James Gray looks back on his childhood in ‘Armageddon Time’ with a cast that includes Michael Banks Repeta, Anne Hathaway, Jeremy Strong and Anthony Hopkins.
How long have we lived in apocalyptic times? James Gray reminds us that Ronald Reagan announced the end of the world on TV, and that his Ukrainian ancestors fled anti-Semitic persecution. Set in the America of the 80s, in the Queens neighborhood, ‘Armageddon Time’ illuminates its political profile with the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, to the point that the presumed exercise of nostalgia that animates it seems to fade in the present. In any case, For Gray, the evolution of history greases its relentless mechanisms in a more intimate sphere, that of the family, the true embryo of his obsessions as a filmmaker., focused on the acceptance of the codes of an institution closed in on itself and the conflictive relationship with the father figure. In this sense, as an autobiographical film, ‘Armageddon Time’, which oscillates between the homage to ‘The 400 blows’ (here a typewriter is not stolen but a computer) and the realistic version of ‘Amarcord’, is a lesson on how a filmmaker explains himself and opens the keys to his world to whoever wants to listen. Try to see ‘Little Odessa’ or ‘The night is ours’ after seeing this film and you will know what we are talking about.
Intimate diary
James Gray is a more difficult filmmaker than the transparency of his images makes it seem. Slipping over the surface of his neoclassical narrative, we run the risk of missing the fundamentals: what we call historical development occurs in the details, in the unfathomable matter of the everyday. In the bustle of a family dinner, in the conversation with your grandfather in a park, in the violence of a parental punishment and in the beautiful shared time of a friendship between a middle-class white boy and a lower-class African-American boy, cut short. for an unfulfilled promise, a moral betrayal that will give a definitive turn to the story of a future life. In each of these situations, the traces of the American dream are perceived, of the traumatic memories of an immigrant population, of filiation and its failures, and of racism and class struggle. What remains of that hidden, almost clandestine dialectic between the micro and the macro is the immense tenderness that Gray’s films exude.. In ‘Armageddon Time’, the director does not hide behind any gender exercise, but shows himself with the honesty of someone who has decided to share his private diary with his viewers, and has made his memories clear without formal exuberances, trusting that the truth of his memory is quietly imposed.
For lovers of autobiographical confessions
DATA SHEET
Address: James Gray Distribution: Michael Banks Repeta, Anne Hathaway, Jeremy Strong, Anthony Hopkins Country: USA Year: 2022 Release date: 18–11-2022 Gender: Drama Script: James Gray Duration: 114 min.
Synopsis: Paul Graff leads a quiet childhood in the New York suburbs. Together with Johnny, a classmate excluded because of his skin color, they get into mischief. Paul believes he has the protection of his mother, president of the association of mothers and fathers of students, and his grandfather, with whom he maintains a very good relationship.
Source: Fotogramas
Emily Jhon is a product and service reviewer at Gossipify, known for her honest evaluations and thorough analysis. With a background in marketing and consumer research, she offers valuable insights to readers. She has been writing for Gossipify for several years and has a degree in Marketing and Consumer Research from the University of Oxford.
