THE NEW YORK TIMES, FRIDAY, AUGUST 7, 2020 N C9“I WAS THINKINGI could be made into a
leather jacket,” Amy (Kate Lyn Sheil)
muses to her concerned friend, Jane (Jane
Adams), not long into the moody psy-
chodrama “She Dies Tomorrow.” Having
flatly communicated her belief that she will
bite the dust the next day, Amy is deter-
mined that her corpse be useful.
The scene suggests black comedy, but
this second feature from the writer and di-
rector Amy Seimetz (after the marvelous
“Sun Don’t Shine” in 2013) won’t make you
feel much like laughing. At once a fascinat-
ing experiment and a claustrophobic puz-
zle, “She Dies Tomorrow” could be about
many things or nothing at all, its free-float-
ing mood of anxious anticipation ready to
be slotted into multiple neuroses. Amy isn’t
suicidal: A recovering alcoholic who has
mysteriously relapsed — elliptical memo-
ries suggest a painful breakup or a major re-
gret could be the cause — she wanders
around her recently purchased house,stroking walls and caressing hardwood
floors, her unpacked belongings emphasiz-
ing the emptiness.
Late in the night, strobing colors and a
weird, urgent wail pull the trancelike Amy
toward the audience before we float off to
rejoin Jane, who’s unable to concentrate onthe blood sample she’s examining through a
microscope. (Flowing blood is a recurring
motif in the film, as if its characters’ ir-
rationalities had a biological explanation.)
In time, wearing only her pajamas, Jane will
show up at her brother and sister-in-law’s
party and she too will announce, in front of
their astonished guests, that she’s going to
die the following day.
Dazed but far from confused, “She Dies
Tomorrow” tugs at you, nagging to be
viewed more than once. Eerie and at times
impenetrable, the movie (which was com-pleted pre-pandemic) presents a rapidly
spreading psychological contagion that
feels uncomfortably timely. Its echoing
rooms and deserted porches, glazed ex-
pressions and pale, sterile colors are —
thanks in large part to the cinematographer
Jay Keitel — adamantly unsettling. At the
same time, its repetitive images and dia-
logue can seem silly and frustrating. Char-
acters awaken more than once with a terri-
fying, sucking gasp, and I lost count of the
number of times people state variations of
“I’m going to die tomorrow.”
Though not strictly a horror movie, “She
Dies Tomorrow” sees Seimetz’s vision build
to a horrifying pointlessness. There are
wounds, and there are bodies; but they feel
as inconsequential as the characters’ fancy
light fixtures and other accouterments of
middle-class life. More than anything, per-
haps, the film concentrates the mind on
end-of-life options: Faced with an imminent
expiration date, would you, like one charac-
ter, unplug a terminally ill parent or, like an-
other, simply feel relieved that you can now
get out of an unsatisfactory relationship?
Or would you, like Amy, be happy just to be
made into a leather jacket?JEANNETTE CATSOULIS FILM REVIEWLive Today Like It’s Your Last.
No, Really, You Should.
An eerie and sometimes
impenetrable movie is steeped
in a woman’s anxiety.
Kate Lyn Sheil in “She Dies Tomorrow,” directed by Amy Seimetz. It’s the second film by the director, whose first was “Sun Don’t Shine.”She Dies Tomorrow
Rated R for a little blood and a great
deal of angst. Running time: 1 hour 24
minutes. Rent or buy on iTunes, Google
Play and other streaming platforms and
pay-TV operators.JAY KEITEL/NEONLOVE. HONOR. LOYALTY. FAMILY.“The Tax
Collector” would have you believe it’s about
all these things, as if slapping nouns on the
screen (partly in cursive, no less) will con-
vince us there’s a higher purpose to the
bloodletting and viciousness that follow.
But we’ve all seen “The Sopranos,” and we
won’t get fooled again.
Not that this generic gangland banger,
written and directed by David Ayer, re-
motely deserves the comparison. Set in
South Los Angeles, the madly illogical plot
follows David (Bobby Soto) and his aptly
named sidekick, Creeper (Shia LaBeouf ).
Their job is to collect payments from dozens
of street gangs for a protection racket run
by the mysterious Wizard, who is currently
incarcerated. (Filmed only from behind, or
in teasing sideways peeks, the actor playing
him is clearly meant to be a secret until the
finale, so I’m saying nothing.)
Trouble kicks off when Conejo (Jose
Conejo Martin) returns from a sojourn inMexico and demands that David switch loy-
alties and work for him. A muscled monster
who spends his time day-trading and being
doused in the blood of luckless young wom-
en, Conejo is a villain so cartoonish we ex-
pect a white cat to leap into his lap at any
second. Instead, he has a feline female lieu-
tenant (Cheyenne Rae Hernandez), who
somehow succeeds in pulverizing foes
while sporting an outfit that would seem topreclude the simple act of breathing.
Characters like these, primally motivat-
ed and hilariously hackneyed, are emblem-
atic of a movie that underlines every point
then repeats it, just to be safe. We know that
David is a hood with a heart, because he
halts the torture of a thief when he learns
the man’s daughter has leukemia. He has an
adoring wife (Cinthya Carmona) and cute
kiddies; blessings and the Lord’s Prayer
feature prominently at his large family din-
ners. Even the leader of a rival gang (CleSloan) is a fan. The only wonder is that Ayer
didn’t paint an actual nimbus around his
head.
As Creeper, the only non-Hispanic white
man among a largely Latino cast, LaBeouf
does what he can to convey an outsider
who’s desperate to prove his loyalty. (Those
accusing Ayer of “brownfacing” by casting
a white actor in the role are mistaken:
Creeper is clearly written and performed as
white.) But LaBeouf, like his castmates — in
particular, the talented Chelsea Rendon
from the STARZ drama “Vida” — is con-
strained throughout by the weight of the
stereotyping and dialogue that doesn’t
stand a chance against the violence.
Though even I will admit that the scene
where a villain gets flattened by a bathroom
fixture was pretty cool.JEANNETTE CATSOULIS FILM REVIEWShia LaBeouf, left, and Bobby Soto in “The Tax Collector,” written and directed by David Ayer.JUSTIN LUBIN/RLJE FILMSLoyalties Tested in a Gangland Thriller
The blood flows freely and the
plot confounds on the violent
streets of South Los Angeles.
The Tax Collector
Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 35 minutes.
Rent or buy on Google Play, Vudu and other
streaming platforms and pay-TV operators.FILM REVIEWSEarly on in the beautiful
documentary “River City
Drumbeat,” two leaders
from the River City Drum Corp
teach elementary school stu-
dents in Kentucky a drum lesson.
Albert Shumake, a new father
who has been involved with the
group since his childhood, in-
spires students by bringing them
back to their elemental begin-
nings. He reminds the class that
the first sound they heard was
their mother’s heartbeat. As he
speaks, his mentor Nardie White
accompanies him on a drum,
following Shumake’s lead with a
solid and simple beat.
River City Drum Corp — the
grass-roots community center at
the heart of this profile from the
filmmakers Marlon Johnson and
Anne Flatté — offers drum
classes for children from early
childhood to their high school
graduation. Its founder, White,
recalls building the center from
the ground up with his wife,
Zambia Nkrumah, in an effort to
give children a chance to engage
with Black art and history. Shu-
make wonders in awe at where
he might have been without the
drum program. And some of the
students whom White and Shu-
make shepherded reflect grate-
fully as they look ahead to col-
lege. By the end of the film,
White will pass the leadership of
the River City Drum Corp to
Shumake, handing over the
stewardship of the community
they share.
The documentary is shot in a
vérité style — there are no talk-
ing heads, and we learn who the
subjects are by spending time
with them, simply observing
them at home and at the center.
Though the movie does include
footage of drum performances, it
doesn’t move at the clip of sticks
on snares. Instead, the film
listens for this community’s
heartbeat, finding its steady
pulse just as expected: healthy
and strong.
TEO BUGBEE
RIVER CITY
DRUMBEAT
Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 35
minutes. Watch through virtual
cinemas: rivercitydrumbeatmovie
.com.
. ...................................................................
ARGOT PICTURES
River City Drum Corp members in the documentary “River City Drumbeat.”
For almost 70 years, the Chilean-
born artist Alejandro Jodor-
owsky has been the utility in-
fielder of lowercase-“s” surre-
alism. He’s a performer, graphic
novelist, poet and, most promi-
nently, a cult filmmaker. With the
documentary “Psychomagic, a
Healing Art,” he introduces the
world to the work he has been
involved in since the ’70s.
For a lot of people, it will be
difficult to accept Jodorowsky as
any kind of healer. In 2019, El
Museo del Barrio in New York
canceled a retrospective of
Jodorowsky’s work after it
learned that in a 1972 book about
his film “El Topo” the filmmaker
recounted raping an actress on
camera. In a 2017 interview in
The Telegraph, Jodorowsky said
that he had not committed rape,
but was trying to publicize the
film.
In “Psychomagic” Jodorowsky,
near 90 at the time of filming,
goes for an eccentric avuncular
tone. He contrasts Freud’s “sci-
ence” with his own “magic” and
chronicles sessions in which he
and his assistants try to effect
cures using methods resembling
performance art.
As inspiration, he cites his own
childhood fear of the dark, and
stages a scene in which a mother
covers her young boy with shoe
polish. She is soon nude and
similarly covered, dancing with
the kid. Jodorowsky steps into
the scene, with the smile of a TV
pitchman: “My mother dissolved
in darkness. I’ve never been
afraid of the night ever again.”
Before one can ask, “Dude, you
and your MOM did that?,” it’s on
to the next section.
Jodorowsky’s patients express
gratitude and relief. But there
has to be an easier way to allevi-
ate stuttering than rubbing red
dye on your genitals, putting on
gold lamé hot pants, being body
painted and walking the streets
of Paris talking to yourself.
GLENN KENNYPSYCHOMAGIC,
A HEALING ART
Not rated. In French, Spanish and
English, with subtitles. Running
time: 1 hour 45 minutes. On Alamo
On Demand.. .................................................................
The Peruvian film “Song Without
a Name” sets a dramatic mood
with gorgeous black-and-white
photography and an original
guitar score. The story, loosely
based on true events, begins in
1988 with Georgina (Pamela
Mendoza), a Quechua woman
who sells potatoes in the outer
limits of Lima, the capital. She
responds to a notice for a clinic
that helps pregnant women like
herself deliver babies. But in the
moments after she gives birth,
her child is taken from her.
Despondent, Georgina finds
her way to the headquarters of a
national newspaper, where she
breaks down in tears. Her grief
compels the paper to put a soft-
spoken reporter, Pedro (Tommy
Párraga), on the case. He inves-
tigates in hopes of finding
Georgina’s child.
Danger mounts as Pedro’s
reporting leads him to govern-
ment officials, but just as the
movie shows the markers of a
solid political thriller, the director
Melina León resists building
suspense. State secrets are
revealed, and shadowy terrorist
groups attack. But no matter
how major the turning point, the
action always happens in the
background or offscreen.
What’s curious about “Song
Without a Name” is that even as
the plot meanders, the film re-
mains grandly composed, with
spectacular tableaux that make
the Peruvian hillsides look like
scenes from a John Ford west-
ern. Georgina becomes a silhou-
ette slipping down barren moun-
tains; when she enters the news-
paper offices, the walls appear to
entrap her. The narrative drifts,
but the alienation communicated
by the movie’s images feels
purposeful and striking.
This tension between the
visuals and narrative is some-
times frustrating and can make
the movie difficult to follow.
Eventually, though, León’s style
does read as a coherent political
statement. In her version of
events, national tragedies don’t
explode; they linger in the air,
like a poisoned fog that won’t lift.
TEO BUGBEESONG WITHOUT
A NAME
Not rated. In Spanish and Quechua,
with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour
36 minutes. On virtual cinemas:
filmmovement.com.
. .................................................................
Pamela Mendoza in the Peruvian
film “Song Without a Name.”
BEATRIZ TORRES/FILM MOVEMENTCLUE OF THE DAY
FOR THE CORRECT
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