Timecrimes (2007)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Timecrimes (2007) – N. Vigalondo

A time-travel thriller that manages to hold together all the way through is something wondrous to behold. Of course, there is nothing “deep” here, just pure genre film-making that uses a low budget to weave a magical web of plot complexity.  But there may yet be a philosophical question at its heart:  if you travel back in time, would you meet yourself? And if those two selves meet, if they could, what would happen?  In this case, middle aged Hector is encouraged (by the director Nacho Vigalondo) to jump into a laboratory machine which promptly transports him a couple of hours back in time.  Naturally, once there, he manages to screw up the course of reality – but how to fix it?  The answer has him on the run for most of the film’s 90 or so minutes, keeping viewers from catching their breath (and mulling over the possible plot inconsistencies).  Moreover, the film might actually count as a neo-noir of sorts, if you consider that Hector (the protagonist) got himself into this plight by pursuing a naked woman in the woods after seeing her accidentally with his binoculars (and the ending is also very dark).  If he had just refrained, then all would have been different. Or at least that’s one version of what could have been.  Calling Hector 1 – 2 – 3 – 4!

  

Samurai Rebellion (1967)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Samurai Rebellion (1967) – M. Kobayashi

Set in the early 18^th century (Edo era), Kobayashi’s taut and elegant tragedy tells of a conflict between a vassal samurai (Toshiro Mifune) and his lord (and the institutional bureaucracy around that lord).  It is a tale of injustice met with resistance, showing that resistance is empowering.  The plot is carefully laid out:  a member of the lord’s escort (Mifune) seeks a bride for his eldest son and the lord, dissatisfied with his key mistress (who has borne him a second son), decides that Mifune’s son must marry his mistress (a punishment for her).  Mifune attempts to refuse but his son yields.  Later, when the lord’s eldest son dies of illness, the lord wishes to recall his former mistress (mother of his heir) who is now happily married to Mifune’s son.  This is the final straw for Mifune who has lived in a loveless marriage himself and sees that his son has found the familial joy that was denied to him.  Samurai rebellion!  Kobayashi uses the widescreen to maximum advantage, trapping the characters in geometric designs formed from the formal structures and settings of old Japan.  The black and white images are carefully balanced (or imbalanced) for a special sort of pictorial pleasure.  Yet the film feels sparse and the tension builds gradually but ever so distinctly, as with the turn of a screw, until final violence breaks out in true chambara style (there is a subplot featuring Mifune’s friendship with Tatsuya Nakadai that allows a final duel, necessary for the genre). The ending is realistically downbeat – can the powerless ever really overcome the forces against them?  But Mifune’s efforts are heralded; he never felt so alive as when fighting for justice. A classic with a deeper resonance/relevance.   

Classe Tous Risques (1960)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Classe Tous Risques (1960) – C. Sautet

It’s like the long drawn-out moody denouement from another film in which Lino Ventura has lived a successful life of crime but which culminated in his escaping from France to live in exile. However, there was no other film! Classe Tous Risques begins abruptly with Ventura seeking to return to Paris after a long exile with his wife and two young kids and a partner.  After stealing money for the road and nearly getting caught, they run into tragedy when they are confronted at the border by customs officials and a shoot-out leaves only Ventura and his two boys (7 and 5) alive.  So, he calls up his old friends in Paris to come get him out of Nice and back home – but they don’t want to know him anymore, now that they are all set up in new profitable lives.  They send a hired hand instead, who turns out to be Belmondo, who turns out to be a good egg.  He helps Ventura to get the kids taken care of and then they turn their minds to revenge.  But Ventura is running out of steam, feeling low, more empty than stoic; Belmondo is full of vigor, falling in love with Sandra Milo, as a counterpoint.  The film follows the usual course of French noir, carefully observing the mechanics of each moment, whether it be a heist or a conference amongst gangsters.  There’s action enough but the mood is sombre.  Melville owned this genre but his great films (except Bob le Flambeur, 1956) all came later.  Perhaps Touchez Pas Au Grisbi (1954) and Rififi (1955) are the best earlier examples.  Still, this hit the spot.

The Wind in the Willows (1983)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

The Wind in the Willows (1983) – M. Hall & C. Taylor

Stop-motion animation version of Kenneth Graham’s 1908 book featuring rascally Mr. Toad and his stalwart and more sensible friends Mole, Rat, and Badger.  We watched this immediately after reading the book and, although the film takes some minor liberties with the novel (mostly excluding the more poetic and bucolic chapters), the central story of Toad remains mostly intact (if abbreviated).  If you don’t know, Mr Toad develops a fetish for motor cars, steals one and ends up in jail, later to escape only to find his house has been taken over by weasels; fortunately his friends help him to secure it back and he promises never to be such a naughty fellow again (as if!).  The film captures the wistful tone of the book, casting its kino eye lovingly over the countryside and the contents of each house (Toad Hall, Mole End, the Rat’s homely abode), beautifully rendered in paper maiche (if not clay – it is hard to tell!). The kids’ attention may have wandered a bit (just as it did with the book itself) but I found the film quite enjoyable and it would probably be quite nostalgic if I had originally encountered it as a kid myself on British TV.

Minbo no Onna (1992)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Minbo no Onna (1992) – J. Itami

The last of Juzo Itami’s string of hits (The Funeral, Tampopo, A Taxing Woman, A Taxing Woman Returns) focused on the Yakuza and resulted in the director subsequently being stabbed in revenge.  I guess he hit a nerve.  Perhaps it isn’t surprising that the Yakuza might really succeed by using intimidation tactics aimed to embarrass in a country that is very concerned about politeness and appearances and not inconveniencing others (and would take offense at such an accusation).  The Yakuza in this film (goons, all) are all bluster and veiled threats but they are effective in cowing their victims (the staff of a prestigious hotel) into paying “reparations”.  They don’t cross the line that would allow the police to act by actually using violence or leaving evidence of their blackmail techniques.  So, when the hotel hires Nobuko Miyamoto (Itami’s wife and the star of all of his other hits), a lawyer specializing in Minbo (the Yakuza’s technique of extortion), the baddies have more than met their match.  The rest of the film follows the usual underdog defeats evil power script but the various extortion schemes seemed believable, as did the legal means to stop them.  Although the style of the film is nothing flashy, I was engaged all the way through by the characters and the simple hydraulic plot.  Sadly, Itami committed suicide a few years later, perhaps still affected by the violent response to this film (although he did make a few more subsequent to this one).   

  

5 Fingers (1952)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

5 Fingers (1952) -- J. L. Mankiewiecz

James Mason excelled at playing disdainful bad guys, although he was charismatic enough to absorb attention in the hero role too.  Here, he is thoroughly bad, as a traitor selling secrets to the Nazis stolen from under the nose of the British Ambassador in Ankara, Turkey (he is the ambassador’s valet).  His motive is money and he swears no political allegiances.  Director Joseph L. Mankiewiecz follows Mason’s actions so closely that we come to identify with him and almost hope that his plans to reveal the details of Operation Overlord (D-Day landing site) succeed.  His partner is played by Danielle Darrieux, an exiled countess who has fallen on hard times and, similarly, is open to the highest bidder, Nazi or British, and thus receptive to Mason’s overtures (he was formerly her husband’s valet).  Apparently, the spy story is true and based on a book by one of the central Nazi figures in the action but Mankiewicz (and screenwriter Michael Wilson) inserted the countess into the script which introduces richer deeper themes about class into the mix.  After all, Mason is a valet who seeks to improve his lot in life through espionage, expecting even to bed/wed the countess.  The plot has enough twists to ensure its appeal to those seeking a ripping spy story although the failure of the Allies to detect Mason for most of the picture seems a bit far-fetched.  A good one, filmed on location in Turkey with a Bernard Herrmann score to boot.

  

Manon of the Spring (1986)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Manon of the Spring (1986) – C. Berri

The sequel (or really the second part) to Jean de Florette (1986) picks up the action maybe 9 or 10 years later, when Daniel Auteuil’s intellectually impaired flower farmer has taken over Depardieu’s land and, with the benefit of the now-unplugged spring, is doing reasonably well.  Depardieu’s daughter, played now by Emanuelle Beart, is a goatherd who keeps her distance from the town, although she does catch the eye of the new teacher, as well as the eye of Auteuil.  Yves Montand, perhaps the only character who we can “read” (because his thoughts are deeper and he reveals them in his speech), is still standing back orchestrating his nephew Auteuil’s life, encouraging him to pursue Beart to keep his family name alive.  At first, I felt that this second part was merely a retread, with Beart now turning the tables on Montand and Auteuil and the villagers by stopping up their water supply.  The countryside was still gorgeous and the village life of the 1920’s (or thereabouts?) still rustic and authentically portrayed (as far as one can tell).  But when the plot takes a sudden twist (or two), the results now seem Shakespearean or at least fabulistic, adding gravitas which had been absent until then.  Seen in combination, the two parts do work although one wonders whether, with judicious editing, they might fit together as one long single film; that said, I gladly took two shorter sessions.  Now, I think I might try to track down the Pagnol originals (of which these were remakes).

  

Jean de Florette (1986)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Jean de Florette (1986) – C. Berri

A prestige picture, no doubt, and the images are “painterly” with a masterful use of light.  The French countryside may have never looked better. The acting is also superb -- by Daniel Auteuil, Gerard Depardieu, and Yves Montand -- as you would expect.  Auteuil plays a none-too-bright farmer who, under the sneaky guidance of his uncle (Montand), covets the land inherited by Depardieu which has fertile soil and a hidden water source, a spring, which Auteuil and Montand manage to stop up before he arrives.  So, Depardieu has a Herculean task ahead of him, to create his envisioned rabbit farm (150 rabbits per month) and sustainable “kitchen garden” with marrow enough to feed that many hares – without water.  Or without water independent of the rain that he hopes will fall, but doesn’t because of an epic heatwave and drought.  Such is the plot and it creates enough suspense and tension to carry the film.  However, I felt that we were looking at these characters and their predicaments from the outside and never really from the inside; even the relationship between Auteuil and Depardieu, which grows closer and creates tension that threatens to undermine the Montand/Auteuil plot, never feels particularly “real”.  But these are minor quibbles if one observes this film as the art object it was meant to be.  Engaging but not enthralling – but I say this before seeing “Manon of the Spring”, the sequel and second part of the story, which is clearly anticipated and which may resolve the arc of the story more satisfactorily.