Mubi Monday: Eve's Bayou (1997)

Note: I have watched/reviewed all of the standard horror movies available on Mubi just now, which is why there may be a few non-horror blog entries this month. Mubi is great for many reasons, but it is not exactly overflowing with lesser-known horror options. Although some would argue that this has enough interesting elements to count, at least as a supernatural thriller.

I find myself, once again, in the position of finally getting around to a film that many people had been telling me to watch for years. Which wouldn’t necessarily be so bad if the films didn’t live up to the hype, but they so often do. This one certainly does.

A tale of memories, community, love, and lore, Eve’s Bayou shows us family life through the eyes of young Eve (Jurnee Smollett). Living in a busy home with her siblings, her parents, and one or two others (it is hard to keep track, considering how busy the house seems and which version of the film you watch, as the director’s cut has a whole extra character in there), Eve absorbs everything around her, for better or worse. She knows that her parents, played by Samuel L. Jackson and Lynn Whitfield, love one another, but she also knows that her father is a philandering scoundrel. He is also charming, and beloved by many due to his work as a local doctor, but philandering doesn’t lead to a consistently happy home life. Eve learns to compartmentalise her concerns, but that becomes more difficult as her father’s behaviour seems to get worse and worse.

Written and directed by Kasi Lemmons, her feature debut in a directorial role, Eve’s Bayou is undoubtedly a bit of a modern classic, as well as being a beautiful and complex look at memory, manipulation, family, and the power of visualization and belief.

Set in Louisiana in the 1960s, the atmosphere and specificity of the setting are essential to the tale being told, and somehow help to soften the edges of something that could otherwise have been too hard to stomach, but the central themes explored will be sadly familiar to many (particularly women) around the world.

All of the cast do great work, with a consistency that makes me reticent to name some while missing out others (simply to avoid regurgitating the entire cast list). Jackson is the dark heart of the film, a thundercloud that also helps to create rainbows, and he gives what could be considered one of his very best performances. Smollett effortlessly carries the weight of the film on her young shoulders, a delight for every minute of her screentime and the best filter/buffer between the reality of the situation and the way viewers are shown things playing out. Whitfield is very good, although given one of the more thankless roles, Debbi Morgan excels as an auntie who may be gifted or cursed, or may just live a life full of timely coincidences, and Meagan Goode does a great job of portraying Eve’s older sister, Cisely, a young woman who eventually confides in Eve something that will change all their lives.

Lemmons has enjoyed a solid acting career for a number of years, but nothing she has done in front of the camera comes close to rivaling her work here. This is an astoundingly assured directorial feature debut, put together with great care (from the script to the cast, from the pacing to the score), and it is a film I am already looking forward to rewatching. The more I think about it, the more I think this might have just rocketed in to become one of my favourite films of all time.

10/10

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June-Claude Van Damme: Hard Target (1993)

Jean-Claude Van Damme starring in a film that is yet another version of The Most Dangerous Game, what could possibly make this any better? Perhaps the fact that it was also John Woo making his first feature in America, after amassing such a loyal fanbase of his Hong Kong films. Would we get some impressive slo-mo moments, two guns being fired while characters dive across the screen, and doves flying into the air? Of course we would, which makes Hard Target a film that provides just as much fun today as it did when first released a quarter of a century ago (yes, it's been 25 years).

Van Damme plays the wonderfully-monikered Chance Boudreaux, a drifter in New Orleans who cannot get himself back into a job he has been selected for until he earns enough money to pay his union dues. But he can't pay those dues until he gets a job, of course, so finds himself in a vicious circle. For about half a minute. The chance to earn some money comes about when a young woman (Natasha, played by Yancy Butler) wants to hire someone as she searches for her missing father, an ex-veteran who fell on hard times. The pair start to do their amateur detective work, eventually piecing together evidence to realise what viewers have known from the very beginning; Natasha's father was paid by people who then chased him down and killed him before he could reach a designated safe point.

Like many other people, I really liked Hard Target when I first saw it. But I believe that I liked it then purely for the Van Damme factor. I wasn't familiar enough with John Woo to know of his style, I hadn't seen too many previous incarnations of this material (apart from The Running Man, which managed to feel a bit removed from the original idea because of the additional comments on the media and manipulation of the masses), and nobody else in the cast made much of an impression, simply because I was waiting for the next scene that would put Van Damme front and centre again.

Rewatching the movie with more knowledge tucked away into my brainparts has led me to find even more reasons to keep it marked as a fun action thriller, and one I am always happy to revisit. Van Damme may have the top billing but he's not the star here. The star here is Woo, clearly having a lot of fun with the cast and resources at his disposal. His style is stamped all over this, almost from the very first scene, as a statement of intent. "I have come to your shores," it says, "and this is why you wanted me here in the first place, so take it or leave it."

The script, by Chuck Pfarrer, is focused more on fun than any sense of realism, allowing for some decent exchanges between all of the main characters, and also some absolutely wonderful lines uttered by Lance Henriksen (the main villain).

Speaking of Henriksen, he almost steals this entire movie, which is easier for him to do as Woo balances things between allowing his leading man to have some leading man moments and allowing himself plenty of Woo-isms. Henricksen and Arnold Vosloo have a lot of fun with their roles, Van Damme gets to deliver some impressive smackdowns (including a great moment that sees him dealing with a rattlesnake), Butler does okay in her role (it's a bit underwritten but far from the worst female role in the action genre, especially from this time, and I can't help thinking a more recognisable actress could have lifted things slightly), and there's good support from Willie C. Carpenter, Kasi Lemmons, and the great Wilford Brimley.

Booby-traps, armed people riding motorbikes to track their potential victims, grenades being lobbed around with a distinct lack of real care, and let's not forget a damn fine mullet being worn by Van Damme, this has all of these treats and a lot more. Watch it, enjoy it, and rewatch it whenever you feel the urge. Which may happen more often than you expect.

7/10

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