CINEMA
Last Exit to Tribeca
A young woman adrift in an abusive workplace culture
BY STEVE ERICKSON
Leslie Schatz’s sound design
is the true star of “The
Assistant.” Kitty Green’s
film is at least as much an
audio experience as a visual one.
Although not relaxing, much less
likely to induce warm tingles, its
soundtrack was mixed into near-
ASMR vividness. The hubbub of
office life is turned into a presence
that the audience can’t tune out,
even when the characters’ speech
consists of the muttered details of
busywork. The soundtrack sometimes
combines as many as three
voices, for the aural equivalent of a
close-up in soft focus with actors
blurred into the background.
There’s a laser-directed purpose
behind all this. “The Assistant” depicts
the banality of menial labor
in the office of a movie studio, then
reveals how much of it is designed
to cover up the sexual abuse committed
by its Harvey Weinstein-like
head. But its tone is cool rather
than angry. Green fuels her depiction
of a woman’s life through the
influence of Chantal Akerman’s
“Jeanne Dielman.” “The Assistant”
Julia Garner in Kitty Green’s “The Assistant,” which opens at the Quad Cinema on January 31.
also evokes other films devoted to
women’s menial labor like Benoît
Jacquot’s “A Single Girl” and Lila
Avilés’ “The Chambermaid.”
Breaking the Code
The Mafia, without romanticism or operatic overkill
BY STEVE ERICKSON
Italian director Marco Bellocchio’s “The
Traitor” runs in dialogue with a long history
of gangster movies. It also continues
his lifelong project of interrogating the history
and institutions of Italy. The subject of the
Mafia allows the two notions to intersect, but it
also critiques the vision of the mob presented
in “The Godfather” and other American films —
which were heavily influenced by Italian filmmakers
like Luchino Visconti and Bernardo
Bertolucci, to bring things full circle. “The Traitor”
has the same epic sweep and even includes
a crime family called the Corleones, but Bellocchio
avoids operatic excess, keeping emotion at
PHOTO BLEECKER STREET MEDIA
“The Assistant” is set over the
course of one long day. Jane (Julia
Garner) aspires to produce films,
but she has recently graduated
from college and needs to break
into the industry. So, she gets up
in the middle of the night to go
to work, with duties that include
printing out a list of the weekend’s
box office revenue, ordering office
supplies, and opening boxes of
bottled water. On the phone, the
company’s boss yells at her. She
complaints to HR head Wilcock
(Matthew McFadyen) about the
behavior to which other women
are subjected to, but he gaslights
her, suggesting she’s complicit in
the atmosphere of abuse. The new
receptionist, who moved from Idaho
to New York to accept her job,
seems to be the next target of the
boss’ sexual harassment.
Jane is named for Jane Doe. If
Green’s script suggests anonymity,
the rest of the characters are
cyphers. (Two characters are simply
called “Male Assistant 1 and 2”
in the credits.) She’s not friendly
with anyone else in the office. Men
and women wander in and out,
unnamed and unexplained. One
can read something menacing in
the sound of her male colleagues
➤ THE ASSISTANT, continued on p.29
PHOTO SONY PICTURES CLASSICS
Pierfrancesco Favino in Marco Bellocchio’s “The Traitor,” which opens January 31 at the Film Forum and Film at Lincoln Center.
➤ THE TRAITOR, continued on p.33
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