A beautiful day

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Movie
German title A beautiful day
Original title You Were Never Really Here
Country of production France ,
USA ,
UK
original language English
Publishing year 2017
length 90 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Lynne Ramsay
script Lynne Ramsay
production Lynne Ramsay,
Rosa Attab ,
Pascal Caucheteux ,
Rebecca O'Brien ,
James Wilson
music Jonny Greenwood
camera Thomas Townend
cut Joe Bini
occupation

A Beautiful Day (Original Title: You Were Never Really Here ) is a melodrama by Lynne Ramsay , which celebrated its premiere on May 27, 2017 as part of the Cannes Film Festival . The film with Joaquin Phoenix is based on the novel of the same name by Jonathan Ames from 2013. The German theatrical release took place on April 26, 2018.

action

The wounded war veteran Joe has set himself the task of rescuing women who have fallen victim to criminal sex trafficking and of killing child molesters, among whom there are always one or the other high-ranking politician. After the job is done and after he has not only cleaned the crime scene, but also his hammer, his favorite murder tool, he tells his client John McCleary on the answering machine that the job is done. He receives his payment from middlemen, such as Angel, who runs a small supermarket in his hometown. Joe lives with his mother, who has dementia , on the outskirts of New York; she makes sure that he has a lot to clean at home too.

Joe's body is covered in scars. Experiences from his childhood and from war missions seem to have left scars on his soul as well. Joe regularly pulls a plastic bag over his head, which almost makes him lose consciousness and makes the memories of his father's words seem less real. When Joe moves around in public, he always has flashbacks, which are triggered in particular by people's faces.

Joe drops in at the McCleary premises unannounced. His next job, his client explains, is about bringing Senator Votto's daughter back home, but he cannot turn the matter to the police because he is in the middle of an election campaign. Joe learns from her father that the teenage girl has not returned after a weekend excursion and in which establishment he suspects her. The Senator wants the men who hold Nina prisoner to suffer.

Joe goes to a hardware store and gets a new hammer. He observes the brothel in Manhattan where he suspects Nina. He gains access to the house, kills anyone who gets in his way and finds Nina lying on a bed, half numb. He carries the girl out of the house and takes her to a simple hotel. There they heard about the senator's suicide on television . Suddenly, police rush into her room. One of them takes Nina with him, the other Joe can kill in a duel. When he tries to tell McCleary about Nina's kidnapping again and that he was shot in the face but he doesn't answer the phone, he goes to his office. McCleary is dead. When he comes home, he finds his mother there, shot dead in bed. The murderers are still in the house. Joe immediately shoots one, the other dragged himself through the apartment, shot. Joe asks him why the Senator had to die, to which he replies "... because he wanted out of everything." When asked about Nina's whereabouts, he gets the answer "Williams". This is Governor Williams, whose partisan was Votto. Nina is Williams' favorite and “they swap the girls”.

Joe drives his mother's body to a lake by a forest. Not only did he weigh down the plastic sack that contains her body with stones, but he also put some of them in the pockets of his suit. He carries his mother into the lake and sinks with her. When Joe suddenly gets the picture of Nina in his head, he takes the stones out of his pockets and appears again. He observes Governor Williams, follows his limousine and causes another bloodbath on his property. However, he finds Williams himself already dead in the house. Nina slit his throat with a razor . Joe feels like a failure.

Joe and Nina go to a diner. Neither of them know where to go now. Joe falls asleep briefly and dreams that he is killing himself with a headshot. The girl just knows that she wants to get out and reminds her rescuer that it is such a beautiful day outside.

production

The director was the Scottish director Lynne Ramsay , who also adapted the novel by Jonathan Ames as a screenplay. Joaquin Phoenix can be seen in the lead role as Joe. In flashbacks, this is embodied by Dante Pereira-Olson . Judith Roberts took over the role of his mother . John Doman plays Joe's employer, John McCleary. The young actress Ekaterina Samsonov took on the role of Nina, who freed Joe from the brothel.

The German dubbing was based on a dialogue book and the dialogue direction by Christian Schneider on behalf of Interopa Film GmbH, Berlin. Tobias Kluckert lends his voice to Joe in the German version, Luise Lunow to his mother. His client John McCleary is dubbed by Eberhard Haar , the missing Nina by Emily Gilbert and her father Senator Albert Votto by Matthias Deutelmoser .

The shooting took place on 29 days in September 2016 in the New York borough of Brooklyn and thus at the location of the film. Thomas Townend acted as cameraman .

The soundtrack was created by Jonny Greenwood , a member of the rock band Radiohead , composed

The score was composed by Jonny Greenwood . He had previously worked with Ramsay on the film We Need to Talk About Kevin and describes himself as a huge fan of the director. The strings from the London Contemporary Orchestra had come to his band Radiohead's studio for the recording and had shown that their instruments can be played not only gently but also very brutally, according to the film composer. He was particularly proud of the piece Treee , said Greenwood in an interview with Leonie Cooper from NME, which is used in the film in the scene at the lake and can be heard again in the credits. The soundtrack for the film includes 14 pieces of music and was released digitally and later in physical form on March 9, 2018 in the USA by Lakeshore Records and overseas by Invada Records. A week earlier, Greenwood had published Dark Streets . On March 16, 2018, the soundtrack entered the Soundtrack Albums Chart Top 50 at number 47.

Other pieces of music used in the film that are not on the soundtrack include The Air That I Breathe by Albert Hammond and After the Lovin ' by Engelbert . The theme from the film Psycho, composed by Bernard Herrmann, is also alluded to. Joe and his mother also sing song A , and together with his mother's killer, he sings I've Never Been to Me by Charlene.

The film premiered on May 27, 2017 at the Cannes Film Festival . It was submitted as an unfinished film and was completed just a few days before its premiere. Even if it is said that the film was not finished in time for Cannes, Ramsay explained that the version shown there was the last cut version. In October 2017 there was a screening at the London Film Festival . From January 19, 2018, the film was shown at the Sundance Film Festival . In Germany the film in January 2018 was the first time at the Fantasy Film Festival White Nights of Fantasy Film Festival shown. In April 2018 a screening took place at the Lichter Filmfest . In early April 2018, the film was also released in US cinemas. A theatrical release in Germany took place on April 26, 2018. In August 2018, the film will be shown at the Melbourne International Film Festival.

reception

Age ratings and reviews

In the USA, the film received an R rating from the MPAA , which corresponds to a rating of 17 and over. In Germany, the film was approved for people aged 16 and over . The statement of reasons for the release states: “There are several scenes of violence and killing, but the violence is never played out or glorified - it often takes place outside of the picture. Young people aged 16 and over have no problems processing these scenes. You can also easily follow the story and classify the morally ambivalent main character appropriately and critically. "Katja Nicodemus from Zeit Online notes that director Lynne Ramsay does not show the violence, but the consequences:" Corpses, pools of blood, hunched bodies on the ground. "

So far, the film has won over 89 percent of Rotten Tomatoes critics and received an average rating of 8.2 out of a possible 10 points. The consensus there says that the film confirms Lynne Ramsay as one of the most unique and uncompromising voices in modern cinema.

Stefan Stosch from the Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung says that Ramsey reduces the plot to the necessary minimum and tells the story of a man in her film who almost suffocates from the brutality and madness of the world and longs for the last bit of innocence that he has long since lost has lost. Stosch also notes that there have been a few similar copies in the history of the cinema that have achieved great fame, such as Travis Bickle, played by Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver , who saves the teenage prostitute Iris, played by Jodie Foster , but also Jean Reno as Léon - The professional who takes care of the abused Mathilda, played by Natalie Portman . In A Beautiful Day , however, you can also feel the pain that Joe carries around with him, says Stosch: “It may be that Joe can save children from the clutches of evil. Nobody can redeem him himself. "

Till Kadritzke says: “Ramsey fragments, wants to get on our nerves, with detailed shots of apparently significant things rather irritate than seriously puzzle. And disturb with violence, of course, but it is violence that is never granted affective authority. "

Variety's Kris Tapley brought You Were Never Really Here up for discussion as a possible candidate in the Best Picture category at the upcoming Academy Awards. Ramsay made the meanest film of the year, and the performance of Joaquin Phoenix is outstanding, who is also a possible candidate as an actor. Tapley also considers the film editing to be Oscar-worthy.

Awards (selection)

Joaquin Phoenix , here at the premiere of the film in Cannes , played the lead role of Joe

British Academy Film Awards 2019

British Independent Film Awards 2018

  • Nomination for Best British Independent Film
  • Nomination for Best Director (Lynne Ramsay)
  • Nomination for Best Screenplay (Lynne Ramsay)
  • Nomination for Best Actor ( Joaquin Phoenix )
  • Award for the best film music
  • Award for the best sound

Boston Film Critics Society Awards 2018

  • Award for Best Director (Lynne Ramsay)
  • Award for the best film music - Runner up ( Jonny Greenwood )

Evening Standard British Film Awards 2018

  • Nomination for Best Soundtrack (Jonny Greenwood)

Hollywood Professional Association Awards 2018

  • Nomination in the category Outstanding Editing - Feature Film ( Joe Bini )

Independent Spirit Awards 2019

  • Nomination for Best Film (Rosa Attab, Pascal Caucheteux, Rebecca O'Brien , Lynne Ramsay, James Wilson)
  • Nomination for Best Director (Lynne Ramsey)
  • Award for the best film editing (Joe Bini)
  • Nomination for Best Actor (Joaquin Phoenix)

Cannes International Film Festival 2017

National Board of Review Awards 2018

  • Inclusion in the Top 10 Independent Films

National Film Awards UK 2018

  • Nomination for best film drama
  • Nomination for best action film
  • Nomination for Best Director (Lynne Ramsay)
  • Nomination for Best Screenplay (Lynne Ramsay)
  • Nomination for Best Supporting Actress ( Judith Roberts )

Online Film Critics Society Awards 2019

Film analysis

Movie title and genre

Based on the book by Jonathan Ames , the original title of the film was You Were Never Really Here . Stefan Stosch from the Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung notes that sometimes Joe, the man with the whiskered beard, seems to literally disappear from the scene: “He was just there, suddenly the darkness swallowed him up again. There is something ghostly about Joe. ” A Beautiful Day , the German title of the film, on the other hand, refers to the sentence“ It's a wonderful day ”spoken by Nina at the end, which Joe confirms repeatedly after he has freed her again.

The film critic Antje Wessels says that basically A Beautiful Day is primarily the character drama about a man whose inner conflict between absolute devotion and pure resignation, and Joaquin Phoenix brings him to the screen in a congenial way. Kai Mihm from epd Film says that with A Beautiful Day the director and her lead actor are playing an extraordinary game with genre conventions: “The approach is more intelligent and more profound. Ramsay builds up expectations in order to deliberately subvert them, for example when larger action scenes are announced, which then do not take place - if at all. She builds in dramaturgical irritations and refuses the usual genre satisfaction, mostly achieved through violence. Murder and manslaughter take place almost exclusively outside the camera view; or they have already happened when Ramsay's excellent editor Joe Bini cuts to the scene. "

Film construction and figure analysis

Katja Nicodemus from Zeit Online also notes that the film does not show the violence, only the consequences. She describes the scene in a hotel room with which the film begins as follows: “The camera shows objects belonging to the person Joe apparently just killed there: a necklace with the words Sandy. A wallet. Photo of a girl with Asian features - Joe is going to burn it in the trash can. And then close-up shots of the killer's scars. Only gradually do the fragmented attitudes of the beefy body become a person. "

Stefan Stosch from the Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung explains that A Beautiful Day is inevitably a brutal film and a violent viewing experience, but if you don't turn a blind eye to the horror, you will find that you conclude more than you see: “Find the eruptions of violence mostly out of sight. Or the camera is only there when the opponent is already lying on the ground covered in blood. ”Expectations are so cleverly undermined, a lot of things are only suggestive here and also tip over into the surreal at times, Stosch continues.

Antje Wessels remarks that the film not only describes Joe's killer attitude, but also gives an insight into his soul: “The former FBI agent is only a shadow of himself and witnesses the many acts of violence like a spectator. Seldom has a supposed hero given so little pleasure fighting for the good - a completely new experience for the viewer of A Beautiful Day . ”Alexandra Seibel from the Kurier says that Joe clearly has a difficult past behind him, that much is certain. Nevertheless, Ramsey's attempt to tell his psyche as well as the thriller plot as original, erratic and unpredictable as possible seemed too strenuous.

Stefan Stosch explains that you can only find out about Joe's life story in brief, fleeting, sometimes puzzling flashbacks like in a puzzle. As an example, he cites a scene in which he gives a girl a chocolate bar in a war zone somewhere in the Middle East and seconds later that girl is shot by a boy for that same chocolate bar. Peter Zander from the Berliner Morgenpost remarks that the lonely fighter with the common name was a tired, burned-out, even somnambulistic figure and not a typical killer, but sees himself as a child savior. Joe is not only traumatized by the war and his body and soul are covered in scars.

Felix Zwinzscher from Welt Online suspects that Joe has been traumatized since his youth, even if it is not entirely clear why, but the film only suggests that it must have something to do with his father, domestic violence and his past as a US soldier . Peter Zander suspects that he was abused as a child by his own father. Not only Joe's soul was damaged. Bert Rebhandl of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung remarks that his trauma has also cut aisles through his body, and Ramsay does everything to put him back together as an undead, a man who can blow his skull away at the same time and the sleep of the extremely righteous continues to sleep. Katja Nicodemus believes that the hammer was used in his childhood, which is why this is Joe's preferred weapon today.

The director herself said in an interview with Tagesspiegel that Joe was an exemplary figure, a broken action hero who was marked by violence, and that he was fallible and could not recognize himself or his fellow men. Ramsay also said that the violence we experience every day is so explicit that it appears banal in the cinema. She is therefore amazed that the film is perceived as so brutal, although the violence takes place off-screen. "

Visual and acoustic style

Alexandra Seibel from Kurier says about Lynne Ramsey, who likes haptic cinema, that her film images not only want to be seen by the eye, but felt by the whole body, like the whisper on the soundtrack, the flow of breathing or the sound of rain. With Ramsey, the camera also takes over the function of the sense of touch, according to Seibel, when it gently strokes the surface of the skin and explores a landscape in close-up shots. The face of Joaquin Phoenix , overgrown with gray whiskers , his massive body, his scars on his back and his stomach would be explored like a building, according to Seibel. The director also shows close-ups of what it looks like when people squeeze jelly beans between their fingers or pull teeth out of their bloody mouths. The search for how something feels - both internally and externally - inspires Ramsey's search for images, according to Seibel.

Engineering hammers (ball-peen hammers) are Joe's preferred murder weapon

Michael Pekler of Standard explains that A Beautiful Day is primarily shaped by the physical presence of Joaquin Phoenix, whose body cameraman Thomas Townend feels like a destroyed work of art, and that his entire past is inscribed in that body, especially in its scars.

Antje Wessels notes that even when Joe uses a hammer as a weapon, don't inject blood. Even so, it was enough for Lynne Ramsey to hints at how thoroughly Joe turned off the lights on his opponents. Wessels also remarks that the director forego the visual spectacle that action cinema is only too happy to indulge in until the end. The filmmaker only allows herself optical peculiarities in a few dream sequences, which up to now have counteracted the so emphatically emotionless events in their symbolism, even if these scenes do not quite fit the rest of the style of the film.

Katja Nicodemus explains that Ramsay uses images and memories like our consciousness does. In a flowing manner, she links the present with the past, the present with the repressed and develops a peculiar poetry out of it: "Suddenly the perception of details, unusually trimmed shots and inserts that seem like flashes of thought result in something like a visual signature with Ramsay."

Not only with her cameraman Ramsey create a shimmering atmosphere of violence, rebellion and hope (lack of hope) around Joe's character, but also together with her composer Jonny Greenwood , according to Antje Wessels. Alexandra Seibel from the Kurier explains that Joe's often disturbed perception blurs to the nervous sound of Greenwood to somnabulous strips of light in neo-noir. In the film review from heute.at it is said that Joe's emotional depths are reflected in the brilliant soundtrack, which does not always work so flawlessly visually, although Ramsay's woodchip style also illustrates the inner conflict of the hero. Kai Mihm from epd Film, on the other hand, remarks that the film music, as well as it fits in many places, sometimes claims a booming drama that the film doesn't even want to offer.

Web links

Commons : You Were Never Really Here  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for A Beautiful Day . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry (PDF; test number: 176622 / K). Template: FSK / maintenance / type not set and Par. 1 longer than 4 characters
  2. ↑ Zack Sharf: Lynne Ramsay: 'I Found My Soul Mate in Making Movies' With Joaquin Phoenix. In: February 23, 2018.
  3. ↑ James Mottram: Scots filmmaker Lynne Ramsey lays into Netflix as she premiers her new movie at Cannes Film Festival. In: The Herald, May 28, 2017.
  4. ↑ https://www.filmcomment.com/blog/interview-lynne-ramsay/
  5. ^ Leonie Cooper: Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood on scoring the brutal 'You Were Never Really Here'. In: nme.com, March 6, 2018.
  6. ↑ 'You Were Never Really Here' soundtrack details. In: filmmusicreporter.com, February 26, 2018.
  7. ↑ https://consequenceofsound.net/2018/03/jonny-greenwood-shares-dark-streets-from-you-were-never-really-here-score-stream/
  8. ↑ http://www.officialcharts.com/charts/soundtrack-albums-chart/
  9. ↑ https://musikradar.de/soundtrack-a-beautiful-day/
  10. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apZs3eRCQeQ
  11. ↑ http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/sight-sound-magazine/reviews-recommendations/you-were-never-really-here-lynne-ramsay-pointillist-poetry-hard-boiled-brutalism
  12. ↑ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5742374/trivia
  13. ↑ https://whatson.bfi.org.uk/lff/Online/default.asp?BOparam::WScontent::loadArticle::permalink=youwereneverreallyhere&BOparam::WScontent::loadArticle::context_id=
  14. ↑ https://nativenewsonline.net/currents/2018-sundance-film-festival-latest-additions-announced-including-eight-features-virtual-reality-work-hosted-retrospectives/
  15. ↑ A Beautiful Day (You Were Never Really Here). ( Memento of the original from April 6, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: lichter-filmfest.de. Retrieved April 26, 2018. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / lichter-filmfest.de
  16. ↑ Start dates in Germany. In: insidekino.com . Retrieved January 5, 2018.
  17. ↑ You Were Never Really Here. In: miff.com.au. Retrieved June 20, 2018.
  18. ↑ You Were Never Really Here In: parentpreviews.com. Retrieved April 11, 2018.
  19. ^ Reasons for approval for A Beautiful Day In: Voluntary Self-Control of the Film Industry. Retrieved April 26, 2018.
  20. ↑ a b c d e Katja Nicodemus: "A Beautiful Day": Man with a hammer. In: Zeit Online, April 25, 2018.
  21. ↑ You Were Never Really Here In: Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved February 26, 2019. Note: The Tomatometer at Rotten Tomatoes shows what percentage of the registered critics gave the film a positive rating.
  22. ↑ a b c d Stefan Stosch: "A Beautiful Day": The man with the hammer. In: Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung, April 25, 2018.
  23. ↑ You Were Never Really Here - Critique In: critic.de. Accessed December 31, 2017.
  24. ↑ https://variety.com/2018/film/in-contention/oscars-2018-biggest-contenders-so-far-1202834435/
  25. ^ Georg Szalai: 'The Favorite' Leads British Independent Film Awards Nominations. In: The Hollywood Reporter, October 31, 2018.
  26. ↑ Paul Sheehan: 2018 British Independent Film Awards: Full list of winners led by 'The Favorite'. In: goldderby.com, December 2, 2018.
  27. ↑ https://awardswatch.com/2018/12/16/boston-society-of-film-critics-bsfc-beale-street-best-film-lynne-ramsay-best-director-john-c-reilly-best -actor /
  28. ^ Robert Dex: Discover all the nominations for this year's Evening Standard British Film Awards In: Evening Standard, January 12, 2018.
  29. ↑ Carolyn Giardina: 'Avengers: Infinity War' Leads HPA Awards Feature Nominations. In: The Hollywood Reporter, September 26, 2018.
  30. ↑ Independent Spirit Awards: 'Eighth Grade,' 'First Reformed' Among Best Feature Nominees. In: The Hollywood Reporter, November 16, 2018.
  31. ↑ Zack Sharf: National Board of Review 2018 Winners: 'Green Book' Named Best Film, Lady Gaga Best Actress. In: indiewire.com, November 27, 2018.
  32. ↑ Nominations For 2018 National Film Awards UK Announced In: nationalfilmawards.org, January 15, 2018.
  33. ↑ 2018 Awards. In: ofcs.org, December 26, 2018.
  34. ^ A b c d Antje Wessels: “A Beautiful Day”: Brutal anti-action with Joaquin Phoenix. In: quotenmeter.de, April 26, 2018.
  35. ↑ Kai Mihm: Review of A Beautiful Day. In: epd Film, March 23, 2018.
  36. ↑ a b c Alexandra Seibel: Film review for "A Beautiful Day": The death of the jelly beans. In: kurier.at, April 25, 2018.
  37. ^ A b Peter Zander: Demons who do not want to give way: "A Beautiful Day". In: Berliner Morgenpost, April 28, 2018.
  38. ↑ https://www.abendzeitung-muenchen.de/inhalt.az-filmkritik-a-beautiful-day-ein-film-wie-ein-hammerschlag.393d25b7-70d9-4a9b-b611-e734ac3b4a02.html
  39. ↑ Felix Zwinzscher: "A Beautiful Day": With the hammer against girl traffickers. In: welt.de, April 28, 2018.
  40. ↑ Bert Rebhandl: Just don't close your eyes: In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, April 25, 2018.
  41. ↑ Andreas Busche: "A Beautiful Day" director Lynne Ramsay: "Violence in the cinema seems banal today". In: Der Tagesspiegel, April 25, 2018.
  42. ↑ Michael Pekler: Joaquin Phoenix in "A Beautiful Day": The Wolf in the Jungle. In: derstandard.at, April 27, 2018.
  43. ↑ "A Beautiful Day": With the hammer against child molesters. In: heute.at, April 13, 2018.
  44. ↑ Kai Mihm: Review of A Beautiful Day. In: epd Film, March 23, 2018.