By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Alex Ross Perry
Country: united_states
Year: 2015
Running time: 90
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3993894
Kyle says: “QUEEN OF EARTH opens with a closeup of the tear-stained face and disheveled hair of Catherine (Elisabeth Moss) sobbing bitterly while asking, ‘Why are you doing this to me?’ The ‘you’ is boyfriend James (Kentucker Audley), and we have a pretty clear idea of what ‘this’ is. There follows a shattering, initially off-putting but gradually compelling and finally deeply moving, psychological deterioration of Catherine during a supposedly restorative summer outing with her lifelong best friend Virginia (Katherine Waterston).
“Initially one is tempted to think Catherine is becoming unhinged without reference to undue influence of men, because boyfriend James is totally loving and supportive, if usually absent; because she is recovering from the death of her father, who was talented and famous where she is not; and finally, because she takes an instantaneous dislike to boy next door Rich (Patrick Fugit), who befriends Virginia. Catherine is utterly transparent in her awareness of failed relationships when she says to Virginia: ‘You can get out of someone else’s cycle, but you can’t get out of your own’.
“Writer/director Alex Ross Perry, whose fourth feature this is, directed last year’s LISTEN UP PHILIP, which featured an equally unlikeable lead character in Jason Schwartzman. Perry cites as his influences Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s THE BITTER TEARS OF PETRA VON KANT (1972) and MARTHA (1974), Herk Harvey’s CARNIVAL OF SOULS (1962), Roman Polanski’s REPULSION (1965), Robert Altman’s IMAGES (1972), and Woody Allen’s INTERIORS (1978). Other influences that can be inferred are Ingmar Bergman’s PERSONA (1966) in the closeup juxtaposition of faces of the two women, and Jean-Luc Godard’s PIERROT LE FOU with the repeated Jean-Paul Belmondo correction ‘My name is Ferdinand’ every time Anna Karina calls him ‘Pierrot’ reflected in the repetitious even belligerent correction of ‘Ginny’ to ‘Virginia’.
“The most unforgettable scene is a breath-taking emotional fusillade of insults and invective unleashed by Catherine upon Rich at the dining table; we are conditioned to expect a reaction shot of Rich or a physical attack by him on her, and we are genuinely surprised to receive neither. The performances by the two women are superlative. Elisabeth Moss, who was splendid as Jason Schwartzman’s girlfriend in LISTEN UP PHILIP, fearlessly plunges into a miasma of conflicting emotional demands, abandoning the need that lesser actresses would require to be occasionally presented more attractively. Katherine Waterston, who showed such promise as Shasta in Paul Thomas Anderson’s INHERENT VICE, is revealed to have potential greatness in demonstrating her capacity to accomplish the single most difficult aspect of acting: listening. Kentucker Audley, who unfortunately has little to do, will be remembered as the outstanding lead actor of Charles Poekel’s CHRISTMAS, AGAIN, one of the best films of 2015.
“The only resounding negative in Alex Ross Perry’s direction is his terrible use of music, an intrusive inappropriate omnipresent score by Keegan DeWitt on clarinet, sampled piano and Wrenchenspiel (tuned metal wrenches struck by mallets like a xylophone), that insists on telling the audience what to think and feel about Catherine’s breakdown in the most relentless possible sense. Many composers have spoken and written about the inability of most film directors to understand if, how, when and where to use music. Mr. Perry has brought about a sublimely irritating textbook case of how not to use music, reminding me of Pauline Kael’s famous attack on a director’s ‘cold slick style…like a neon sign that spells out the soullessness of neon’. 4 cats
“Monday, August 24, 2015, at the Roy and Niuta Titus Theater 1, Museum of Modern Art, New York”