FILM
Inside a Family’s Disintegration
Richard Billingham revisits once again his troubled childhood
BY STEVE ERICKSON
Insects crawl through Richard
Billingham’s “Ray & Liz.” The
British director fi lms squalor
lovingly. He returns to the
concept of kitchen-sink realism
with an eye toward restaging his
own UK childhood in Birmingham.
Billingham had already explored
this ground in his acclaimed photo
series “Ray’s A Laugh.” Almost 25
years removed from it and much
further from his actual youth, he
recreated life with a pair of irresponsible
parents. Terence Davies’
“Distant Voices, Still Lives” and
“The Long Day Closes” are obvious
inspirations, but unlike Davies, he
fi nds no transcendence in art.
“Ray & Liz” balances three
time frames. An elderly alcoholic,
Ray (played at this age by Patrick
Romer), lives in a tiny, squalid
apartment, relying on occasional
Ella Smith, Jacob Tuton, Callum Slater, and Justin Salinger in Richard Billingham’s “Ray & Liz.”
visits from friends and his ex-wife.
In a fl ashback, the 10-year-old
Richard (Jacob Tuton) lives with
Ray (played in middle age by Justin
Salinger) and the obese, heavily
The Listless Road to Tyranny
Argentina in the ‘70s is portrayed through character, not drama
BY STEVE ERICKSON
Having seen two of Argentine director
Benjamin Naishtat’s three fi lms,
it’s clear that his main preoccupation
is the seductive nature of fascism.
His 2015 fi lm “El Movimiento” found the
roots of Latin America’s corruption in the early
19th century, where an Argentine man named
simply Señor drove his followers toward violent
authoritarianism despite promising them peace
and unity.
“Rojo” takes place in 1975, and its narrative
skirts around the edges of overt politics. Naishtat
evokes the period by decking his characters out
in unfl attering costumes and facial hair, even
down to giving his protagonist Claudio (Darío
Grandinetti) an ugly toupee in the fi nal scene.
There’s no nostalgia here; if anything, “Rojo”
goes to the other extreme. Naishtat was born in
1986, shortly after Argentina became a democracy,
and has said, “Anyone who was born in
Argentina in the ‘80s carries the weight of some
sort of symbolic burden. Besides, in my case,
there is a family history of persecution and exile
KIMSTIM
tattooed Liz (Ella Smith.) They
go out shopping, leaving Richard’s
two-year-old brother Jason (Callum
Slater) in the care of Lol (Tony
Way.) Unfortunately, Will (Sam Gittins)
DISTRIB FILMS US
Darío Grandinetti (untied tie) in Benjamin Naishtat’s “Rojo.”
that precedes me and still resonates.”
A mysterious man (Diego Cremonesi) approaches
Claudio while he’s sitting in a restaurant,
demanding that he give up his table. He
refuses, and they wind up going into the countryside
for an argument. It comes to a bloody
conclusion that leaves Claudio with an unacknowledged
guilt. “Rojo” then picks up three
months later, and it surprises the spectator by
returning to a fairly banal drama of Claudio’s
life as a lawyer and suburban husband and father
drops by with large quantities
of alcohol and taunts Lol into getting
extremely drunk. He passes
out and Ray and Liz return to fi nd
Jason walking around with a knife
in his hand. In the second fl ashback,
a slightly older Jason (Joshua
Millard) wanders around on his
own, looking for affection.
Billingham shot “Ray & Liz” in a
boxy 1.33 frame. Daniel Landin’s
16mm cinematography creates a
sense of claustrophobia. Everyone
onscreen seems trapped by their
lives. The elderly Ray suffers from
agoraphobia as much as alcoholism,
content to lie around getting
drunk and listening to the radio.
When Jason goes outside for the
fi rst time, around the 65-minute
mark, his ability to escape the
confi nes of family life is startling.
Billingham revisits the zoo, the
➤ RAY & LIZ, continued on p.47
rather than turning into a fi lm noir. We see
Claudio’s teenage daughter (Laura Grandinetti)
during a dance rehearsal and dating her boyfriend.
The arrival of Chilean detective Sinclair
(Alfredo Castro) halfway through “Rojo” fi nally
brings chickens home to roost.
The color scheme of “Rojo” relies on red (of
course), brown, and yellow. After its nocturnal
fi rst act, the fi lm takes place in a provincial setting
dominated by ochre furniture. “Rojo” evokes
‘70s cinema through its style, bringing back
memories of the “boom of zoom lens” techniques
(as well as using dissolves). Panavision lenses of
the period were used, and with the fi lm shot in
black and white, its cinematography recalls the
hard-won beauty of Brazilian director Glauber
Rocha’s ‘60s fi lms. The colors of “Rojo,” however,
bring the desert into suburbia. Naishtat frequently
fi lms Claudio walking in slow motion,
citing Sam Peckinpah as an inspiration. Many
directors have used similar images to make
their characters look like badasses, but Claudio
has zero glamour. We can’t escape from the fact
➤ ROJO, continued on p.47
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