The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007) – J. Schnabel

A couple of weeks ago I saw a presentation about consciousness that discussed “locked in syndrome” (a terrifying experience in which people are fully paralyzed yet fully conscious); the speaker mentioned this film based on a book dictated by a person with locked in syndrome using only eye blinks.  So, I thought the film was going to be a documentary and that it was bound to be depressing.  To my astonishment, director Julian Schnabel instead used actors to dramatize the book, told primarily with subjective camera shots from the one non-paralysed eye of Jean-Do Bauby, former editor of Elle magazine, played by Mathieu Amalric.  We follow Bauby’s journey and we hear his internal monologue as he realises he is paralyzed and as he slowly comes to terms with his plight.  We marvel at the team of health professionals who find a way to communicate with him and his drive to document his experience in a book.  The relationships with his ex-girlfriend (Emmanuelle Seigner), mother of his three children, and his current girlfriend, who is afraid to visit, as well as his 92-year-old father (Max von Sydow) and other friends are now filled with heightened emotions.  Schnabel keeps things impressionistic and humanistic, showing Bauby’s fantasies, his memories, his regrets.  The film is almost experimental at times.  You can’t help but feel empathy…and horror; it makes you want to throw yourself into life and experience it to the fullest.  Let’s do it.

  

The Killing (1956)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Killing (1956) – S. Kubrick

Taut heist picture that sees Sterling Hayden get together an assortment of crooks (and amateurs) with varying motives to rob the racetrack on the day of the big race.  Kubrick is already a master of his craft (in his third feature) and the film is expertly paced and directed, despite a non-linear plot that bounces back and forth from the day of the heist to the earlier planning and positioning (for each character separately) to the final consequences and denouement (a major influence on Tarantino, among others).  The dramatic music by Gerald Fried adds a lot to the tension; the voiceover narration (which Kubrick disliked) makes this fit the documentary noir style.  Much of the focus of the plot is on Elisha Cook Jr (who works a counter at the track, paying off the winning bets) and his wife Marie Windsor, a floozy only with him because she thought he had dough (and currently two-timing him with Vince Edwards who wants to muscle in on the heist). Their actions add stress. Scary/weird character actor Timothy Carey makes an excellent stylized sniper.  The plans by the gang are worked out like clockwork but, of course, everything eventually comes unstuck (crime doesn’t pay in films like these).   The final shot at the airport cements the collapse.  And it’s all over in less than 90 minutes.  Superb.

Toni Erdmann (2016)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Toni Erdmann (2016) – M. Ade

Director Maren Ade says she was inspired by comedian Andy Kauffman (and, in particular, his commitment to his alter-ego, Tony Clifton) as well as her own father who had a similar sense of humour, apparently the kind that willingly creates awkwardness and discomfort in others.  This film is not really a comedy but there are plenty of funny (awkward) moments.  The plot sees management consultant Ines (Sandra Hüller), currently posted to Bucharest, Romania, spontaneously visited by her father (Peter Simonischek).  The visit does not go well.  Suddenly and mysteriously, her father reappears as Toni Erdmann, in a bad wig and false teeth, boldly and comically inserting himself into her life.  It’s enough to say that his goal is probably to loosen her up, after he’s seen her stiff, unsatisfying, “all work” lifestyle.  This brief synopsis can’t really do justice to the film, however; it takes its own sweet time (162 minutes) to develop the characters (apparently after months of rehearsal and up to 20 takes per shot).  We see them in an array of situations (some truly uncomfortable or unbearable, some extremely touching) and gradually come to feel empathy for all involved.  Although the family relationships are centre stage, Ade also has a few thoughts about the capitalist imperative to turn a profit at all costs, implicitly suggesting that Ines’s job has made her less human.  Fortunately, Toni arrives in time to throw her off balance and to remind her (and us) about how to live life and what really matters.  Sounds sappy, but it’s not and this is an unpredictable script/movie, if ever there was one.  Highly recommended!

Mirror (1975)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Mirror (1975) – A. Tarkovsky

I don’t know how Andrei Tarkovsky composed this film but I’d imagine it went something like this.  First, think back to your childhood. What are some of the most vivid memories that you recall? Recreate them cinematically with actors, sets, props.  Now think about your mother.  What do you recall her experiencing at the time?  Recreate that.  What about your society? Find some historical footage to include.  Finally, think about the present day.  How is your current experience related to those childhood experiences? Focus on your current family relationships.  Film this, with the same actors that you used for the childhood scenes now playing your current nuclear family.  Use different techniques, film stock, colour or black and white. Break the various bits of footage into different scenes and interweave them together.  Add spoken poetry written by your famous poet father over the top.  Make sure to include some stunning visual shots – for example, shots focusing on the four elements (water, fire, earth, air), sometimes all in the same shot, as found in the rest of your oeuvre, to embed life in nature. Include shots recreating famous paintings (such as Brueghel’s Hunters in the Snow, 1565) to make explicit the connections between art and life (as poetry also does). Feel free to include personal symbols and hallucinatory flourishes within and between the time points in your story (reality is never concrete).  Use classical music as punctuation or to enhance the sensory content. Keep things elliptical (as our memories and thoughts usually are).  Of course, the result is likely to be deeply personal, possibly hermetic, save for those shared experiences of all Russians in the years during and after WWII or for the more generally shared experience of divorce, estrangement from one’s parents, growing older, remembering and failing to remember, wistfulness, nostalgia, regret, and acceptance.  Obviously, this is a film like no other and another masterwork from Tarkovsky.

Brokeback Mountain (2005)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Brokeback Mountain (2005) – A. Lee

It’s a tragedy.  It’s a love story.  It’s a tragic love story.  Of course it is, because it is about two cowboys in the 1960s who have a passionate affair one summer alone on the titular mountain in Wyoming.  The affair itself with its beautifully filmed scenic backdrop is delicately handled by director Ang Lee (but not without some visceral moments); however, it is the decades long aftermath that is really the focus of the picture.  Heath Ledger gives a truly exceptional performance as Ennis Del Mar, a man of few words but with strong and deep emotions restrained inside him. Jake Gyllenhaal is Jack Twist, a rodeo bull-rider, who seems weaker than Del Mar but more willing to take risks for love, despite society’s prejudice.  After their initial time together, life takes them into the conventional roles for men in that decade – husband (to Michelle Williams and Anne Hathaway, respectively) and father (to two girls and one boy, respectively).  The screenplay (by Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana from a story by Annie Proulx) conveys the pain that both men feel in these relationships that do not offer them true love.  And the consequences play out much as you can expect, sadly.  Although this is an expensive prestige picture, and perhaps too safe and polished at times, the acting (particularly by Ledger) contributes to a moving (and crushing) feature that reminds us how far (and yet sometimes not so far) we have come in our journey as a society.

  

La Belle et La Bête (1946)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

La Belle et La Bête (1946) – J. Cocteau

At the start of the film, auteur Jean Cocteau requests that we accept the events that will unfold with a childlike simplicity and wonder.  This is not at all hard to do.  The movie feels exactly like a fairy tale, set in some rather distant past (“once upon a time”) where a lucky trader’s daughter might hope to marry a prince.  Except the heroine of the tale (Josette Day) is one of those daughters that is bullied and taken advantage of by her older sisters (not step-sisters this time) but is the most devoted and genuinely caring toward her old man. So, when he picks a rose for her from the gardens of a mysterious castle in the middle of the woods and is confronted by a hairy, possibly scary, man-beast (Jean Marais) who demands his life or a daughter’s life in exchange, she sneaks out in the night to give herself up to the beast.  And, of course, the beast, who is secretly sad and romantic, falls in love with her.  However, despite his tenderness toward her, she is too afraid to return his affection, though perhaps she starts to feel the same way.  Cocteau and cinematographer Henri Alekan and production design team Christian Bérard and Lucien Carré have created a magical realm full of surrealistic touches (candelabras held by human hands, statues with eyes that move) but none stranger and more satisfying than the look of the Beast himself with those sad eyes and moveable ears.  Cocteau uses Méliès-styled camera tricks (flying up to the clouds at the end) wisely and well.  But, overall, it is those feelings of love, longing, loyalty, empathy, and sadness that Cocteau captures indelibly that elevate the film to its masterpiece status.  If we add another layer of analysis to suggest that the kingdom of the Beast is actually that of Hades/Death, then the links to Cocteau’s subsequent Orpheus (1950), another masterwork, are much clearer and the film takes on an even more mysterious tone. 

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) – S. Spielberg

Purportedly my Dad’s favourite movie, but it had been yonks since I’d seen it.  Harrison Ford, right in the midst of his Star Wars stardom, created another classic character, Indiana Jones, the archaeologist, treasure hunter, and all round adventurer of the 1930s (from the story by George Lucas himself and screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan).  As I watched the opening sequence, which sees Indy hoping to steal a golden idol from a hidden and very booby-trapped cave, I thought “It’s for kids!” and “Wouldn’t my boys enjoy this!” but then, there’s a fair bit of violence, some of it gruesome and gory.  In fact, the film apparently barely dodged an R rating.  Common Sense Media recommends this for Age 11 and I think that’s probably apt – it is very much a boy’s own adventure.  Which is not to say that feisty Karen Allen doesn’t try to hold her own as Jones’ love interest and a bit of an adventurer herself (but the script keeps tying her up and putting her into frilly dresses and negligees).  The plot has Indiana heading to Egypt to dig up the Lost Ark of the Covenant (containing the original pieces of the stones on which the 10 commandments were written).  But the Nazis got there first, with their French archaeologist (and Jones arch-nemesis) to guide them.  They match wits and Indy finds himself in some tight spots (with snakes) and even loses the Ark to Hitler’s crew.  But all’s well that ends well and produces three sequels.  This turns out to be one of the highlights of Steven Spielberg’s directorial career – still high gloss and manipulative of the audience but with a true sense of fun and wonder.

Vera Drake (2004)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Vera Drake (2004) – M. Leigh

Britain in 1950 seems perfectly recreated in Mike Leigh’s sombre look at a cleaning woman’s desire to “help young girls out”.  Imelda Staunton justifiably won the BAFTA and was nominated for an Oscar as Vera Drake who maternally comforts many poor women by inducing miscarriages.  She’s warm and matter-of-fact despite the whole thing being illegal – but that latter fact causes everything to come crashing down.  Although director Mike Leigh (best known for Secrets and Lies, 1996, perhaps) is overtly showing us how an anti-choice political climate makes things difficult for poor women (even as rich women are shown to have other ways to solve the same problem, quasi-legally, in subplot with Sally Hawkins), the film succeeds beyond making didactic points due to the commitment of the actors and the perfect mise-en-scene.  Leigh’s way of working with the actors, involving up to six months of rehearsals and complete biographical backstories to their characters – plus a fully improvised script – must have contributed.  In fact, apparently none of the other actors knew that the film was about abortion until their characters found out – lending genuine surprise/shock to the proceedings.  An increasingly difficult watch but important to consider.