Middleburg 2023: Cannes holdovers and Sofia Coppola's "Priscilla"

It pains me to admit as a Sofia Coppola fan, but Priscilla didn’t really work for me, despite strong performances by Cailee Spaeny and Jacob Elordi as Priscilla and Elvis Presley.  “Girl in a gilded cage” is squarely in Coppola’s wheelhouse, yet the first hour veers between tedious and creepy because of how transparently, if subconsciously, Elvis takes advantage of Priscilla’s youthful innocence – not to sully it but to put it on a virginal pedestal, just for him, for as long as possible.  Although the film gets more engaging once Priscilla starts to assert herself, her ultimate self-liberation feels oddly rushed.  On the plus side, the visual recreation of her evolution from schoolgirl to Elvis dress-up doll to independent woman is note-perfect, as underscored by the Q&A after the movie with Spaeny and costume designer Stacey Battat.  There’s nothing lacking in the craft behind the film, just the underlying concept.  YMMV.

The Zone of Interest was the first screening for which my husband joined me, and I’m afraid he regretted doing so – given that he practically stormed out afterwards, proclaiming the film had no redeeming features.  I chalk up that reaction as an unintended compliment to Jonathan Glazer’s ability to get under the viewer’s skin.  What I had previously half-jokingly referred to as the “Auschwitz Pastoral” is just that: a surreal portrait of tidy, prosperous Nazi domesticity against a backdrop of endlessly smoking chimneys, dog barks and occasional gunshots, and the suggestion of distant screams lurking in Mica Levi’s unsettling score.  The film captures with disturbing precision not just the banality but the flowers and fruit of evil (and I mean that quite literally – thanks to Glazer, I’ll never be able to look at a lush garden or greenhouse the same way ever again).

 After the effective slow burn horror of the first half, Glazer pulls a move similar to one I didn’t care for in last year’s All Quiet on the Western Front – a kind of thematic panning out to the, well, bureaucracy of slaughter, to underscore a point that doesn’t really need underscoring.  Still, overall, the film definitely hits its mark – it leaves the kind of chill that burns.

In part two: Thoughts on Oscar potentials and American Fiction, All of Us Strangers, Perfect Days, and The Holdovers

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