At Home With… January Picks
Friends of Metrograph James N. Kienitz Wilkins, Alice Gregory, and Joshua Minsoo Kim each share a film they love, streaming on demand on the Metrograph At Home platform.
The Draughtsman’s Contract, dir. Peter Greenaway, 1982
I listen to this soundtrack all the time, much to my mom’s discomfort as a trained organist who finds Michael Nyman’s electric bass, punchy saxophones, and modded-out harpsichord to land well beyond the tolerably baroque in the realm of the profane. But isn’t that the point? It’s so good because it’s so unapologetically ecstatically annoying, much like the movie itself, with a slick Anthony Higgins peacocking about some English estate, spreading irritation as his personal lubricant and looking strikingly like a young Ross McLaren, the Canadian experimental filmmaker who died last November and was a friend, former professor, and occasional actor for me—the artist unleashed who understands that no rule is indelible; that a contract is not a contract without negotiation.
WATCH THE DRAUGHTSMAN’S CONTRACT
James N. Kienitz Wilkins is a filmmaker and artist. His most recent features are Still Film (2023) and The Plagiarists (2019).
The Exiles, dir. Kent Mackenzie, 1961
Shot over the course of a few years, The Exiles follows a day in the life of a group of young Native Americans only recently relocated from reservations and now living in a noirish and since-demolished Los Angeles neighborhood, Bunker Hill. The characters—men who drink and joke and gamble and drive around; women who cook and look after babies and go to the movies—are played by nonactors, with dialogue that is neither scripted nor purely veritas. Most of their speech is in English, with some slips into untranslated Native languages. Is it a documentary? Is it a drama? Who, exactly, are they performing? And for whom? The effect is uncanny but maybe only for being American. Swap L.A. for Rome and set the action a decade earlier, and the film’s tonal oddity likely wouldn’t come across. The whole thing is strange without being eccentric, which to my mind at least is the most flattering—if artless—description you can bestow upon something.
Alice Gregory is a writer living in New York. She is at work on a book about the artist Robert Indiana.
Milla, dir. Valérie Massadian, 2017
I had lunch with Valérie Massadian two years ago. I asked her, “What makes a film successful for you?” Her response: “It’s when it changes people’s lives. A film is just a film—I don’t really care. That’s all great, but it’s not enough. When the girl who plays in Milla saw this movie and realized it was for her, that was a success. When she came to Locarno and went on stage and said, ‘People told me I was a worthless piece of shit, and then this woman came into my life and I saw myself onscreen.’ This is success. The rest is pleasant, it’s vanity, but it doesn’t last. If that’s not there then I’ve fucked up; I would just do something else, like grow carrots."
Joshua Minsoo Kim is a high school science teacher and culture writer based in Chicago. He is the Editor-in-Chief of Tone Glow.
