By Noel Vera
DVD Review
You Were Never Really Here
Directed by Lynne Ramsay
LYNNE RAMSAY鈥檚 films as narrative features are, to put it mildly, problematic: they rarely unfold in the approved straightforward manner; are elliptical to the point of obscure; are dark violent disturbing.
And yet, and yet, and yet…
Her latest, You Were Never Really Here, recycles the hoary storyline of Taxi Driver (which borrowed heavily from Ford鈥檚 The Searchers), adds a splash of Beauty and the Beast contrast (the fiercely burly hitman Joe [Joaquin Phoenix] and the preternaturally beautiful girl-child [Ekaterina Samsonov]), plus a dollop of Psycho鈥檚 closeknit mother-son relationship (with Judith Roberts — still strikingly handsome 40 years after Eraserhead — as Joe鈥檚 mother); stir and pour over ice, drink, choke. The mixture does not go down easy.
There鈥檚 the suggestion of rampant political corruption (powerful white males jockeying for possession of loved ones) and possible sexual redemption (physically powerful white male — standard-issue representative of abusive machismo — rescuing feminine innocence); there鈥檚 even the suggestion of bestial martyrdom in Joe鈥檚 loneliness and suffering. A collection of clich茅s and tropes that were already dated when they previously appeared onscreen (see John Ford) all wrapped up and delivered to Joaquin Phoenix鈥檚 hitman for safekeeping.
Yet there鈥檚 this 鈥渄on鈥檛 give a fuck鈥 quality to Ramsay鈥檚 work, a defiant sense of using narrative as the flimsiest of excuses to hang images, sounds, textures, moods on the big screen for us to gaze at. Joe enters a well-guarded 鈥減layground鈥 armed with nothing but a machinist鈥檚 hammer, batters his way in — you want to ask: aren鈥檛 the guards armed with guns? But Joe is unsettlingly fast. Ramsay shoots the sequence with shots angled and filtered for the images to resemble surveillance camera footage, and cuts in such a way that you鈥檙e a step behind what鈥檚 happening — first you see Joe鈥檚 silhouette rounding a corner, next he鈥檚 clubbing someone鈥檚 head down the far end of a hallway. Either you鈥檙e so disoriented the thought of firearms never occurs to you, or you halfway accept her conceit with a minimum of discomfort. Or you throw up your hands in irritation — but Ramsay doesn鈥檛 seem to care about that reaction either.
You think of Jean-Pierre Melville鈥檚 Le Samourai and how the sleekly understated Alain Delon manages to outshoot his adversary no matter how fast they draw (as with Ramsay it鈥檚 all in the editing). You also think of the claw hammer fight sequence in Park Chan Wook鈥檚 Oldboy which doesn鈥檛 cheat on editing (there isn鈥檛 any) and more convincingly presents its no-guns scenario (they only mean to beat the hero up) — but that was some 15 years ago and Ramsay鈥檚 take is a clever variation and update, monitoring cameras and all.
The sound design is equally inventive — Ramsay works from a background of relative silence — long sequences without dialogue and carefully designed ambient sound (you feel the dimensions of a room or hallway, from the barely discernible hum). You hear Joe鈥檚 steps, sometimes a hesitant shuffle, sometimes the tattoo of shoes running on concrete — the swift approach of God鈥檚 wrath. Sometimes Ramsay evokes a chill by taking away sound — when Joe assaults one brothel guard after another you don鈥檛 hear the hammer pounding flesh and bone, only occasionally catch the sound of a muffled cry.
Jonny Greenwood鈥檚 music — he did the scores for Paul Thomas Anderson鈥檚 There Will Be Blood and Phantom Thread — is equally spare here, and precisely placed. Absent from most scenes but when it is there — often when Joe is distressed — it鈥檚 effective, all panicky strings and discordant chords.
Occasionally Ramsay uses a bit of pop music and when she does it鈥檚 stunning: Joe has gunshot a man — possibly a secret service agent — who flounders on the floor helplessly, like a mouse dragging the trap that has broken its legs behind it. Charlene鈥檚 鈥淚鈥檝e Never Been to Me鈥 plays and first the agent and then Joe — who has laid down beside him — starts mumbling the lyrics. Treacly long-forgotten pop song improbably remembered by two men who have little in common, and the lyrics — about a woman who has done everything and achieved little — come back to them and us with unexpected emotional force (Why? Because!). Straying into Dennis Potter territory here, and if Ramsay almost immediately drops the moment and forgets it we don鈥檛; we鈥檙e grateful for the moment.
Ramsay hangs all her romanticized notions about brokenness and trauma and mysterious guardian angels on Phoenix鈥檚 drooped shoulders. He鈥檚 Ramsay鈥檚 version of Cocteau鈥檚 beast fallen on hard times, the beard so luxuriant it could be an honorary lion鈥檚 mane, the big arms meant to give spine-cracking bear hugs (or snap a man鈥檚 neck), the skin mottled with bruises — Joe is Ramsay鈥檚 objet d鈥檃rt on which she can splash and splatter all manners of filth and hemorrhage (carefully painted, casually shot), plus the odd shattered molar extracted with (again the sound design) a wince-inducing crunch. He has a paunch — he鈥檚 let himself go, and the flab is both reassuring and disconcerting; he can be a lazy slob like the rest of us, yet surprises us constantly with his strength and speed.
If we鈥檙e inside anyone鈥檚 head it鈥檚 Joe鈥檚 — the camera stays with him as he pulls on a plastic bag, his mouth sucking uselessly for air; it stays with him while a wet towel is draped over his face, and Ramsay inserts brief flashbacks (Joe鈥檚 mother hiding under a bed, Joe standing against a wall, Joe鈥檚 father stalking mother and son). We see other glimpses to his past (a sequence in Iraq where Joe hands over a gun to a youth, whereupon said boy shoots a fellow youth; a sequence where Joe flashes his light into a cargo container full of dead children — illegal migrants, presumably, who died in transit). We get some hints and suggestions as to Joe鈥檚 troubled relationship with his mother — it鈥檚 clear he loves her but she鈥檚 a reminder of his traumatic past and hangs round his neck like so much metaphorical dead weight. Later is a scene of letting go so out-of-nowhere lyrical that it takes your breath away — Thomas Townend鈥檚 camera shoots with dazzling shafts of light refracted through water and it鈥檚 like another world where suffering has vanished, gravity rendered meaningless.
The experience of watching the film may or may not come out a wash: we never really learn much about Joe, much less all the characters he鈥檚 come in contact with (his mother; Nina; Senator Williams [Alessandro Nivola] who we only see in fragments); we never get much more out of the film than the truism that powerful men are often murderous rapacious animals and any man with any ability to oppose them (oppose his kind in effect) is probably nuts for doing so. Ramsay seems to direct empty minimalist constructs with intriguingly seductive surfaces — but Oh what surfaces! I liked it, ultimately, but it was a struggle; if you didn鈥檛 — can鈥檛 say I blame you.
