1) The first time I had ever gone into the city on a weekday to see MIFF movies, rather than working in the city and then staying for my movies;
2) The first time I had ever seen a MIFF movie on an IMAX screen.
That second isn't so surprising, given that I don't believe MIFF has ever had a partnership, before this year, with the Melbourne Museum, where one of the world's largest IMAX screens is housed.
And because all my past IMAX experiences have involved $200 million blockbusters, that makes I Saw the TV Glow definitely the lowest budgeted film I've ever seen on an IMAX screen.
Jane Schoenbrun's film was actually the second I watched on Friday, so let's start at the beginning.
Which was that morning, when I toured the campus of a high school where my son might want to transfer. That was the reason I couldn't go into work on Friday, though I'd already worked three days in the office this week while backfilling for my manager, so I can't say I minded. He wouldn't be transferring there until the start of 2026, but I kind of hope he never does as it is really too expensive for us, and I wasn't all that impressed by the facilities. (And I promise that was not just my wallet talking.)
So when the workday did come to a close, blissfully ending two weeks in which I was doing two different jobs, I took the train in to the city in time for my 6 p.m. showing of La Cocina at my favorite MIFF venue, The Capitol.
The 139-minute black and white film by director Alonzo Ruizpalacios was welcome in at least one regard. In my previous post, I bemoaned the fact that none of the first four films I'd picked for MIFF 2024 was a foreign film. Set in New York City, La Cocina certainly isn't "foreign" in that sense, but I'd say that more than half the dialogue is in Spanish, so that's something at least.
In most other regards, this movie did not work for me. It reminded me of a mode of independent film we haven't seen much of in the past 20 years, the one that invites the word "pretentious" with a capital P. Not only is there the black and white photography, but there are a lot of off-center shots and dialogue that is ten to 20 percent more poetic than it should be. Plus everybody is smoking in nearly ever scene, though I suppose it's possible this film is set in the past. (It isn't specified, and the production design is timeless enough that you wouldn't know for sure, though it does appear to be at a time where touch-screen point-of-sales might be relatively new technology, since we see characters perplexed by trying to work them.)
It follows a day in the kitchen and front of house of what appears to be a touristy restaurant in Times Square, a bit in an upstairs-downstairs mode, though mostly downstairs. A manager is conducting a series of interviews with staff because more than $800 went missing from the till. It's one of those movies where so much happens in a single day that it beggars belief, from a broken water main that floods the kitchen, to a beef between two workers escalating into violence, to a new starter being shown the ropes, to a particular hothead exhausting all three of the strikes the chef gives him in one day. Its origins as a play are pretty obvious, and somehow in among all this, the characters seem to have more time when they are on a break than anything else.
I had been hopeful about the movie because Rooney Mara is the one recognizable star, but I guess Mara isn't quite the guarantee of quality she once was for me. I guess that's not quite saying it right. This movie is "quality" in the sense that it is made with a high level of technical competence and has good artistic instincts, even if they are the instincts of a slightly different era. The conception and execution are both heavy-handed to the point of rolling the eyeballs, though. Since the action is restricted to the restaurant, La Cocina reminds me a bit of how those who didn't like Birdman must have felt about it.
Incidentally, now that I have seen La Cocina, my 2024 movie list contains both movies called La Cocina and The Kitchen.
After La Cocina, I picked up some not-very-good Asian fast food and meandered my way over to the Melbourne Museum, a walk of about 20 minutes. I arrived with ten minutes to spare, which I quickly discovered was the wrong tack when you're talking about an IMAX screen.
I sit closer to the screen than your average person, subscribing to the notion that a movie screen should fill as much of your field of vision as possible. Forced to sit in the fourth row, I think it was, of an IMAX screen is taking that a bit to an extreme. So while this was a good sort of movie to be overwhelmed by, I would have preferred to be overwhelmed from about two rows back from where I was.
I had purposely prevented myself from learning too much about I Saw the TV Glow before coming in, even going so far as to avoid its discussion entirely on two of my regular podcasts. So I didn't know it was a Buffy-like TV show the characters were obsessed with. I was expecting something more inherently supernatural in nature like the central conceit of Schoenbrun's We're All Going to the World's Fair.
Although this is a better movie than that, my core assessment of the film's strengths and weaknesses is very similar. Both movies have some excellent visual moments that chill you to the bone, and the overall mood is hard to beat. And both movies come in at only a percentage as successful as I thought they could have been, in part because both fail to stick the ending -- or even really have much of an ending to speak of.
But rest assured, I do feel quite positively about I Saw the TV Glow. Because of how it fizzles out -- pretty much the entire final 10 to 15 minutes didn't work for me -- I can't give it any higher than a 3.5 out of 5, though interestingly, I've slotted it in higher on my year-end rankings in progress than some films I've given a four. I Saw the TV Glow is better than those films in most ways, though still leaves me fundamentally unsatisfied in a manner that prevents me from going to four stars. A film that is a better version of itself than I Saw the TV Glow might get four stars, and still not be the film that I Saw the TV Glow is.
I did appreciate a lot of the thoughts by Schoenbrun, who I believe considers themselves a trans woman with they/them pronouns, on gender fluidity. Much of the movie operates as a metaphor for feeling trapped inside a body that doesn't feel like yours, and not being understood by anybody so seeking to dream yourself away into the popular culture that becomes more of a family to you than your own. And some of those images -- man, I won't soon forget them. Those strange dancing twins whose hair and chin gives them the appearance of crescent moons, and the moon monster himself, Mr. Melancholy, lasciviously licking the face of one of the characters in one of the film's haunting signature images ... I'll rewatch I Saw the TV Glow for them alone.
I promised you a sparkler cake double feature. And true enough, both of these films contains a scene where somebody carries out a birthday cake with a sparkler on top of it, and all the restaurant workers gather to sing happy birthday to a customer. Doesn't get a lot more specific than that.
As I write this I have already attended my second MIFF double feature on Saturday night, but it's too much to cover in this one post so I'll get to it as soon as I can.
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