Incredibly taut and
suspenseful B-movie film noir that makes up for plot holes (apparent later not
sooner) with tough dialogue and hand-held camerawork. A hard-boiled cop must
escort a gangster's moll across country by train for her appearance in front of
the grand jury in L. A. She is not grateful and to make matters worse, the
mob's gunmen are on the train too. Highly recommended.
Kiarostami's film
works on a number of different levels: 1) there is the surface-level story of a
man who naively impersonates a famous film director and goes on trial for
fraud; 2) the fact that Kiarostami asked the original people involved in the
case to play themselves in a re-enactment adds another level -- are they acting
as they really did or as they would like to be perceived?; 3) there is the
level of "cultural difference" where we foreigners are trying to
understand Iran through the film; 4) there is Kiarostami's direction which
playfully defies cinematic convention (withholding key information, focusing on
trivial details, incorporating technical flaws); 5) there is the level of
cinema as topic raising questions about film directors as celebrities and the
ways in which film can influence an audience. Kiarostami's magic is to turn a
simple story, simply shot, into something rich and profound.
When a Woman Ascends the Stairs (1960) – M. Naruse
Naruse's emotionally
draining tale of the struggles of a 30 something bar hostess who longs for
something different is somehow still uplifting (in its tribute to resilience).
The plot may be melodramatic (and a case in point of women's trials in a
male-dominated world) but Hideko Takamine rises above it with dignity,
subtlety, and, yes, grace.(The rest of the cast are none too shabby either).
The viewer is suspended in time, on the edge of the knife, awaiting Takamine's
fortune.
Watching this again
(and again), especially after seeing many of Melville's other great films (Le
Doulos, Le Deuxieme Souffle, Army in the Shadows, Bob Le Flambeur) suggests how
different Le Samourai is, despite its surface similarities. Here, we have a
lone protagonist, very inscrutable, rather than the interconnected gang or
family locked into the inevitable mechanics of the plot. Here, the final action
comes with a big question mark over it -- perhaps his sense of honour leads him
to save La Pianiste? But we never quite know whether she is complicit in all
that has gone down. To compare this to Bresson is not understating things
(although it makes understatement prominent) -- the essence of cool, in detail,
in colour, in theme.
Jean Gabin
is great as the world-weary gangster ready to retire after finishing his last
big score (before the movie starts). Becker's film eats the cliches (or
originated them) and spews them out in a perfectly controlled collapse of the
best laid plans.
A movie about
religious faith, lack of faith, and competing (Christian) faiths. When one
character has trouble with his sanity, another says it was Kierkegaard that did
it to him (so you know what kind of film this is). Dreyer is the master of the
slow pan, never really showing us the whole of a room (and all of the people in
it); in one shot he circles entirely around two characters, slowly so it took a
while for me to notice. In the end, the leap of faith does prove warranted, but
what happens next? Watched again in 2019: For all its starkness, it feels intellectually alive and almost supernaturally so (by the end). Would that it were so? Jonathan Rosenbaum alerted me to the fact that the tracking shot circling Johannes and Maren is not exactly what it seems to be -- we don't see their backs! An early miracle?
Traité de bave et d'éternité (Venom and Eternity) (1951) –
I. Isou
Self-referential debut of a new kind of film-making, one that
disconnects the audio and visual components (Discrepant Cinema) and violently
attacks the raw film stock. In three parts, variously a wide-ranging
philosophical tract about cinema, an alienated free love story, and a series of
letterist poems wherein the sound of unintelligible letters is the point. So
jammed full of ideas (and "boring" stock footage) that it makes you
alive to possibilities and nostalgic for 1951. (Obviously an influence on
Assayas' Irma Vep...but also on Japanese "rock" band Ruins?)
☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ The Son (2002) – J.-P. Dardenne & L. Dardenne
Claustrophobic
camerawork (no establishing shots, always close in on the central character's
body -- even the back of his head) produces a tense and suspenseful
psychological narrative of great ambiguity. The viewer only gradually discovers
what's going on, perhaps even as the characters themselves do, which results in
a complex viewing experience for a film that seems simply made in other
respects (though this masks great craft).
Bathed in
candy-colored lights, Armin Mueller-Stahl succumbs to capitalism's temptations,
while Barbara Sukowa negotiates her self into the power elite. Fassbinder's
stylistically audacious and artificial film tackles politics, economics, and German/film
history with satirical precision.
Starts slow but then
lifts off into a delirious "docu-fantasia" (Maddin's term) focused on
Winnipeg, Manitoba
but spliced with family history, personal reveries, balderdash, and
sleepwalking (dreamwalking?). Maddin monologue with mad montage.
Hotaru no Haka (Grave of the Fireflies)(1988) – I. Takahata
This may be the
saddest movie I have ever seen (any other contenders?). The final days of world
war two in Japan
(firebombing, food rationing) and the inability of two orphaned kids to cope.
Beautifully animated but emotionally overwhelming. All war should stop right
now.
A Cassavetes film is
different, it plays by different rules, to its own tune. Sometimes that tune is
off-key or the jams go on too long, but it can also soar. Faces is about middle
aged people and their (over)reactions to a stale relationship -- they seek out
other, younger, partners. See what happens as the older generation encounters
the Swingin' 60s (ignoring the datedness of everything). Things get pretty
intense.
Glenn Ford takes on
corruption in his city, entering rooms with his fists flying, and this is after
he turns in his badge (but not his gun) to the police commissioner. (Which is
the same plot that Jackie Chan adopted for Police Story, come to think of it).
Sure, Ford is a righteous law enforcer but he's given plenty of reasons to go
insane in this film -- the Big Heat is on him and then he brings it down on the
baddies. Gloria Grahame and Lee Marvin throw coffee at each other too. One of
Fritz Lang's best.
Ozu's first color film is full of geometric patterns and red objects
dotting shots composed of perfect complementary colors (including kimonos,
suits, wallpaper...everything). The plot again focuses on social transitions in
Japan
with the central character (the father this time) finding it difficult to
embrace the change away from "arrangement marriage" when it comes to
his own daughter (although he is much more liberal when counseling other
friends' daughters). Sublime.
Kiarostami's first great success tells the simple tale of a boy who
mistakenly takes home a classmate's notebook and wants to return it so his
friend won't get into trouble. However, this is more difficult than it seems.
Beautifully depicted, compelling and suspenseful, though minimalist.
Kiarostami's trademark wit is already in place (as we too struggle to make out
whether that really is the friend over there behind the horse!).
Thinking this was a
"body horror" film kept me on the edge of my seat for most of the
film (even a bloody toenail makes me squeamish), and the film does take
physicality as its content and its metier (above and beyond the discipline of
ballet, there's drugs, possible eating disorders, sexuality, injury, death).
Natalie Portman's performance is visceral and her weight loss for the role
gives a creepiness to her performance (that is belied by the Ashton Kutcher
movie that ran as a trailer). The tension is sustained throughout all of
Portman's interactions with others and then at a certain point in the film,
Aronofsky leaves the throttle open and things become insane. Only the American
accents spoil the Red Shoes mood.
Some movies elicit
thoughts at higher rates than others -- suffice it to say Malick's film
generates them fairly steadily all the way through (including such thoughts as
"what the hell is that?" and "is that CGI or real?", not to
mention the more existential and religious thoughts that were likely intended).
The movie roughly focuses on recalled memories of a 1950s Texas childhood and parallel to that, the
birth, early years, and presumed death of the universe. But everything is in
snippets, brief dialogue-less anecdotes, voice-overs, occasional longer scenes
and a heap of tracking shots. In the experimental portion, we see images from
the Hubble telescope, underwater worlds, sunflowers, and much more -- all
beautiful. At its end, a possibly Christian conclusion, there are echoes of Bergman
and Fellini (compounding the Kubrick 2001 starting point). So, that's a lot
going on in one movie, and while it drags in places, it is certainly worth a
look (on the big screen).
I first saw 8 1/2
maybe 20 years ago at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts -- let's call it my
real entree into what we now call arthouse cinema. The name "Fellini"
seemed to represent something strange and offered an opportunity for a new
experience -- I had no idea what I was getting myself into (and little
understanding of his roots in neorealism). It was all very exciting. Watching
the film again (last night) I still find it a rich visual experience, even as
Fellini's work seems less challenging than it once did. The way that
Mastroianni stands in for Fellini as a director who cannot figure out what to
do next -- and has problematic relations with and attitudes toward women --
still adds an intriguing extra layer to the film (with hints of Fellini's real life
marriage to Giulietta Masina who he mirrored in his next film, Juliet of the
Spirits). Of course, 8 1/2 itself is a great title to express indecision (as
this was Fellini's 8 1/2th film, if you include a couple of shorts). But with
the novelty worn off, I can still say that Nino Rota's amazing score, Fellini's
famous faces shot in glorious B&W by Di Venanzo, and the expert blend of
fantasy, memory, and reality all hold up today.
Cary Grant is tough as
nails (but not really heartless) as a guy who has to get the mail in and out of
a badly located South American town, relying on a bunch of adrenalin junkie
aviators. Thomas Mitchell plays his love interest (a common theme for Hawks).
Superbly put together, with never a dull moment.
Chimes at Midnight
allows Orson Welles to strut his stuff as the larger than life Falstaff -- but
also behind the camera (aided by his crew) with stunning shots, cinematography,
art design, editing. The melancholy tale of Prince Hal's eventual rejection of
his decadent mate stays true in spirit (and much dialogue) to Shakespeare, although
that means it is dense and furious and I'll have to watch it again to extract
more meaning.
Brutal, exceedingly
dark "neorealist" look at kids in the slums of Mexico City in the 1950s. By Luis Buñuel, so
there is a surrealistic dream sequence (and a blind man rubbing a pigeon on a
sick woman). Even though I accept the take home message that poverty may breed
social ills, I still hated "Jaibo" and his cruel ways. Buñuel serves
up such an unsentimental, unflinching, and yes ugly look at the problem that it
seems hard not to despair about the difficulty of solving it.
There is a heavy
density to the images on the screen, like they were scrawled with charcoal. The
chiaroscuro lighting renders some figures and objects stark while all around
them (at the edges) trails off in fuzzy obscurity. And, yes, Satan is lurking
here, during the time of the plague, engaging in his infernal mischief. Poor
Faust treads the slippery slope, but liebe conquers all. Amazing to watch, as
though film artistry were being invented before your eyes (with some great
analog special effects).
Herzog goes
to a Caribbean volcano on the day it is meant to erupt to visit a man who
refuses to leave the town, despite the fact that it means his certain death
(and Herzog's?). Haunting images of the deserted town and billowing sulfur
clouds. Great narration, as usual, in Herzog's awesome accented English...
Pretty
crazy that some of these film noir B-pictures that show normal lives taking a
turn for the worse, in this case because of the femme fatale (and the guy's
stupidity, of course), exist side by side with A-pictures that feature not a
cloud in the sky (or a shadow descending on a swamp). Frenetic pacing and tough
gal-weak guy characterizations make this a stand-out, along with some killer
set pieces.
A melodrama of
forbidden love from Mikio Naruse. Starting mundanely in a small shop being run
out of business by a viciously competitive supermarket, the plot takes a hook
turn from post-war family drama into more dangerous terrain. Stock characters
take on new emotional dimensions and embark on a long (train) journey into the
unknown, where anything might be possible if only society's shackles could be
loosened.
Quest through the
surrealist landscapes of Spain
that multiplies into layer upon layer of narratives with a supernatural,
mystical, and romantic theme. Cybulski is the amiable puzzled center of the
action. Would take several watchings to understand the riddle of the plot!
Not having read the
novel, I was prepared for something more sci-fi (like Blade Runner) than this
psycho-sociological inquiry into drugs, societal control, and
self-consciousness (in the broadest sense). The wacked out animation (part live
model, part imagination) adds an ironic counterpoint to the theme of drug
problems. Multi-layered, with a twist, edgy, paranoid, and worth-seeing.
The Devil and Daniel Johnston (2005) -- J. Feuerzeig
I bought "Songs
of Pain" and "More Songs of Pain" in the late '80s, presumably
from Jeff Tartakov and Stress records. Over the years I was aware, on and off,
of Daniel Johnston's trials and travails. The Devil and Daniel Johnston fills
in the gaps in my knowledge. As with biopics of other artists suffering mental
illness (e.g., the recent one about Roky Erickson), the film evokes complex
feelings (sadness, horror, guilt, hope, joy). Jeff Feuerzeig gets it just about
right and the documentary evidence of Daniel's career (and early home life) he
gathered is staggering.
I love Melville for the moods he creates, here using the seedy Parisian
nightlife in the shadow of Montmartre. Bob is
a generous sort of the kind who knows that money comes and goes -- he's living
life in the moment by an honorable code. As such, it comes as no surprise that
his last big score doesn't entirely go to plan. It's not what Bob really cares
about.
Unbelievable melange
of '60s and '70s leftists fighting the power and eventually falling into
disarray. Chris Marker's idiosyncratic style (a cat parade, bemused voiceover
narration) encases a hypnotic collection of found footage of world leaders
(Castro, Mao, Allende), forgotten European union officials, some communists,
the sadly misled, and a million students engaged with political theory in a way
we may never see again.
Perhaps I
cheated by watching this 7.5 hour (12 part) film over a week's time. But its
amazing long takes, during which the camera stands stock still or pans slowly
around characters, close to objects and sometimes into darkness, bear a lot of
scrutiny. The stunning b&w images and very physical repetitive soundtrack
make watching the movie akin to staring at a painting listening to drone music.
The plot is continually mysterious, as information is only gradually imparted
to the viewer (from multiple perspectives). This is either about the collapse
of a collective farm (due to idiocy it seems) or allegorically about the fall
of communism in Hungary and the loose ends its people found themselves at or
even more allegorically about humanity duped by the false messiah. With a tango
structure. Astonishing.
Chinatown is a movie I
continue to get pleasure out of from repeat viewings, despite knowing the ins
and outs of the complicated plot surrounding the murder of Hollis Mulwray, head
of Los Angeles
Water and Power. Robert Towne wrote the Marlowe-like lead character directly
for Jack Nicholson and it shows. Even though Polanski famously (and
fortuitously) rewrote the ending to be downbeat, he apparently let Jack write
his own dialogue to keep the tone right. If the plot wasn't so convoluted,
perhaps the film wouldn't keep on giving -- or perhaps ultimately it is the
film noir tradition of the fickle finger of fate targeting all of the main
characters that leaves the viewer haunted.
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