’s dead simple but beautifully composed, and it gets you by playing hard to get.

The story begins with the suicide attempts of twin brothers Lawrence and Darius. Darius’ is successful, Lawrence’s is not, and after surgery and therapy, he returns to the dreary plot of land he shared with his brother and delivers a letter that passes for a will to Marlee, the estranged mother of Darius’ child. That child, 12 year-old James, is developing a taste for guns and crack (the local drug dealers, maybe five years his senior, are the only professional role models in spitting distance) which in short time leads to Marlee being beaten so badly that she’s fired from her job as a janitor. First James and then Marlee reluctantly turn to Lawrence for help, and in the name of making Marlee a living and giving James an education, the three move towards a tentative partnership and with it, a renewed reason to live.

It’s hardly a honeymoon, and some of Ballast’s most impressive moments come from the deliberate drawing of the friction between the three, as they stumble towards some kind of familial intimacy. Lawrence is wracked with shock and heartbreak over the loss of his twin; Marlee, a former addict living hand to mouth, barely in control of her own life in spite of desperate efforts, is clearly terrified that she’s lost all ability to help her son as well. Each adult needs the other, but both are too broken and wary to accept it. As Hammer’s camera hops slowly from one cold, blue-gray setup to the next, the two engage in countless rounds of emotional combat, with every couple of gains counteracted by a major loss. As their mutual trust builds, Marlee and Lawrence each make a gesture of physical intimacy towards the other, and each is rejected. Both times, Hammer’s camera sits on the instigator as they swallow their humiliation, and you can almost physically feel it burn.

Hammer shot Ballast on 35mm in the winter’s available light in rural Mississippi, with a cast of non-professional local actors, and discarded his script in order to flesh out the story via a two-month rehearsal process. The look, locale and subject matter couldn’t more different from Hannah Takes the Stairs, but with Ballast Hammer joins Joe Swanberg in the club of American filmmakers who are turning to stripped-down production methods and intense improvisation in search of emotional truth. The more that films like this manage to break through the wall of noise at festivals like Sundance, the better chance critics, filmmakers and audiences have of seeing each movie both on its own terms, and as part of a larger wave of back-to-basics American independent filmmaking that defies pejorative genre classifications.