Miller’s Crossing (1990)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Miller’s Crossing (1990) – J. Coen & E. Coen

I’m a fan of the hard-boiled school from way back. I’ve read and re-read Dashiell Hammett numerous times over the years and I reckon the Coen Brothers have too. Miller’s Crossing takes place in the same sort of lawless burg that Hammett’s Continental Op worked (worked both sides, that is, as in Red Harvest, 1929), although the film also distinctly resembles The Glass Key (1931) with its protagonist, Ned Beaumont, a hopeless gambler who does the thinking for a tough guy political boss. Here we have Tom Reagan (Gabriel Byrne) working for boss Leo (Albert Finney) who makes the mistake of protecting grifter Bernie Bernbaum (John Turturro) the brother of his love interest Verna (Marcia Gay Harden) who herself isn’t exactly pure as the driven snow. Unfortunately, another up-and-coming boss/gangster Johnny Caspar (Jon Polito) wants Bernie’s head for butting in on a fixed fight. Caspar and his strongman Eddie the Dane (J. E. Freeman) think Tom can convince Leo to give up Bernie to avoid a gang war. But when Leo discovers Tom has been sleeping with Verna, this seems impossible. Tom changes over to Caspar’s side – or does he? Some of the crooked characters make a big deal about ethics but Tom isn’t one of them – he plays his cards close to his chest. In the end, the knots in the plot are tied pretty tightly and they seem impossible to unravel in your head after only one viewing – even watching this repeatedly years apart doesn’t necessarily lead to lucidity. But I can’t think of another film that has successfully captured the hardboiled ethos (and casual violence) of Hammett’s fiction on screen. The Coens (and cinematographer Barry Sonnenfeld), with their notorious attention to detail (and eccentric anecdote), have pulled it off with panache.

Decision to Leave (2022)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Decision to Leave (2022) – C.-W. Park

Lovers of film noir (or neo-noir) may feel they’ve seen this film before (in English, if not Korean). There’s the straight-laced detective, Jang Hae-joon (Park Hae-il) not entirely satisfied with his married life (living apart except for the weekends; him in Busan, her in Ipo working at a nuclear power plant). There’s the suspect, Song Seo-Rae (Tang Wei), a Chinese immigrant who may or may not have killed her older Korean husband, who died in a suspicious climbing accident. When they’re thrown together, he finds himself losing his bearings. His other case suffers. She’s clearly attracted to him and him to her. His insomnia gives him the opportunity to stakeout her place and dictate notes to himself on his phone. She tails him too, on hand when he corners a suspect in his other case in a thrilling rooftop chase reminiscent of Vertigo. This isn’t the only allusion to Hitchcock, as the moody symphonic score also harkens back to the Master of Suspense, as does the dangerously obsessive love of the detective for a possibly untruthful woman. Director Park Chan-Wook expertly evokes the genre, luring us in, giving us the sense that we the audience are being played, just as Hae-joon may be. Yet, he’s playful, using creative camerawork and perfectly designed shots to heighten our pleasure, just as he does by guiding the plot through three well-punctuated acts, tantalising us with a build-up of clues and emotion-laden set-pieces that were bound to happen (a rainy visit to an abandoned temple is a highlight) with a recurring musical theme about being lost in the mist, the ideal metaphor. Only when we finally get a scene that does not take place from Hae-joon’s point-of-view do we get jarred out of our dream, scrambling to put the pieces together, wondering now whether we need to rethink all that’s come before. But Park Chan-Wook does not let us noir fans off easy, we can’t have the ending we expect, which sends thoughts spinning in a far more tragic direction. One for the cinephiles.

 

In a Lonely Place (1950)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

In a Lonely Place (1950) – N. Ray

Humphrey Bogart stars as deeply flawed screenwriter, Dixon Steele, who starts the film as a murder suspect after convincing a hat-check girl to come home with him to tell him the story of the novel he has agreed to translate to the screen, which she has read but he can’t be bothered to.  She turns up dead later, after leaving his bungalow. When the cops pick him up, he’s flip and disinterested. Luckily, his new next door neighbour Laurel Gray (Gloria Grahame) saw the girl leave Dix’s apartment and offers him an alibi.  Having been brought together in this way, Dix and Laurel fall in love – and she supports him as he gets down to the business of screenwriting, looking for his first hit in many years. But he’s a temperamental character with a quick fuse and Bogart knows how to turn off the charm, showing Dix’s neurotic, ugly, and bullying side. The police continue to treat him as a suspect and even Laurel starts to worry about him. Director Nicholas Ray manages this ambiguity beautifully, drawing out believably complex portrayals from Bogart and Grahame (Ray’s soon-to-be ex-wife) as their characters’ emotions become dysregulated, potentially due to the pressure of the police investigation on them. But deep down, the audience (and all the characters in the film) realises that there is something not right about Dix Steele – even if he didn’t murder the girl, he probably could have and maybe he might even have enjoyed it. Gray is probably right to be concerned. Yet we want things to work out for them, for love to triumph despite personal defects. Apparently, the original novel and screenplay ended very differently from the version that we see on the screen; both would have been dark noir conclusions but the deeply sad ending that we do get probably lingers longer and has more reverberating implications for real people then the crime that would have ended the picture. Instead, we’re left to contemplate people stuck “in a lonely place” and what factors, controllable or uncontrollable, have lead them there. A masterpiece.

 

Nightmare Alley (1947)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Nightmare Alley (1947) – E. Goulding

After watching Guillermo del Toro’s remake earlier this year, I decided to revisit Edmund Goulding’s original 1947 version for Noirvember. The surprising thing is just how quickly the film moves and how many ellipses there are in the plot relative to the newer version (which spells out everything rather emphatically). In some ways I feel a bit tainted by del Toro’s version which intruded on this viewing by unnecessarily filling in the gaps (although having read William Lindsay Gresham’s novel probably does the same)! Tyrone Power tried to change his swashbuckling image by portraying Stanton Carlisle who is only looking out for number one. We meet him after he is already working at the carnival, helping Zeena (Joan Blondell) with her mind-reading act and covering for her drunk husband, Pete. Soon, circumstances allow Stan to take over the act, with Bruno the strong man’s partner Molly (Colleen Gray) in tow, using the special code that allows them to communicate from the audience even as Stan is blindfolded. They move their show to fancy nightclubs and attract a much wealthier clientele, including psychiatrist Lillian Ritter (Helen Walker). When Stan discovers that Ritter has been keeping records of her rich patients’ personal secrets, he hatches another plan to bilk them out of their money as a spiritualist. But this being film noir, Carlisle’s hubris eventually brings him down. But how low can he go? The plot takes us full circle back to the carnival. And here things differ again from the remake which was able to end in a much darker spot then the original (which was forced to tack on an unlikely but hollow “happy” ending).  If looked at as a parable about human ambition, or the American dream even, Nightmare Alley is very bleak indeed, positing a world where there are suckers and those who don’t give them an even break. But if everyone is trying to rip everyone else off, it’s only a matter of time before even the swindlers find themselves down and out again.

 

Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) – D. Kwan & D. Scheinert

Whoa! I heard the buzz (plus who can go past Michelle Yeoh in a starring role?), so I checked this out (of the library). Starting with the quotidian scenario of a small business owner, Evelyn Wang (Yeoh), doing her taxes (for IRS agent Jamie Lee Curtis), but quickly becoming ridiculous (sublimely ridiculous or ridiculously sublime) when her heretofore meek husband Waymond (Ke Huy Quan, previously famous in The Goonies & Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom) begins channelling an action hero from another universe (one of the many universes created whenever we make a choice). Soon, Evelyn herself learns to “verse jump”, finding versions of herself in parallel universes across the meta-verse that she can draw on for different strengths (including kung fu skills). It seems that she must do battle with another verse-jumping master, Jobu Tupaki (Stephanie Hsu), in order to save the uni-meta-verse as we know it (or don’t know it). Taking cues or paying homage to The Matrix (with its slo-mo or sped up fight scenes) as well as Wong Kar-Wai’s In the Mood for Love (!!!) and 2001: A Space Odyssey (!!!!), the film soon spins from ridiculous to downright insane. Directorial team Daniels (Kwan and Scheinert) don’t hold back and admittedly it might all get a bit much. But at its heart, this is also a family drama about a stressed-out immigrant woman’s relationships with her strict Chinese father (James Wong, now 90+ and in his 8^th decade of film roles), her alienated Americanised daughter (Hsu), and her neglected husband (Quan), not to mention the IRS. Yeoh is amazeballs in the lead role. The film careens from sentimental heart-string pulling (which moved me) to philosophical explorations of the meaning (or lack of meaning) of life to full-strength action, all with a giant dose of absurdity (hot-dog fingers?) and blink-and-you-miss-em jokes and references.  In the end, black bagels are pitted against white googly eyes. You’ll have to watch it to understand. It’s a trip.

 

Time Bandits (1981)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Time Bandits (1981) – T. Gilliam

Early outing by director Terry Gilliam (fresh from Monty Python) that holds up surprisingly well.  Young Kevin’s life with his boorish consumerist parents is disrupted by six time-travelling dwarves who have stolen a map from the Supreme Being that shows all of the holes in space-time, allowing them to steal treasures from various epochs. Unfortunately, the Evil Genius, who has been imprisoned in the Fortress of Darkness by the Supreme Being also wants the map in order to escape and refigure the world. Kevin and the little people meet Napoleon (Ian Holm), Robin Hood (John Cleese), and King Agamemnon (Sean Connery) before entering the Land of Legends where things get weirder. The special effects are pretty cool (for the time period) and although things get dark, it seems appropriate for kids.  At least until the end, when Kevin’s parents are turned into lumps of coal – Amon (aged 10) did not appreciate this and thought it spoiled the film.  So much for black comedy.

The Wicker Man (1973)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Wicker Man (1973) – R. Hardy

Classic folk-horror with Christopher Lee as the Lord of Summerisle, off the coast of Scotland, where the old Pagan traditions are valued. So, there’s a culture clash when Edward Woodward (as Sargeant Howie), a devout Catholic, shows up to investigate a missing girl about whom his department has been tipped off. But no one seems to recollect the missing girl (Rowan) or else they are hiding something! Howie struggles to understand the locals who have a very free approach to sexuality that upsets his prudish nature. Moreover, the May-Day festival is soon approaching and the island is preparing for a big celebration that will include animal costumes and a parade – plus, as Howie discovers at the library, the possibility of a virgin (Rowan?) being sacrificed!  He is determined to thwart anything horrible that might occur -- but he is entangled in a mystery that he can’t quite solve. Director Robin Hardy apparently released a director’s cut that is a bit longer (and with some scenes in a different order) than the 88 min theatrical cut I watched. Probably best not to forget that this is a horror film (and the end is certainly shocking) but the film certainly pushes you to appreciate the old ways, don’t you think?

 

Dead of Night (1945)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Dead of Night (1945) – A. Cavalcanti, C. Crichton, B. Dearden, & R. Hamer

Classic spooky horror omnibus film from Ealing Studios with contributions from four notable directors from their famed team. Basil Dearden handles the framing story, which is remarkable in its own right, with architect Walter Craig (Mervyn Johns) arriving at Pilgrim’s Farm but feeling a pronounced sense of dejá vu which only increases when he goes inside and sees a small group gathered. Soon, he realises that he is remembering a dream and goes on to prognosticate about events that will soon happen (and, of course, they do). One of the group is a psychiatrist who plays the role of Doubting Thomas throwing cold water on the idea of premonitions. But each of the characters then proceeds to tell a story about their own brush with the supernatural (each story showcased by a different director).  Dearden begins with a short story about a race car driver who receives a warning about his own death (“room for one more inside, sir!”) which allows him to avoid it. Then, with Calvacanti in the director’s chair, young Sally tells of her encounter with a young boy (while playing hide-and-seek) who turns out to be a murdered ghost. Next, Googie Withers stars in Robert Hamer’s tale of a haunted mirror that curses her husband. After this rather harrowing tale, a bit of light relief: Charles Crichton directs Naughton & Wayne (famous for their roles in Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes, 1938) as a pair of golfers who use 18-holes match-play do decide who will win the lady they both adore. The loser commits suicide and becomes a ghost who ineptly haunts his former friend. And then the most famous of tales (by Calvacanti again) features Michael Redgrave as a ventriloquist at odds with his dummy.  This might be the one to give you nightmares, if you are small.  Finally, we return again to the framing story and its haunting conclusion. If you love the sort of uncanny horror that leaves you with a weird suspicion that the world is far stranger than we think, then I highly recommend this masterpiece.   

 

The Birds (1963)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

The Birds (1963) – A. Hitchcock

Whenever I revisit The Birds, I find myself somewhat genuinely surprised again that it is much weirder and slower than I remembered. This isn’t a movie where the heroes successfully battle a creature that may attack at any time but instead it features an ominous change in the world where nature has turned against humans.  But why? Seemingly the birds have turned against us at random, although many writers point at Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren) as potentially responsible. After all, her wayward prank – lying to Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor) and then bringing him lovebirds (in a cage, of course) – seems to have set something off (although gulls were amassing in the San Francisco skies even before this incident).  She is also wounded somehow, abandoned by her mother and in need of love – from Mitch or from _his_ mother Lydia (Jessica Tandy) who is distant and suspicious. Poor Annie Hayworth (Suzanne Pleshette), Mitch’s former flame, is sidelined but doesn’t seem to hold any animosity toward the others (that might be the source of any negative energy riling up the birds). Hitch himself provided a hint when he suggested the film was about “complacency” (according to Robin Wood). Have humans cordoned themselves off from nature, creating comfortable safe routines and habitats for ourselves? Or worse, have our practices compromised nature itself, such that it needs to fight back? I’m not suggesting Hitch was an environmentalist but, seen today, the selfish preoccupations of Melanie, Mitch, Lydia, and Annie clearly pale in comparison to the wider problems the world faces.  It’s no wonder the birds are pissed off.  And, yes, if you are looking to see birds swoop down on children, tear at people’s flesh with their beaks, and gouge out their eyes, you’ll find it here too.

 

Eyes Without a Face (1960)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Eyes Without a Face (1960) – G. Franju

Exceedingly creepy, even gruesome, film (although with really very little blood and gore) that explores the complicated emotions of a (clearly immoral and possibly mad) doctor (Pierre Brasseur) who is desperately seeking a breakthrough in skin-grafting technology to assist him in a face-transplant for his terribly disfigured twenty-something daughter, Christiane (Edith Scob), whose emotions are also explored. With the help of his nurse-assistant (Alida Valli), herself a recipient of a prior skin-graft (and therefore indebted to him), the doctor kidnaps young women and surgically removes their faces for transplanting to his daughter (a procedure that the donor does not always survive). Between surgeries (which often fail), Christiane wanders the doctor’s mansion in an expressionless white mask, adding a surreal and dreamlike quality to the proceedings. Increasing the anxiety level of viewers (and characters in the film), the doctor keeps a kennel full of dogs for his experiments in the basement whose constant barking provides a soundtrack (when Maurice Jarre’s weird circus-like music isn’t playing).  But soon, the police are closing in and the gig is up … or is it?  With beautiful and stark black and white cinematography by Eugen Schüfftan (who won the Oscar for The Hustler, 1961, the next year), this was the high-water mark for director Georges Franju (although I also recommend his remake of the silent serial Judex, 1963). Guaranteed to unsettle.

The Northman (2022)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

The Northman (2022) – R. Eggers

Exceptionally mythic (or legendary) and drawn from the same texts that inspired Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Robert Eggers’ film takes place in the late 9^th century somewhere in present day Scandinavia (“Raven Island” and later Iceland). Academic historians contributed some insights to the production. As the story opens, we see King Aurvandil War-Raven (Ethan Hawke) returning from battle to his family, Queen Gudrún (Nicole Kidman) and son Amleth (Oscar Novak). Amleth is now to be initiated into the rites of manhood as heir apparent. However, only a short while after the mystic and private ceremony, Auvandil is killed by his own brother Fjölnir (Claes Bang) while Amleth escapes alone in a rowboat. Fast forward a couple of decades and Amleth (now Alexander Skarsgård) has joined the bear-wolf tribe as a rampaging berserker. After assailing a Slav village, he hears that Fjölnir has lost his kingdom and fled to Iceland – he stows away, pretending to be a slave (along with actual slave and later love interest Olga, played by Anya Taylor-Joy) on a ship bound for Fjölnir’s lands.  Upon arrival, he stays undercover, assessing the situation (including his mother’s cozy set-up with Fjölnir) before deciding how to act out his revenge. Undoubtedly an Eggers film (he also made The Witch, 2015, and The Lighthouse, 2019), this would have looked amazing on the big screen with its epic landscapes, period settings, fire and fury. But it is the mystic feel that really elevates the picture into something special, beyond your typical Hollywood blockbuster. The camera glides into some weird spaces, acknowledges Björk to be a Seeress (and Willem Dafoe to be a Fool), and makes you feel as though you are there, really in the Viking Age, dirty, obligated to Norse gods, and facing a nasty, brutish, and short life. The only real demerit that this film earns is its rather single-minded (and occasionally glacial) procession from revenge desired to revenge completed – it’s awesome to witness but, somehow, I expected things to be less on the nose. However, that may grant it that legendary quality and I guess fate is inexorable after all.

 

Pulse (Kairo) (2001)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Pulse (Kairo) (2001) – K. Kurosawa

I return to Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s tale of dread more often than many other J-Horror films from two decades ago. Sure, it is dated – just one look at the Windows operating system or mobile phones tells you that – but its themes are still universal (if running particularly deep in Japan). After a brief opening on the open sea with Captain Kôji Yakusho (a foreshadow of the film’s end), we meet Michi (Kumiko Asô) and Junko (Kurume Arisaka) who work in a garden store and are concerned about one of their co-workers who hasn’t shown up to work for a while. When Michi visits him, he abruptly commits suicide – and then disappears, leaving only a black mark on the wall and some weird images on his computer. Next, we meet Kawashima (Haruhiko Katô) who is interested in learning about the internet – and lands on a website that asks, “Would you like to meet a ghost?” (the film’s tagline); he quickly shuts down the computer and seeks help from the university’s computer lab, staffed by Harue (Koyuki). Eventually, these two pairs of young people discover “the forbidden room” – entered by a doorway edged by red tape and possessed of some creepy dead souls. In fact, there may be more than one forbidden room; a grad student argues that too many people have died since the start of time and now the souls are seeping back into our world, particularly in these isolated places. But it is the living who seem to be suffering from loneliness and isolation just as much as these lonely dead and that is Kurosawa’s key theme; perhaps he was prescient in pointing to the (then incipient) internet as a wellspring of alienation rather than connection. Yet, as the world falls apart – and the apocalypse is not far off here – the survivors are those who manage to overcome their insecurities and team up.  But getting to this conclusion requires viewers to endure some really creepy scenes.   

 

K(w)aidan (1964)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

K(w)aidan (1964) – M. Kobayashi

Director Masaki Kobayashi followed up his triumph Hara-Kiri (1962) with this film drawn from Lafcadio Hearn’s book of Japanese folktales, Kwaidan (1904), which included many tales of yokai and ghosts. The most famous are probably “Yuki Onna” (Woman of the Snow) and “Mimi-nashi Hōichi” (Hoichi the Earless), both included here along with two other tales “Black Hair” and “In a Cup of Tea”. The film is notable for its astounding art direction – entirely artificial and studio-bound – but it is admittedly slow (too slow for kids). As Ayako pointed out, it isn’t exactly horror either but rather sad stories with spooky elements. The first three tales take place in the samurai era.  “Black Hair” finds an ambitious young man leave his wife (who works as a weaver) to take up a position working for the local lord – he remarries to afford himself a better social position. But he is unhappy and years later returns to his first wife who lives in the same house and seemingly hasn’t aged (a warning sign!). “Yuki Onna” stars Tatsuya Nakadai as a woodcutter who gets lost in a snowstorm with his elderly partner; they take refuge in an old hut whereupon a mysterious woman/demon descends upon them, stealing the old man’s breath and forcing the younger one (Nakadai) to swear never to tell another soul or suffer the same consequences. “Hoichi the Earless” recounts the story of a blind cleric who is bewitched by a clan of ghosts to sing the epic tale of their last sea battle night after night; when the head priest discovers this, they cover Hoichi from head to toe with protective spells -- but they miss two spots. Finally, “In a Cup of Tea”, takes place later in 1904, showing a writer who sees the image of another man in his tea, eventually drinking it anyway, whereupon the ghostly man’s retainers show up to fight him. We have the original Criterion DVD which is apparently a 161-minute cut but newer releases run an even longer 183 minutes.  

 

I Walked with a Zombie (1943)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

I Walked with a Zombie (1943) – J. Tourneur

From the famed production stable of Val Lewton and directed by Jacques Tourneur comes this haunting tale of voodoo in the Caribbean. Although apparently drawn from a non-fiction report, screenwriters Curt Siodmak and Ardel Wray tack on elements of Jane Eyre to give the film more dramatic tension and mystery. Frances Dee stars as a Betsy Connell, a Canadian nurse hired to look after a mentally ill patient on the island of San Sebastian (probably Haiti) by her husband Paul Holland (Tom Conway). Mrs Holland is completely zombified but can walk around in a trance.  Upon arrival, Betsy meets Paul’s younger half-brother Wes Rand (James Ellison) and soon learns that he was having an affair with Mrs Holland which was discovered by Paul. The shock apparently led to Jessica Holland’s illness and Wes’s subsequent alcoholism.  After Betsy’s attempts to revive Jessica with an insulin shock fail, she is convinced by her maid (Theresa Harris) to try voodoo.  This leads to the most spooky scenes in the picture, as Betsy walks with zombie Jessica to the crossroads and beyond to voodoo headquarters (the houmfort) – along the way they see creepy Darby Jones, the zombie who guards the crossroads. Little does she know that Paul and Wes’s mother, Mrs. Rand (Edith Barrett), has been masquerading as the voice of the voodoo spirits at the Houmfort (in order to convince the locals to adopt modern medicine). Yet what seems to throw cold water on the possibility that voodoo is real is quickly undone by the script, which proceeds to a tragic ending in which characters act by ambiguous compulsions. Mysterious and beautiful.

Suspiria (1977)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Suspiria (1977) – D. Argento

 I don’t usually go for movies with gore or slasher-type killers but writer-director Dario Argento brought something different to horror in the 1970s. Influenced by Mario Bava, Argento uses garishly coloured sets and lighting and takes the giallo (Italian pulp mystery fiction) as his genre of choice. But with Suspiria, Argento moved more clearly into supernatural territory. Suzy Bannion (Jessica Harper) is the American ballet student who arrives in Germany to study at the Tanz Academy led by headmistress Madame Blanc (Joan Bennett, star of many Fritz Lang films of the ‘40s) and strict teacher Miss Tanner (Alida Valli, star of The Third Man and Hitchcock’s Paradine Case in the ‘40s). She arrives on a rainy night and sees another student fleeing the school (subsequently murdered).  Although she originally wishes to stay off-campus, after a strange hallway encounter that leaves her woozy, she is moved to a room in the main building with the other students, including Sara (Stefania Casini), who becomes an ally.  Argento uses weird camera angles and tracking shots to add to the ominous feel of the place (and a maggot infestation makes it worse). Rumours swirl and eventually Suzy heads to the local psychiatric hospital/university to ask about witchcraft (to a sadly dubbed Udo Kier). What she learns makes her even more suspicious about the leaders of the dance academy, particularly when Sara disappears. Of course, we soon discover that witchcraft is real but Argento manages the mystery elements of the plot expertly (a talent he was later to lose), even as the whole thing resembles a dream… or nightmare.  A spooky masterpiece elevated by an amazing score by the rock band Goblin but punctuated with some bloody violent set-pieces (enter at your own risk!). The 2018 remake with Tilda Swinton pales in comparison but is altogether a different beast.

Island of Lost Souls (1932)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Island of Lost Souls (1932) – E. C. Kenton

I read H. G. Wells’ The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896) in my teens, although I barely remember it now. The film hones in on the horror in the story rather than on the more philosophical inclinations of the author (dealing with the theory of evolution, animal ethics, etc.) and, for this reason, Wells apparently was not a fan of the adaptation by screenwriters Waldemar Young and Philip Wylie.  Yet the film, as directed by Erle C. Kenton, is truly horrific – with no constraints placed by censors (the film is “pre-code”), a palpably decadent weirdness pervades the proceedings. Of course, there is an assortment of half-beast/half-human oddities (with excellent make-up) on the Island, created via sadistic experimentation by Doctor Moreau (played by Charles Laughton in a gleefully leering and cruel performance), that evokes not only dread and disgust but sympathy for their horrible plight. Shipwrecked Edward Parker (Richard Arlen) gradually discovers the evil goings-on and is shocked when he realises that Moreau has attempted to manipulate him into providing evidence for whether the half-beasts can procreate with humans (as well as speak/learn/and follow the Law). Lota, the Panther Woman (played by Kathleen Burke, who won a contest by Paramount to star in the film), is the target (and in true pre-code fashion, she is scantily clad and the target of the camera’s male gaze) and, despite his fiancée, Parker almost seems to give in. But when said fiancée actually arrives on the island to rescue him, with a sea captain in tow, Moreau tries to turn his beasts against them, causing them to violate his Law (no killing, no walking on all fours, etc.), and therefore also to realise that there is nothing stopping them from killing Moreau himself, which they do. (Spoiler). The film is all humid tropical jungle, shrouded in fog and silence (no musical soundtrack) save for the cry of the beasts in the House of Pain.  A strange artefact from another time and place.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019) – C. Sciamma

It is tempting to see this film as revealing “secret women’s business” – not meant for the eyes of men – but that might serve to detract from the universal human emotions and experience conveyed by the characters and story.  Yet I am open to the possibility that love between two women feels different than love between a man and a woman (I shall never really know). The fact that this story takes place in the late 1700s heightens the “forbidden” and tragic aspects of the love affair between Heloise (offered by her mother to a Milanese noble) and Marianne the artist invited to paint her portrait. There are no men in the film to speak of, but aside from the mother (away for much of the film), there is a maid who is, probably unrealistically, treated as an equal by the two leads (and for whom we see the Eighteenth Century solution to another woman’s problem, this one a direct result of a man’s action). The three women make the most of the mother’s absence, enjoying their freedom and for Heloise (Adèle Haenel, previously in a relationship with the director Céline Sciamma) and Marianne (Noémie Merlant), it is a chance to explore their desires. If this all sounds a bit too mushy, in fact, the film feels rather stately and emotionally restrained for most of its length, making the rush of freedom that much more exciting, and the inevitable denouement that much more painful.  The isolation of the island and the crashing waves of the ocean offer a scenic (and metaphoric?) backdrop (and the film’s title turns out to be surprisingly surrealistically literal). In the end, perhaps it is the experience of seeing an ex after you have both moved on (for better or for worse) that is the more universal bittersweet feeling. However, when it is society that has blocked the relationship from continuing, the sadness may be much more palpable -- with the film’s obvious implication a hope that such barriers are no longer imposed today.

Rififi (1955)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Rififi (1955) – J. Dassin

Jules Dassin’s Rififi is one of the very best of the French films noir. Not only do we have an aging and weary gangster (Jean Servais), recently released from prison to find he was betrayed by his girlfriend. We also have a young gang eager to make a big score by breaking into the safe of a well-known Parisian jeweller (with Dassin himself as the safecracker imported from Italy). Although Tony the Stephanois (Servais) isn’t initially interested in the heist (advertised first as a smash-and-grab through the store’s front window), eventually he takes over the planning which results in a heralded 32-minute “silent” scene with the gang breaking through the ceiling of the store as quietly as they can (until they can disable the alarm system). But as with Kubrick’s The Killing (released the following year), the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry. Indeed, the complications after the heist seem to take up at least as much of the run-time as the planning and heist itself. And noir being noir, the unravelling is gloriously messy, with Tony working strenuously to hold things together – with honour – as they slowly fall apart.  Although Dassin doesn’t rely heavily on noir lighting or expressionistic cinematography, the mise-en-scene is perfectly French and yes, perfectly noir.

Yearning (1964)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Yearning (1964) – M. Naruse

I rewatched this late Mikio Naruse film starring Hideko Takamine as a widow who has dutifully served her late husband's family by running their grocery store. When the family thinks about upscaling to a supermarket, there may be no place for her -- except the youngest (now only) son has other ideas. Although the title usually translates as "yearning" (which may be what Takamine's character is feeling), some have suggested that it could be "confused" or even "tormented".  Although there is a glimpse of freedom near the end, things conclude very bleak. Highly recommended!

Original review is here:  https://artstukas.blogspot.com/2012/05/yearning-1964.html

 

The Velvet Underground (2021)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

The Velvet Underground (2021) – T. Haynes

Probably my favourite band – and therefore their history is overly familiar to me (from the Up-Tight book by Malanga/Bockris; the Under Review DVD; and countless other sources). So, what could director Todd Haynes (e.g., Safe, 1995; Dark Waters, 2019; and a bunch of Sonic Youth videos) bring to this tale? For one thing, he adopted Andy Warhol’s split screen technique (used prominently in Chelsea Girls, 1966, which I saw years ago at the Walker Art Center) – often showing one of Warhol’s screen tests (Lou Reed, John Cale, Sterling Morrison, and more but maybe not Maureen Tucker) on one side, while the other includes rare live recordings, an interview subject, or other remarkable found footage and period ephemera. Haynes is clearly more enamoured with the Velvets’ early days, spending much time with denizens of the Factory and the Village more broadly (the film is dedicated to Jonas Mekas). Of course, this is one key to their sound – Tony Conrad, Henry Flynt, and La Monte Young all provide necessary backstory about the drone influence, as does Cale himself. But Pickwick Records and poet Delmore Schwartz are not forgotten, as inspirations or contributing factors in Lou Reed’s development as a songwriter and lyricist. Naturally, we hear some of the early demos and formative noises that accompanied the Exploding Plastic Inevitable and foreshadowed the first album (with most of its songs on the soundtrack). Nico is introduced (with footage from La Dolce Vita) but we move fairly quickly past her, then touch on the California tour (Moe really hated the hippies), and the firing of Warhol. The subsequent albums whiz by, each given progressively less coverage (Cale is given a chance to reflect on his departure but Doug Yule is barely introduced). Then, it is time for the finale at Max’s, where Lou’s walkout is recounted by Danny Fields. No mention of Squeeze but we do get footage from Le Bataclan. A coda offers a scattering of moments for each of the principals in the decades to come (and a glimpse of the 1993 reunion).  This sort of documentary always rises and falls based on the quality of the talking heads and they are pretty good here, particularly Jonathan Richman (who says he saw VU sixty or seventy times!). To Haynes’ credit, there’s precious little gossip here, with the focus primarily on the story of the band at the time it unfolded (and no irrelevant future stars recounting their later influence). As such, two hours seemed too short – I wanted more detail, more depth, longer music clips, more more more!  But as music docs go, this is definitely all killer/no filler, perhaps best particularly for the uninitiated (if any such people exist), as an entrée to the music itself, of course.

Licorice Pizza (2021)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Licorice Pizza (2021) – P. T. Anderson

My first comment about Licorice Pizza was going to be that Paul Thomas Anderson has done a pretty good job of recreating 1973 Los Angeles, considering that he himself was only born in 1970.  But then I read the trivia on IMDb about the film which reveals an amazing number of interconnections between Anderson, the actors in the film, and elements of the plot. As the writer-director, it now seems clear that he’s created this tapestry from his own memories, knowledge, and experiences. No need to be aware of any of this to enjoy the film which follows its own internal logic and feels real in a way that many narratives about young love do not.  But for the record, Alana Haim is from the band Haim and her mother was Anderson’s elementary school art teacher (he later did some music videos for Haim). She plays the 25-year-old object-of-desire for 15-year-old Gary, who is played by Cooper Hoffman, son of the late Phillip Seymour Hoffman, a good mate of Anderson’s and star of many of his films. Apparently, Gary is based on another Hollywood figure from the 70s (Gary Goetzman, a producer now but previously a hustling kid, it seems) and so too are characters played by Sean Penn (channelling William Holden) and Tom Waits (channelling either John Huston or Sam Peckinpah). For some reason, Jon Peters (hairdresser and Hollywood producer, in a relationship with Streisand in ’73), played by Bradley Cooper, isn’t given a pseudonym – perhaps he doesn’t mind being portrayed as something of a psycho!  There are a lot of rabbit holes to follow if you want to: Anderson’s dad was an announcer on the Carol Burnett Show and there are some nods to that show and its cast here, there are references to a Clint Eastwood-directed film called Breezy and probably also to Taxi Driver. But again, none of this really matters because the love story itself feels genuine, full of the kind of wacky anecdotes and incidents that pepper your own life (especially in your teens and twenties). There’s an infectious joie-de-vivre here (sparked by a great use of period music) that makes this one of the best films in recent memory. Highly recommended!

 

No Time to Die (2021)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

No Time to Die (2021) – C. J. Fukunaga

Clearly, I’m not a big enough Bond fan – I had to look at my blog to figure out whether I had actually seen the previous film (Spectre, 2015) a full six years ago (I had and didn’t like it). Poor memory may have put me at a disadvantage because the current film seems to pick up where the last one left off.  Another reviewer has remarked that the Daniel Craig series features a Bond that does not exhibit chronic amnesia, he actually remembers the events of previous films. We shall see what happens next, because this 25^th “official” outing for 007 is seemingly Craig’s last. And despite my own failure to remember either Vesper (lost love) or Madeleine (current love, played by Léa Seydoux), I still enjoyed this film (perhaps splitting it across two nights helped as well). Somehow the yearning melancholic themes – everyone here has lost someone violently (including the villain played by Rami Malek) – rise above the specific details of the plot to provide an emotional impact. Mixed with these poignant moments are the expensive action sequences for which Bond films are renowned and they don’t disappoint. True, most of the characters besides Craig and Seydoux don’t have enough to do and it is hard to feel interested in them (including the villain played by Rami Malek) and this may be why some true Bond fans seem to have felt that this film is a letdown.  In fact, it is more of a downer and there’s a difference.   

 

The Bureau (Season 5, 2020)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

The Bureau (Season 5, 2020) – E. Rochant

Perhaps I would have enjoyed watching this series as it unfolded rather than 5 years of episodes all in one go. But the suspense may have been excruciating.  Just the conclusion of Series 4 alone would have meant living with shock and uncertainty for an extended period.  Of course, moving straight to Series 5 helped to resolve my anxieties (but not until Episode 2!).  That said, the final season (if it is final) was gripping but opened up a whole new front for the show in Russia, letting our stalwart DGSE spies engage with their counterparts in the FSB.  It is Pacemaker and Petrossian, apparently recruited to the Russian spy agency (but actually double agents…or are they?), who get most of the screentime, in addition to JJA, now the Head of the Bureau who has a particular fixation with Russia (and we learn why). Jeanne-Marie has been relocated to Egypt, doing field work in Cairo.  Her story intersects briefly with that of Jonas (dealing with terrorists) and Raymond (investigating a story leaked to the press, possibly by Jeanne-Marie).  Controversially, Series Creator Eric Rochant decided to let famous auteur Jacques Audiard write and direct the final two episodes in the series.  This takes them in a different (more fantastical and dreamlike) direction and fails to tie up more than a few loose ends (some well-loved characters get short shrift).  Some fans were hostile but I thought the conclusion (including another shock) was apt, if rather sadistic. The arc that started with Malotru’s decision to contact Nadia El-Monsour comes full circle.  That said, I hope for a Series 6 but it feels like it is not to be… 

 

Koyaanisqatsi (1982)/Baraka (1992)

 

Koyaanisqatsi (1982)/Baraka (1992) – G. Reggio/R. Fricke

I first saw Koyaanisqatsi in college, as part of a cultural studies class where we watched films in a small screening room in the library. This was probably 1988 and I don’t think I had really been exposed to the essay film before and certainly not a nonverbal one. The images are designed to wash over you, just so much endless timelapse cinematography (by Ron Fricke) in so many fascinating locations. The themes emerge from these images (the title is in the Hopi indigenous language meaning “life out of balance”), moving from ancient vistas (like the Grand Canyon and Monument Valley) to insanely chaotic scenes of humans and cars overwhelming the planet. The camera also stares at people as well as places, pondering their very souls, wondering how they feel about this crazy existence. Philip Glass’s amazing score (once heard, you can never stop intoning the title word in that Gregorian chant way) really elevates everything – all due credit to Godfrey Reggio for having the dream and pulling this all together (as well as the two sequels which I should really track down).  Fast forward a couple of decades to when blu-ray discs were invented and we had just purchased our first player.  I saw a copy of Ron Fricke’s Baraka in a shop and decided it might be perfect as my first purchase in this format. Advertised as being filmed in 24 countries in the late 80s/early 90s and with the same amazing cinematography (lots of timelapse) that Fricke has perfected (even creating his own cameras), the film delivers on its promise.  It really has some spectacular images in some truly historic and memorable places (Japan, Cambodia, Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, South America, Australia, etc. etc.).  The themes focus on world religions/spirituality but quickly encompass death, war, sex and everything in between, also roping in some of Koyaanisqatsi’s ideas about industrialisation/world destruction. You get to peek into the soul of a snow monkey chilling out in a Japanese hot spring. Some of the scenes from Auschwitz or red light districts are probably the type of thing you might want to save to discuss with your kids when they are of the right age. We watched these both this week and what more is there to say then that they could be called prophetic given the trainwreck that the world is heading into now (likely foreseeable then but impossible to ignore now). It is almost quaint to see the world in the late 70s to early 90s, a world to which we can never return. See it while you can.  

The Bureau (Season 4, 2018)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

The Bureau (Season 4, 2018) – E. Rochant

At the end of Season 3, Malotru (a.k.a. Paul Lefevbre a.k.a. Guillaume Debailly played by Mathieu Kassovitz) is at loose ends, unable to reconnect with Nadia (his Syrian lover for whom he betrayed his country) or with the DGSE (who will undoubtedly arrest him for being a traitor).  The series could have ended there.  Yet in 2018, Malotru resurfaces in Moscow, the easiest place for a wanted man to hide and not be extradited back to France.  Of course, he is soon targeted for recruitment by the FSB (formerly known as the KGB).  And yet, Jeanne-Marie (now Director of the Bureau) thinks she might be able to use Malotru for their own ends to embed another agent within Centre 21, the hacker arm of the FSB (where Marina Loiseau is also now located in a relationship with a computer security pro). The Bureau is also being investigated by the DGSE’s internal affairs division, led by JJA (Mathieu Amalric) who feels that most staff need to leave due to their involvement with Malotru.  Another plot strand finds Jonas tracking down terrorists in the Middle East.  To me, Season 4 is a step back up from Season 3 (which I thought sometimes included out-of-character decision-making but in retrospect served its purpose).  But shockingly, at the end of Season 4, another major character is dead…  On to Season 5 and 2020!

Gunga Din (1939)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Gunga Din (1939) – G. Stevens

Whoa! To watch Gunga Din (1939) in 2022 is to come face-to-face with both unrepentant imperialism and blatant racism – but the film is such a light-hearted adventure, one is tempted to ignore these things. Cary Grant, Victor McLaglen, and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. play sargeants in the British army stationed in India. Gunga Din is their Indian water-carrier.  The film splits somewhat evenly between hi-jinks involving the three leads (trying to trick Fairbanks into re-enlisting now that his tour of duty is coming to a close) and action-adventure as they encounter the Thugee cult of Kali-worshippers who aim to kill the Brits. This is a riff on the poem by Rudyard Kipling whose Din sacrifices himself for the regiment by warning them of an ambush with his bugle and dying when he attracts the attention of the baddies.  But the film really is problematic in so many ways.  Although there seem to be actual Indians among the cast, the Thugees do feature a number of actors in black-face (particularly their guru played by Eduardo Ciannelli). Mount Whitney and the Sierra Nevada range stand in for India (not surprisingly). Din himself (also played by a white actor, Sam Jaffe) is infantilised throughout – Cary Grant is particularly patronising toward him, although perhaps unconsciously so.  The film probably couldn’t be made today and the only way to watch it is with one’s critical consciousness engaged. But it’s still so damned fun (indeed Spielberg seems to have borrowed some elements for Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom).

Point Blank (1967)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Point Blank (1967) – J. Boorman

I like the idea that Lee Marvin’s Walker may actually be an angry ghost, haunting those who have absconded with his $93K (and his wife and his life). As directed by John Boorman, the film is fractured, using jump cuts, flashbacks, and a variety of cinematic effects (à la the French New Wave) to chart Marvin’s unstoppable march (in sharp suits with a .44 magnum) on his former partner (John Vernon as Reece) and the corporate “Organization” leaders who he owed money to.  But first things first, the film opens at Alcatraz where Walker and Reece have just made a big score (ripping off who?) – Reece and Walker’s wife Lynne double cross Walker and Reece shoots him leaving him for dead.  One theory about the film is that he actually is dead (hence, a ghost), another has the events of the film represent a dying man’s final thoughts, a fantasy, a dream.  Either of these theories helps to explain the dream like quality of some of the film’s images and Marvin’s impenetrable/invulnerable nature – really, this is one of his toughest tough guy roles. In order to finally get to Reece, Walker uses his sister-in-law Angie Dickinson as bait; she initially resists him but then gives in, including to his amorous inclinations. Not that Marvin shows any emotions, even when he finally succeeds at getting his money (back at Alcatraz) from head bad guy Caroll O’Connor (yes, Archie Bunker).  He simply fades away, having wreaked his final retribution.