The Clouds of Sils Maria

An old friend from high school commented on last week’s review of the sci fi movie Ex Machina when I posted it to Facebook. I recommended the movie, but my friend simply wrote “Dumbest movie I ever saw.” I laughed out loud, partly because I liked how it punctured my borderline pretentious review, but also because of how it highlighted the differences in what we value in movies. Ex Machina was slow and meditative, disturbing and ambiguous. For many people, that’s exactly the opposite of what they go to movies for. I get that because I like exciting movies too. I had as much fun this summer at San Andreas and Jurassic World as I did watching Ex Machina, but it’s different. Sometimes we go to the movies looking for the familiar, sometimes we want the strange. Both are good, but some people find more enjoyment in one than the other.

 This week’s film is more Ex Machina than San Andreas. The Clouds of Sils Maria was a darling of last year’s film festival circuit and is now available to stream or rent for those of us who don’t live near theaters that carry complicated, European-produced meditations on the passing of time, aging, and how the old are ruthlessly replaced by the young and how that replacement is inevitable.

The Clouds of Sils Maria focuses on Maria Enders, a successful stage and screen actress now in her 40s. As a young woman, she set the stage on fire in a play called Maloja Snake with her portrayal of a young woman who seduces and then abandons an older woman, leading the older woman to commit suicide. It was a star-making role that launched Enders into the kind of career that allows her to do sophisticated, high class projects but also get cast in X-Men movies.  Maria is on her way to accept an award on behalf of the writer of Maloja Snake when she gets word that he’s passed away. Not long after, she is offered a role in a new version of the play, only this time playing the older woman who gets seduced and kills herself.

 

Maria is encouraged to take the role by her devoted assistant, Val, played by Kristin Stewart. Val sees it as a way for Maria to reinvent and challenge herself and also a way to acknowledge her age gracefully. Maria, on the other hand, struggles with the idea of playing someone she thinks of as weak and old. As she and Val stay in the playwright’s old home in the Alps to work on the character, they argue over how to interpret her. Additional complication comes in when a rising young American actress named Jo-Ann is cast in Maria’s original role. Jo-Ann, played by Chloe Grace Moretz, is a hot mess – profane, impulsive, and ridden with scandal. Maria is horrified, but Val thinks it’s a great idea.

 There’s a lot of play-within-a-play overlap throughout the film as an older woman worries about playing an older woman to a powerful, seductive young woman while working with a powerful, seductive young woman. There are moments when Val and Maria argue as they hike around the amazing Swiss countryside and you’re not sure if they’re reading lines, talking about character, or really fighting. 

 

The film is fraught with ambiguity. Certain characters, even important ones, vanish from the film with no explanation. There’s no satisfying resolution at the end. There’s no on-the-nose explanation of the symbolism of the maloja snake, a real cloud formation that happens in the Alps near the area called Sils Maria. There’s so much that we are left do in this film. Some people will hate that. But if you enjoy not always knowing what’s going on and being asked to make some of the movie’s meaning for yourself, The Clouds of Sils Maria is a great film.

This review originally appeared on Q90.1, Delta College Quality Public Radio. For more information, go to www.deltabroadcasting.org.