Twelve Monkeys (1995)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Twelve Monkeys (1995) – T. Gilliam

After watching a few dud films in a row, I returned to Terry Gilliam’s classic time travel thriller as a sort of palette cleanser, rejuvenating balm – and it did not disappoint.  Using Chris Marker’s La Jetée as a launching pad, Gilliam and writers David and Janet Peoples, flesh out the narrative, which sees a man, James Cole (Bruce Willis), sent from a post-apocalyptic future (where a purposefully released virus has killed most of humanity, sending survivors underground for decades) back to the 1990s to uncover clues that scientists can use to create a vaccine and reclaim the world above.  Of course, no one believes him and he is immediately committed to a mental hospital where he meets psychiatrist Madeleine Stowe and patient Brad Pitt (who become important to the plot later on).  One undercurrent in the film focuses on whether Cole is really from the future or possibly just really mentally ill – and in true Gilliam-fashion, leads us to ponder our own understanding of reality, truth, and the myth of mental illness.  But the real action follows Cole as he bounces back and forth from the future to the present, perhaps accidentally changing the course of events (if that is actually possible), and slowly piecing together clues that reveal the involvement of the Army of the Twelve Monkeys in the events leading up to the virus’s release across the world.  The scientists of the future need this information but Cole is also driven to understand a memory that he had as a small boy (in the time just before the virus hit), of seeing people die in an airport, a memory that returns to him in a recurring dream and which is growing in familiarity the longer he stays in the 1990s.  Director Chris Marker spent his career pondering memory’s emotional sway over us, with Hitchcock’s Vertigo a particular touchstone (so it comes as no surprise that we see a clip here, when the protagonists escape into a movie theatre). Ultimately, even with all of the Hollywood baggage that could have dragged the film down, Gilliam manages to capture the same feelings, the pull of nostalgia, the pangs of lost times, and he does it while still stamping his own style on the proceedings.  Worth another look (and no, I haven’t seen the subsequent TV series).

 

Tampopo (1985)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Tampopo (1985) – J. Itami

Beloved Japanese comedy from director Juzo Itami that is equal parts a series of sketches linking food to sex, death, and all varieties of human experience AND an engaging narrative detailing how a pair of truck drivers (and the assorted “experts” they enlist) help a single mum to elevate her ramen noodles and ramen shop to excellence. Itami makes good use of classic film technique to move between scenes (closing iris wipes!) but also lets the camera move out of the narrative by following a passerby into a sketch. I was surprised to see Koji Yakusho (subsequently a big star, including in Wim Wenders’ recent Perfect Days, 2023) as a gangster intent on the sensuality of food (whose scenes also reminded me why I haven’t shown this film to the kids). Ken Watanabe (Inception, 2010) is also here as one of the truck drivers.  But the film really belongs to Tsutomu Yamazaki as Gorô, the truck driver who initiates the plan by citing in detail how noodles could be improved and Nobuko Miyamoto (the director’s wife and muse) as Tampopo, the ramen shop owner. They bring sincerity, charisma, and conviction (and have the most fleshed out characters). Overall, this is a joy to watch and while not laugh-out-loud funny, it is knowing and observant and, most of all, playful and full of heart.  

The Great Silence (1968)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

The Great Silence (1968) – S. Corbucci

Wintry Spaghetti Western (that takes place in “Utah” in 1898) featuring Jean-Louis Trintignant (what a career!) as a mute gunfighter (Silence) with a vendetta against bounty hunters working within a cruel law (soon to be rescinded) that allows them to massacre “outlaws” wanted dead or alive.  Klaus Kinski plays the most devious and brutal of the bounty hunters (called Tigrero in the subtitled Italian version I watched, but Loco elsewhere), piling up corpses for the hefty reward money. The new sheriff in town (Frank Wolff) sympathises with the ragtag group of outlaws hiding in the hills just outside of Snow Hill and finds a way to arrest Kinski, with plans to transport him to a larger prison. Meanwhile, Pauline (Vonetta McGee), widow of a recently killed outlaw, solicits Silence’s help in getting revenge.  We already know he’s the fastest gun in the area, encouraging the bad bounty hunters to draw first so he can kill them in self-defence. Eventually, there’s a showdown.  Ennio Morricone’s score really adds to the action, heightening those trudges through the deep snow (on foot or on steed) and cinematic vistas (matched by the many huge head close-ups that director Sergio Corbucci favours). The ending is astonishing but historically accurate (I think).  Moody and somehow majestic.  

 

Nosferatu (2024)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Nosferatu (2024) – R. Eggers

Everyone knows the story by now, having seen the Murnau (Max Schreck), Herzog (Klaus Kinski), Coppola (Gary Oldman), Universal (Bela Lugosi), or Hammer (Christopher Lee) versions of Bram Stoker’s Dracula on film.  Murnau changed the names (from Dracula to Orlok, Harker to Hutter, Jonathan to Thomas, Mina to Ellen, and so on) but was still sued by Stoker’s widow. Director Robert Eggers retains Murnau’s names in this new version but, although it starts out as such (and includes some of the “authentic” or previously shot locations), this is not the same faithful remake that Herzog already made in 1979.  Instead, this is another “variation on a theme” wrought by a director for whom the material is very near and dear (he directed a high school drama production of the story). He claims he only made the film because he found a new angle: Orlok and Ellen have an original bond that precedes her marriage to Hutter which sets the plot in motion and draws Orlok to her, all the way from Transylvania to the fictional German city of Wismark.  Hutter’s journey to the Count’s castle (sent by Herr Knock/Renfield), his stopover in the Gypsy village, and his nights with Orlok remain similar but Eggers adds his exquisite visual panache, production design and sound design (as displayed in his previous films: The Witch (2015), The Lighthouse (2019), and The Northman (2022)). Indeed, this version of the classic tale feels bigger and bolder (perhaps because I saw it in the cinema) and very soon, we have left the original narrative behind, leaving only its contours.  Lily Rose-Depp is magnetic (and also feral) as Ellen, Willem Dafoe provides some comic relief as Prof. Albin Eberhart von Franz (the Van Helsing counterpart), and Bill Skarsgård is, uh, very different from previous portrayals, as a gruesome Orlok (as a decomposing Hungarian nobleman). In the end, Eggers takes us someplace new, not scary (although there are a few jump-scares for the target audience) but definitely uncanny. Ultimately, he reveals the Count as, yes, evil but also as pathetic as anyone hopelessly obsessed can turn out to be.

American Fiction (2023)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

American Fiction (2023) – C. Jefferson

Audacious directorial debut by Cord Jefferson who also won the 2024 best screenplay Oscar for adapting Percival Everett’s book Erasure.  Apparently, the title of the film was going to be the same as the title of the book by Stagg R. Lee in the film but ironically the producers must have gotten cold feet.  Irony is the name of the game here in this smart dramedy that manages to retain its heart, make some solid points, and even go “meta” at the end while never losing the audience. It is great to see Jeffrey Wright (as Thelonious “Monk” Ellison) take the lead (as he did so many moons ago as Basquiat) and he holds down the centre of the picture with a not-always-likeable character who nevertheless is very human.  He’s a respected writer (and college prof) who doesn’t have sales to match the esteem.  After seeing another Black writer receive plaudits for writing a trashy novel of the (stereotyped) Black experience, he bangs out what he thinks is a parody and gives it to his agent.  This sociological theme sits alongside a nicely delivered family drama, given life by Wright, Leslie Uggams, Sterling K. Brown, Tracee Ellis Ross, and Myra Lucretia Taylor. Erika Alexander is excellent as Monk’s love interest, an independent woman rather than a sidekick.  Endings to films like this are often hard to stick so kudos to the filmmakers for taking chances and landing the perfect one (or two… or three).

 

The Zone of Interest (2023)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

The Zone of Interest (2023) – J. Glazer

A new movie about the Holocaust raises many questions.  Do such films trivialize or exploit the unspeakable horror of the murder of six million Jews (and others) or do they serve as a worthwhile reminder of the way that humans have and can rationalize evil acts (and/or the banality of evil, as Hannah Arendt noted) for which we should be on constant guard? Jonathan Glazer’s film invites us to view (or, in fact, listen to) the events at Auschwitz from a detached distance – unlike the visceral “you are there” experience of Son of Saul (2015) or the overwhelming amount of specific detail provided by Claude Lanzmann’s nine-hour Shoah (1985).  But knowing the true nature of the horror is a sort of pre-requisite for the dread that Glazer provokes with the Zone of Interest, named for the area around the concentration camp where the camp commandant and his family live. Christian Friedel and Sandra Hüller play the commandant and his wife, living in the shadow of the camp (we see it in the background of most outdoor shots) and living off the work and possessions of those being exterminated. As viewers, we never enter the camp and only see it from the outside but importantly hear what goes on as a distracting backdrop to the action we do see (mundane household actions and discussions of the work of the commandant, using terrible euphemisms for killing or discussing the mechanisms for killing in a matter-of-fact way).  This creates a sort of divided consciousness for viewers and leads directly to the question of what the family members (children and adults alike) must be thinking while hearing and experiencing the camp next door – in other words, you know that they can’t not know. Glazer and his team based the film only loosely on Martin Amis’s novel but also on extensive research on Commandant Rudolf Höss, Auschwitz, and the years 1943-44.   They find numerous ways to present the indirect effects of the camp, leaving the greater horror looming in the background, with only its shadow on show.  But whether this be warning, memorial, educational opportunity, or introspective public art, it only serves to present one view of the Holocaust, to make one specific point about those involved -- but perhaps that’s sufficient in the face of the enormity of the catastrophe and our inability to come to terms with it.  Notwithstanding the possibility for morbid fascination, understanding the Holocaust from all angles, with every good faith contribution warranted, seems necessary.

 

Lola Montés (1955)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Lola Montés (1955) – M. Ophuls

After the film flopped upon release, you can see why the producers wanted to cut up its flashback order to try to make it more chronological – which may have made it not unlike other widescreen colour (this time Eastmancolor) films of the 1950s.  But that would have removed some of director Max Ophuls’ clever/genius moves, as it is the contrast between the circus framing device (where she is on display toward the end of her short life, still selling herself to get by, ordered about by ringmaster Peter Ustinov) and the recalled memories of the flashbacks (more truthful or more self-deceptive is hard to say) that highlight the themes of the film.  Ophuls has used the real life story of “Lola Montez” (born Eliza Gilbert) who travelled the world as a dancer but became famous for her affairs with famous men (Franz Liszt and the King of Bavaria Ludwig I, both portrayed here, the latter by Anton Walbrook) and then played them up to commercial success (including a scandalous tour of Australia in the 1850s and a speaking tour of the US, neither in the movie, but not a circus). Her life allows Ophuls to consider his longstanding interest in sex and its social functions along with the power it grants women who otherwise had little in those days but to take this theme all the way to its final stop in degradation, shame, and humiliation (but who is really to blame?).  All of this is managed in the most glamourous of styles with expensive sets and art decoration (perhaps treating French sex symbol Martine Carol as Lola as just another prop) and Ophuls’ famous gliding camera.