Dev Patel – Rating Frames

Monkey Man: Dev Patel Channels his Inner John Wick

April 3, 2024April 3, 2024Arnel Duracak

Monkey Man preview screening provided by Universal Pictures

It doesn’t take long for Monkey Man, Dev Patel’s directorial debut 10 years in the making, to thrust you into a world teeming with injustice, blood and grime. In fact, it’s there from the outset following a short monologue describing the backstory to an Indian legend, Hanuman, that drives much of the film’s undertones.

Monkey Man is a brutal revenge thriller charting a man’s rise from blood soaked human cockfighting in the slums, to the bustling streets of the vibrant, fictional Yatana city beyond. It’s not unlike similar action revenge flicks of recent times like the John Wick series (which it even name drops) or Nobody (2021), yet it retains a level of verisimilitude through its distinguishable identity that Patel has clearly spent time trying to workshop on top of the frenetic fight sequences.

Kid (Patel) has experienced loss at the hands of people in power (namely the police and its chief), and like John Wick, he’s all-in on enacting vengeance to those who did him wrong. As you’d expect, much of this film plays out in a rather formulaic fashion where we see our hero rise from the ashes and fall again before re-building himself up for once last hurrah.

Where Patel has tried to impose himself on the genre is by weaving in the aforementioned legend of Hanuman to imbue the character with a purpose that extends beyond simply trying to kill and be done with it. Ultimately this never really lands in the way Patel might hope it would, with large chunks of the second act often falling flat when away from the action while Kid is nursed back to health following a failed assassination of Rana (Sikandar Kher as the film’s prime adversary) and attempt to flee. This dip takes away from the momentum that has been building up in the moments prior and feels like Patel is trying to get all of his eggs in a basket in ways that similar directorial debuts tend to go —and that’s not surprising since the film was in limbo for a while until producer Jordan Peele practically ‘saved’ it.

Yet when Monkey Man is hitting, it’s really hitting, and that’s through the well crafted hand-to-hand and gun combat that is reminiscent of classic Bruce Lee titles like Enter the Dragon (1973) or fellow suit-wearer John Wick’s tussles, respectively. There’s a greater freedom in these sequences with Patel experimenting a bit more and having fun with the affordances of breakable chairs, glass and the wider space of these fancy venues (there’s even a few knife and axe moments that had me squirming).

By the time the third act has rolled around Kid is a fully fledged badass who has embraced his proverbial destiny. It opens the film up from the shell it became in the second act and is really where it’s at its best. Some of the political tendencies that Patel tries to inject feel forced in this third act and really reiterate that the film just has too much it wants to say but not the leg room or the chops to do so. The punches in the film land great, the subtext, not so much. Then again, this is a director finding his voice, and if Monkey Man is anything to go by, this won’t be the last we see of Patel behind the camera, and that’s the best hit of the bunch.

Monkey Man opens nationally from the 4th of April.

David Lowery’s 7 films, ranked

July 3, 2023July 4, 2023Darcy Read

With the release of his new feature Peter Pan and Wendy (2023), now is as good a time as any to dive into and rank the films of a personal favourite auteur. One of the most interesting and compelling American filmmakers to emerge in the 2010s, David Lowery has crafted a diverse filmography that leaps from quiet indie, Disney reimaginings, and Arthurian epics, all while keeping his unique style intact.

With his signature wistful (key buzzword for Lowery) yet hopeful idealism seeping into his features, Lowery is an impressively economical filmmaker that respects his audience while also searching to give them an entertaining and unique viewing experience, making him one of my favourite modern American filmmakers.

Ranking films of this ilk certainly centres around personal aesthetic preferences, with a clear upward trajectory that makes Lowery a must-see director moving forward, but I have done my best to order them here.

Some of these films are difficult finds, but most can be found on several streaming services.

**7. St. Nick (2009)**

A quiet and simple debut that focuses on vibe over story, St. Nick centres around a pair of real-life siblings, Savanna (11) and Tucker Sears (8), who seek to survive on their own in the Texas wilderness.

All of the hallmarks of a Lowery feature are here: runaway plot, youthful wistfulness, and a focus on atmosphere to establish character. While not on the level of engagement as his films to follow, this is an interesting debut that establishes Lowery’s tendencies that have made him such a creative voice in American indie cinema.

**6. Peter Pan and Wendy (2023)**

Lowery’s newest feature unfortunately arrives near the bottom of this list, lacking the tactility and sense of space that allows Lowery’s previous work to thrive. Peter Pan and Wendy never felt grounded in London or Neverland. Where the beauty and style of Lowery’s live-action Disney film Pete’s Dragon (2016) is drawn from its Pacific Northwest location, this film is desperately searching for an identity, a criticism laid at the feet of most recent Disney features.

While certainly an improvement on the misguided Joe Wright film Pan (2015), this new adaptation is anchored to the original work, striving for recognition as the definitive version that is ultimately misguided. The only standout inclusion to the story is the compelling camaraderie between the three central female characters: Wendy, Tiger Lily, and Tinkerbell. The casting of Alyssa Wapanatâhk as Tiger Lily, who speaks Cree throughout the film feels in direct response to Wright’s film which cast frequent Lowery collaborator Rooney Mara in the role, as well as the cultural insensitivity that has been a constant in the character’s story up until now. Unfortunately, by not replacing the problematic sequences with anything of substance, Tiger Lily is sidelined completely in a second half that was sorely missing her involvement.

Lowery’s penchant for in-camera work, production design, and practical effects gets pushed to the limit of the Disney machine here. Where films further down this list require certain CGI moments for its story, Lowery always limited its use. That was not possible here. Whether through the many flying sequences, the muddy crocodile sequence (hastily edited to avoid scrutiny), or the dry emergence into Neverland that never sparks wonder, Peter Pan and Wendy too often loses its footing, limiting the audience’s ability to lean into the story.

**5. Ain’t Them Bodies Saints (2013)**

The film that put Lowery on the map, this out-of-time, Badlands (1973) and Bonnie and Clyde (1967) style indie drama has moments of immense quality that will be further nurtured and heightened in future projects. Working with Rooney Mara and Casey Affleck for the first of many collaborations, Saints is able to flow on a river of pained expressions that the pair have made careers out of.

The true star of this film, however, is cinematographer Bradford Young, three years before his Oscar-nominated work on Arrival (2016). Young’s work is full of expression both in his use of the strong Texan sun and harsh shadows the pair find themselves in.

Lowery feels driven to craft a 70s Texan atmospheric drama akin to Malick or Wenders, often getting in the way of the story itself. This is usually the case with young filmmakers unsure of their own voice, which will come in his later films that exude an easy confidence.

**4. Pete’s Dragon (2016)**

A warm and wistful reimagining of the 1977 animated musical of the same name, Lowery’s Pete’s Dragon is a much more successful Disney film by the auteur, demonstrating his ability to work within the machine. Set in the Pacific Northwest but shot in New Zealand, there is a strong sense of place in all of Lowery’s features, allowing an audience to settle into a world and atmosphere.

Lowery from his early work is shown to be a wonderful director of children, no doubt a major reason he has worked closely with Disney. Oakes Fegley gives a delightful child performance as Pete, full of both warmth and trepidation, allowing Pete’s Dragon to feel honest amongst extraordinary circumstances.

The film boasts an impressive ensemble that allows the film to ascend to heights few live-action Disney films have, including Robert Redford, Bryce Dallas Howard, Fegley, Karl Urban, Wes Bentley, and Isaiah Whitlock Jr. Redford, in particular, has a remarkably tender monologue that really elevates the film.

The film takes strong influential cues from The Never Ending Story (1984), both in its stylisation of Elliot the Dragon and in its thematic ties. The dark force Nothing in the 80s film series can be co-opted easily into the environmental parable at the heart of Pete’s Dragon. The sequence following Elliot’s capture is full of pure heartbreak, laying him out like a rich Redwood cut down for paper. This sequence’s sound design and score is hollowed out, echoing the turmoil and anti-environmentalist point of view that centres the film. When the discourse around real care is rarely given to movies for families (Eric Kohn even centred a discussion at IndieWire around Pete’s Dragon and the new Mario film), this is where the bar should be.

**3. The Old Man and The Gun (2018)**

Working once again with the legend, Robert Redford, The Old Man and The Gun is a slick and tightly structured 70s crime film centred on an older bank robber Forrest Tucker (Redford). Shot on Super 16mm, the film washes over you like a cool fog in Autumn, combining its filmed aesthetic with its editing and sonic style that makes it such a joy to watch. Lowery pairs this relaxed but taught cat-and-mouse film with a uniquely wistful editing style akin to Steven Soderbergh’s debut The Limey (1999).

Lowery has always been an economical storyteller, using composition and performance to tell a wider story in fleeting moments. The introduction of Casey Affleck’s detective John Hunt, shot externally through a smashed window of a bakery, with a weathered look telling you everything about where this character is mentally and how they view their work (on their 40th birthday to add).

The shift in sound for the final 30 minutes, once Forest and John meet in the diner bathroom is subtly affecting. Lowery has always had a respect for conscious sound design choices (the man adores an L cut) that allow his films to flow with the quiet calm of a gentle river.

**2. The Green Knight (2021)**

I wrote about this film on the site on release and it is still one of my favourite films of the 2020s. A murky, ethereal dream ballad of a film that demonstrates Lowery’s ability to expand his style onto bigger projects. His films are regularly grounded by terrific but always understated lead performances, and Dev Patel shows his range here as Sir Gawain. The knight is a character never sure of their footing as the ground feels to be constantly shifting beneath them through his own trepidation.

Feudal period films rarely feel as perceptive and relatable as this, while also making time for some truly majestic Arthurian imagery composed by returning collaborator Andrew Droz Palermo (A Ghost Story) as cinematographer.

Lowery has a clear inclination towards the myth-making side of storytelling – a likely reason he has operated well with Disney IP – that is fully maximised here. Similar to Robert Eggers with his three films, Lowery is able to manipulate his filmmaking sensibilities to different worlds, forming unique creations that are wholly consistent with themselves and with their wider filmography. Where Eggars is driven by a rigged accuracy to world-building and language that becomes a bedrock to tell engaging narratives, Lowery uses a combination of natural lighting, emotive sound design, and empathic screenwriting to form stories that are engagingly wistful, lightly melancholic, but always hopeful. The Green Knight is Lowery’s boldest execution of this to date. Need this to return in theatres.

**1. A Ghost Story (2017)**

A miracle of a micro-budget indie that stands up to any film released in the past 10 years. A failing relationship depicted as a haunting, how things left unsaid can feel like immovable weights when someone is gone, A Ghost Story packs a lot into its 92-minute runtime. The classic depiction of a ghost as someone who has left things unresolved is a potently sad concept when shown from their point of view. Untethered from time and space, a ghost has nothing but these unresolved emotions to anchor them to this world. While the more powerful emotion of the film comes from the relationship between M (Rooney Mara) and C (Casey Affleck), the second half focusing on C’s ghost is always engaging with ideas that will linger in the mind forever.

Much gets made of Lowery’s eye for compositions in his films but it’s his considered use of sound throughout his filmography that allows his work to shine, none more so than A Ghost Story. The gorgeous Badalamenti-inspired score by frequent collaborator Daniel Hart allows us into the world without ever pushing us through the door. Its combination of sombre and hopeful tones flows through Lowery’s filmography, allowing us to feel for both characters who are miles apart but physically close.

The two central set pieces, the pie scene and the headphones scene of I Get Overwhelmed are anchored by the full emotional range of Rooney Mara, a gift Lowery has complete faith in. She commands our full attention with barely a word, so when it comes time for us to depart, her absence is profoundly felt, by us and C.

The film’s one misstep in a largely perfect feature is the grandstanding monologue from Will Oldham (cast in Lowery’s short Pioneer), as it never felt necessary to use most of the dialogue in the script to explain its ideas. The film is such a Rorschach test of stillness and delivery that a level of dynamism from a performer was required in the film’s psychedelic time skip sequence, a moment that widens A Ghost Story’s themes past the grieving couple, but ultimately sours the experience.

The final 30 minutes are an extraordinary passage-of-time poem – something Lowery follows up within a wonderful panning shot in The Green Knight – shot with wisdom, humour, and contentment that leaves you with more hope than you’d expect to find in a film about grief and time.

This film had a profound impact on me on release, executing something much larger than the sum of its parts, with a tiny budget but a committed cast and crew to create the highest-level student film possible. With gorgeous still photography, considered use of score, and a powerful pair of performances operating almost silently, A Ghost Story is one of the best films of the decade that will outlive us all.

The Green Knight is a Brilliant and Unique Work of Adaptation

November 8, 2021November 9, 2021Darcy Read

After 18 long months, Australian fans of filmmaker David Lowery were rewarded with the release of his critically-lauded feature The Green Knight (2021). The film has had a long Covid-delayed release, from a canceled SXSW debut in March 2020 – a date that feels weightier with each passing month – to theatres pulling the film from the calendar completely. US audiences were finally able to see the gorgeous and beguiling film in theatres in late July, but Australian audiences had to wait three more months before being able to see this wonderful film on Amazon Prime.

Whether it was this long delay or the enveloping world Lowery has constructed here, but it felt so necessary to savour every moment on screen. Lowery has stated in interviews that this release delay allowed him to go back and edit large swathes of the film, not dissimilar to the eventual creation of Steven Soderbergh’s brilliant The Limey (1999) which involved the director re-editing the film after being dissatisfied after an early screening was shown. Whilst that film was recut with a focus on more experimental uses of editing, The Green Knight found its rhythm in its new cut, “allowing it to breathe” as Lowery describes. This is felt in the extended shots that have become the director’s signature, especially his use of a methodical 360° pan that never fails to draw the audience in (more on that later).

The Green Knight is a work of adaptation that keeps in the spirit of the original chivalric romance’s beguiling nature while also changing many details that are deceptively interesting that are sure to be picked over for years to come. There is a lot of meat on this bone that will propel you to return to the film often (a key bonus to having the film available on a streaming service.)

At the centre of our story is Gawain, a knight played by the wonderful Dev Patel with a mixture of youthful eagerness and unassuredness that propels every moment of the story, accepting the challenge from the titular Green Knight (Ralph Ineson) during a Christmas day celebration in King Arthur’s round table court. Whether you’re familiar with the story or not, Lowery lays out the stakes with an assured pace, moving smoothly into Gawain’s quest for knightly honour, and to discover what that even means to him.

David Lowery is an auteur that works across genres and styles but is firmly rooted in the Del Toro camp of fairytale filmmakers. Whether it’s a grizzled career criminal, a lyrical film poem about the concept of haunting and death, or one of the best live-action Disney films of the 21st century about an orphan and a dragon, Lowery is able to breathe a sense of sincerity and beauty into his worlds, whilst never bogging down in the plots of his stories. The director’s assuredness throughout the film to be comfortable leaving the audience confused for stretches of Gawain’s quest, knowing the emotionality of the film work as a guide rope through the darkness, is wonderful and all too rare in modern American cinema.

The story unfolds patiently, following Gawain’s journey to understanding his own virtue and courage in the face of the inevitability of death. The Green Knight is a story about understanding and respecting the natural order of death and decay, themes that in less deft hands would become overbearing with a sense of mourning and sorrow. Lowery has said that he originally planned on the film to be under two hours but during his re-edit discovered it needed more time to breathe, but it feels necessary to the film’s ability to not be dragged down by its themes or become too oblique as to lose the momentum of the narrative that might’ve occurred if the film stretched into the 150-180 minute range that most period epics sit.

The titular Green Knight (Ralph Ineson) in *The Green Knight*

One of the most admirable and deeply compelling aspects of the film is Lowery’s use of visual storytelling and sound design in extended sequences that allow the audience to sit with and contemplate the themes and ideas being laid out, something that is quite unique to the cinematic form. In The Green Knight, this sequence arrives at the dead centre of the film as we find Gawain bound in a forest. We are shown this through a patient 360° pan as we see and hear the seasons change around the forest, as well as the growth of green moss consuming the forest, ultimately landing on the bones of a long-deceased Gawain. It invites the audience into being an active participant in the storytelling, asking you to put your own thoughts and emotions into the film that will develop and grow like moss on a forest bed over the duration of the film. Scenes like this can be seen throughout cinema, from the many films of Yasujirō Ozu, the procession scene in Bergman’s The Seventh Seal (1957), and in the works of Apichatpong Weerasethakul that all allow the viewer to meditate on the ideas of the film while still very much experiencing it.

One of the best things in cinema is when a filmmaker, whether consciously or not, creates a double feature/trilogy in their filmography, thematically linking separate films that go deeper than just their aesthetic sensibilities. It’s impossible not to see the connections between Lowery’s previous two films A Ghost Story (2017) and The Old Man & The Gun (2018) with The Green Knight. All three features have a quest to find the meaning in death, not in trying to outwit it like a Bergman film, but in coming to terms with it and respecting it, both by meeting it head-on and from beyond the pale.

Crafting one of the best cake-and-eat-it ending sequences in recent memory, Lowery is able to convey a rich tapestry fit for the Arthurian legend with a sense of grace that is truly remarkable. While the author of the original chivalric romance is unknown, the author of this adaptation is firmly Lowery, an auteur that is building an extraordinary filmography. Lowery is one of the best American filmmakers to emerge in the last 10 years and is only a year away from the release of his return to Disney with an adaptation of Peter Pan, a dream pairing of storyteller and story that will not disappoint.

The Green Knight is on Amazon Prime now.