Humanity and Paper Balloons (1937)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Humanity and Paper Balloons (1937) – S. Yamanaka

Director Sadao Yamanaka made twenty or so films in the 1930s in Japan but only three survive.  Humanity and Paper Balloons was his final film. Some say that because it offered a less than positive view of Japan in the Edo-era (all of his films are jidaigekis; i.e., period films), that he was purposefully drafted and sent to war in Manchuria by the nationalistic government in power then.  He died there in 1938 leaving only the squandered promise that he could have offered masterpieces alongside Ozu, Mizoguchi, Naruse, or Kurosawa.  Indeed, Humanity… offers a complex microcosm of a Japanese society where the poor are ghettoized, live in a world controlled by gangster and thugs, where the rich look down on those worse off, and masterless samurai (ronin) turn to suicide when they lose face.  Yet, despite the hardships faced by many here, there is still a sense of community amongst the downtrodden and even a playfulness that encourages them to spit in the eye of the bosses whenever they can.  Of course, these poor souls can never win and the samurai, who see honour as an important virtue, suffer most of all.  Yamanaka manages to bring several characters to life, vividly, while still situating them within the social context.  A good degree of subtlety in the script would reward repeat viewing. Alas, there are no further artefacts to uncover.   

The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (2005)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (2005) – C. Puiu

I’ve now seen reference to a new genre called “21^st Century Realist” films, which may feel like the documentaries of Frederick Wiseman but which are really fully scripted and mounted by professional actors who nevertheless stage their photoplay in real settings, sometimes surrounded by nonprofessional real people.  The other key example would likely be 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days (2007) directed by Cristian Mungiu, where two women seek an illegal abortion.  The Death of Mr. Lazarescu is also a Romanian film, directed by Cristi Puiu, sparking the notion that this is a specifically Romanian genre – but, no, I think one might be able to include the films of the Dardennes brothers (although they began in the 1990s).  Not unlike the Belgian masters, Puiu guides his narrative straight into the heart of darkness, where people at odds with society (often due to poverty or fractured relations with others) are scrabbling to keep things together in the face of unfeeling social institutions.  Here, aging Mr. Lazarescu (first name: Dante; played by the late Ion Fiscuteanu) is sent on a journey into the hell that is the Bucharist hospital system when he calls an ambulance to report a bad headache and complications from an earlier ulcer. As the film progresses, we switch our identification from Lazarescu to his angel of mercy, paramedic Mioara Avram (played by Luminita Gheorghiu), who guides him through four separate emergency rooms, meeting an assortment of mostly hostile and arrogant doctors who simultaneously clarify his diagnosis and delay his treatment.  The more we identify with Mrs. Mioara, the more Lazarescu becomes a dehumanized body, poked and prodded, put through the CT scanner, talked about as though he weren’t there, or infantilized.  There is a vein of very dark humour running throughout, underscoring the preposterousness of everything, and brilliantly creating a firewall against tears (which surely should come).  Indeed, for all of its 150 minutes, I was never less than completely absorbed in the unpredictable events onscreen; for me, unlike for Lazarescu or Mioara, the time flew by.  In the end, the real point here seems to be to pillory a system that treats death as something ignominious – here’s hoping that none of us is that unfortunate.

The Butterfly Tree (2017)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

The Butterfly Tree (2017) – P. Cameron

Last night I had the opportunity to attend the world premiere of this new Australian film at the Melbourne International Film Festival.  The film was produced by my good friend Bridget Callow-Wright (with production support from Simon Callow-Wright).  Deceptively complex, the film details the relationships between a son (Ed Oxenbould), his single father (Ewen Leslie), and the woman who bewitches them both (Melissa George).  It would be tempting to provide a Freudian reading of the family dynamic that would suggest that the young boy needs to kill off his father to possess the mother (surrogate) – i.e., the Oedipus Complex.  Those tensions are there but the film adds other themes having to do with loss and transformation – how do we grow and change as people as a result of challenging life events?  Can we achieve mutual understanding? But all this makes the film sound sombre, which it assuredly is not. Instead, there is a captivating and surreal sense of magical realism at play here, with director Priscilla Cameron inserting hallucinatory and sometimes comic sequences straight into the flow of the narrative.  The look of the film (shot in tropical Queensland) is lush with over-saturated colours; I didn’t realize it was set in the early 1990s until someone mentioned this afterward (I guess the absence of computers and smartphones was the giveaway).  The plot sees Oxenbould and Leslie stumble into George’s flower shop, entranced by her open friendly manner (and her sexy burlesque roller-skating background).  How they resolve their competition, overcome their own complications (romantic and maternal), and end up in (presumed) harmony – post transformation – is the journey we’re on.   And like all of life’s journeys, this one is unpredictable and worth taking. I hope you get a chance to see it.

Lost in America (1985)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Lost in America (1985) – A. Brooks

Albert Brooks excels at using the neurotic and pathetic rant for comedic purposes.  It’s the comedy of pain, I guess – not slapstick but emotional pain.  And it’s all the more excruciating because the character Brooks plays almost always brings the pain on himself through his own actions.  Except in Lost in America, Julie Hagerty, playing his wife, also contributes to the pain (and Brooks can’t handle it).  The film basically moves from comedic set-piece – a social interaction gone so wrong (forcing your boss to fire you), for example – to comedic set-piece, another social interaction gone wrong (e.g., punched in the face by a murderous ex-convict – funnier than it sounds).  You watch these interactions unfold and they keep going until you almost can’t stand it anymore (but Brooks doesn’t know when to stop).  But, oh yes, the plot:  Brooks loses his job as a highly-paid advertising executive and, with his wife, decides to drop out of society a la Easy Rider (to the strains of “Born to be Wild”). Being yuppies they cash in all their assets, buy a giant RV, and set off to find themselves and the real America.  But first they hit Las Vegas to get re-married and it all goes downhill from there.  Director Garry Marshall has a great cameo as a casino boss.  Music and editing are used expertly to keep things perfectly paced (and also to bring on the laughs) across a swift 90 minutes shot mostly on location.  If only Brooks would return to making films like this. 

  

The Asphalt Jungle (1950)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Asphalt Jungle (1950) – J. Huston

This textbook example of how a major jewellery heist comes together and then falls apart afterward from director John Huston excels in presenting the little details.  Indeed, it is those human frailties (which may not be unique to the criminal class) that sow the seeds of destruction.  We follow Sterling Hayden from start to finish, as he escapes from the law after another in a string of petty knockovers, meeting up with mastermind Sam Jaffe and financial backers bookie Marc Lawrence and lawyer Louis Calhern, then the job itself and its aftermath.  Hayden just wants to get some dough to go back to his old Kentucky home where his folks raised racehorses (but he keeps blowing it all at the track).  He doesn’t seem to notice that clip joint girl Jean Hagen loves him, but she keeps hanging around.  It turns out that Calhern is broke and keen to doublecross the gang by taking the jewels and fleeing to Mexico.  He’s got an apartment set up for mistress Marilyn Monroe while his ill wife pines away for his company.  Calhern is the biggest heel in the picture, although things really unravel due to the unfortunate but pragmatic relationship between one of the gang and a corrupt cop being squeezed by the police commissioner.  The commissioner himself gets the final word, telling us that the cops are the only thing standing between ordinary people and the predators of the (asphalt) jungle.  In the end, I didn’t have that sense of existential collapse that you find in Rififi or the works of Jean-Pierre Melville, the bittersweet feeling of predictable loss; instead we get a more matter-of-fact rendering that nevertheless is revealing in its portrayal of the human condition.

Paterson (2016)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Paterson (2016) – J. Jarmusch

Jim Jarmusch studied poetry as an undergrad at Columbia (before going on to film school at NYU) and therefore had exposure to poets of the New York School who taught there. The New York School poets were influenced by William Carlos Williams who also mentored Allen Ginsburg and wrote a five-volume epic poem called Paterson, named for the town in New Jersey, west of New York City, where Ginsburg and also Lou Costello were born. I learned some of these things by watching Jarmusch’s latest movie, which takes place in Paterson and features a poetry-writing bus driver also named Paterson (played by Adam Driver).  The poems written by Paterson in the movie were actually written by New York School poet Ron Padgett (some new for the film, some older).  Jarmusch also wrote a poem for the film which is attributed to a 10-year-old girl.  He also wrote and played the music on the film soundtrack with his band, Sqürl.  The music is used to great effect during the meditative moments when Paterson is writing his poetry (which appears legibly superimposed on the screen); I felt transported during these moments which sometimes take place when Paterson is sitting by Paterson Falls, also a focus of Williams’ poem, apparently).  Outside of these poetic moments, we follow Paterson on his daily routine (the film is structured by the days of the week), waking up each day beside his wife/partner Laura (Iranian actress Golshifteh Farahani who has worked for both Farhadi and Kiarostami), then walking to the bus depot, driving around Paterson eavesdropping on passenger conversations, and observing, observing, observing.  Later, the routine involves dinner and then walking their scene-stealing English Bulldog to the local bar where more observing takes place.  There is a little bit of drama at the bar, but not much.  Other time is spent writing poetry in the basement.  Paterson seems a contented man of few (spoken) words.  Some reviewers have commented that his domestic arrangement (with a stay-at-home wife portrayed as somewhat frivolous) is rather old-fashioned, if not stereotypical, and that Jarmusch should be faulted for this.  Perhaps. But it also seems that Paterson may actually be a throwback to an earlier time, not in his beliefs, so much as in his way of being (for example, he explicitly eschews smart phones, computers, etc.).  There is a real sense of nostalgic reverie present here even though the America we see is the present day (beautifully shot by Frederick Elmes).  The film has a way of casting a spell over the viewer that makes you want to write poetry yourself, or at least to be a more mindful observer of the little things in life that poets notice more.  Those transcendent moments that Jarmusch captures for us help the film to rise above the otherwise humdrum existence being portrayed.  In other words, poetry can make your life better.