“One Battle After Another”
*Note: This review contains spoilers.
Yoon Haein: As “One Battle After Another” opens, we’re introduced to Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor) and Pat Calhoun (Leonardo DiCaprio), a couple who are both members of a group of radical revolutionaries known as the French 75. But their radical lifestyle—one predicated on using any means necessary to achieve their cause—begins to fall apart when Perfidia learns she’s pregnant. The couple finds themselves at odds with one another, Perfidia more interested in staying on the revolutionary front lines than raising a child, and Pat looking to devote himself to family life. With the conflict at a fever pitch, Perfidia, impulsive as always, shoots a security guard during a bank robbery and gets caught by the police while attempting to flee the scene of the crime. With the unthinkable upon her and facing prison time, Perfidia strikes a deal and joins witness protection in exchange for handing over information on her comrades to Officer Steven J. Lockjaw (Sean Penn), a man who obsesses over her until he ultimately forces her into having sex with him. Meanwhile, with help from the French 75, Pat flees to the fictional city of Baktan Cross with their daughter (Chase Infiniti), where they assume the names Bob and Willa Ferguson.

Sixteen years later, Lockjaw, now a colonel and in charge of a detention center for undocumented immigrants near the border, is presented with the rare opportunity to join an elitist white supremacist group of men called the Christmas Adventurers Club. And then, during the initiation process, he’s left in a bind by one of their questions: “Have you ever engaged in an interracial relationship?” Worried that Perfidia’s daughter Willa could serve to work against him, he deploys his troops to Baktan Cross to hunt down her and her father Bob, disrupting the peaceful life they’d managed to establish for themselves there. Even with all this going on, the film is laced with dark humor in every scene. For instance, when the French 75 tries to warn Bob and Willa over the phone that they’re in danger, the group repeatedly refuses to share any information unless Bob follows old protocol and recites the secret code. “I don’t remember the f—ing greeting code because I got a little bit high,” Bob resorts, exasperated. “And it’s been f—ing years, so you’ve got to help me out here.” Watching Bob, perpetually high and drunk and relying on his daughter to make him breakfast, you can’t help but worry whether he’s even capable of taking care of himself, let alone of saving her. Some scenes are laugh-out-loud absurd, like when Lockjaw sends troops to crash a high school dance in pursuit of a single 16-year-old girl, or when the club discusses racial superiority in complete earnestness as though it were actually rooted in reality.

But those absurd white supremacists pose a real threat to the lives of the residents of Baktan Cross. While the French 75 remains stuck in outdated theories and keeps prioritizing coded language, Sergio St. Carlos (Benicio del Toro) and his family, who operate an underground escape tunnel for immigrants out of the goodness of their hearts, live revolution in their everyday life. The result is a humorous critique on reality that simultaneously feels like a documentary about a specific aspect of society. “One Battle After Another” is exactly what its title promises, with each fight colored by layer after weighty layer of race and class. And through Willa, director Paul Thomas Anderson sets the stage for the next generation. She might have inherited her mother’s revolutionary spirit, and the teenager still relies on adults for support and protection, but that doesn’t mean Willa simply inherits the legacy of the previous generation. Instead, she will fight in her own way, distinct from those who came before her. Later in the film, when Willa takes down a member of the Christmas Adventurers Club pursuing her, her approach is as unexpected as it is satisfying. Her generation flows on ceaselessly like ocean waves.

“manimani” (CRCK/LCKS)
Hwang Sunup (music critic): Even if you consider yourself well-versed in Japanese music, you might not be familiar with the name CRCK/LCKS. No worries, though—you’ve likely heard plenty of music they’ve worked on without even realizing it. Every member of the band is a distinct personality unto themselves, having made names for themselves in the world of pop music with backgrounds in jazz, as session musicians, and as producers. Then there’s singer Tomomi Oda, a graduate of Tokyo University of the Arts’ Department of Composition, who’s frequently cited as a rare artist who doesn’t play classical but follows in the footsteps of Ryuichi Sakamoto and Keiichiro Shibuya. Now, after 10 years of post-debut hitting walls, experimentation, and crises, the band returns with their first studio album in six years—an instant classic that finally finds a once precarious balance amplified into an astounding sight: the band functioning as a team at last.

While they continue to explore each of their unique rhythms in a place that exists somewhere between jazz and pop, the little cracks that once showed are now being filled and held together with the power of faith in one another. What we get is a practically miraculous cohesion coming from spot-on improvisation that unfolds before our very eyes as a soundscape made of the seemingly impossible mix of the barren and the mystical. The result is a cathartic experience—like they’re ultimately walking in step with one another even without meaning to. With approachable vocals on top of an anxiety-provoking mix of driving drums and bass, unpredictable rolling sax, and straightforward guitar riffs, the title track off “manimani” embodies the spirit of the album more than any other song on it. There’s an irony in letting go of the desire to become something and becoming something entirely new as a result. Each member of the band is putting in their all here to accomplish what they’re individually after, and the result of their genre-bending music speaks for itself. It reminds me of something Suchmos frontman YONCE suddenly said to the crowd during their recent comeback show:

“There’s no need to all become one. There’s nothing special about becoming one, anyway!”

“Failed Summer Vacation” (Heuijung Hur)
Kim Boksung (writer): Author Heuijung Hur’s debut short story collection, “Failed Summer Vacation,” recently came out in English as translated by Paige Aniyah Morris, who also translated Nobel Prize winner Han Kang’s latest novel. All the stories in the book are, to put it simply, sort of weird—somewhere between sci-fi and surreal. And they’re far from upbeat—closer to depressing, as the title more or less alludes to. Granted, if that’s your cup of tea, it can be a darkly fun read, but be sure to get your stomach ready for some rather graphic descriptions.

The majority of the book resists direct interpretation, with narrative jumps, a fractured sense of time, and a sense of anonymity among its characters and settings all keeping you on your toes. Though the subject matter varies just as wildly, one story that looks at fandom does arguably impart a straightforward message, though some readers may disagree with what it implies. Underscoring the recurring theme of fixation is the focus the text demands of its readers, but there’s no doubt what the author is exploring in this book that’s far from fun in the sun: loneliness.