Not a Christmas movie, but easily the best of the
Connery Bond films (at least as far as I recall them). Bond is charged with
preventing bullion smuggler Auric Goldfinger (Gert Frobe) from robbing Fort
Knox with the aid of the notoriously named Pussy Galore (Honor Blackman). Dated
for sure, in its overt sexism and casual racism, but if you can look past that,
you can find a thrilling action film where 007 uses all the gadgets that Q
provides (especially in his new Aston Martin). Although Goldfinger himself cuts
a rather lumbering figure, the real nemesis here is his bodyguard Oddjob (Harold
Sakata), nearly indestructible and armed with a lacerating bowler hat.Director Guy Hamilton (a stalwart for the
franchise) takes us from Miami to Switzerland to Kentucky, splashing money on
the screen where necessary, and keeping things moving (all important). The
undeniable theme song (by Shirley Bassey) adds even more style to the proceedings.
Connery is fit and a master of both hand-to-hand combat and the snarky
one-liner. He's in peril more than once (to be expected) but I had forgotten
the plot twist at the end. Brainless fare when you’ve burned out your brain at
the end of the year.
Aito is really getting into chess now (he beats me
nightly) which reminded me of this solid ‘90s film about a 7-year-old kid (and
a whole subculture of kids) playing competitive chess in tournaments. Joe
Mantegna and Joan Allen play the parents of Josh Waitzkin (played by Max
Pomeranc) who wrestle with the moral quandaries put to them about their son’s
social and emotional life and whether fostering his success is more for them or
for him. Ben Kingsley and Laurence Fishburne play Josh’s two mentors, the
classically trained but conservative taskmaster and the risky bullet player from
Washington Square Park, respectively. Writer-Director Steve Zaillian keeps
things moving (in his directorial debut) with the requisite tension (if not
without some inescapable sports movie cliches). Dan Hedaya, Laura Linney, and
William H. Macy show up in cameos. You
probably don’t really need to know anything about chess to enjoy this, but now
that we do, the authenticity is discernible.
And after all, the film is based on a true story (co-written by the real
Fred Waitzkin) and features clips of the real Bobby Fischer who is frequently
name-checked as a future “destination” (for better and//or for worse) in the
film.
First rewatch since it was released. At the time, Chow Yun Fat and Michelle Yeoh
were making their first crossover films, from Hong Kong to Hollywood. Of course, this film was directed in Taiwan
by Ang Lee who had already broken through with The Ice Storm and Sense and
Sensibility (and would have future success with Brokeback Mountain). This film
won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film (check this). Although epic with beautiful cinematography,
it also manages to capture something of the Shaw Brothers and the classic Hong
Kong kung fu flick. The pacing and
regular fight scenes (albeit with wires) keep Lee’s interest in relationship
drama at bay, although the complicated plot (complete with long flashbacks)
does help to maintain viewer interest. Yeoh is great as always but Chow is too
reserved, somehow losing his natural charisma (that featured so well in his
films for John Woo). Newcomer Zhang ZiYi
holds her own with these two superstars. Worth another look.
Mizoguchi doesn’t
pull his punches. So even though he is recounting a ghost story (as one of two
interwoven tales), we are still treated to a look at the brutal conditions of
feudal Japan in the 16th century. In particular, he shows us the
awful fate of women – here the wives of the two protagonists (Kinuyo Tanaka and
Mitsuko Mito) suffer either sexual violence or murder (you are forewarned). Things
are barely better for Genjurô (Masayuki Mori) and Tôbei (Eitarô Ozawa). Both are farmers but Genjurô has a side-line
in pottery, using a hut-sized kiln to forge sake cups, jugs, and bowls. As war
breaks out among the Samurai clans, they decide to sell their wares in the
nearest town, discovering profits to be had. Tôbei longs to become a samurai
himself and uses his share of the proceeds to buy some armor. Genjurô is
seduced by a noble woman (Machiko Kyô), after delivering her purchases to her
expansive but decaying manor. Both
neglect their wives, who suffer the fates described above. As the two tales
unfold, our heroes find different fortunes – both transcending what could be
expected from your standard reality (although Genjurô’s tale is clearly the
more supernatural). Perhaps the censors (American) required Mizoguchi to tack
on an unlikely “happy” ending but there is no escaping the downbeat nature of
these tales of moon and rain. (Sansho
the Bailiff, 1954, would go even further into the horror of the times, with no
relief). As a jidaigeki (period film), Ugetsu’s mise-en-scene and art direction
are top notch – no sign of 1950s Japan anywhere and thus, we are transported to
another time and land, where real and unreal mix.
An existential
classic from Akira Kurosawa. One of my
favourites from years ago but I was worried it might be too sentimental upon
this rewatch. Takashi Shimura (later the
head of the Seven Samurai, 1954) plays Watanabe, chief of the public liaison section
of city hall, a petty bureaucrat who has spent 30 years pushing papers and
referring community members to other sections. The film opens just as Watanabe finds
out that he has stomach cancer and may have only six months to live. The first
half of the film shows us Watanabe’s immediate reaction: first, despair; then,
giving in to total hedonism; then, seeking human connection (first with his son
and daughter-in-law who essentially reject him, then with a younger co-worker
who ultimately finds him weirdly desperate); finally, he decides to use his final
months to do something meaningful.
Earlier, we had seen a group of women petitioning the city to convert a
disused swampy area into a children’s playground, but Watanabe’s section (and
all the other sections) gave them the run-around. Now, Watanabe decides to break the impasse
and make the project a reality. Fast forward five months and we are now at
Watanabe’s wake, attended by the Deputy Mayor, his senior advisors and section
chiefs, and, of course, Watanabe’s own section members and his family. The
second half of the film shows us the different reactions of all of these people
to Watanabe’s final actions (in a Rashomon-like display of perceptual
biases). The Deputy Mayor seeks to take
all of the credit for the playground himself while his senior advisors all suck
up to him and agree. After they have
quickly excused themselves from the wake, Watanabe’s staff review all of the events
of the previous few months (in flashback) to give us a portrait of Watanabe as single-mindedly
determined to get the project done despite many bureaucratic hurdles and
setbacks (this is, in essence, a scathing satire of Japanese society at the
time). Naturally heartstrings are tugged but not in a heavy-handed way. Shimura
underplays the grey man so much so that he is very nearly characterless but in
the end his actions – and therefore his life -- have made a real difference to
the world. And that’s what it’s all about.
(I have not been drawn to watch the recent remake with Bill Nighy in the
Shimura role, Living, 2022).
I’ve had this DVD for a couple of decades and it is a
comfortably familiar watch, reminding me of my time in the theatre (high school
and some of college). Ronald Colman (who won the Best Actor Oscar for this part)
plays Tony John, a Broadway leading man, currently starring in a smash hit
comedy but being enticed to consider Othello as his next big role. Screenwriters
Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin use their knowledge of the theatre to good effect
to bring authentic backstage drama to the screen. Director George Cukor allows
Colman the latitude to develop his character, an actor who allows his parts to
intrude too much into his personal and daily life (cue expressionistic sound
and visions). So, when it comes to
Othello, we see Tony John gradually start to seethe with jealousy – which is
easy because he is still in love with his ex-wife Brita (Signe Hasso), playing
Desdemona, and suspects she is falling for press agent Bill Friend (Edmond O’Brien).
Earlier in the film, when mulling over
the part of the Moor from Venice, Tony stumbles into an Italian restaurant and
he ends up going back to the cheap apartment of the waitress (Shelly Winters) for
a one-night stand (she does not recognize him). Three hundred performances
later, out of his mind with jealousy, he returns to her apartment, confused and
tormented – and the film turns noir. Although
Colman’s take on Shakespeare is hammy, the use of the Bard’s scenes to
subjugate his inner psychological conflicts, unconsciously, is pretty genius. Although I never acted in Othello, I fondly
recall my time doing Shakespeare during the Advanced Studies Program for NH
kids at St Paul’s School (summer of 1984). Tis
truth, his lines have entered our culture, even if we’ve long forgotten their
derivation: Othello (and Tony John by implication) “loved not wisely but too
well.”
I’ve been a fan of Hirokazu Kore-eda’s work going back
to After Life (1998) which I saw in London when I was in the UK for a job
interview and Maborosi (1995) which I subsequently picked up on videocassette. His films have always been unpredictable (in
that they don’t follow a formula) and humanistic (in that they have empathy for
the characters and show them warts and all). Broker was filmed in South Korea
with a Korean cast, featuring Song Kang-ho (best known for his work with Bong
Joon-ho in Parasite, 2019, or Memories of Murder, 2003; he won the best actor award
at Cannes for this film), following a less successful (but still on point) venture
in France (The Truth, 2019, with Deneuve and Binoche). Kore-eda has spent a lot
of time focused on family relationships (and as such may be the natural heir of
Yasujiro Ozu’s shomin-geki genre) and Broker continues the theme of his
Cannes-winning Shoplifters (2018) that a “family” might be defined as any group
of individuals that chooses to be one. Here, we find Sang-hyun (Song Kang-ho)
and Dong-soo (Gang Dong-won) working as “brokers” who take abandoned babies from
a local church group’s “baby box” and sell them on the black market to wannabe
parents who cannot meet Korea’s strict adoption regulations. Dong-soo was abandoned in a similar way as a
child (left at an orphanage) and so these are not ordinary brokers but really
care about who they are selling to. So
when the mother of their latest acquisition (a baby named Woo-sung) turns up,
they are happy to work with her to find the right parents for her child.
Apparently actress Lee Ji-eun is a pop star in Korea but her acting is strong
and she fits into the ensemble who are, unbeknownst to them, being tracked by
the police. At the same time, Sang-hyun
is being pursued by gangsters to whom he owes a gambling debt and Moon So-young
(Lee Ji-eun) may also have a criminal past. So, Kore-eda builds suspense about
where this is all going to end up. But it is true that the film does verge closer
to sentimentality than some of the director’s other films, even if he doesn’t
leave the characters where you might expect them to be, if this were a
Hollywood film.
Winner of the 2022
Best International Feature Film at the Academy Awards as well as Best
Screenplay at Cannes. It was adapted
from a story by Haruki Murakami (who I like but I haven’t read this 2014 story).
Director Ryusuke Hamaguchi co-wrote the screenplay and this is his breakthrough
film and the first of his I have seen. I
hesitated because it is 3 hours long. However, unlike some other long films,
this was worth it – it takes time for the mood and meaning to sink in and for
the characters to develop. The first 40 minutes or so, before the credits (!),
show us the life of theatre director Yûsuke Kafuku (played with maximum reserve
by Hidetoshi Nishijima) with his wife Oto (Reika Kirishima) before the main
events of the movie two years later. These first 40 minutes lock in place the
emotional trajectories that continue to affect the people in the story and the
pay-off that director Hamaguchi secures. Later, when Kafuku is appointed to a
two-month residency in Hiroshima to stage Chekov’s Uncle Vanya, he is provided
with a driver (who takes over his beautiful red Saab), Misaki Watari (played with
equal reserve by Tôko Miura). We are treated, in relatively equal doses, to
rehearsals of the play, which takes an unusual multi-lingual approach
(highlighting the “communication effort” theme), and to the drives back and
forth from the island hotel where Kafuku stays and the theatre. Relationships
develop and there is a strong focus on grief, identity, betrayal. The
cinematography by Hidetoshi Shinomiya is stunning, especially in the POV
driving scenes and the music by Eiko Ishibashi assists with the emotional
journey. There are ellipses in the plot and Hamaguchi occasionally chooses not
to show us everything in a scene or holds back until the right moment. This
creates suspense, but the viewer is rewarded by gradual reveals and there is a
sense of an intellectual puzzle slowly fitting together. Chekov’s play is a major
piece of the puzzle, with the dialogue of the play juxtaposing against the
events of the film and reinforcing our perception of the characters and their
internal states (often unspoken). Those who know the play may find different insights
here. But those who do not are also in for a rich, meditative, and rewarding
experience.
Jeanne Dielman, 23
quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975) – C. Akerman
Named as the #1 Greatest
Film of All Time in the 2022 Sight and Sound critics poll (which runs every 10
years) and shockingly I had never seen it.
But when to find the time to watch a 3 hour and 22 minute film,
masterpiece though it may be? With my
family off to visit Japan, now was the time. How strange then, the synergies
with my current “lonely” lifestyle and the plot of the film, which finds widow
Jeanne Dielman (Delphine Seyrig) performing ordinary household chores on her
own all day long while her teenage son is at school. This is often hailed as a key feminist film
due to the primacy of “women’s work” (in all its drudgery) – and Jeanne receives
little gratitude or even acknowledgement from her largely non-communicative
son. His only real comments seem to
focus on his mother’s sex life, revealing some Freudian subtexts. Little does he know that Jeanne also draws an
income from prostitution, with daily male guests to her little bedroom. Throughout
the three days we follow her, she is emotionless and we get not even a tiny
glimpse of what is going on in her mind. Yet tension builds through the endless
“minimalist” scenes that director Chantal Akerman stages for us: endless “real
time” minutes of washing dishes or peeling potatoes or walking to the shops.
The tiny apartment (and seemingly the world outside) is perfectly colour coded
in pale greens and blues and Jeanne’s wardrobe matches. Every shot is static,
usually head on. But as the running time
accumulates and the perpetual routines continue to be enacted, we start to
notice little things. Was the stove left
on? (It was). Did she not button a
button or comb her hair? (She did not). On the third day, we start the really
wonder whether everything is okay for her. She stares off into space a bit more,
some tasks might not be getting done. After the long slow build, this is
riveting. The film ends with a surprising climax. In retrospect, the 200 odd
minutes passed surprisingly quickly, holding your attention with its sheer audaciousness
and with little mysteries (what is the flashing blue light anyway?). So, is
this the greatest film of all time? The case would be that it has experimented
dramatically with cinematic form while also making important arguments about
the inequity -- and well-being destroying effects -- of women’s work (including
prostitution) and the economic plight of single mothers. Fascinating, if you
can find the time (and you should).
Here we have the reminiscences of a 75-year-old film
director about his childhood and youth (this might be a genre unto itself). We’ve all seen Spielberg’s films so it isn’t
hard to make connections between aspects of his other films (divorce/broken
families, suburbia, bullying) and his life story, as told here. Michelle Williams and Paul Dano are the
parents who move their family, including “Sammy” and his two older sisters,
from New Jersey to Arizona and eventually to northern California, as the father
pursues a career designing computers (from RKO to GE to IBM). Of course, Sammy becomes interested in films
and filmmaking as he grows up, using super-8 and then 16mm cameras to document
important events in his life. He also makes gonzo fiction films with his
friends and eventually makes a film for his high school graduating class (1964)
documenting their excursion to a local beach (which has social ramifications
for teenage Sam, Gabriel LaBelle). But the
primary thread that leads through the film is Sammy’s relationship with his
parents and his realization that their own relationship has been compromised by
his mother’s love for “Uncle” Bennie (Seth Rogen). The principals manage this delicate emotional
drama well, (although the early scenes with the young Sammy and his train set
could have been shortened). It feels almost like another film when the family
moves to California and the drama shifts to Sam’s experience of high school and
away from the family: he dates a Jesus-loving teen, has run-ins with anti-Semitic
bullies, and comes of age. As written by Spielberg and Tony Kushner, the film
ebbs and flows, with some wonderful moments, particularly the small bits
provided to Judd Hirsh (crazy Uncle Boris) and David Lynch (director John Ford),
but it also possesses the same faintly mawkish flavour that is also a hallmark of
this director’s work.
Cate Blanchett
disappears into the role of Lydia Tár, the virtuoso conductor of the Berlin
Symphony Orchestra. But director Todd Field has more on his mind than just
allowing Blanchett to go deep into the character. His real aim would seem to be
an examination of the effects of power on people, going beyond the simple maxim
“power corrupts”. And it isn’t just Tár’s behaviour that Field examines but also
those around her, whether they be groupies, the jealous, or others basking in
her reflected glory. Clearly, being able to dictate outcomes for others has its
advantages and Tár brazenly uses those around her, especially the vulnerable or
those lowest in power (for sexual satisfaction but also as a demonstration of
her dominance). The fact that he made the conductor a lesbian woman is a hint
that Field wants to take the cultural discussion beyond the bad behaviour of
men in the #MeToo era to question whether their transgressions are a result of
gender or power – this might be taken as a political point (although clearly the
two are difficult to disentangle in the real world). But Blanchett often shows
Tár to be charismatic and her conductor seems genuinely interested in music
(especially in the very heady New Yorker interview sequence) and in bonding
with and supporting her young daughter. Even her bad behaviour (and it is very
clearly bad) might be seen as encouragement or offering opportunity to those who
show promise or who seek to follow in her footsteps, in the right light. Whether
she uses such reasons to justify her actions (essentially lying to herself)
remains hidden, although late in the film we get some clues (and it is tempting
to replay some scenes in your head later). Indeed, the film begins to take on
elements of the mystery or horror genre as we progress through it, feeling much
like an unsettling psychodrama with raw nerves and exposed emotion on display.
Although long, perhaps too long, it’s a knockout and a tour de force for the
actress and director.
Judging by IMDb, director Brett Morgen seems to work
principally on documentaries that take an expressionistic approach to the character
study. In the case of David Bowie, this approach really works. But it isn’t only the Ziggy Stardust era that
benefits from maximalist cut-and-paste, sound-and-vision, overdrive – the in-text
references (allusions to Bowie and non-Bowie related film clips) and non-diegetic
voiceovers (mostly disembodied Bowie talking metaphysics) are suitable for any
Bowie era. Interview clips allow Bowie to reflect on being Bowie, most enlighteningly
(I thought) about the Let’s Dance era and the dross that followed it. He was ready to be positive and to give the
audience what it wanted – and later, he regretted it. Good to know but he mostly lost me at that
point. Morgen gives relatively short
shrift to the 90s and beyond, even as I hoped for more about his final period
(The Next Day/Blackstar). But don’t come to this expecting a straightforward
narrative (or even a totally linear progression) because this is just a stream
of Bowie-consciousness. But is there
music, you are wondering. Of course
there is and it is great but it is much more likely to serve as a backdrop,
with only excerpts from live performances over the years (sometimes edited
together, so you see the different personas playing the same song at/on
different stages). Your mind does fill
in the gaps. And yes there are gaps, historical and otherwise, but again that’s
not really the point here. Would it be good in IMAX? Probably although you
might get dizzy, even if it isn’t non-stop action.
Conclusion: as a Bowie-fan of longstanding, I highly recommend
this. I’m even more impressed by the man
than I was before.
It isn’t just the
music, or the hair or the fashion, that evokes the 1980s but something else uncanny
that director Joanna Hogg has captured in this sequel to (or continuation of)
her 2019 film: a feel (and I should know because I was there – although not
in London where the film takes place). Honor Swinton Byrne again plays Hogg’s
former self (renamed Julie Harte), who we find back at film school, grieving
for her ex-boyfriend who died at the end of the first film, revealing a dark
and secret life. She’s shattered – living
with her parents (played by the actress’s real life mum Tilda Swinton and James
Spencer Ashworth) but slowly ready to face the world again. In this way the
film feels uplifting, as Julie begins to find her feet again, deciding to focus
her graduation film on her tragic relationship as a way of processing and
moving on from the past. (Indeed, Julie’s decision echoes Hogg’s own decision
to focus on these events of her past in The Souvenir Parts I and II, even though
her own graduation film, starring Tilda Swinton pursued a different topic). But
you can’t escape the moodiness that underscores the film’s arc and the choice
of period music highlights the moods (and change in mood) in Julie’s life – I felt
this film as much as watched it. For
those interested in the art of filmmaking, Hogg also provides a (sometimes scathing)
look at the behind-the-scenes world of film school and, in the final scene,
reminds us that The Souvenir: Part II is artifice rather than reality, created from
memory by someone who has survived and since prospered.
I’m not sure whether American movies were just better
in the 1970s or whether it is really just nostalgia for my childhood (those
cars, those clothes, those phones, etc.) that draws me in. Blockbusters aside,
the downbeat themes and plots of Seventies cinema also make them feel braver
and more distinctive than films from other decades. Even a popular entertainment such as The
China Syndrome, with its tightly wound plot and edge of your seat moments,
still comes across as disillusioned with, if not downright cynical about, America/the
American Dream. Jane Fonda plays
Kimberley Wells, the ambitious “lifestyle reporter” for a local L.A. TV station,
and Michael Douglas (who also produced) is Richard Adams, the hothead freelance
cameraman who is assisting her on a TV special about energy. They head out to the local nuclear power
plant where they just happen to witness a malfunction, nearly an accident, that
is prevented only by the quick wits of site supervisor Jack Godell (Jack
Lemmon). The incident is quickly swept
under the carpet by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, persuaded by California
Electric & Gas who are in the middle of building a second nuclear plant. However,
Godell knows something is not right – and ends up talking with Wells and Adams
about his misgivings. Naturally, corporate powers (both energy and media) line
up to squelch the story. The film is gripping from start to finish, even
without any soundtrack to cue our emotions. Director James Bridges keeps things
brisk, giving us just enough technobabble but no more, allowing Fonda, Douglas,
and especially Lemmon to give life to the otherwise schematic characters. We
feel their paranoia and their worry about how their choices might affect their future
careers or lives. Of course, the film was ultimately extremely prescient, as
the Three Mile Island accident happened within weeks of the film’s opening. Even now, 40+ years later, just thinking about
a nuclear meltdown is still scary as hell. Worth a rewatch?
I believe it is only a coincidence that I’ve watched
two movies featuring people stranded on deserted islands this month. First,
Lord of the Flies (1963) and now Anatahan (1953). Although similar in the
predicament of the protagonists (young boys after a plane crash vs. Japanese
soldiers after their boat sank) and in their inevitable descent from civilized
to instinctual, the films otherwise are very different. Brook’s film strove for
realism with the boys actually filmed in Puerto Rico on real beaches and in the
tropical jungle whereas Anatahan, which was Josef von Sternberg’s final film,
is as artificial as they come but stunningly so. In his earlier career, with
Marlene Dietrich as his muse, Sternberg was already a master of cinematography,
working with light and sets in an Expressionistic way. Anatahan was filmed
decades later on a soundstage in Kyoto with nary a beach or jungle in sight;
instead, foliage was constructed from paper and cellophane with the
Kabuki-trained actors front-and-center in the clearly unreal settings, dappled
with light and shadow.Even weirder,
Sternberg does not translate any of the Japanese spoken dialogue but provides a
voice-over narrative (in his own voice) that describes the action, often
offering asides and commentary, as if from the perspective of one of the
characters. (In one episode, he remarks that we are seeing scenes that he
couldn’t possibly have witnessed face-to-face so viewers are cautioned about
their veracity!). Whereas the boys in Lord of the Flies descend into “survival
of the fittest” tribal warfare, in Anatahan, when the stranded men discover
that they are not alone but share the island with an abandoned plantation owner
and his “wife”, Keiko (Akemi Negishi), their military discipline collapses into
sexual desire and jealousy. When a downed plane is discovered with two pistols
inside, the guns transform the power dynamics of the erstwhile community to allow
certain men to act on their desires. The events of Anatahan are based on a real
story – the stranded Japanese soldiers remained on the island for 7 years, long
after WWII had finished, and refused to believe American messages sent to them
declaring the war over and instructing them to return to Japan. They really
fought over a woman and a number of men really died. At one point, von
Sternberg inserts actual stock footage showing real Japanese soldiers returning
to their country in defeat after the war, a heartrending moment that stands
outside the film but calls attention to the motivated denial of the soldiers in
the story. Von Sternberg may have concocted the idea that these men were distracting
themselves from this harsh reality with coconut wine and sexual fantasies but
the Brechtian effects of the artificial sets and unusual narrative allow the
viewer greater latitude to contemplate the social and psychological
significance of the action. But if you just want to watch it for its dazzling and
strange beauty (and eroticism), go ahead!
Lord of the Flies (1963) – P. BrookAito was assigned to
read William Golding’s 1959 novel for his Year 7 English class and when he
finished, I located director Peter Brook’s film version on Kanopy and we
watched it. He felt it was quite
faithful although the filmmakers naturally cut out some sequences from the book
(and inexplicably the explanation of the title as well). The film starts when a
bunch of English kids, having survived a plane crash, find themselves alone on
a deserted tropical island (the film was actually shot in Puerto Rico). I couldn’t help but think immediately of 7
Up! the documentary series that has followed a bunch of British kids from the
early sixties until now (with films every seven years) – the actors in Lord of
the Flies could easily be drawn from the same cohort as the “real” kids in the
documentary series. So, would those real kids end up reverting to “primitive”
tribal instincts as those in the film do, if they were similarly stranded on a
deserted island? That is Golding’s (and
Brook’s) premise. The film, shot in gorgeous black and white, feels natural and
almost unscripted. Of course, some of the kids are better actors than others. Piggy
(Hugh Edwards) speaks with the determined emphatic and slow drawl of a young
Alfred Hitchcock – we feel for him, as he is targeted by the stronger popular
boys because of his weight and his glasses. Survival of the fittest perhaps but
our empathy is strongly with the reasonable rational and perhaps weaker (less
aggressive) kids. Brook and his team show us this world through the kids’ eyes
(full of spectacle, especially once they light those torches and don their
warpaint) but there is a harshness and cruelty here that is not for kids (even
if it is characteristic of them, when left to their own devices). An indelible
film, directed with an experimental eye but which never loses sight of the
narrative.
Michel Simon plays Monsieur Hire, an outsider,
probably Jewish, who is suspected by his neighbours of committing a murder
(which we know was really committed by a local thug played by Paul Bernard).
When the thug’s girlfriend returns from prison, having taken the rap for him,
she moves into M. Hire’s hotel and they become acquainted. He implies that he
has evidence that ties the real murderer to the crime and she feigns an
interest in him in order to get into his apartment. We learn his sad story (his
wife left him for his best friend) and feel sorry for him when he falls for the
girlfriend, Alice (Viviane Romance). Indeed, Alice also begins to feel sympathy
for M. Hire – but not enough to stop her from planting evidence of the murder
(the victim’s handbag) in his apartment, at the request of her lover. Once the
evidence is found, the gangster and his friends wind up the community, already
negatively predisposed against Hire, and soon a vigilante mob is formed. In
this way, the film is not dissimilar from other films which tell how easy it is
for malicious rumours to gain sway over a group (see also Fritz Lang’s Fury, 1936).
Coming just after WWII in France, it isn’t hard to read the film as a grimly
pointed commentary about those who collaborated. But, as directed by Julien Duvivier, the film
takes time to develop its central character (Hire) and dwells enough on Alice’s
psychology to give the audience a pang of regret when she suffers her
(deserved) fate. The plainly artificial sets harken back to Carné and Prévert’s
poetic realism but this film is less noir than melodrama but none the worse for
that.
Growing up in the 1970s and ‘80s, the Beatles’ music
was all around me – even though the band had been long broken up. My dad owned the red double album and my sister
and I memorized every word. Classic rock
radio played the hits from the blue double album anyway. Over the years, I
heard all of their most famous works.
Recently, the library gave me The Beatles: All the Songs by Margotin and
Guesdon (which I checked out when it was already “out of circulation”) and my
stepfather gifted me four Beatles CDs (I already had Revolver) since he streams
everything now. Let It Be wasn’t among
them – in fact, I never had much time for that one and I never watched the
original movie (Let It Be, 1970) directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg that included
footage from the making of the album (and which incidentally reinforced the
narrative that Yoko Ono had broken up the band by driving a wedge between John
Lennon and the others). So, when I had the opportunity to watch Peter Jackson’s
three-part (468 min) mini-series drawn from the 60 hours of footage shot by
Lindsay-Hogg, it came as something of a revelation. Here were the Beatles, around
age 28 in January 1969, sitting, first in Twickenham film studios and then in
their own Apple building studio, seemingly making up songs on the spot. We see the gestation of Get Back and its final
recording. Other songs seem to have been made up at home and brought in for
workshopping with the others. It’s an occasionally tense (George quits the band!)
but mostly relaxed affair, with a lot of goofing around by John and Paul. They
play their own past hits with ridiculous voices or slow tempos. They work on
songs that would later feature on Abbey Road or on solo albums (All Things Must
Pass, and a fragment that became Jealous Guy). There are some intense jams
involving John, Paul, and Yoko (with her unique vocal style), suggesting that the
reported ill will between these three was over-stated by the earlier film. This
is not to say that The Beatles weren’t nearing the end of their time as a group
– they recorded Abbey Road about six months later and then broke up for good
about six months after that when Paul objected to Phil Spector’s production techniques
on the Let It Be album. It had been originally conceptualised with a
back-to-basics approach, no overdubs or studio trickery, in effect the four
Beatles (plus Billy Preston who happens into the studio at just the right time
to add electric piano and ease some tensions) playing live again. And to top it
all off, after much debate, they finally do end up giving a 42 minute concert
on the rooftop of the Apple building (some songs played twice) and a few of
these songs, recorded live, ended up on the album. Listening to it now is a
much richer experience having seen the genesis of the songs and the working
process of the band. Peter Jackson’s presentation of the material, with each
day crossed off on a calendar as it passes, including plenty of full-length
performances, extended “candid” conversations, some drama, some nonsense, and
masterfully edited snippets, is explicitly noted to have been designed to be true
to the actual events and everyone involved (Paul and Ringo are executive
producers). A must see, if you’ve ever loved the Fab Four.
I suspect that I haven’t seen this movie since the
1980s, so it was a real head trip this time to reconcile the nearly 40-year
difference between “now” (2023) and the “now” of the film (1985 – when I was
turning 18 but Michael J. Fox playing a 17 year-old was actually 24) which is
actually longer than the difference between the film’s “now” and the year Marty
McFly (Fox) travels back to (1955 – 30 years).
In fact, at the end of the film Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) says he
plans to travel 30 years into the future, which would have been 2015 (8 years
ago). To add to this, I watched the
movie with my 10-year-old son (born in 2012). He was unfazed but my attention
was attracted to the telephones, cars, hair, clothes and music (e.g., Huey
Lewis) of the 1980s – these seemed more authentic than those featured in the recreation
of the 1950s (although how would I know, except from watching movies). The film itself seemed briefer than I
remembered. After some stage-setting scenes with his parents (Crispin Glover
and Lea Thompson) and Biff (his dad’s tormentor; Tom Wilson), Marty meets up
with Doc at 1:30 AM where he learns about the time machine (DeLorean car) and
the Libyan terrorists who want their plutonium back. They kill Doc as Marty
flees into the past – to 5 November 1955.
There he meets his parents but accidentally messes up the future by getting
hit by his grandfather’s car instead of his dad getting hit; this causes his mother
to fall in love with him instead of his father.
In order to set things straight (and protect his own future existence), Marty
needs to get his mom together with his dad. I had hesitated watching this with
Amon due to the sexual underpinnings of the plot (not to mention the scenes of
sexual violence that are pivotal to it) but we skated right through that. The
final half-hour of the film is like a master-class in creating tension, as
Marty’s ability to return to the present (and also warn Doc about the Libyan
terrorists) is nearly thwarted at every turn.
This was, of course, a huge hit for director Robert Zemeckis who has
prided himself on special effects throughout his career. There’s a classical
charm to the proceedings that makes the film work for both kids and adults, although
the datedness of the ‘80s is something that I still find hard to digest.
Folk horror, yes, but not quite what you might expect.
Sure, this is a tale of witches who steal babies and drink the blood of
slaughtered cottontails – but what makes it different is that, in this film, we
take the perspective of the witches and we are encouraged to feel empathy for
them. At the start of the film, in 19th century Macedonia, a
horribly scarred witch agrees not to kill a baby when the mother offers instead
to deliver the girl to the witch at age 16, claiming that the witch “won’t be alone”
if she takes possession of the to-be-teenager later. Fast forward a decade and
a half and although the mother has tried to hide the girl away in a cave for
many years, the witch still finds her and, through some gory magic, transforms
her into a witch as well. Later when they separate after a disagreement, the
young witch spies the older witch shape-changing into a dog and learns the
ritual which she subsequently uses to transform into various humans that she
encounters in the isolated mountain villages of Macedonia. We feel the young
witch’s burning curiosity about the life of the humans (female as well as male)
and take part in her explorations of their existence – it’s a very sensual
film. We also keenly feel her status as an outsider looking in. It seems
terrible to be forever on the outside. So, this is not really a genre picture,
but something deeper, more original. It
is the feature debut of Macedonia-born Australian director Goran Stolevski who
is surely one to keep an eye out for.
On the surface, Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s serial killer
thriller is just that, a police procedural slash horror film along the lines of
Seven (1995), taking place in a spooky decrepit Japan that would later show up
in J-Horror videogames. Koji Yakusho is the detective who needs to solve the
bizarre murders, all featuring an X slashed in the upper chest of the victims,
that are strangely committed by different perpetrators who are easily caught
and confess but can’t quite remember their own motives. Beneath the surface, there are much deeper
themes and preoccupations; the film is complex and each viewer might just have
their own interpretation of what happens. Eventually, the investigation settles on the
mysterious amnesiac, Mamiya (Masato Hagiwara), who refuses to answer any
questions but shows a keen interest in asking questions of others. His
questions seem to seek to uncover deep resentments in those he encounters and
Detective Takabe (Yakusho) is not immune to such prodding, since his wife
suffers from a serious mental illness and may represent a burden to him. As the
film progresses, we begin to worry that Takabe himself is losing his grip, a cliché
in this genre but the supernatural overtones in this case add an extra layer of
dread on top of the despair. As in some of his subsequent films, Kurosawa seems
to be questioning the ability for humans to really connect with each other, to transcend
their selfish and even petty individual preoccupations and bond. Even when
organised as a society, the implication here is that “hell is other people”
with social interactions and expectations leading to perceived slights and buried
resentments. But the film never says any of this explicitly – we never know
Mamiya’s motives – and even after the film winds down to its inevitable conclusion,
we are treated to one final scene that manages to leave things open-ended. Dark
and dismaying but a treat for fans of this genre.
Martin McDonagh’s Oscar nominated film comes across
like a quirky short story, the kind that we point to for examples of irony or
other literary forms. That is to say that the characters don’t always act in
predictable ways but they might represent an exaggerated aspect of human
nature, deployed to highlight or satirise ordinary traits or behaviours. Colin
Farrell plays Pádraic Súilleabháin, a regular bloke on the isolated isle of Inisherin
(off the western coast of Ireland) who wakes up to find that his best friend Colm
Doherty (Brendan Gleeson) no longer wants to talk to him. When he finds out that
Doherty now thinks he is “too dull”, he can’t let it go. The rest of the movie tells the story of
their dispute. At times, it is blackly comic. However, there is a deep sadness
here too, stemming in part from the situation that this isolated community
finds itself in back in 1923 Ireland. There’s a war on the mainland but the
more difficult factor is loneliness (felt most acutely by Pádraic’s spinsterish
sister Siobhán, played by Kerry Condon). Although he is often annoying, young
Dominic Kearney (Barry Keoghan) might be the most tragic character in the film,
even if he is thought to be the village idiot. His problems might clearly be
attributed to the problems of isolated communities but McDonagh (a playwright
who also wrote the screenplay) clearly has a bigger target in mind: the wayward
and obstinate decisions we humans make when we think about ourselves rather
than others. Cinematically, the film is all rocky cliffs topped with lush green
fields above beautiful lakes or oceans. The period setting and costumes are
beautifully observed. All four principals were deservingly nominated for
academy awards, as was the director and screenplay. Recommended.
This is only the second film by Apichatpong
Weerasethakul that I’ve seen, even though the Thai director has been making
features since 2000. The other was Uncle
Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010) which won the Palm D’Or at Cannes
that year. It should have prepared me
for the slow meditative pace of his new film, Memoria (which won the Jury Prize
at Cannes in 2021), but somehow the presence of Tilda Swinton and the
suggestion that this would be science fiction lured me into expecting something
different. However, the opening scene, which takes place at night in the near
dark and shows only Jessica (Swinton) hearing a loud earthy metallic sound and
waking up somewhat dazed to slowly look around, quickly reset my expectations. Once
I got myself in tune with the film’s thoughtful pace, I was mesmerized by its
mystery. What was the sound? Why can only Jessica hear it? She begins an
investigation, first consulting a sound engineer who manipulates an effects
library to try to reproduce the exact sound. This is Weerasethakul’s first film
outside of Thailand – it takes place in Colombia and Jessica soon drifts from
the city into the countryside where she meets a fisherman who declares that he
is a hard drive who stores all memories and she is an antenna who can read
them. They experience a connection. The film does not attempt to provide
answers to its mysteries but instead shows us a series of incidents and
encounters, primarily ambiguous, that allow viewers to reflect, think, and expand
their consciousness. I was reminded of the art of Jeff Wall while the camera
paused for lengthy amounts of time on clearly staged shots. What motivated the
artistic choices? Colour and composition are a highlight here and, given the
plot, sound design as well. This must
have been wondrous on the big screen.
The fourth feature from famed
documentarist/interviewer Errol Morris was partly an attempt to present Stephen
Hawking’s ideas about the universe and partly a biography of the renowned physicist.
Morris does use an assortment of talking heads (some famous physicists, some
family members) but this is before he started using the “interrotron” to better
capture direct eye contact to the camera. The contributions of the different
interviewees is variable but Morris fleshes everything out with perfect editing
of shots of Hawking, well-chosen found footage and striking animations that
seek to visualize concepts from the book: an expanding universe, black holes
(and people falling into them), etc. The soundtrack by Philip Glass heightens
everything. Although Hawking’s story is rather tragic, one never feels pity for
him – perhaps this is because of his wry sense of humour and/or the esteem his
colleagues feel for his achievements. His life story may have been somewhat sanitized
(his marriage broke down around the time of the film after an affair) but Morris
isn’t seeking to expose self-deception here (see his later The Fog of War, 2003, instead)
and in fact Hawking seems quite willing to acknowledge his own failings and
mistakes. In line with that, I’ll have to admit that I didn’t always grasp the
science depicted in the film but I always appreciated the spirit of scientific
inquiry. Moreover, the questions being addressed are stimulating enough for any
layperson. For what it is worth, we watched this in a double feature with 2001:
A Space Odyssey, another film that contemplates the universe and our place in
it.
I’ve watched this so many times over the years but, on
this occasion, it seemed even more lyrical than before, the many wordless
sequences (backed with classical compositions from Richard Strauss, Johann
Strauss, or Ligeti) in Super Panavision widescreen (albeit on my 55” TV)
creating absorbing moods (of tranquility or alternately, disorientation or
terror). Director Stanley Kubrick collaborated with writer Arthur C. Clarke
(based on his 1948 short story, “The Sentinel”) to develop the screenplay which
contemplates how alien intelligence may have intervened to influence human
evolution (via a giant black monolith). The film falls loosely into three
parts: 1) australopithecines find the monolith and learn to use tools; 2) early
21st century humans discover another monolith buried on the moon which
emits a signal aimed at the planet Jupiter – astronauts are sent there to
investigate; 3) one astronaut experiences another transformation.Of course, the longest sequence (the second) is
the most well-known and features HAL 9000, the artificially intelligent
computer which becomes paranoid after the astronauts, played by Keir Dullea and
Gary Lockwood, discover that it made a mistake. The final sequence drove some
patrons out of the theatre back in the Sixties and continues to create a
quizzical reaction. However, viewed as an experimental film, using analog
techniques, it is pretty sublime (and eventually returns to the narrative, sort
of). Indeed, the major achievement here is undoubtedly the painstaking
craftmanship that went into creating the spacecraft (and illusion of space)
with analogue methods (lots of models). Kubrick’s perfectionism may have driven
some crazy but it achieved a masterpiece.
