Newsletter: Indie Focus: Crossing boundaries with ‘Carol,’ ‘Mustang’ and ‘Entertainment’

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Hello! I’m Mark Olsen, and welcome to your weekly field guide to a world of Only Good Movies.

We’re quickly moving toward the end of the year in the world of movies, which means a final few Oscar-hungry prestige titles are still to be unveiled and then the table will be pretty much set for awards season and such. I myself have already written my first year-end piece. (See below.)

Last week we had two terrific screening events. On Tuesday, after a screening of “Flowers,” the first Basque-language film chosen by Spain as its entry for the foreign language film Oscar, there was an engaging and informative Q&A with writer-directors Jon Garaño and Jose Mari Goenaga and producer Xabier Berzosa.

Then on Wednesday following a screening of the raw, intense “James White” — winner of audience prizes at Sundance and AFI Fest — we had an emotional Q&A with writer-director Josh Mond and lead actor Christopher Abbott.

You can find out more about future screenings at events.latimes.com.

Team Indie Focus will be taking this week off to give thanks for all of you who have been reading this newsletter. It’s our first week off since the start the project in the spring. Never fear, we'll be back soon enough. Take that as a promise or a threat, depending on your point of view.

'Carol'

Todd Haynes has long been one of the most gifted and exciting filmmakers working in American movies. Each one of his films feels like an event, and his new “Carol” is no exception. The film stars Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara as two women in 1950s New York who find themselves powerfully drawn to each other.

Rooney Mara, left, as Therese Belivet, and Cate Blanchett, as Carol Aird, in a scene from the film, “Carol.”

(Wilson Webb / The Weinstein Company)

Rooney Mara, left, as Therese Belivet, and Cate Blanchett, as Carol Aird, in a scene from the film, "Carol." (Wilson Webb / The Weinstein Company)

As Kenneth Turan says at the end of his review, “This is filmmaking done by masters, an experience to savor.” He also noted that “this is a love story between two women set at a time and place when that relationship was beyond taboo, but as its bravura filmmaking unfolds, those specifics fade and what remains are the feelings and emotions that all the best movie love stories create. And make no mistake, ‘Carol’ belongs in that group.”

In the New York Times, A.O. Scott added, “The images in ‘Carol’ are cool and elusive, but they also pulsate with life.“ He also wrote, “‘Carol’ is a study in human magnetism, in the physics and optics of eros. With sparse dialogue and restrained drama, the film is a symphony of angles and glances, of colors and shadows. It gives emotional and philosophical weight to what might be a perfectly banal question: What do these women see each in each other?”

Blanchett and Mara recently sat down with the L.A. Times' Lorraine Ali. "Both of the women are coming of age in a different way," Mara said. "They're both at a stage of life where they have to decide what kind of women they're going to be and if they're going to live their truth or continue on in this life that doesn't really feel like theirs."

The movie has received a lot of attention since its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, where Mara won the best actress prize. At Cannes, Blanchett said, “It’s a film that feels transgressive and boundary-pushing, even though it’s set in this other time, in this hermetic world.”

At the Telluride Film Festival, Mara took part in a career tribute. There she spoke of the deep inner quality of her role in “Carol” by saying, “I've kind of been preparing for that my whole life. I'm a very quiet person. As a quiet person, I feel that's wonderful. Extroversion is over-valued.”

There is also an interview in The Envelope with costume designer Sandy Powell.

The New York Times also had a fascinating story on Patricia Highsmith, author of the novel “The Price of Salt” on which the movie is based and its relationship to her career and her life.

The Film Society of Lincoln Center has an hour-long talk with Haynes from when “Carol” played during the New York Film Festival. There is also an extended discussion with the film’s cinematographer, Ed Lachman.

'Mustang'

One of the best Q&As we’ve had recently was with director Deniz Gamze Ergüven, producer Charles Gillibert and the five young stars of the film “Mustang.” In the film five sisters are locked away inside their house by an uncle, who tries to hide them from the influences of the outside world.

Tugba Sunguroglu, Ilayda Akdogan, Doga Zeynep Doguslu, Elit Iscan, and Gunes Sensoy in the movie “Mustang.”

(Cohen Media Group)

Tugba Sunguroglu, Ilayda Akdogan, Doga Zeynep Doguslu, Elit Iscan, and Gunes Sensoy in the movie "Mustang." (Cohen Media Group)

The film is set in Turkey but has been submitted by France as its submission to the foreign language film Oscar. As Katie Walsh notes in her L.A. Times review, “‘Mustang’ is so singularly excellent and original that there's no question why France would claim it.” She goes on to call the film “a moving portrait of sisterhood, a celebration of a fierce femininity and a damning indictment of patriarchal systems that seek to destroy and control this spirit.”

Ergüven spoke to Susan King about the inspiration for the film, when she said, "I had to articulate something and let these girls express their desires, hopes and dreams and take center stage."

Ergüven also gave a terrific, informative interview to Vadim Rizov at Filmmaker magazine.

'Entertainment'

Rick Alverson has a style of filmmaking that really sneaks up on you. His films are low-key and unassuming, but at the same time he is among the most genuinely transgressive filmmakers working today. His films are shocking and upsetting in previously unseen ways, as he sets out to challenge the unspoken contract between a filmmaker and an audience. It is spellbinding stuff.

Gregg Turkington in the movie “Entertainment.”

(Magnolia Pictures )

Gregg Turkington in the movie "Entertainment." (Magnolia Pictures)

His new film “Entertainment” stars Gregg Turkington — known to many for his longtime character, stand-up comedian Neil Hamburger — as a stand-up on a lonely tour of small bars and clubs through the Southwest desert. The film takes on a dark-night-of-the-soul psychopathology that places it slightly out of sync with reality. John C. Reilly, Amy Seimetz and Michael Cera have small supporting roles.

In his L.A. Times review, Robert Abele noted, “While you wait for the deadpan, Lynchian 'Entertainment' to sweep its chunks of despair into a pile of something/anything you can actually relish, it still manages to hold your attention.” He added that the film “may rub the wrong way, but there's also a spiky intelligence at work too, one that engages through the artifice of disengagement and the illusion of ‘performance.’”

In her review in the New York Times, Jeannette Catsoulis noted of the collaboration between Alverson and Turkington, “You can’t deny that they’re a match made in heaven.”

The Paris Review has an in-depth interview with Alverson, while Film Comment spoke to Turkington.

Not to be overlooked

I recently wrote about some of my favorite movies from earlier in the year. The heavy traffic of releases toward the end of the year overwhelms our brains as we try to recall what came before.

As I mentioned, "Some of these films will likely appear in my own year-end best-of list, though that is not what this is about. Instead of the relentless narrowing that happens at this time of year, all our movie talk being funneled into at most a dozen or so titles, let’s not forget the outstanding work from earlier in the year."

Regular readers of this newsletter will likely recognize many of the titles mentioned, including "Welcome to Me," "Results," "Ex Machina," "Clouds of Sils Maria," "Eden," "The Diary of a Teenage Girl," "Tangerine" and the strange case of "Aloha."

Email me if you have questions, comments or suggestions, and follow me on Twitter @IndieFocus.