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A16 O THEGLOBEANDMAIL| WEDNESDAY,OCTOBER16,

LIFE&ARTS TRAVEL | OPINION| PUZZLES | WEATHER

| NEWS

A

fter facing

muddy de-

feat with last

year’s Out-

law King, you would

think that Netflix

might readjust their

feature-film strategy

to steer clear of bloat-

ed historical epics.

But now here comes

The King galloping

along, perhaps buoyed by the stream-

ing giant’s enthusiasm for all things

“content,” or maybe because by the

timeOutlaw Kingfailed to get #Ro-

bertTheBruce trending, it was too late

to turn the heaving tanker that isThe

Kingaround. Either way, I don’t ex-

pect David Michod’s new film to dom-

inate your Netflix home queue for ve-

ry long, given that the movie – a mes-

sy and frequently bloody blend of

Shakespeare’s Henriad plays, but de-

void of their language, scope and,

well, drama – is forgettable.

Well, one element does stand out:

Robert Pattinson’s the Dauphin, who

tempts Timothée

Chalamet’s King

Henry V into war in

15th-century France.

Made up to be as

pale as aTwilight

vampire and fitted

with a greasy blond

wig, Pattinson leans

into his villain’s

bloodthirsty gall

with glee. The rest of

the cast, however, is stuck with death-

ly serious dialogue and little emo-

tional shading, as the script by Mi-

chod and Joel Edgerton (who also co-

stars as Falstaff) tries to both embrace

and escape the Bard’s shadow.

Long live the king – and by that, I

mean His Royal Highness Netflix and

his throne’s bottomless resources.

ThisKing, however, can simply rest in

peace.

TheKingopensOct.16attheTIFF

LightboxinToronto,Oct.25inMontreal,

Nov.1inVancouverandNov.1on

Netflix.

[FILMREVIEW]

THEKING

BARRYHERTZ

CLASSIFICATION:R;

133MINUTES

DirectedbyDavidMichod

WrittenbyDavidMichod

andJoelEdgerton

StarringTimothéeChalamet,

JoelEdgertonand

RobertPattinson

★★

I

’d come to Chicago to go to
school. Specifically the old An-
thony Overton Elementary
School, in the Bronzeville neigh-
bourhood on the city’s South
Side. The former educational in-
stitution, built in 1963 as an opti-
mistic modern building, is now
on the American National Regis-
ter of Historic Places. It carried
lessons about the city, and about
architecture, that were tough and
fascinating.
The 2019 Chicago Architecture
Biennial had brought me here to
explore its halls of blue and yel-
low brick. Exhibitions by Chicago
artists spoke to the roots of this
historic African-American neigh-
bourhood – photos depicted for-
mer students and their families –
and to the history of this public
place, which was shuttered in
2013.
“When I heard about the
school closing, I thought it was
an important time to talk about
social infrastructure,” says Paola
Aguirre of the local design firm
Borderless Studio. “This is a
place where the community
came together, and it has a lot to
say about social justice in the
city.”
Her company curated a series
of exhibitions in the building as
part of the Biennial – an event as
sprawling and fascinating as the
city itself. This year’s edition of
the event, titled “ ... and other
such stories,” brings together ar-
chitects and theorists from
around the world for an ex-
change of ideas. The Overton
school is one of several off-site
shows that can take you away
from the shiny skyscrapers of the
Loop, for a different view on the
city.
The Biennial’s centre is an ex-
hibition at the downtown Chica-
go Cultural Center. This magnif-
icent 1890s pile, a former public
library, is home to a set of exhibi-
tions on how architecture shapes
society, and vice versa.

Architecture exhibitions can

be variable; this one tends to the

cerebral and the radical. Cana-

dian Adrian Blackwell’s contribu-

tion, Anarchitectural Library

(against the neo-liberal erasure

of Chicago’s common spaces), is

a case in point. Physically, it is a

roomful of bookcases, curved

benches and tables in white-

painted steel and cheerful pastel

hues. Its content is a set of texts

by local activists, academics and

organizers that speak to the loss

of the city’s public goods, such as

social housing and the closing of

schools such as Overton.

On a similar theme, Do Ho

Suh’s photographs and video in-

stallation explore Robin Hood

Gardens, the utopian social-

housing project in London

whose destruction evokes the

widespread loss of social housing

in the United States, including in

Chicago. As his camera pans

smoothly down the complex’s

corridors, the homely goods of

its inhabitants contrast with the

grand, utopian gestures of the ar-

chitecture.

There is a bittersweet beauty

here, and an acknowledgment

that it’s not just poetry that

shapes cities. Maria Gaspar’s Un-

blinking Eyes makes the point

concrete: The work is a room-

sized photo mural depicting an

outer wall of the Cook County

Jail. That complex on the city’s

West Side is a huge presence in

the lives of Chicagoans, and this,

too, is architecture – just not the

kind that you’ll visit with a tour

guide.

Seeing all this added a layer to

my experience when I got to the

Loop for a more typical view of

the city and a visit to the Chicago

Architecture Center. This 20,000-

square-foot facility, which

opened last year in a Mies van

der Rohe building, is the ideal

starting point for a tour of Chica-

go’s famous downtown. It pro-

vides a detailed, engaging pre-

sentation of how the city’s phys-

ical form has evolved, and where

its people have lived and worked.

The architectural history is

clearly communicated – you will

learn about the two-flats where

many locals live, and about the

aesthetic and technical innova-

tions that Chicago is renowned

for, from Adler and Sullivan’s

early skyscrapers to the super-

talls of today by Adrian Smith

and Gordon Gill.

You won’t learn much about

the social tumult that defined

the 20th century here. In a 10-

minute video, the mass displace-

ment of African-American com-

munities for highway- and uni-

versity-construction projects

gets dealt with in one sentence.

But after I’d seen much of the

Biennial, it was easy to make

those links on my own when I

stepped onto one of the Chicago

Architecture Center’s famous

boat tours for a cruise down the

river. From here, it all looked ve-

ry handsome: the Gothic fantasy

of the 1925 Tribune Tower; the

fanciful concrete corncobs of

Bertrand Goldberg’s Marina City

and River City; and the tall, dark

severity of Mies’s former IBM

Building. And the Riverwalk, the

five kilometres of public passage-

ways that line the Chicago River,

was sprinkled with locals, their

heads lifted in the sunshine.

One of the last points on our

boat tour was a new hotel, de-

signed by Smith and Gill, that’s

surely one of the best recent

buildings in Chicago. Its owner’s

name hung from its shimmering

façade in human-sized letters:

TRUMP. A final reminder, not

that I needed one, that architec-

ture, power and money have al-

ways gone together, and that the

beauty of the city is never simple.

The writer was a guest of the

Chicago Architecture Biennial.

The organization did not review

or approve the article before

publication.

AnewviewonChicago

The2019ArchitectureBiennialencouragesvisitorstoseekoutbuildings

andinstallationsthattellastoryofthecitybeyondthewell-knownsights

ALEX
BOZIKOVIC

OPINION

AnthonyOvertonElementarySchool,intheBronzevilleneighbourhoodofChicago,wasbuiltin1963and

closedin2013.ItisnowontheAmericanNationalRegisterofHistoricPlaces.CORYDEWALD/COURTESYOF

CHICAGOARCHITECTUREBIENNIAL