Prior to the Oscars, our household always tries to scarf down as many films with as many nominees as we can. Sometimes we encounter a delight we might not have come across otherwise, and other times these viewings feel obligatory or perfunctory, even after the fact. When we started watching Paul Thomas Anderson's One Battle After Another tonight I approached it like the latter, but was pleasantly surprised to discover the former.
I knew from the trailer that I was in for something conspiratorial and paranoid, but there is an almost hallucinatory or dreamlike element to much of it as well that reminded me of The Illuminatus Trilogy. The compartmentalized secrecy of the French 75 revolutionary group, while hearkening back to the Weather Underground of the 60s and 70s, felt chronologically displaced among modern autos and cell phones. It was even filmed in 35mm VistaVision for a more period feel.
The majority of the film follows a former revolutionary (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his teenaged daughter (Chase Infiniti) who go on the run after 16 years in hiding when a vengeful Col. Lockjaw (Sean Penn) discovers their whereabouts. This partially follows the plot of Thomas Pynchon's novel Vineland but is only a loose adaptation (with the author's blessing, which is cool).
The writing is tight and the pacing tighter than most of the other Anderson movie's I've watched (I appreciated There Will be Blood but actively disliked Phantom Thread), but like those movies there are some fantastic performances to be had here, running the gamut from broad satire to intensely personal. Benicio Del Toro joins the other two male leads for Oscar nominations and I adored his portrayal of a karate school teacher who maintains an unbreakable coolness despite the plot's impacts on his own, separate, clandestine objectives.
The lack of female nominations strikes me as tragic, given the caliber of performances, but 13 nominations for the film in total is no small achievement.
In terms of impact, it is one thing for a present day movie to echo the sentiments of a more subversive era, with its callbacks to Gil Scott Heron's The Revolution Will Not Be Televised and the film The Battle of Algiers (mandatory viewing for both the Black Panthers and the FBI's Hostage Rescue Unit) while people are weariung present day clothing. It is entirely another to watch Federal agents kitted out in full tactical gear storming a frozen food factory and high school dance as cover for their manhunt, using agents provocateur to escalate street confrontations while similar scenes are playing out IRL in Minneapolis.
The introduction of an even more secretive faction of rich white racists brings things like the Epstein files to mind as well - all this from a screenplay Anderson says he has been writing for twenty years, and which wrapped shooting a year before the ICE surge descended on Minnesota.
An imaginative and chilling movie that has genuine affection for the characters that it subjects to such harsh trials, and yet still finds moments of gallows humour and absurdity, I suggest open-minded film fans seek out One Battle After Another on Crave here in Canada. Heck, if you watch Sinners on the same service, that's 29 nominations you've covered for the Oscars...
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