STARS AT NOON

France, 2022, 135 minutes, Colour.

Margaret Qualley, Joe Alwyn, Benny Safdie, Danny Ramirez, Nick Romano.

Directed by Claire Denis.

We can’t see stars at noon – but they are still there, a kind of permanence in an impermanent world.

Claire Denis has been making films for many decades, a preeminent French filmmaker but who often ventured out of France, especially to African countries, making dramas, observing cultures, critique of colonialism and its consequences. In more recent times, Claire Denis, now in her 70s, has been taking on a variety of themes, locally in France, an exploration in space, and now Nicaragua. The film is based on the novel by Denis Johnson (author of Jesus’ Son), which was published in 1986.

There had been a history of uprisings in Central America in the 1970s and 1980s, civil wars, military oppression, police states, assassinations. While this is still the core of the film, the setting has been updated to the 2020s, especially in the era of Covid 19. Which has a double effect on the audience, remembering Nicaragua’s past, thinking of Nicaragua and the continued disturbances in the present, in the context of a world pandemic and local response.

This is quite a long film, and very often feels long. Response will depend on interest in Claire Denis’s films, the drama of civil unrest in Nicaragua, and the response to the central character, Trish, an American journalist who has written a critical article about the country, who is now stranded and wants to get out but is continually trapped. She is played by Margaret Qualley, a versatile actress (My Salinger Year, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood).

There will be a variety of audience responses to Trish. There will be a sympathy for her writing her article, the adverse criticism and consequences. But, as a person, she can be very irritating. And, there is her resorting to sexual liaisons with authorities in the hope of getting some kind of documentation to leave the country. This has repercussions with her being hounded by the police, struggling to make ends meet, trying to move around, frustrated.

At a bar, she encounters an Englishman, something of a mysterious presence, connected with oil and finance interests in the country but also seeming to want to evade pursuit. They team up, at first with just passion, then, despite a range of difficulties, gradually falling in love, dependent.

At times, the film goes off to follow the searching of Daniel (Joe Alwyn), building up to the possibilities for an escape from the country – except for the intervention of a strange American presence (Benny Safdie), and the intervention of the CIA.

This is an arthouse treatment of the plight of the trapped Trish and her encounter with the mysterious Daniel, and the sinister and suspicious presence of the CIA. Those caught up in her quest and interest in Claire Denis’s film career, will appreciate Stars at Noon. Others may find it overlong and not be drawn into the drama or the romance.

1. The title? No stars at noon? Yet the star still in the sky?
2. The work of Claire Denis, over many decades, in France, in Africa? Now in Central America? The 1970s and 80s? The setting of the story in the Covid era?
3. The location photography, Panama for Nicaragua? Central America, the tropics? The towns, the streets, homes, offices, restaurants? The countryside, the vegetation, water? The musical score?
4. The civil war situation, echoes of the 1970s and 1980s? Nicaragua in the 2020s? Power struggles? Political? Military? Police? And the interest of the United States, CIA agents?
5. Trish and her story, writing the article, stranded in Nicaragua, wanting to get out, her strong personality, sexual liaisons, with the police officer, selling herself, supporting herself? The streets, homes, survival? The encounter with Daniel, mystery, the attraction, the sexual encounter, hiding with him, passion turning into love? Her hopes that he could help her get out of the country? His appearances and disappearances? Contacts, the underground, passports and documents? Their escape in the city, going to the border?
6. Daniel, enigmatic, in the bar, British, commercial connections, oil, his identity, the hotel, checking in, told he was checked out? The encounter with Trish, hiding with her, the bond with her, falling in love? The possibility for escaping? Car, passports, the border?
7. The CIA agents, the confrontation with Trish, inquiries about Daniel, knowing all about her, suspicious and sinister? Her reactions?
8. The resolution of the situation, the authorities on Daniel, Trish and the CIA, her getting out of the country?
9. Memories of the past, and seeing a story unfolding with the Nicaraguan experience of Covid?