Malcolm Talks Movies:
Heaven Knows What
Directed By: The Safdie Brothers
"One common trait most great films have in common is harnessing each and every aspect of cinema as a medium, and focusing them all toward a consistent theme or tone. This week I will be examining the film Heaven Knows What, and its relation to this fairly simplistic formula. Heaven Knows What is the second feature film by rising auteurs the Safdie Brothers (The filmmakers behind last years critically successful Good Time). It follows Harley, a young heroin addict struggling to survive day to day on the streets of New York city.
The reason Heaven Knows What stands out to me as an exceptional film is because it takes each and every possible opportunity to curate itself from a place of realism, even when that means relinquishing any control whatsoever as a filmmaker.
The end result is, as one may expect, a beautifully broken trainwreck, just like the characters the film follows. What can I say, I like artists who get their hands dirty. If you’re going to make a film about heroin addicts, I want it to feel like a film a heroin addict made. This is why I have always considered films like Trainspotting (although often entertaining) to ultimately be aesthetic failures. They do not make me connect with the addicts within the film. I am isolated, and often a third party whose sole purpose in watching the film is to be entertained. I may be asked at some point to sympathize, or maybe even empathize, but I never truly feel like I am part of the madness.
The astounding lengths to which the Safdie brothers went in order to assure that this film was an authentic portrayal of New York’s homeless addicts is what makes it so compelling. There is little reconstruction, and as a byproduct, rarely any chance for the Safdie’s to inject their own subjectivity on the events taking place.
This lack of curation for the sake of preserving realism is the foundational force from which this film moves. The script is based on a memoir written by Arielle Holmes. Naturally, the Safdie Brothers cast her as the lead. In fact the majority of roles in the film are portrayed by non-actors, mostly former or current addicts. An exception worth mentioning is Caleb Landry Jones, who delivers an incredible performance as Ilya, Harley’s Ex, and arguably the antagonist of the film.
The memoir takes places on the streets of Manhattan. Naturally, the Safdie brothers shot on live streets, without the use of background actors. For me, this is one of the most immersive decisions they made throughout the project. When the two leads are fighting over a bag of clothes and some Wall Street Executive glares down at them from his cellphone as if they are subhuman, the genuine look of dispassionate disgust in his eyes is so authentic it will make your soul curdle.
These small moments of authenticity are what make Heaven Knows What so immersive, but the way in which they are captured is the final piece in this film’s hypnotic construction. Primarily utilizing telephoto lenses, the cinematography curates a claustrophobic image of New York, one where frames are rarely wide enough to fit an entire actor’s head, and cars constantly interrupt your view. Not only does this technique loan itself practically to the filmmakers, as it allows them to remain unobtrusive while shooting the scenes, but it also makes the characters and audience feel trapped by the monotony of daily life. A sidewalk becomes overwhelming and threatening via sound design and cinematography, whereas a brief respite in the form of shooting up provides us with a momentary lapse from the constant barrage of bombastic sound design and claustrophobic frames.
With mainstream American cinema consistently voyaging further and further from any remote inkling of reality, it is deeply exciting for me to see the movement filmmakers like the Safdie Brothers are apart of. Films like Heaven Knows What, Good Time, The Florida Project, and American Honey prove that there is still a space for American filmmakers to authentically examine the unique and diverse lives Americans are living today.
Although deferring solely to reality when it comes to curating the look and feel of your film may seem like “the path of least resistance”, you are ultimately relinquishing control as a filmmaker. Not only does this take courage, but it also takes confidence. Confidence that you will be able to control where your story heads if you take your hands of the wheel.
In the case of Heaven Knows What, the end result is a movie that, albeit often unpleasant, is inarguably an aesthetic success in the exercise of curating reality in the name of fiction. It looks and feels real, because it is."
Heaven Knows What is available to stream on NETFLIX
-Malcolm Critcher, Creative Director