The China Syndrome (1979)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

The China Syndrome (1979) – J. Bridges

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?

Anatahan (1953)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Anatahan (1953) – J. von Sternberg

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!