Los Angeles Times - 23.08.2019

L ATIMES.COM/CALENDAR FRIDAY, AUGUST 23, 2019E7

AT THE MOVIES: REVIEWS

Director Adrian Lyne’s
supernatural thriller “Ja-
cob’s Ladder” was hardly the
biggest box office hit of 1990
—and not as massive as
writer Bruce Joel Rubin’s
other movie that year,
“Ghost.” But thanks to its
psychedelic interludes,
openly spiritualist bent and
jaw-dropping twist ending,
the film developed a small
but fervent cult following.
And yet what made that
picture so beloved — namely
the sense of surprise, and
Lyne and Rubin’s deep per-
sonal feeling — also makes it
apoor candidate for a re-
make. The long-in-devel-
opment new version of
“Jacob’s Ladder” tweaks the
plot and themes to try to
keep the story fresh. In the
process, director David M.
Rosenthal and the project’s
multiple screenwriters sap
the film of something vital.
Michael Ealy takes on the
role of Jacob Singer, a com-
bat veteran suffering from

hallucinations. When Jacob

learns that some Army bud-

dies are having the same is-

sues, he at first suspects a

conspiracy. As he investi-

gates further, he begins to

question everything about

his own reality.

Ealy gives a sympathetic

performance, and the exist-

ential mysteries underlying

this story remain beguiling.

But the original film fol-

lowed a surreal logic that

was more than a little

spooky. The new “Jacob’s

Ladder” is less strange and

scaryand more mindlessly

action-packed. It doesn’t

feel like a dream. It’s more

like hearing a stranger de-

scribe a dream.

—Noel Murray

“Jacob’s Ladder.”Rated: R,

for language, some violence,

sexuality and drug content.

Running time: 1 hour, 30

minutes. Playing: Laemmle

Music Hall, Beverly Hills;

also on VOD.

Frank Masi

MICHAEL EALYstars as Jacob Singer, the titular
role played by Tim Robbins in the 1990 original film.

‘JACOB’S LADDER’

Do not get lost

in his head again

The fun horror-comedy

“Tone-Deaf ” sports the

basic premise of a serial

killer thriller: A stressed-out

woman desperate to go off

the grid rents a country

house, where she’s hunted

by a psychopath. But this

movie was written and di-

rected by Richard Bates Jr.,

an offbeat, B-picture auteur

(“Excision” and “Suburban

Gothic”). Nothing about

“Tone-Deaf ” is routine.

Amanda Crew (“Silicon

Valley”) plays Olive, a disillu-

sioned, somewhat self-de-

luded L.A. millennial who

“cancels” her boyfriend and

job and heads to the middle

of nowhere to decompress.

Robert Patrick plays Har-

vey, the grumpy old man

who owns the farmhouse Ol-

ive rentsand plans to kill her

—in part to see what murder

would be like andbecause he

really hates these kids today.

Bates doesn’t have much

interest in terrifying audi-

ences. Both Olive and Har-

vey and are fairly comical,

and they’re surrounded by a

cast of eccentrics. “Tone-

Deaf ” can be quite gory at

times, but there’s a clinical

quality to the violence, as

though Bates were more

concerned with showing off

cool makeup effects.

Multiple scenes break

the fourth wall as Harvey de-

livers monologues more or

less into the camera. “The

Struggle Is Real” T-shirt Ol-

ive wears through much of

the climactic standoff tele-

graphs what this picture is

really about. This is a quirky,

cutting story of generation

versus generation, refereed

by a filmmaker who seems to

find both fairly ridiculous.

—Noel Murray

“Tone-Deaf.” Rated: R, for

violence, language through-

out, sexual content and

some drug use. Running

time: 1 hour, 27 minutes.

Playing: Arena Cinelounge,

Hollywood; also on VOD

Alex WormanLightning Entertainment

OLIVE (AMANDA CREW)just wants a little time

away. But she ends up with a wannabe killer after her.

‘TONE-DEAF’

Laughing at the

generational wars

Since his diagnosis of ret-

initis pigmentosa, filmma-

ker Rodney Evans (“Brother

to Brother,” “The Happy

Sad”) has for more than 20

years sought an under-

standing of what it means to

be an artist in a visual me-

dium who’s losing his sight.

Now he’s made a person-

al documentary, “Vision

Portraits,” that not only

beautifully expresses —

through narration, text and

often abstract, subjective

visuals — his thoughts and

experiences but also offers

up affecting examples of fel-

low artists wrestling with

blindnessand how it’s af-

fected each person’s work.

We meet photographer

John Dugdale, whose HIV-

triggered blindness decades

ago led him to an approach

to shooting that put an even

greater trust in the pictures

he saw in his headand which

kept him working as pas-

sionately as ever.

Dancer Kayla Hamilton,

born with vision in only one

eye, tackled the issue of spa-

tial awareness with renewed

vigor, creating her own show

that parlayed her particular

sensory deprivation into a

piece about resilience and

perspective. And writer

Ryan Knighton, a punk rock

teen turned writer-profes-

sor, finds that a sight-chal-

lenged viewpoint — espe-

cially a funny one — can

forge its own place in the lit-

erary world.

The common thread is a

struggle that sharpens the

desire to be a relevant cre-

ative voice, and by threading

his own emotional journey

throughout in simply ad-

dressing so personal an is-

sue on film, Evans has made

a touchingly honest ode to

the inner life of all artists.

—Robert Abele

“Vision Portraits.” Not

rated. Running time: 1

hour, 18 minutes. Playing:

Laemmle Royal, West L.A.

Kjerstin RossiStimulous Pictures

DANCERKayla Hamilton, born with vision in only

one eye, tackles spatial awareness issues with vigor.

‘VISION PORTRAITS’

No matter what,

they still make art

Ryôhei works in advertis-

ing for a liquor company, and

he is as dependable and

down-to-earth as Baku was

broody and erratic. Asako

once clung desperately to

Baku, but she is now ar-

dently pursued by Ryôhei,

who senses their shared

attraction but has no idea

why she seems so shy and

frightened in his presence.

Eventually, that earthquake

hits and brings Ryôhei and

Asako together, initiating

another leap forward in

time and, soon, another

jaw-dropping surprise. Suf-

fice to say that the specter

of “Vertigo,” Alfred Hitch-

cock’s inexhaustible mas-

terwork of romantic obses-

sion, hangs heavily over this

tale of a lost lover who is un-

expectedly found.

Adapting a novel by To-

moka Shibasaki, Ham-

aguchi and his cowriter,

Sachiko Tanaka, display a

heart. And so he does. The

driftiest of bad boys, Baku

exits the scene one day

without explanation, leaving

the devastated Asako to

pick up the pieces of her life

and move on. Two years lat-

er, she’s working at a coffee

shop in Tokyo, never dream-

ing that she will come face

to face with Baku again —

or rather, with Ryôhei, a

dead ringer for her ex-

boyfriend. (He is also played

by Higashide.)

A cataclysm strikes
almost halfway through
“Asako I & II,” killing the
lights, rattling the walls and
briefly tearing in two the fab-
ric of this quietly entrancing
Japanese drama. But the
writer-director, Ryûsuke
Hamaguchi, has little inter-
est in staging a tragic spec-
tacle for its own sake. In-
stead, he cuts to the more
intimate spectacle of a man
and a woman embracing in
wake of disaster — a mutual
declaration of love that, giv-
en what we know about
them by that point, feels at
once sweet, beguiling, inevi-
table and alarming.
The scene in question
pointedly mirrors the mov-
ie’s opening sequence at an
Osaka art gallery, where the
woman — the lovely, demure
Asako (Erika Karata) — and
ahandsome, tousle-haired
stranger named Baku
(Masahiro Higashide) first
lock gazes. Time seems to
slow even as the pulse quick-
ens, and Baku impulsively
approaches Asako and
takes her in his arms. It’s a
gloriously heightened and
blatantly artificial movie-
movie moment, complete
with a catchy synth riff
(courtesy of composer To-
fubeats) and a round of ex-
ploding firecrackers. Before
these two even know each
other, their love has become
the stuff of destiny, cin-
ematically immortalized.
Hamaguchi, best known
for his absorbing five-
hour-plus relationship epic
“Happy Hour,” is especially
good at those moments. The
surfaces of his films can be so
sedate, refined and gently
inviting that you’re seldom
prepared when their emo-
tional crosscurrents sud-
denly dovetail, knocking you
back on your heels. “Asako I
&II,” screening this week-
end at Ahrya Fine Arts
(courtesy of Acropolis Cine-
ma and Film at LACMA), is
a peculiarly potent story
about life’s unexpected little
ruptures — those odd coinci-
dences, repetitions and
shifts in perspective that
can set off aftershocks in the
human heart.
Asako falls hard for Baku,
ignoring the warnings of her
close friend Haruyo (Sairi
Itô) that he will break her

clear fascination with dou-

bles and doppelgängers of

every kind. The two acts of

“Asako I & II” mirror each

other in subtly playful ways,

with formal and structural

echoes throughout. Nearly

every event in the first half

recurs, more sadly, in the

second, as if to acknowledge

that life’s consequences

grow only crueler and more

permanent with age. An

early mistake can be easily

forgiven and forgotten. An-

other one years later has

much graver consequences.

There may be two men

in this movie with the same

face, but as the title sug-

gests, there are also two

Asakos — one determined

to move forward in life and

love, the other unwilling to

give up a dream from the

past. More than once, Ham-

aguchi shoots Asako from

the back, as if to confound

your sense of which version

of the character you’re go-

ing to get. All this vertigi-

nous doubling might have

left “Asako I & II” feeling like

a purely technical exercise,

though Hamaguchi’s form

and technique are always

in service of his characters

and the worlds they inhabit.

The regular establishing

shots of gray skies and

peaceful cityscapes lull us

into a deceptive state of calm

that, miraculously, doesn’t

clash with the movie’s rap-

idly self-multiplying compli-

cations. The more openly

absurd the story gets, the

plainer, deeper and more

lucid its emotions become.

The central dilemma in

“Asako I & II” goes beyond

the idea of choosing be-

tween two lovers; it’s about

choosing which world to be-

lieve in — the real one with

its rules and compromises

or the impossibly romantic

one that movies and other

works of the imagination

love to extol.

Is this itself a false di-

chotomy? Maybe, maybe

not. Certainly, the question

looms over the picture’s

most exquisite sequence, in

which Asako’s friend Maya

(Rio Yamashita), an up-

and-coming stage actress, is

set up on a date with Ku-

shihashi (Kôji Seto). There’s

another clever doubling

there if you’re looking for it

and also one more blatant

coincidence I won’t spoil.

But the glory of the scene

lies in the sensitivity of the

writing and the direction,

the way Hamaguchi allows

a difficult, awkward and ulti-

mately vital human interac-

tion to play out at uninter-

rupted length. He does that

again and again in “Asako I

&II,” taking a story that

might have settled for gim-

mickry and finding an ach-

ingly human pulse.

Grasshopper Film

ASAKO(Erika Karata) embraces love in Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s drama, a potent story about life’s unexpected little ruptures, critic writes.

Aftershocks in human heart

Love is lost and regained in playful, haunting homage to Hitchcock’s ‘Vertigo’

‘ASAKO I & II’

‘Asako I & II’

In Japanese with English

subtitles

Not rated

Running time: 1 hour,

59 minutes

Playing:Friday-Sunday at

Ahrya Fine Arts by

Laemmle, Beverly Hills

JUSTIN CHANG
FILM CRITIC