A LETTERED SOUL: REFLECTIONS ON LITERATURE, CINEMA AND CULTURE .

A CINEPHILE'S RECOMMENDATIONS : FILMS FEATURING NATALIE PORTMAN

*****

I write  about three cinematic works featuring the irrepressible Natalie Portman. They denote a respectable filmography that is not necessarily a greatest hits medley but manages to bring a brave, unconventional inflection to her choices. On that count, she is a cut above the rest. So irrespective of the fickle critical ballast attached to each, I iterate here that I could personally connect with them. From a cinephile's perspective my readers will agree as well. HERE THEY ARE, IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER.

**

PLANETARIUM (2017)

We all have stars in our eyes. A yearning, an ambition to look beyond the ordinary. The spaces in which we get the opportunities to shine with our singular and often unique talents become our mortal planetariums. It's an universe of human desires. Perhaps that's what Rebecca Zlotowski aims with the title to her quietly beguiling, ensnaring bilingual feature film. It has the human psyche as its starting point and overarching thematic element. I found it immersive on multiple levels and for purists of cinema, it's a treat.

The beginning of experimental cinema, avant garde, elements of the paranormal and upper crust decadence all converge here. Cross cultural meeting of the twain in American influences and French auteurism in a Second World War timeline is pertinent in the establishment of new personal / cultural narratives. This is a pre French New Wave cultural caravan addressed here in Planetarium , years before Truffaut, Renoir and Goddard burst onto the scene. A flux of transition is underway when two American sisters(Natalie Portman and Lily Rose Depp) , part of an act that summons the mystical areas of sentience through seances, summoning the dead for rich patrons, land in Paris. It's not long before a sophisticated producer ( Emmanuel Salinger) is riveted and this unlikely professional setup is translated to the big screen by him, in hopes of bringing an experimental verve to a stagnant French cinematic canon as against the dynamism of American films . This is where the twain meets in this cross continental union. In the process, he plans to capture an actual apparition on camera with the younger sister's abilities to conjure spirits and launch the photogenic elder one in a screenplay involving the mystique of her abilities. The idea of belief, incredulity and the works permeates the screenplay throughout. Filmmaking and magical renderings of images coalesce with the idea of fantasy and reality, where seances and the whole behind the scenes trajectory of canning scenes with Natalie in the film within the film structure probe a deeper mystery of being, of seeing and believing. A genuinely sensual, visually appealing verisimilitude is recreated of the era in close ups and beautifully lit interiors. The storytelling grips us on account of this natural attuning to the various strands that are lucidly brought together, without excess or showy theatrics as is the betokened norm in French cinema per se. Hence a sense of apprehension for these sisters in this new venture is maintained.

On the performative front, sexual passivity and avoidance is conveyed well by Natalie as also her ambitions . She has her inimitable tic to convey petulance, innocence and clever grasps.

Amira Casar(so good as the mother of Timothee Chalamet in CALL ME BY YOUR NAME ) is excellent, especially in a party scene where her insular haughtiness clashes with the intellect of a professor who enters late ;as is Emmanuel Salinger as the beady eyed gentleman who can never be trusted at face value, a man who shows an erotic charge during the seances, tracing a hidden past, and has the tides of time render him alienated when his Jewish roots open up racist tremors . This is a film beholden to the performances and the evocative mood of a slow boiling, internalized human tale of chances and changing circumstances.