The images are sometimes too much to
bear, inside this leper colony in Iran.
Yet, they are somehow hauntingly beautiful and horrific at the same
time. Your heart goes out to these
outcasts, as you imagine the rejection they must have felt from the rest of
humanity. However, the people here
retain their dignity…through religion, through play, by the force of their
spirit. They thank their god for having
eyes to see and ears to hear, even if we as viewers dwell on their sores, their
deformities, their exile. The editing
here is fast (for the time) and we are besieged with images – some difficult to
take, some uplifting, all humane. The
voiceover is lyrical and poetic (not descriptive) and this elevates the film to
something more than a stark look at a difficult situation.
To a vegetarian, this is essentially a
snuff film. Animals die in a
slaughterhouse. However, director
Georges Franju treats the topic in a way that is not too far afield from David
Lynch’s Blue Velvet. That is, we see
Paris and its tranquil daily life and then we go behind the façade to find out
how meat is made available. Of course,
in 1949, the killing is done by hand, by trained professionals (who
nevertheless get cysts and other injuries in the course of their work). The film (only 20 minutes) is sometimes
referred to as surreal and perhaps a pile of calves heads (after they are
slaughtered to make veal) is an unusual image – but it is all too real, not
surreal. Franju went on to make Eyes
Without a Face, which is definitely surreal and horrific. In that film, a
surgeon preys on young women in order to find a new face for his daughter
(after a car accident). Perhaps the same
moral coldness underscores both films.
This time through Bergman's Persona left
me a little cold. Perhaps I wasn't quite in the mood for its experimental
approach to analyzing human relationships and needs that depicts a steadfast
denial of verbal communication from one party. That said, I fully appreciate
the magnitude of Bergman's achievement here. I found an old review (circa
1990s) and I include an edited excerpt here:
“The film opens with a montage of images
(a bare lightbulb, various cinematography equipment, corpses in a morgue, a
young boy reading and then reaching up to touch a giant image of Liv
Ullman/Bibi Andersson) that clearly evokes the idea that we are about to watch
a "film"--there is even a a portion of the "leader" before
a film begins. Then, the movie turns to traditional narrative structure. A
young nurse (Andersson) is assigned to the case of an actress who has decided
to become mute. I say decided because it is made explicit that there is no
clear psychological or physical ailment that has caused the muteness.
Nevertheless, the nurse is assigned to care for the actress (Ullman). Even from
the start, the nurse is worried that she might not have the psychological
strength/stamina to handle this odd case--she should have listened to her inner
voices. After a short time, the head of the sanatorium decides that the nurse
and the patient should remove themselves to a country house to improve the
treatment. Once there, the nurse becomes incredibly voluble--as anyone would
when faced with a silent companion. She begins to reveal intimate details of
her life, and although I perceived her to be a pleasant and un-self-analytical
person at first, she begins to express doubts and anxieties. Since these are
met with resounding silence, she becomes flustered. When she reads an unsealed
letter by Ullman that mocks her and defines her as an object for study, she
begins to get resentful. Throughout all this, Ullman gives a masterful
performance of reserved observation and occasional emotion. The focus is upon
Andersson and the changes she must go through because of her contact with this
willful mute. Much has been made of the "reversal of personality"
that takes place. Andersson becomes much more cynical and alienated but, for me, there is not too much
evidence that Ullman is significantly altered by her contact with Andersson. We
do learn, after they part, that Ullman returned to her stage career--and she
does seem more connected to life and the real world, but she fails to speak
more than a word (when forced) throughout thefilm. Needless to say, Andersson breaks down as a result of this
"silent treatment" and Bergman evokes this by having the film itself
break in the middle and the images become much more experimental and bizarre
toward the end of the movie.
Several themes became apparent to me
during my watching of this film. For example, "life as theater". Many
images and much of the dialogue in the film reveals Bergman's conception that
life is predominantly acting. First of all, Ullman is an actress herself and
she is plainly "studying" Andersson, perhaps for use in a future
role. The fact that the film is obvious about the fact that it IS a film makes
us aware that these self-presentations have been designed for us ( much like
everyday self-presentations?). A documentary style (in which one person is
never shown during a conversation) makes an appearance early in the film,
making our spectator status even more obvious. Later when the style switches to
intensely personal, we are unable to shake this conception of the
"objective" portrayal of reality--although clearly many images are
parts of dreams (but even Andersson is unsure of their status as
reality/unreality). Regardless, the film portrays human motives for behavior as
largely designed to create a certain impression/identity. Ullman is accused of
having a child to counteract a general perception of her as unmotherly, but
Andersson, too, seems to be fighting the desire to maintain a helpful
"persona" required of a nurse despite resenting her patient. This
forces us to ponder from whence our desired identities come from--from within?
from others' impressions of us (the looking glass self)? an interaction of the
two? One scene even features a camera which exemplifies this construction of impressions
theme. In the same way, the nurse's seeming intense need for feedback from
Ullman provides clues as to just how important other people's responses are for
our own identities.
But it gets much more complicated than
that. If life is merely shadows played out on a stage, then what is the role of
honesty or sincerity? This evokes Sartre's concept of bad faith, basically the
state of acting as though you have a certain motive or certain types of
knowledge when in fact you have very different motives or knowledge that might
call such action into question or at least complicate it. Sartre uses the
(sexist) example of the woman who allows her hand to be held, pretending that
all is innocent and declaiming such when asked, despite really knowing that her
male escort will take it as a sign that affection is assured. Bergman plays on
this theme by having the nurse explicitly ask whether there can be two selves:
one that does certain things and another that is one's general impression of
oneself that does not allow for such actions (the nurse has engaged in an orgy
spontaneously but still thinks of herself as faithful to her lover who was not
involved). What is to be done and thought when "ideas don't tally with
acts"? This is a state we all must be in if we treat life as theatre and
those who are actors even more so. Thus, Ullman's retreat into reticence is
framed as an escape from the continual lying of her career (and our existence).
If we are all constantly in bad faith, how must this be dealt with? When Ullman
realizes it, she becomes mute. When Andersson begins to realize it, she becomes
somewhat insane. To what standard must we hold ourselves? When are we allowed
to be inconsistent?
On top of all this, the film is laced
with horror film type imagery that evokes a constant forboding--lots of eerie
closeups and dreamlike black and white cinematography ( I should mention Sven
Nykvist). Overall, an intense and thought provoking picture."
Once
Upon a Time in Anatolia (2011) – N. B. Ceylan
This is the third film I’ve seen from
the Turkish master who has a way of getting inside his characters’ heads, so
that you know what they must be thinking even though they don’t voice their
thoughts. (The others were Distant and
Winter Sleep). This time, in the context of a perfunctory police investigation
(finding the corpse after the killers have confessed to where it is), we are
privileged to an on-again, off-again conversation between The Prosecutor and
The Doctor that rather accidentally leads one to discover an unpleasant and
personal truth. This bit (which might be
the “point” of the otherwise discursive script) has been adapted from Chekhov (apparently)
but Ceylan takes it one step further (into the autopsy room). Despite this glorious nugget buried at the
end (or in addition to it), the film is still a beautifully shot panorama (in
night colors) of the Turkish foothills with what must be a conscious nod to
Kiarostami (the Wind Will Carry Us, Close-Up, others), who has a similar way of
inserting thoughts in the viewer, as if by prestidigitation. Somehow the way the film is shot (those slow
zooms?) has the ability to concentrate your attention on its details (relevant
or not) and this can carry viewers through the epic length.
Snappy British Hitchcock film made
between Sabotage and The Lady Vanishes – that is, right in the middle of a
string of exceptional thrillers (that also included The 39 Steps, The Man Who
Knew Too Much, and Secret Agent). One reason why this might be less well known
is that the killer is finally discovered playing drums in a band…in
blackface. Setting aside this particular
awfulness (if you can) does reveal a playful film with Hitch’s
characteristically smart-ass use of sound, perfectly timed cuts and montages,
and romantic banter between the leads (Nova Pilbeam and Derrick De
Marney). The MacGuffin is a missing belt
from a trenchcoat which may or may not have been the murder weapon. Of course, poor Tisdall (De Marney) can’t
find his coat or the belt and thus is held on suspicion of murder…until he
escapes…with the Chief Constable’s daughter (Pilbeam). Rather a merry romp, all things considered
with a great tracking shot near the end (only to be rivalled by Notorious’s
later track from great heights into Bergman’s hand). On some days, I like the
British Hitchcocks even more than the American ones.
Anthony Asquith’s adaptation of Terrence
Rattigan’s play (from the playwright’s own screenplay) is a case study of one
man’s failure and self-loathing. The
trick that Asquith pulls off is to wring a measure of sympathy and feeling from
viewers for a man who has clearly let himself and those who depended on him
down. The fact that the man is a teacher
(at a British public boarding school) makes his failure that much more
impactful and public. Although it is
never addressed directly, one has to wonder how Crocker-Harris moved from point
A (a brilliant scholar of the classics with a bright future in front of him) to
Point B (a hollowed-out disciplinarian who has ceased to inspire students nor
to care). Fortunately, there are no
flashbacks here but just Michael Redgrave in torment, as he slowly withdraws
from his state of denial and allows himself a full dose of self-realization
and, yes, self-loathing, upon the occasion of his retirement due to
illness. Perhaps the most poignant
moments in the film come about when we are made privy to Crocker-Harris’s
marriage and his wife’s total and utter disregard for his emotions (she openly
cheats on him and viciously and cruelly denies him dignity). We may feel pity but also a sense of grieving
for his loss (of everything). Only a
glimmer of hope remains that self-realization can lead to some sort of
resurrection --but Asquith wisely keeps that out of the frame.
Sublime ridiculousness. The vessel with the pestle indeed. Danny Kaye hams it up in this swashbuckling
medieval farce, thrust center stage as part of a Robin Hood (Black Fox) band
determined to get rid of the usurping evil king (and sinister sidekick Basil
Rathbone) and put the royal baby (with the purple pimpernel) on the
throne. As luck would have it (and/or a
very clever script), Kaye is able to take the place of Giacomo the King of
Jesters and gain access to the king in order to find the key to the secret
passage and, well, um the plot doesn’t actually matter. There is a lot of really funny business
(particularly with regard to a magic spell that changes Kaye’s personality when
someone snaps) and the whole thing rolls merrily along, so quickly that there
is really nothing that anyone watching can do but submit. The witty song over the opening credits sets
the tone and foreshadows the wordplay. A
gem.
