Thoughts on Armageddon Time

 James Gray continues to be a filmmaker that defies common generalization or characterization. He’s someone I greatly look up to as an artist. There’s no such thing as too smart or too on the nose for him. All of his films operate on the level he wants them to operate. It's incredibly inspirational for me. 

If you’ve read my piece on my favorite films of the decade you’ll know that Ad Astra was on that list. It’s a film that understands the alienation and suffering you can feel when you finally reach the pinnacle and how striving for perfection leads you to flinging yourself into the void. 

Armageddon Time is roughly about the youngest son in a large Jewish family and his monumental task of being alive in the sixth grade. Banks Repeta gives a really wonderful performance as Paul and perfectly captures the anxious false confidence that plagues a male sixth grader’s brain. There’s a scene later in the film that particularly sticks out where he’s placed in a new school and has a session with one of the school counselors. The counselor asks if there’s anything he’d like to talk about and Paul responds with a mousey “I don’t know” or something along those lines and you can tell that there’s a million things he wants to talk about but simply doesn’t have the emotional vocabulary to talk about any of it. It’s such a strong feeling and instantly recognizable for most people, so Gray doesn’t stay long in the moment but you never forget it. 

That’s just what good filmmaking is all about.

Growing up I quickly realized that my dad and grandfather used a different last name at work then the one I had. I asked my dad why they did that and he just told me “people always mispronounce it so this one is easier to say and spell” and just like Paull Graff I didn’t realize the weight of what was being told to me by my family. I just took their word for it as my name was always getting mispronounced at school. I didn’t realize until later that they did that because one of the places that used to employ them didn’t let Jews in until recently (recently for the time this was a long time ago) . So much of the talk about guarding yourself and your family caught me in this movie. Hopkins tells the story about his mother losing her parents to Paul and he understands that it’s terrifying and horrible but doesn’t understand that a version of that still happens. Even the title is a reference to how every part of the family has had their own version of judgment day rear its head to them. Only to survive and preach caution to their offsprings. Only they don’t realize that endings are always changing for people and the things that threaten our metaphysical fabrics always change shape. 

This isn’t much of a review and I do apologize for that. Armageddon Time is a pastoral work about the lives of few that relate to many. I hope James Gray never stops making movies like this.

Thanks for reading.