⭐⭐⭐⭐

Eight stars across two excellent picks from recent weeks.

Another unfortunate timing problem this week (thank you, Piccadilly Line!) led me to miss the show I was planning to see on Friday night. Fortunately, I’ve booked in again at the King’s Head Theatre for next Friday (so there’s a little teaser for next week’s Nosebleeds!) but it’s left me scraping the ol’ archives once again for a new post. So today I’m opting for another two-fer; two interesting films I’ve seen in the past month that are both recommendations from me, with four stars apiece.

Sergeant Rutledge (1 hr 51 mins, Amazon Prime or Apple TV [for purchase])

I have to hand it to the curators of the BFI for picking some truly intriguing topics for their film seasons. (I was particularly disappointed to miss In the Mood for Maggie, featuring the work of Chinese actress Maggie Cheung.) Last month the theme was Black Rodeo: A History of the African American Western, which included screenings of John Ford’s fascinating 1960 outing Sergeant Rutledge (complete with Swedish subtitles thanks to the film being on loan).

We’re taken back to about the 1880s when the titular Sergeant (Braxton) Rutledge, an African-American soldier from the all-Black 9th US Cavalry, is on trial for a crime he claims he didn’t commit. Defending him passionately is his friend and fellow soldier (and white man) Lieutenant Tom Cantrell. As the story progresses, flashbacks tell us more about the crime and life in this Arizona military outpost, but more importantly, about Sergeant Rutledge himself.

The flashback device might seem overused to a modern viewer but is effective here in making the story compelling and intriguing. Ford has created a pretty engrossing character drama, in which Rutledge’s personal identity as both a Black man and a soldier is at the forefront. While by today’s standards it’s impossible to ignore the white saviour element of the story, I would say that compared to other examples of this trope, Rutledge has a lot more agency and thoughtful characterisation. I also felt the friendship between Tom and Braxton was tenderly portrayed and showed a true mutual admiration and respect between the two.

Played excellently by the striking Woody Strode, Rutledge is depicted as dignified throughout his mistreatment, and I think having a sense of dignity within oneself is a key concern of the movie. I’m told by a fan of the filmmaker that the kinship of the military is one of Ford’s common themes, and it’s intriguing the way he uses the format of the Western and Rutledge’s role as a soldier to explore his moral code and sense of self. It is perhaps a slightly unquestioning view of military life, and I was surprised that in a film so interested in race, there wasn’t a more sophisticated portrayal of the Native Americans, who are unequivocally cast as villains. Still, I think for a film of its vintage, Sergeant Rutledge presents a remarkably nuanced view of the life of a Black soldier, and is a worthy character drama. 

Life of Pi (2 hrs 7 mins, Disney Plus)

While I saw Sergeant Rutledge at the National Film Theatre, Life of Pi was a Disney Plus offering I watched on my second-hand Macbook. It’s not often I’m bothered by viewing something on a small screen, but after being impressed by the stunning imagery of Ang Lee’s Life of Pi, I regret that I didn’t give myself the full cinema experience. 

Like Sergeant Rutledge, Life of Pi is told through flashbacks, as the older Pi Patel recounts his incredible story of survival to an eagerly attentive author. In his tale, he recounts his childhood living at the zoo his father owned, and finding his love of the divine, quirkily deciding to be Muslim, Hindu and Christian all at once. His faith is put to the test when the ship carrying his family and all their animals to a new life in Canada is overturned in the North Pacific. Stranded at sea on a tiny liferaft, Pi has only a motley crue of animal shipmates for company: a hyena, a zebra, an orangutan, and a fearsome Bengal tiger. 

I read the book of Life of Pi last year and ran a bit hot and cold with it, but overall found it to be a thoughtful and meaningful reflection on religion and the meaning we give to our lives. While these themes are carried over into the movie, and are often explored movingly, I was disappointed to see a tendency (rather an American one, I think) to hand the audience the film’s messages on a platter. (I’m thinking particularly of a scene near the conclusion of the film when Rafe Spall’s character explicitly translates a metaphor, just in case the viewer doesn’t feel equipped to make their own interpretation!)

Where Life of Pi is really excellent though is in the direction and the sheer spectacle. The story is deliberately dreamlike and Ang Lee translates this onto the screen with maximum visual effect. Some of the scenes when Pi is lost at sea are just beautiful – the image of the boat drifting, the reflection of a pink sunrise on the water, the eerie glow of creatures below the surface. The sequence when the ship overturns is exceptionally well done, terrifying and gripping. In a film where so much of the story takes place in one location with only one human character, it’s a credit to Ang Lee’s direction (and Suraj Sharma’s truly wonderful performance) that Life of Pi never drags but is consistently compelling throughout.