movies
‘Double Freedom’ Review: Lisandro Alonso’s Slow-Cinema Sequel
When Argentine director Lisandro Alonso’s feature debut, Freedom (La Libertad), premiered in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard in 2001, it struck a cord with hardcore cinephiles who saw something special in the film’s minimalist narrative and transfixing visuals, which captured the quiet beauties of life in a remote corner of the Pampas.
Chronicling the daily routine of a logger, Misael (Misael Saavedra), residing in a ramshackle cabin in the middle of nowhere, Alonso painstakingly depicted the existence of a man whose extreme liberty — from modern civilization; from worry; from a regular movie plot — was undercut by a darkness that seemed to be lurking just beneath the surface.
Double Freedom
The Bottom Line
A minimalist drama that highlights life’s quiet pleasures.
Venue: Cannes Film Festival (Directors’ Fortnight)
Cast: Misael Saavedra, Catalina Saavedra, Adrián Fondari, Alcides Fink, Laura López Moyano
Director, screenwriter: Lisandro Alonso
1 hour 40 minutes
Freedom was a take-it-or-leave-it arthouse flick — what some like to call “slow cinema,” either in praise or derision — and it made Alonso a Cannes favorite, with subsequent works like Jauja and Eureka (both starring Viggo Mortensen) all bowing at the festival. He returns to the Croisette for the seventh time with Double Freedom (La Libertad Doble), a sequel to his uncompromising debut, though the term “sequel” should be taken with a big grain of salt, then perhaps washed down with a hot cup of maté.
Bringing actor Saavedra back to the woods 25 years later, the film more or less begins where Freedom left off, with Misael still living on his own and chopping down trees all day long. He’s nearly twice his original age but still in great shape (it helps to live outdoors and work with your hands), though there have been some subtle changes since the last time we saw him.
For one, Misael now uses a gas-powered chainsaw along with his trusty axe, which allows him to smoothly slice the bark off the logs he cuts down. He also now sports a N.Y. Mets cap, which, whether consciously or not, is another sign of his enduring freedom: Who else would voluntarily choose to support the most disappointing franchise in baseball?
For the first 30 minutes, Double Freedom faithfully carries forward the structure and especially the aesthetic of the original film. Alonso and cinematographer Cobi Migliora elegantly frame Misael against the untouched landscape where he goes about his business felling trees, taking care of his dog, and, in a powerful opening image, cooking by fire at night while lighting illuminates the mountain range behind him.
Viewers looking for an inkling of a story may not survive these scenes, but Alonso’s fans will be pleased he hasn’t lost his edge. Others may take pleasure in a film that exists far from the digital hellscape most of us now live in: There’s not a single screen in Double Freedom except for the one we’re watching the movie on, which is something increasingly rare in contemporary cinema.
After the long set-up, which portends a trajectory similar to the first film, the director takes things in a surprising new direction. He tracks Misael as he finally leaves the woods with the help of a neighboring rancher’s pickup, then heads into town and stops at a gas station for cigarettes, making small talk with the attendant. Civilization exists after all!
From there he pays a visit to a local mental hospital, where we learn that Misael has a sister, Micaela (Catalina Saavedra, no relation to the lead actor), who’s been under full-time care for years. A doctor (Adrián Fondari) comes out to explain that the asylum is in the process of shutting down and discharging all its patients, suddenly leaving Micaela in Misael’s care. (Although politics are never mentioned, this seems like a nod to the colossal cuts in public spending made by wackadoo Argentine president Javier Mieli.)
The “double freedom” promised by the title thus takes on a double meaning in the film’s second half. Micaela finds herself re-entering society for the first time, while Misael, who’s spent much of his adult existence alone, must now welcome another person into his life. None of this is really expressed through dialogue or emotions, both of which are again kept to a minimum, but Alonso still finds ways to show how the new arrangement affects them both.
In the case of Micaela, who appears to have suffered a major trauma and takes heavy medication (“the drugs boiled her brain,” the doctor says), returning back to nature seems to do her well. She marvels at the birds and trees surrounding her brother’s cabin, as if she’s seeing such things for the first time. Misael, meanwhile, seems freaked out by all the pills he’s supposed to administer to his sister every day and night. He also doesn’t look thrilled he has to sleep outdoors to make room for his new guest.
These are rather understated events for normal audiences, but in the remote and unencumbered world of Alonso’s woodchopper, they arrive like major twists in an otherwise plotless movie. The question at that point in the narrative becomes: Is freedom still possible when you’re no longer alone?
Alonso ultimately answers this in a way that recalls his first film, making us wonder whether Misael’s hermetic existence hasn’t been hiding something more sinister. Or maybe the lonely logger just believes that everyone, including his own sister, should live as freely as he does.
Either way, Double Freedom posits that life is best lived on your own terms, with few concessions and compromises. This is, of course, the formula Alonso applies to his cinema as well, and of the many things one can try to read into his latest opus minimus, it’s easy to see this homage to personal liberty as only a vaguely concealed portrait of the auteur himself.
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movies
Obama Relives Tan Suit Debacle In ‘Life, Larry & Pursuit of Unhappiness’
As Larry David‘s comedic trip through U.S. history comes to an end, he took credit for one of the nation’s more recent presidential scandals.
On Friday’s season finale of the HBO sketch comedy miniseries Life, Larry and the Pursuit of Unhappiness, President Barack Obama made a surprise appearance as himself in a sketch set in 2014, as David advised him to wear the now-infamous, outrage-inducing tan suit during his live press conference on military response to ISIS.
Following some banter on how the POTUS avoids stains, David accidentally spills juice on Obama’s suit jacket when he leaves the room. When the 44th president returns, the comedian recommends he wear the tan suit that Obama planned on taking it to Turin for NATO Summit, for “a daytime event, it’s outdoors, a little more casual.”
“First of all, it’s a gorgeous suit,” David declared. “And this is casual Friday!”
“It is a great suit,” admitted Obama, as David told him, “Oh boy, oh boy. I think this is the move. … Old lips won’t let you down. You’ll thank me!”
As Obama models the look, David gives him his signature, “Pretty good! Pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty good.”
“You sure about this?” asks Obama, as David assures him, “Never been more sure about anything in my life. People are going to be talking about this for a long, long time.”
Obama’s cameo in the finale comes as David marks the United States Semiquencentennial with the seven-part sketch comedy limited series, which recounts major events in U.S. history through the comedian’s signature observational humor.
David’s longtime Curb Your Enthusiasm partner Jeff Schaffer, who serves as an executive producer on Life, Larry and the Pursuit of Unhappiness, previously told Deadline that Obama, who produced under his Higher Ground banner, reached out to his buddy David to ask if he’d be interested in making the show to celebrate the country’s 250th birthday.
“When you’re doing a show about American history, you want to do it warts and right now we have this orange saggy wart that we wish would go away,” said Schaffer. “But the nice thing about having President Obama produce this and be a part of it is that this country’s had a lot of fuck ups, we’ve seemed to have learned very little, but we’re still moving forward sometimes, and then we move back a little bit, but we always move forward again. While Larry’s pointing out a lot of the steps back, the President is telling us we can still step forward.”
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movies
Matthew McConaughey Performs “Quill” From ‘Rivals of Amziah King’ — Watch
Matthew McConaughey shows off his vocal skills (and some hidden banjo talents) with his latest role in The Rivals of Amziah King.
On Friday, Lakeshore Records released the single and music video for “Quill” from the original motion picture soundtrack, performed by the Oscar-winning and co-star Ben Hardesty, also featuring Miranda Zickler, Angelina LookingGlass and Andrea Pister.
Set in the backwoods of Oklahoma, The Rivals of Amziah King follows the musically gifted Amaziah King (McConaughey) and his bluegrass-playing band of misfits while overseeing the premier honey-making operation in town. When Amaziah’s estranged foster daughter unexpectedly returns, he leaps at the chance to reconnect and create a family business. But the honey game is ruthless, and Amaziah’s rivals threaten to destroy everything he has built.
Premiering Aug. 14 in theaters, the Andrew Patterson-written-and-directed drama also stars Angelina LookingGlass, Cole Sprouse, Jake Horowitz, Tony Revolori and Kurt Russell.
Producers are David Heyman, Teddy Schwarzman, Jeffrey Clifford, Michael Heimler, James Montague and Will Greenfield.
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movies
Jane Schoenbrun On Tackling “Toxic Soup” Of Slasher Genre In ‘Camp Miasma’
With their latest directorial outing, Jane Schoenbrun used subtle pieces of nostalgia to deconstruct the slasher genre.
The Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma writer/director explained to Deadline that they wanted to create “a mindset where you can really enjoy something scary,” noting the frequent symbolism of candy and junk food as providing an atmosphere “that’s actually safe” while diving into a horror movie or exploring sexuality after trauma.
“There is this idea that if it gets too real, you can turn it off, that you’re exploring something dangerous, doing it in a way that’s actually safe,” said Schoenbrun, who is non-binary. “Which in my experience of coming into my sexual identity post-transition, kind of required some gummy candy on hand. What I mean by that is, even if we’re going to be exploring scary and vulnerable and potentially embarrassing, triggering parts of ourselves, we trust each other well enough to know that at any moment, we can be like, ‘Let’s stop, we gotta just eat some fucking gummies.’”
In Schoenbrun’s latest film, Hannah Einbinder stars as queer director Kris, who is tapped to helm a new installment of the long-running Camp Miasma horror franchise. While courting Billy Presley (Gillian Anderson), the actress who played the “final girl” in the original film, to reprise her role, the pair spirals into a psychosexual frenzy as the slasher’s killer, Little Death (Jack Haven), comes to life.
Acknowledging the problematic trans representation of horror films like Psycho (1960), Sleepaway Camp (1983), The Silence of the Lambs (1991) and Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation (1995), Schoenbrun admitted the genre has been “catnip to me since I was 10 years old,” and they jumped at the chance to direct their own.

“So many slashers do have this sense of humor, and even if they’re not overtly meta like the Scream movies are, they’re so aware of their own tropes and the sort of rituals … And I just loved that from a young age and loved all of the little rituals within it, and so, getting to make my own is just like play and joy,” they explained.
“But it also felt like the perfect way to talk about sex and to talk about my experience as a trans person post-transition, learning how to come into a sexual identity that I could feel comfortable within, because so many of these movies are obviously deeply engaged in gender and sexual roles, and these movies have so much to say for better or for worse about deviants,” said Schoenbrun. “It is there in the DNA of the slasher genre that these movies are talking about fear and desire, gender and sexuality, normativity and deviance. And that’s all swimming in the toxic soup of the genre, so I wanted to remake it in my own language.”
Read on about Jane Schoenbrun’s love letter to the slasher genre with Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, now playing in theaters.
DEADLINE: It was really fun to see the slasher genre through your eyes. Tell me about finding inspiration in that genre and “final girls.”
JANE SCHOENBRUN: I mean, it was the easiest thing in the world because it’s just one of those genres that has been catnip to me since I was 10 years old. I just raided the horror section of the video store as a kid from an age when I really shouldn’t have been doing that, like in 5th grade, I watched in the span of about one week, every Nightmare on Elm Street movie. I think that I was always drawn to movies and really anything entertainment where it felt forbidden in some way, like the thing on the tape, how is that even allowed? And that’s the thing that I love about a lot of my favorite slashers. Don’t get me wrong, I love like brutal ones, like I love Texas Chainsaw, that’s a nasty movie at its core, and that’s what’s so special about it. But so many slashers do have this sense of humor, and even if they’re not overtly meta like the Scream movies are, they’re so aware of their own tropes and the sort of rituals of, OK, what’s the most outrageous way that like these like dumb kids can get killed? But watching it, it’s not about fear a lot of the time, it’s about joy and celebration. And I just loved that from a young age and loved all of the little rituals within it, and so, getting to make my own is just like play and joy. But it also felt like the perfect way to talk about sex and to talk about my experience as a trans person post-transition, learning how to come into a sexual identity that I could feel comfortable within, because so many of these movies are obviously deeply engaged in gender and sexual roles, and these movies have so much to say for better or for worse about deviants, whether that be Norman Bates or Buffalo Bill or Sleepway Camp or Jason, Michael Myers, Leatherface in drag. It is there in the DNA of the slasher genre that these movies are talking about fear and desire, gender and sexuality, normativity and deviance. And that’s all swimming in the toxic soup of the genre, so I wanted to remake it in my own language.

DEADLINE: I’m curious about the symbolism of all the processed junk food and the chandelier of wrappers.
SCHOENBRUN: The junk food in the movie, I forget when it found its way in there. It’s like so much of the movie is about, like I said, ritual, about being in a mindset where you can really enjoy something scary, whether that be Kris [Hannah Einbinder] in bed, with, you know, with Raisinets and the popcorn, watching a schlocky horror movie, or the two characters learning how to be present and enjoy sex after a lot of trauma. There is this idea that if it gets too real, you can turn it off, that you’re exploring something dangerous, doing it in a way that’s actually safe. Which in my experience of coming into my sexual identity post-transition, kind of required some gummy candy on hand. What I mean by that is, even if we’re going to be exploring scary and vulnerable and potentially embarrassing, triggering parts of ourselves, we trust each other well enough to know that at any moment, we can be like, “Let’s stop, we gotta just eat some fucking gummies.”
DEADLINE: And one thing I really love—I just feel like it’s a theme in your work—is how it depicts the way media and entertainment influence us. Why does that inspire you?
SCHOENBRUN: I think it comes from a fascination and sensitivity to the complex relationship between what we think of as fiction and what we think of as reality, which we tend to, as a society, think of as pointing in one direction. Like, reality dictates fiction, not vice-versa, but when you actually look at the way the world works, it’s like one echoes off the other. And I think a complicated, sometimes terrifying and sometimes beautiful way, where the fiction, the cultural norms, the things we grow up looking at on our screens, the roles that we’re told people play, they kind of inspire us to create reality. There’s something liberating when you start thinking in that way. I think it’s a way of thinking that we as a culture, could do a lot more of. To think about the idea of fiction inspiring reality just as much as reality is inspiring fiction, is a potential path to liberating us from this hellscape that they’re telling us is the only way the world can be.

DEADLINE: And I know you have the Secretary reading. Tell me what it’s been like prepping for that and why you all chose that movie.
SCHOENBRUN: I mean, that was such a huge influence on on Miasma. There just aren’t that many fun and funny movies about deviant sex. And just the way that movie is like feather light while talking about really raw and taboo things, it is just really inspiring to me. And the dynamic between those two main characters is definitely one that had a lot of influence on on Kris and Billy’s [Gillian Anderson] relationship in Miasma. And it’s already to me a very queer movie in its way, but having Gillian reading the James Spader part and Hannah reading the Maggie Gyllenhaal part, I think it’s just gonna be like a very unique joy. Honestly, we’ve been prepping a little bit, but I think it’s just gonna be about getting up there and feeling the chemistry of it all, and just letting these folks who we have all gotten to know each other really, really well, but we haven’t actually done anything wacky and creative like that in a while, like as a reunion, it’s gonna be a real blast, I think.
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