Volume 129: Silver Haze
The Voice of Energy Vol. 129
Hey there. Gotta make this short as I have a busy, busy, busy day ahead of me. Not so busy that I couldn't sit down and knock out a fresh newsletter for you. Only one review for you today of a wonderful drama set in England and a streaming recommendation. More again next week.
Silver Haze (2023, dir. Sacha Polek)
In an early scene in Silver Haze, the potent new drama from Dutch filmmaker Sacha Polek, Franky (Vicky Knight) quietly explains to her new partner Florence (Esmé Creed-Miles) how, as a child, she came to be caught in a fire inside a pub that left much of her upper body scarred. It's a harrowing story, with terrifying details such as how she thought her older brother who came to rescue her was sweating, but that he was instead "melting, like a candle."
It would be a powerful moment even if it weren't based almost entirely on a real incident that took place in Knight's childhood and left her with those very real scars. And the power of her retelling is only deepened as it is intercut with scenes of Franky and Florence having a cute hang, mucking through a mudflat and getting filthy in the process.
The scene is also one of the few moments of calm between these two characters. The two meet in the East London hospital where Vicky works as a nurse and Florence is being treated for a suicide attempt. Their attraction is immediate and fierce, with the added emotional pull for Vicky that it pulls her away from her family, which is still dealing the PTSD of the fire. (Mother drinks herself blind. Vicky's sister Leah, played by Charlotte Knight, dates an abusive sex addict.)
The relationship is also seemingly doomed from the jump. As the two loll in bed one night, Florence adamantly insists that she is "a bad person," and spends the rest of the film bearing that out. When she's not pushing Vicky away, she encourages her partner to engage in violent retribution against the woman who may have started the pub fire. Soon, she is even lashing out at Alice (Angela Bruce), the caring woman who took Florence in after she had been kicked out of her home.
The success of Silver Haze comes down simply to how realistic it all feels. The dialogue is refreshingly natural in the manner of Joe Swanberg or Mike Leigh. I've seen no indication that it was being made up on the spot by the actors, but that wouldn't surprise me. Similarly, the growth that Vicky and many of the characters go through feels genuine. It makes the even the small moments of drama feel explosive, and the big moments feel earth-shattering.
Silver Haze opens in select theaters today.
FTA Pick of the Week
Our regular feature — a recommendation of a movie to watch that is hiding below the fold on one of the major streaming services. In other words: fuck the algorithm.
Ishtar (1987, dir. Elaine May)
The film that has long been a punchline. The film that ended the directorial career of the great Elaine May. The film that is slowly earning a well-deserved reappraisal by critics and cinephiles alike. It's an absolute charmer, parodying Cold War-era geopolitics in its story of two inept lounge singers, played by Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman, who take a gig at Moroccan hotel and stumble into a geopolitical mess. It's also the rare chance to see two otherwise self-serious actors completely commit to being absolute buffoons. It's not perfect. It doesn't need to be. It's a lark that will help while away a lazy Sunday morning and leave you feeling plenty satisfied.
Ishtar is available on Tubi and, this month, the Criterion Channel.
Do no harm. Take no shit. Ceasefire now. Free Palestine.
Artwork for this edition of The Voice of Energy is from I Broke The House*, an exhibition of the work of Beverly Buchanan that opens at ETH Zürich on March 5.*
This newsletter was written on the unceded land where once stood the traditional village sites of the Multnomah, Wasco, Cowlitz, Kathlamet, Clackamas, Bands of Chinook, Tualatin, Kalapuya, Molalla, and many other tribes who made their homes along the Columbia River creating communities and summer encampments to harvest and use the plentiful natural resources of the area.