The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner (1974)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner (1974) – W. Herzog

Herzog himself called this one of his most important films (in Herzog on Herzog, 2003) and refused to be drawn into making any distinction between what the interviewer referred to as his documentaries and his fiction films.  For Herzog, they were all just films – and as we know, his documentaries were always designed to get at “ecstatic truth” rather than what he disparagingly refers to as the “accountant’s truth.”  So, as a director, Herzog is not afraid to stage scenes in his documentaries (based on reality perhaps or extending it in the direction he thinks it should go) and he is not afraid to bring reality into his fiction films (as when he uses indigenous people playing versions of themselves or chooses to really drag a steamboat over a mountain).  The act of exploring, crossing, and transcending the blurry line between fiction and fact is what makes Herzog’s films great.  Clocking in at only 45 minutes, Herzog’s look at ski-jumper (or ski-flier) Steiner, a world record holder, positions the athlete as another of the possibly insane dreamers that are often featured in his cinema.  After all, who would risk life and limb simply for a few seconds free of gravity, ecstatic though they may be?  With Popul Vuh’s trance-inducing help, Herzog provides a few ecstatic moments for the viewer too, using high speed cameras to create incredible slow-mo passages of, yes, ski-flying.  Steiner himself comes across in interview bits as reserved and a loner (save for a bizarre childhood friendship with a raven, possibly concocted by Herzog I would bet). Those who love Herzog will find many other choice moments, including his standard voiceover (in German this time) as well as the man himself on location with a handheld mic.  

    

At Land/A Study in Choreography for Camera/Ritual in Transfigured Time/Meditation on Violence (1944-1948)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

At Land/A Study in Choreography for Camera/Ritual in Transfigured Time/Meditation on Violence (1944-1948) – M. Deren

After completing Meshes of the Afternoon in collaboration with Alexander Hamid, Maya Deren went on to make four more short films that helped to flesh out and clarify her ideas.  In At Land, she sets off from Meshes’s juxtaposition of four steps each on a different terrain to show herself climbing up a tree into a dinner party and onward to other locales; P. Adams Sitney (whose book I am reading) notes how she edits time as well as space, moving more swiftly than possible from one sand dune to the next in the closing minutes. A Study in Choreography briefly shows a dancer transposed (across three minutes) into different locations as the dance continues, cutting on movement to keep a smooth flow. Meditation on Violence similarly shows a Chinese martial artist demonstrating Shaolin and Wu Tang styles (as well as some swordplay) first forwards on different sets and then in reverse (although unless you looked closely perhaps this might not be so noticeable).  Sitney spends most of the remainder of the chapter discussing Ritual in Transfigured Time which does seem the most complex of the films. Here Deren plays a smaller role while another woman first rolls up yarn that Deren gives her and then is beckoned to a party.  The party itself involves numerous repeated sequences of people embracing or reaching out to greet each other which is a masterful demonstration of editing (and prolonging of time). Then, we are treated to sensuous dancing which takes a Greek turn when the male dancer, naked from the waist up, is then seen on a pedestal, soon leaping off in slow and interrupted motion.  Unlike in her first film, these later films do not contain much of a narrative that allows any psychodramatic interpretation to be laid upon them – everything is form rather than content (as far as I can tell). Deren then left for Haiti where she had intended (with the help of a grant from Guggenheim) to continue an examination of local rituals (Voudoun) in comparison to children’s games – but her experiences there changed her views and she made few subsequent films, dying young.  Nevertheless, her contribution to avant-garde film, focused on shifting time and space perspectives as well as movement and choreography are thought-provoking and deep.

Meshes of the Afternoon (1943)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Meshes of the Afternoon (1943) – M. Deren & A. Hamid

P. Adams Sitney calls Maya Deren and Alexander Hamid’s 1943 film “a dream unfolding within shifting perspectives” and starts his survey of the American Avant-Garde with this film.  He does compare it explicitly to Buñuel and Dalí’s Un Chien Andalou (1928) and briefly to Man Ray’s Étoile de Mer (also 1928) suggesting their possible influence, but declares that Meshes of the Afternoon resembles more clearly a dream – part of a genre he dubs “the trance film.”  Meshes does offer a clear boundary between early scenes awake and then subsequent scenes asleep (Deren’s eyes close), whereas the other explicitly surrealist films use jarring juxtapositions to create dream logic laden with metaphor but without the resonance of autobiographical psycho-drama.  Although Deren denied any Freudian content, there are many startling images which feel symbolic:  a black clothed figure with a mirror for a face, a key extracted from Deren’s mouth, an omnipresent knife, as well as Deren herself doubled, tripled, and then murdered in her sleep.  These dream images seem drawn from our earlier brief slice of Deren’s actual reality but they take on greater and more ominous significance in the dream, sometimes seen in subjective first person perspective and sometimes in the more objective third.  Hamid’s camerawork makes the mundane spaces of their house into something with less clear laws of physics than our ordinary world.  A beautiful work that contains enough of a narrative flow to keep the average viewer (new to experimental films) enticed and entranced.   

Smiley’s People (1982)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Smiley’s People (1982) – S. Langton

The second series (made from Le Carré’s third novel in a trilogy) wherein George Smiley (Sir Alec Guinness) gets a whiff of Karla after being called out of retirement (what again?!?) to deal with the funereal affairs of an Estonian ex-pat agent he once ran.  Unlike in Tinker Tailor where we are thrust directly into the affairs of the Circus, the plot here takes a while to unfold and we don’t actually meet Barry Foster (new chief) until well into the series (and then really only briefly).  Instead, Smiley is out and about across Europe, meeting some strange characters, and finally mounting a campaign with Toby Esterhase (Bernard Hepton) at his side.  Amazingly suspenseful, with nothing really determined until the last 15 minutes, but Guinness is grimmer (seeming older) and Le Carré’s world is definitely hollowed out.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (1979)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (1979) – J. Irvin

Well, sure it is rather drab – in style, sets, locales – but this is Britain during the Cold War, so shouldn’t it be?  The 1970s hair and clothes are a bit unfortunate, but nothing can detract from Sir Alec Guinness’s subtle and compelling performance as spy/bureaucrat George Smiley.  Le Carre’s story unfolds across 7 episodes (given much more room than Gary Oldman’s recent turn at Smiley in the terrible 2011 version of the novel), which builds suspense despite the lack of any physical action at all.  The plot is built around political machinations, half uncovered clues, and Smiley’s crafty persistence – and by Episode 7, I still didn’t know who the mole was.  A second series (Smiley’s People) was made in 1982 – I can’t wait.  Maybe I’ll start to give TV a chance after all.   

A Better Tomorrow (1986)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

A Better Tomorrow (1986) – J. Woo

I discovered John Woo back in the early 1990s as Hong Kong Cinema broke into the US arthouse/cult theatres (with Jacky Chan leading the way).  Woo’s films were all about slow-motion bullets flying between stoic guys on either side of the law who nevertheless identified with each other and felt deep loyal (even sentimental) emotions for their friends/family and sometimes foes (all men – women are sidelined here). Although his work would come to fruition with The Killer and Hard-Boiled, A Better Tomorrow was his first big hit (produced by Tsui Hark who has a funny cameo here).  Set in the world of the HK Triads, the film stars Ti Lung as a key deputy in a counterfeiting ring with a younger brother (Leslie Cheung) who is a cop on the rise and a best friend (Chow Yun-Fat) who is the gang’s top gunman.  When Ti finally gets caught and thrown in a Taiwan prison, he decides to go straight to honor his father’s wishes and to make good with his brother.  Of course, the gang won’t let him and his ties to Chow (who has fallen in stature within the gang but wants to stay in – or to compete) make this harder.  Woo controls the tempo expertly, mixing huge close-ups that heighten the emotional intensity with bloody shoot-outs set to pulsing music – and we feel the impact of the things that happen to these guys.  The 80s clothes and cinematography (complete with Woo’s eye for color and composition) and occasional cheesy music somehow enhance the tension between sentimentality and violence.  But it is the characterizations by Ti and Chow (and to a lesser extent Cheung), stoic yet sentimental, that really draw you in – with Woo’s expert guidance.      

L’Immortelle (1963)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

L’Immortelle (1963) – A. Robbe-Grillet

Directorial debut by famed New Novel author, Alain Robbe-Grillet, who had earlier written Last Year at Marienbad for Alain Resnais.  Here, the obfuscation continues.  We are in Turkey and a French man who is later called Andre meets and pursues a woman who may be called Lale or Leila or something else.  The foley artists are working overtime creating sounds that somehow do not seem to belong (too loud and often of uncertain origin).  There is foreshadowing of a tragic event.  Lale goes missing and Andre spends most of the latter half of the film looking for her.  Does she speak Turkish?  Is she married?  Is she somehow involved in a human trafficking ring? Robbe-Grillet’s gaze is steady and the films images are repetitive, almost hypnotic, like the long belly-dancing scene thrown in for good measure.  Some might find this pretentious (more so than Last Year) but, for me, the Middle Eastern music and chanting lends it the quality of a dream or a drone (a drone-like dream) that is somehow bewitching.

  

Lancelot du Lac (1974)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Lancelot du Lac (1974) – R. Bresson

Puzzling (in a good way).  Bresson’s style is, as usual, almost immediately off-putting.  The viewer struggles to figure out his directorial choices (often coming up empty-handed).  Why on Earth would you show the famous jousting tournament (where Lancelot arrives in disguise) with the camera aimed only at the horses’ midsections (that is, missing the jousting action entirely)? Non-professional actors speak their lines expressionlessly and the King Arthur legend as we know it has been shorn of most of its action.  Instead, Bresson focuses in on Lancelot’s predicament – his adultery with Guinivere conflicts with his loyalty to Arthur and his vow to God to end it.  The persistence of this illicit affair brings the couple into conflict with Mordred and other knights but Bresson asks us to infer any deeper psychology ourselves from the surfaces he depicts. Yet the film is not boring. The medieval setting is wrought simply but effectively and the soundtrack is a wonder (with offscreen horses neighing and suits of armor clanking at what must be carefully timed moments). Whether Lancelot achieves salvation through suffering (a perennial theme for Bresson) is another mystery that the viewer can ponder.  Figuring things out (or failing to do so) is half the fun.  

  

Like Father, Like Son (2013)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Like Father, Like Son (2013) – H. Kore-eda

I’m a big fan of director Kore-eda (Maborosi, After Life, Nobody Knows) and his often poignant slices of Japanese life.  Crucially, he often begins his screenplays with a premise or set-up that he then follows through more or less logically and realistically to its appropriate conclusion.  His previous film, I Wish, focused on two young brothers who are separated by their parents’ divorce and how they arrange to transcend the space between them.  Here, more dramatically, two couples discover – six years later – that their sons were switched at birth and the film focuses on how they resolve this problem (i.e., do they choose to exchange their children or keep the boys they’ve raised, although not blood-related).  But Kore-eda uses this premise to focus in on one of the fathers, Ryota, a career-minded and emotionally constricted absent dad who has failed to forge a close relationship with his son. The unexpected event therefore allows him a chance to start again – or does it?  It also highlights the age-old question of nature vs. nurture as we are invited to decide whether the boys’ contrasting personalities reflect the personalities of their real dads or their adopted dads (who are also contrasted by being nouveau riche or on the poorer side). A lot of food for thought and some beautiful moments but also colder and more reserved than we often see from this director, likely due to the problematic central figure.