El Planeta

Clever, stylish and subtle, El Planeta made me wish more indie movies got made today! We need such vantages into the world

This film is beautiful and stylish, witty clever and funny but I don't think a dark comedy, as one reviewer called it here is an apt title, I think it meant to be a satire but because it's so funny and elegant most of its barbs end up feeling like tickles. So we chuckle or laugh when we should've moved uncomfortably in our chairs hiding our faces with shame.

The other fault it has is a failure to build real human characters. Both of the leads come out as made up creatures, especially so the mother that doesn't create even the slightest empathy to her plight. The daughter, who's being played by the film's writer-director Amalia Ulman does get a fair share of character building moments but every time we start developing any empathy for her the film takes a step back and alienates us from her again. So we may laugh and chuckle but I think that's not the emotions the film aimed for. In fact I don't think that's the emotions the film should've aimed for.

El Planeta tracks soon-to-be evicted mother-daughter grifters, María Rendueles and Leonor (or Leo) Jimenez, in the aftermath of the 2008-2014 Spanish financial crisis. Based on real life mother-daughter scammers, Justina and Ana Belén (Las Falsas Ricas de Gijón), who swindled up to 6000 euros in restaurants and establishments in Gijón.

María and Leo follow a similar trajectory in the picaresque film, often finding replenishment in each other's company in an otherwise starved world. Many scenes present portraits of idle time. Shots are often stationary, long and wide with few closeups, reminiscent of Claire Denis, tinged with the domestic intimacies of Hong Sang-soo, and Jim Jarmusch's unhurried, deadpan black and white early work. Enveloped by the vast oceanic landscapes of the bored port of Gijón, Ulman's hometown, the city's dead-endedness evokes the silent desperation of Peter Bogdanovich's The Last Picture Show (1971). The city is desolate, almost entirely populated by eldery people, with most of its businesses permanently closed and shrouded in for sale signs, wood, and graffiti. The world is built entirely around money, all María and Leo can inevitably do is wait for the government to figure out they don't have it and later be escorted to society's exit. Still, the two choose to retain some agency and personal sense of dignity as they opt to exit well-dressed and freshly manicured by controlling the last thing they have left, their bodies.

I can appreciate quirky cinema but this attempt did not work for me. I see the influences of Jarmusch's Down by Law and Herzog's Stroszek but those are much better films. A mother and daughter team of shoplifters who grift their way through life appear in disconnected scenes with supposed humor is a depressing black and white journey. The high scores are a case of the emperor has no clothes; much like the "music" of Yoko Ono, just pretentious nonsense. Miss Ulman made a real life home movie.

A mother and daughter each do their best to fail upwards after being abandoned by the family patriarch. They do so with humor and grace. Beautifully shot in digital black and white, the washed-up backgrounds of post-recession Gijon, Spain tell their own story through a dry, saline sense of time and warmth. For fans of nouvelle-vague, Miranda July. The fullest expression of director/star Ulman's artistic vision to date.