The Last Emperor (1987)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

The Last Emperor (1987) – B. Bertolucci

Truly epic, particularly because I watched the 218 minute cut created for Italian television rather than the theatrical release.  Bernardo Bertolucci’s film follows the last emperor of China, Pu Yi, who was brought to the Forbidden City at age 3 but forced to abdicate only a few years later in 1912, retaining some privileges until he and his entourage were expelled in 1924.  The film views these events from the future, in 1950, when Pu Yi is imprisoned by the People’s Republic and put through a 10-year period of re-education, eventually recanting his right to the throne.  However, we see his journey to this point as a painful one, as he grows from a selfish sheltered boy into a wilful adolescent, sparring with his Scottish tutor (Peter O’Toole, at home in another epic after his tenure with David Lean) and demanding to be treated as special.  Eventually he is played as an adult by John Lone and Joan Chen is chosen to be his bride (he also has a concubine or two).  All of this happens quite outside of the public eye – and Pu Yi is apparently unaware of the various transitions in Chinese society and government outside the walls of the Forbidden City (where the production actually filmed, with the blessing of the current Chinese leadership).  His ignorance and desire to return to ruling the entire country made him an easy pawn of the Japanese who eventually took over Manchuria (from where the emperor’s family originated) and coronated Pu Yi as (puppet) leader.  In prison, he claims that his actions were forced but in flashback we see this not to be the case.  Things become depressing and decadent.  After his release from prison in 1959, Pu Yi takes on the role of gardener and, alone, after his separation from his spouse(s) and all others, he dies quietly during the era of Mao.  Bertolucci and cinematographer Vittorio Storaro make the most of this material, offering up beautiful images, richly coloured according to era (and eventually reminding one of the deco period glamour of The Conformist, 1970).  Although I suspect the theatrical cut (which won 9 Oscars) was tighter, I found this unfamiliar story engrossing, an experience that was heightened by the magnificent style of the film.

  

His Girl Friday (1940)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

His Girl Friday (1940) – H. Hawks

One of the fastest talking screwball comedies that there is, with Howard Hawks directing Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell to tread all over each other’s lines and to mutter a few zingers almost under their breath.  She plays a star reporter on the paper where he is the editor.  They used to be married.  Now she has returned from some time away, declaring that she is leaving the paper to marry Ralph Bellamy (who plays the gentle slow-talking patsy, just as he did in The Awful Truth, 1937).  Grant wants none of this and tries to entice Russell to work on his latest scoop, an interview with a death row inmate who may or may not be insane but is expected to be hung the next morning.  As is typical with Hawks, the press room at the courthouse is a boys’ club where chummy camaraderie is highlighted, despite Russell fitting right in and trading wisecracks with the best of them (a delightful gender twist introduced into the original play, The Front Page, by Hawks and his writers).  Grant does everything he can to throw cold water on the Bellamy/Russell engagement and Bellamy suffers indignity after indignity, until this winds up being another example of the “comedy of remarriage” genre.  You know that Grant and Russell are made for each other and Hawks makes you feel the underlying sentiment beneath the sarcastic barbs flying furiously between the two.  Of course, the “plot” (focused on the poor sap in prison) is just an opportunity to create chaos and confusion and to roll out a host of comic character actors who flit in and out while Grant and Russell fall back in love (if they were ever out of it). 

Elle (2016)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Elle (2016) – P. Verhoeven

Isabelle Huppert has stated that she wanted to play this role because the character of Michèle Leblanc is so complex, indicating that she saw her as someone who resolutely refused to be a victim or to be treated as a victim.  This makes the film, during which Huppert’s character is raped during a break in, seem as though it might be an in-depth study of an empowered woman who rejects the patriarchy and its attempts to control her.  She is, after all, a successful businesswoman (running a videogame company with another female friend and an all male staff of workers) who seems to toy with a herd of past and present lovers.  But really I think director Paul Verhoeven (Basic Instinct, Starship Troopers) is up to his old tricks, offering some outrageously misogynistic (or at least sensationalistic) content under the guise of an exploration of gender politics.  We are forced to see the rape in flashback numerous times and there are several other psychological or physical assaults on Huppert throughout the film.  Verhoeven slyly offers viewers the temptation to say that Huppert’s character deserves some of her negative treatment, since she often plays cruel games with those around her and treats her family in a blunt unfeeling way. (Alternately, we should of course declare that even mean women do not deserve this).  However, true to the source novel (I think), there are also psychological reasons for Huppert’s personality and demeanour (which she carries off with the aplomb of the truly amazing actress she is) – her father is guilty of a series of horrific crimes that she witnessed as a child and her life has been subject to the fallout (and hostile reactions from others).  So, to state that the character is complex is to put things quite mildly.  Verhoeven gives Huppert the freedom to fully delineate Leblanc and to do so with verve and, yes, a comic touch.  It is the wryly funny moments that really unsettled me – we are encouraged to laugh, even as the content of the film itself is truly dark and horrible (albeit also interwoven with the mundane).  In mixing this strange brew, Verhoeven seems to have sought to provoke a range of reactions, both savoury and unsavoury, and on the DVD extra he declares that this is reality (referring to a film that is mostly all social interactions – but he resists offering any interpretation).  In the end, it is up to us to control the narrative of our lives and the interpretation of the events around us.  It is telling that Huppert saw the story as empowering (justifying her decision to play the part).  However, that reading may simplify things, as would the alternate reading that this is a chance to play out violent fantasies (either as dominator or submissive).  Instead, the film is a success because of its ambiguities (and Huppert’s acting), challenging us to resolve the unresolvable. But should we take the bait?

  

Room (2015)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Room (2015)

I sometimes ask myself why I would knowingly choose to watch an emotionally crushing horror movie such as this (and it is definitely a horror movie).  The answer is probably that Brie Larson won the Best Actress Oscar, I liked her in Short Term 12, and I didn’t look at the plot description when I placed this in my queue.  But I’m glad that I did, as painful and affecting as it was.  Larson plays a woman who has been kidnapped and locked in a small garden shed, kept as a sex slave by an evil Ohio loser for seven years; she’s had a son, played by Jacob Tremblay, and he is now 5 years old and has only known the shed (which they call “Room”) as his entire world; the outer world he knows just through TV and it is not treated as real.  Their life is seriously horrible but as it is all that Jack knows, he accepts it and even cherishes it.  He does not dream of escape as “Ma” (Larson) does.  The film makes you wonder how he (or they) would cope if escape really did come true, the effects of this kind of sheltered existence on them, and the severe trauma of it all.  It is all so devastating and executed with nary a hint of falseness in the acting by all involved.  Watch it.