Newsletter: Indie Focus: Dynamics at play in ‘A Bigger Splash,’ ‘Band of Outsiders’ and ‘The Family Fang’

Hello! I’m Mark Olsen, and welcome to your weekly field guide to a world of Only Good Movies.

The summer movie season is fast upon us all with the release of “Captain America: Civil War,” and the Cannes Film Festival is right around the corner, which means we will soon see a handful of movies that we could still be talking about a year from now.

We’ll have some more exciting screening/Q&A events coming up soon. Check events.latimes.com for more info.

Nonstop movies. Movies nonstop.

‘A Bigger Splash’

From new film director Luca Guadagnino, “A Bigger Splash” finds Tilda Swinton, Ralph Fiennes, Matthias Schoenaerts and Dakota Johnson vacationing on a glamorous Italian island. As might be expected with a cast like that, the film is very sensual but also deceptive in its subtle explorations of emotional dynamics.

I spoke to Swinton, Fiennes, Johnson, Guadagnino and screenwriter David Kajganich for a story on the film. In particular, how Guadagnino’s special gift for capturing the sensual feel of a place, it’s light and food and vibe.

“I call it sensational cinema. Not sensationalist cinema but a cinema of the senses,” said Swinton. “I keep joking we should give people sunscreen with their popcorn for this movie. There’s a feeling that you’re going to this place.”

In his review for The Times, Justin Chang tied the movie’s many strands together when he wrote, “Does ‘A Bigger Splash’ end with a cathartic affirmation of its characters’ happiness, or a cynical indictment of their privilege? Guadagnino isn’t telling. But he’s made the rare movie that, for all its delight in its own beautiful surface, turns out to be altogether less shallow than it appears.”

In the New Yorker, Anthony Lane called the film “fiercely unrelaxing, and impossible to ignore. You emerge from it restive and itchy, as though a movie screen could give you sunburn, and the story defies resolution.”

Anna Karina at the Hollywood Roosevelt on April 30.

(Mariah Tauger / for the Times )

‘Band of Outsiders’

The 1964 film “Band of Outsiders” is being re-released by Rialto Pictures in a new restoration. The film, directed by Jean-Luc Godard, comes on as a frizzy, fun play on the crime flick and grows in emotional resonance as it goes.

I had the unexpected honor of interviewing Anna Karina, the movie’s star, on the occasion of a recent very rare appearance here in Los Angeles. I am a huge admirer of her work and would have assumed her to be someone I would never have the opportunity. So this was personally very exciting, and she did not disappoint.

She explained Godard’s unusual working methods like so, “He would give you the dialogue in the morning just before you’re shooting. So you had to learn it. But also there was a lot of movements, you had to drink and talk at the same time, or light a cigarette and walk around. So that may be what people like today, because that’s what you do in life. It’s not the old fashioned cinema where people come in, close the door, sit down and then begin to talk. With Jean-Luc Godard, we did everything at the same time.”

My article also features both recent lead actress Oscar winner Brie Larson and fashion designer Laura Mulleavy of the Rodarte label speaking about the enduring appeal and lasting influence of Karina’s work.

Justin Chang wrote about “Band of Outsiders” and said, “Long before it became fashionable for filmmakers to dismantle the fourth wall, Jean-Luc Godard had devoted himself to the cinema of self-awareness: He was in the business of making movies, the saying goes, that made viewers intently aware they were watching a movie.

“If ‘Band of Outsiders’ is frequently heartbreaking, it’s never depressing. The genius of Godard’s filmmaking is that we can see both the futility and the necessity of his movie love, as expressed by his characters’ reckless schemes as well as every movement of his camera.”

‘The Family Fang’

An adaptation of the novel by Kevin Wilson written for the screen by David Lindsay-Abaire and directed by Jason Bateman, “The Family Fang” concerns a pair of siblings (Bateman and Nicole Kidman) attempting to get past their unusual upbringing as child participants in the art projects of their parents Caleb and Camille (Christopher Walken, Maryann Plunkett).

In my review of the film, I wrote, “It’s heavy stuff, served with a light touch … For a project that is a showcase for his talents as both actor and director, Bateman never gets too showy on either front, keeping the emotions of the film at something of a restrained simmer.”

I had spoken to Bateman about the film back in the fall when I was at the world premiere during the Toronto International Film festival, and he spoke then of the tricky tone, part drama, part comedy, when he said, “That was always the order that I saw things, a drama that had some moments of levity and comedy and eccentricity.”

Writing about the movie in the New York Times, Manohla Dargis said, “Mr. Bateman’s direction of the actors is especially sensitive in this and other tricky scenes, showing a delicacy with emotional textures that isn’t always matched by the story … The tragedy isn’t that Caleb and Camille can’t tell the difference between art and life, but that they could make only one seem important.”

‘Dragon Inn’

The filmmaker King Hu is something of a cinephile’s delight, someone who elevated the genre of the martial arts film into a dazzling showcase for action filmmaking of the highest level, and he has been an influence of everyone from Ang Lee to Quentin Tarantino. “Dragon Inn” is getting a re-release in a new restoration, and Robert Abele wrote a review that also serves as a primer for why old-school martial arts film provided such an unexpected platform for formal and thematic sophistication.

“A director in command of everything from the watchful eyes of his actors, to the beauty of a misty morning light, to the heart-stopping vectors of arrows and swords bursting across a widescreen frame, Hu creates cinema that’s the definition of kineticism. ‘Dragon Inn,’ a wuxia mold-breaker to treasure, is truly soaring pulp, and its return is a treat for moviegoers.”

Email me if you have questions, comments or suggestions, and follow me on Twitter @IndieFocus.