Natalia Almada's EVERYTHING ELSE: the cost of solitude and loneliness in Mexico City

What a quiet but engulfing little gem of a film is EVERYTHING ELSE, the new movie from Mexico by writer/director Natalia Almada (shown below). It is not, however, for action aficionados. Not only is there practically no action at all -- our poor heroine cannot even gather the courage to jump into a swimming pool along with the rest of her peers -- even the camera here does not move. From scene to scene, whatever new view it must take in, the camera eye remains utterly stationary throughout.

The cinematographer, Lorenzo Hagerman, keeps his shots clean and pristine, even when the subject matter is often dark and dreary. And when a film boasts a leading actress whose face possesses such character -- longing, suspicion, fear, hope and all the rest -- as does that of Adriana Barraza (shown below and further below), what you have to look at will never, it seems,  tire you in the least. Ms Barraza has been utterly terrific in supporting roles in movie after movie -- from Amores Perros and Babel to Henry Poole Is Here, Rage, Drag Me to Hell and especially Cake -- but what a pleasure it is to see her in a leading role, using that marvelous face with such command & subtlety.

Ms Barraza is on screen for most of the movie, with only occasional reaction shots and a bit of dialog given to subsidiary characters. The actress plays a 60-something-year-old government worker, Doña Flor, whose job -- at least it would seem so -- is to prevent citizens (such as the woman shown below) who need some kind of government authorization from actually getting that authorization. (In its own way, the film is quite an indictment of bureaucracy.) Such a stickler Flor is for by-the-letter rules, she uses anything from the color of the ink to the fact that a man's signature is not exactly the same two times in a row (of course: no signature ever is, but she's in charge, so we'll have to let that pass).

The fellow with the incorrect signatures also happens to look and act like an uber-entitled wealthy man, so perhaps something else is going on here, too. Our heroine also keeps a kind of record of violent incidents against women, which we hear reported with regularity via radio and TV over the course of the film.

Doña Flor also lives alone with her cat, and so may also qualify as one of those lonely cat ladies we often hear about. She also swims daily and showers with the other women, though without ever really connecting in any way with anyone. Every scene, every thing in the film is given -- intentionally, I believe -- the same weight, which is certainly one interesting way to define and show us an empty life.

As the movie goes along, after the loss of her only companion, small breaks in Doña Flor's facade begin to appear. And then, slowly, while at work she seems to perhaps listen more closely to the people who appear in front of her for help. She even -- shock! -- begins to bend those rules just a little.

Her journey is a slow and very small one, and yet, thanks to the minute detail that the filmmaker, her star and the supporting cast provide, this journey should prove a vital and important one for viewers looking for character and depth in place of action and special effects. The effects here are of the human and humane variety.

The movie this one most reminded me of is that great but little-seen-over-here Spanish film Le Soledad (Solitary Fragments is its English-language title) by Jaime Rosales, which won Spain's Goya award for Best Film back in 2007. It's been more than a decade since I've seen another Spanish language movie as quiet, austere, elegant and character-driven as that one. So if you want to enter the world of a sad and lonely woman who may still have some possibilities to explore, Everything Else is that opportunity. Snatch it.

From Cinema Tropical, in Spanish with English subtitles and running 98 minutes, the movie opens tomorrow, Friday, May 4, in New York City at the Cinema Village. Elsewhere? I certainly hope so, and if and when I find out where and when, I'll post it here. 

A French film about modern life, like nothing you've seen: Pascale Ferran's BIRD PEOPLE

Pascale Ferran has made only four full-length films in her career (which began back in 1983). Her most famous is Lady Chatterly from 2006, based on the D.H. Lawrence novel, but I would not be surprised if it's her new one, BIRD PEOPLE, that genuine movie-lovers (the kind who don't mind reading subtitles or wrestling with theme and meaning) will remember best. This is such an unusual movie. But it is so in ways very different from most of what passes in front of our eyes. It begins with a kind of rhapsody/tapestry of people going, being and doing (mostly via their modern conveniences), walking, riding and talking. The entire film lasts two hours and seven minutes, yet the time truly seems to fly by.

Bird People is the kind of movie that you probably should read little about prior to viewing. Just go, settle back, and drink it all in. Afterwards, you can read yourself crazy about the movie. So far, every review I've read, almost all of them positive, has come at the film from a different viewpoint and, clearly, the reviewer has taken away his/her own meaning(s). In the first half of the film, at least, Ms Ferran, pictured at left, has given us such an unusual and encompassing look at the world we're living in this year that the movie could exist as a kind of time capsule for folk who might want to know what 2013 and 2014 were like to live and travel in. And that is barely a piece of what the film has on offer.

That fine actor, whom we don't see often enough in movies, Josh Charles (shown below), plays Gary, a high roller/part owner of a Silicon Valley company arriving in France for a big business deal. What happens to him and why takes us through the first half of the film.

The lovely Anaïs Demoustier (below), most recently seen in The French Minister, plays Audrey, a chambermaid at the airport hotel in which Gary is lodging, who is using her earnings there to help put herself through university.

Ferran has divided her movie into basically two sections: the first covers the story of her "hero," Gary; the second is devoted to her "heroine." These two characters would appear to have little in common and never even meet for most of the movie. (Don't worry, this is no cute and clever rom-com like Happenstance.)

What happens to Gary is quite fascinating, and the way it happens -- how all this is "communicated" -- is even more so. It is very "now," especially in the scene that Mr. Charles has with the excellent Radha Mitchell that is evocative and heartbreaking -- at a distance. This scene is an enormous accomplishment for the actors and the filmmaker.

What happens to Ms Demoustier, however, is something else. Why does this happen to the characterof Audrey? If we given clues (other than her interest in birds), I didn't spot them. But I didn't need them, either, as I have never viewed scenes using a bird that in any way begin to rival what is on display here. (The "sparrow wrangler" deserves some sort of Oscar or César. Unless, of course, the sparrow is all CGI effects, like the tiger in Life of Pi. In retrospect, that poor pigeon from Amour was an absolute piker in the acting department.)

There are some subsidiary characters, too, most important among them the hotel worker played by the always wonderful Roschdy Zem, below, left. This man can easily stand in for how so much of our world today is managing to make ends meet.

Artistically, I would question only one of Ferran's major choices -- suddenly having a narrator pop into the proceedings, in case what the actor and filmmaker have given us is not enough for our full understanding of the situation. Yet we're already there. Mr. Charles is more than ample in his role, so we get it. And if we need look for more reason why Gary chooses the path he does, we can think back to the content of that email/video he recevies from his son early in the film. Even though the sudden, short narration is voiced by that excellent actor, Mathieu Amalric, it is unnecessary, and I believe this is the only time in the film that we're given any narration. A little more discipline (or belief in what she had already accomplished) might have been in order here on Ferran's part.

Otherwise, Bird People is an exceptional and exceptionally personal piece of filmmaking that I suspect will reach more people on various levels that even the moviemakers might hope or predict. For my money, its most important themes are about freedom and solitude and "life" in its many forms, but you'll have your own version. The film -- from Sundance Selects/IFC Films -- opens this Friday after appearances at Cannes and Toronto. Here in NYC you can see it at the IFC Center. Elsewhere? Don't know, but since the movie is simultaneously making its VOD debut across country, you'll have ample opportunity to see it.