Paul Schrader recently said (on
Letterboxd) that he was surprised how much “shoe leather” was involved in The French
Connection – and it is true, this is an action movie where the characters are
constantly on the move. Director William Friedkin and editor Jerry Greenberg do
a great job with the pacing of the film, introducing us to Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle
(Gene Hackman) and his partner “Cloudy” Russo (Roy Scheider) as they do some
routine drug busts in seedy parts of Manhattan then gradually showing them start
to suss out a much bigger deal going down.
That bigger deal involves Marseilles businessman (and major drug lord)
Alain Chartier (Buñuel favourite Fernando Rey) who arrives from France to make
the exchange in person. Doyle and Russo
have to tolerate the involvement of the Feds as they stake out the principals,
tail them on the subway, and even chase an El train by car (one of the most
famous car chases in cinema). As befits ‘70s
America, it’s a downbeat affair, but gripping all the way. Hackman’s Doyle is a shitty guy, racist, single-mindedly
willing to do anything (including break the law) to bust the perps; Scheider’s
Russo is along for the ride. Based on a true story and you aren’t surprised
that this is how the NYPD may have operated – the location settings add to the gritty
allure.
Positioned near
the end of Ealing Studios’ amazing run of comedies, many featuring Sir Alec Guinness,
The Ladykillers is also a caper film where whatever can go wrong does. This is no knock on the very clever armoured
car heist planned by Professor Marcus (Guinness wearing some very scary false
teeth) and his gang (including Cecil Parker, Herbert Lom, a young Peter Sellers,
and Danny Green). They just weren’t
prepared for Mrs Wilberforce (Katie Johnson), an old lady whose particular way
of doing things makes trouble for just about everyone and throws a spanner in
the gang’s plans. Although perhaps it
made sense for them to rent her spare room in the house by the railway tracks
(pretending to be a string quartet needing practice space, ha, ha), they didn’t
realise they’d have to contend with her parrots, nosy elderly friends, fondness
for reporting things to the police, etc. etc.
The pivotal moment in the plot here is not dissimilar from the final
catastrophe in Kubrick’s genre-related The Killing (1956), which came out the
next year. After that, the gang just can’t hold it together in the face of Mrs
Wilberforce’s scrutiny and will.
Director Alexander Mackendrick went on to make Sweet Smell of Success
(1957), an extremely bitter and cynical look at the media in New York, while
Guinness graduated to David Lean’s The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), both
leaving comedy behind (perhaps not completely). But what a way to go!
Another sci-fi
blockbuster in what has become a well-established genre going back to the
1950s, if not earlier. Project Hail Mary
nods to the past classics (2001, Close Encounters, E.T., Interstellar, etc.),
often explicitly. But, as directed by
Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (best known for directing The Lego Movie,
2014, as well as producing the various Spider-verse films) from Andy Weir’s
book, it has a very odd tone, perhaps goofy is the right word? (The movie’s
soundtrack definitely contributes to this tone). I kept asking myself whether
the film was designed primarily for kids (not unlike E.T.) because the level of
corniness and especially sentimentality is awfully high, especially for a film
that includes a worldwide disaster-level premise (instead of the world overheating
it is actually going to cool down by 10 or 15 degrees as some strange bacteria
seem to be eating away at the sun). Ryan
Gosling is essentially a one-man show as the scientist-turned-schoolteacher
sent thousands of lightyears away to solve the problem. The story is told partly in flashback, as we
learn how exactly Gosling (playing Ryland Grace) ended up in space with the
help of project director Sandra Hüller. Gosling is charismatic as usual but the
comical earnestness he’s tasked with sometimes feels a bit “cringe”. To say more about the film’s plot would
probably be criminal because it took me in directions I did not expect. In terms of its speculation about future
events, does it get it right? Looking back at the genre today, it often seems
prophetic (hello Hal) but also can end up being technologically dated. The same fate may befall Project Hail Mary
and I suspect that some aspects might seem silly decades down the track
(sillier than intended) but truly it is hard to say what it might have gotten
right. Overall, the film looked great (maybe even greater in iMax?) and I
certainly was never bored but I’m not sure I signed up for a buddy comedy?
Nail-biting suspense here, although director Henri-Georges
Clouzot takes his time to develop the characters and their desperate straits before
really getting stuck into the action.
Yves Montand plays Mario, one of a group of expats stranded in a poverty-stricken
South American village, doing odd jobs to get by, but mostly leeching off his
friend Luigi (Folco Lulli) and messing around with barmaid Linda (Vera
Clouzot). When older gangster-type Jo
(Charles Vanel) shows up looking to make money, he makes contact with the American
oil company drilling in the area, looking for an angle. Nothing doing, so he parks himself at the
local saloon and riles up the other expats as their frustrations mount. Then comes news that one of the oil rigs has
caught on fire; the Americans need to get some nitroglycerine to the site to
stop the burning. To save money, they decide not to wait for safer modes of
transport and offer $2K to anyone willing to drive ordinary trucks loaded with
nitro across rough terrain for 300 miles. The danger is high, but the men are
desperate. Mario, Jo, Luigi, and Bimba
(Peter van Eyck) sign up and commandeer two trucks that leave at dawn, spaced
30 minutes apart. The rest of the 156
min film is the tense journey, the obstacles along the way, the interpersonal
disputes, the stoicism, the fear, the mishaps (if that word can be used for
this sort of disaster). Like many a noir
or heist film, The Wages of Fear is a procedural with the characters taking
stock of each new problem (for example, a huge boulder stuck in the path) and
devising a solution to get beyond it. All the while, the trucks are poised to
blow up with the slightest wrong move.
Grand Prix winner at the Cannes Film Festival that year (before the Palm d’Or
was introduced as an award in 1955).
Until I rewatched The Terminator (1984) at the end of
last year (and Aliens, 1986, at the start of this one), I had forgotten what a
great director of action James Cameron was (having more or less tuned out after
Titanic, Avatar, etc.). So, I guess it
comes as no surprise (in this rewatch) that Terminator 2 plays out like one long
action sequence. This is (of course) a sequel but the original film’s sci-fi
plot with its potentially confusing time-travel elements did not really take
too long to explain to Amon (who missed the first one): AI-robots send a “terminator” (Arnold S.) back
in time to the kill the mother of the future leader of the revolution against
the machines before he is born (and a human also comes back with him, hoping to
protect Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), but ending up fathering the future hero
as well). As T2 begins, we are advised
that another terminator and another protector have come from the future – to the
90s – this time to kill John Connor (Edward Furlong) himself. So, when Arnold appears, naked as before,
seeking clothes, a gun, and a motorcycle, from the local biker bar, we think,
yup, that’s the terminator. Yet, this is
not the same Arnold that we saw in 1984 at the start of his career, more of a
monosyllabic tough guy (“I’ll be back” notwithstanding). Fast forward to 1991
and he’s revealed his comic side and presented a more charismatic face to the
world (beyond just the brawn). So, again no surprise that Arnold plays
John Connor’s protector in this film (reprogrammed by Connor himself in the future)
and the true bad guy, the T-1000 liquid metal terminator model, is played by Robert
Patrick. Patrick needs to kill Connor to stop the revolution but the heroic
trio need to stop not only T-1000 but also Joe Morton from using the remnants
of the Terminator from the first film to engineer the robots of the future who
eventually take over, setting this plot into motion. But the special effects
are really the star here, which is no slight on Hamilton’s buffed up Sarah,
Patrick’s steely singlemindedness, Furlong’s cocky but vulnerable teen, or
Schwarzeneggar’s compelling schtick (“Hasta La Vista, Baby!”). Nevertheless, despite so many minutes given
over to sheer action (and shape-shifting Patrick), by the time we get to the
ending, the film has earned its emotional conclusion (which might have prevented
the opportunity for a sequel, given that the future can change, but you know). You might call this one of the sequels that
tops the original but I do have a fondness for the trashy low-budgetness of the
first.
Amon did not make it through to the bitter end (too
slow, he said) which means he missed the climactic scene which reveals the mysterious
motives of Charles Bronson’s “Harmonica” as he flashes back to his first
meeting with Henry Fonda’s evil Frank nor the denouement which finds Harmonica
and Jason Robards’ Cheyenne saying farewell for the last time, leaving Claudia
Cardinale’s Jill to move forward from the Old West to the New West, as the
train arrives at the station still being built in Sweetwater. Under Sergio
Leone’s operatic direction, the plot moves like tectonic plates shifting each
character inevitably toward this conclusion. Admittedly, it does take a while
to get to this rewarding pay-off. Who
knew that this was meant to be Leone’s final Western and he had hoped to kill
off Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach, and Lee Van Cleef at the start of the
film? When Eastwood declined, he opted
for Woody Strode, Al Mulock, and Jack Elam instead in what remains an amazing
near silent opening scene (if not a cosmic joke on those hoping for another
Good, Bad, and Ugly). That 10-minute scene tells us right from the outset that
Leone planned to use the widescreen format as a huge tapestry with geometrically
opposed characters as well as giant close-up heads (not to mention a short scene
in Monument Valley, as an ode to John Ford, shot away from the regular set-up
in Spain and Cinecittà). Also sweeping through the film is Ennio Morricone’s
music, replete with themes attached to the characters, which builds on the
Spaghetti Western soundtracks of the past decade – the sound is immediately recognizable
and perfect for the final duel. Despite the determined pace, there are numerous
iconic scenes where Leone builds suspense, such as when Cheyenne rescues
Harmonica from Frank in railway exec Morton’s railcar. Sure, it might take a
while for some parts of the plot to become lucid to first-time viewers but when
viewed again (and again), one can see Leone’s full vision playing out in majestic
harmony. An elegy for the Old West, yes, but also a damning critique of
capitalism even if the film still somehow holds out hope for a new sense of community
going forward. Masterful.
Crock of Gold: A Few Rounds with Shane MacGowan (2020)
– J. Temple
It doesn’t take much to pull me backwards into the
ocean of nostalgia, letting its waves wash over me as I escape the present. Better still, when I’m able to update the
past and situate it in the here and now (or at least more recently than then),
as you can with a good music doco. But it’s
a guilty pleasure, since I feel internal pressure to live in the present, aware
of current culture (or at least those culture-makers of my own generation).
With regard to Shane MacGowan, singer-songwriter of The Pogues, who it turns
out was 10 years older than me (he died in November 2023 and Nick Cave sang at
his funeral), I first came across him more or less contemporaneously in the
1980s. I bought the band’s 2nd
LP, “Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash” (1985) around that time and then quickly caught
up by purchasing their first, “Red Roses for Me” (1984). Having some Irish heritage (through my
mother) didn’t hurt the attraction to this punk version of traditional music
from the Emerald Isle -- and MacGowan’s blend of poetry, history, and
confrontation was simpatico with the English Literature, Philosophy, and Psychology
classes I was taking then. In 1988, my sister and I saw The Pogues in Boston
for the “If I Should Fall from Grace with God” (3rd LP) tour – it was
the summer, hot in the nosebleed seats of the Orpheum Theatre, and the show was
shaggy, replete with a cover of “Honky Tonk Women” featuring Joe Strummer on
guitar. Little did I know (until I
watched this film) that this was part of the year-long worldwide tour that
broke MacGowan. Indeed, the film is (not
unexpectedly) a cautionary tale, charting MacGowan’s downward trajectory (a
result of alcohol, drugs, and hard touring) to the point where he is captured
in the film’s many on camera interviews and conversations (with various friends
such as Sinn Féin’s Gerry Adams and movie star Johnny Depp) in a very sorry
state, full of bile and slurred bitterness (but also fond longing and some
misguided hope for the future). Personally, after the 1988 show, I began to
lose interest – the band’s next album did not seem as good and I eventually
sold all of their records when I moved abroad. Little did I know then that
MacGowan had lost his mojo. Director Julien Temple, with many music videos and
docos under his belt, uses a variety of styles and techniques (including new animation,
repurposed footage from old movies, video of The Pogues, interview in pubs,
etc.) to tell MacGowan’s story from childhood to the pre-Pandemic present, with
most of the runtime focused on the late ‘70s to early ‘90s. Pivotal moments include: MacGowan’s early
childhood in Tipperary before moving to London at age 6; his engagement with
the punk scene after seeing the Sex Pistols and forming his own band, the
Nipple Erectors; his light-bulb moment when he fused Irish tradition with punk
rock; and then the 1988 tour that extinguished his flame or so the story goes. There are a few decades after that but
MacGowan, although heralded by his contemporaries and followers, seems burnt
out, a shell of a man, an ex-junky soon confined to a wheelchair, and now dead.
After the film, I listened to some of his best songs, many of them sentimental
but poetic ballads (“A Pair of Brown Eyes”, “Dirty Old Town”, “A Rainy Night in
Soho”, “Fairytale of New York”, “And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda”) and I
fell briefly into a reverie.
I received this blu-ray as a gift (thanks Jen &
Pete!) close to the release date back then and hadn’t watched it since – so I
completely forgot the twists in the plot. I’m not quite sure whether I would
have chosen this last night if I had remembered but there’s no doubt about its
impact. Director Denis Villeneuve handles
the unfolding plot, which sees Canadian twins travelling back to an unnamed
Middle Eastern country to find their unknown father and never-before-mentioned
brother after being instructed to do so in their mother’s will, with aplomb. Although
the terrain is dusty, Villeneuve dots the screen with teal blue, whether it be
a bus travelling through the dangerous South in the flashbacks of the mother (Lubna
Azabal) and her life during an early 1970s civil war, or the garments worn by
those visited by Jeanne (Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin) or Simon (Maxim Gaudette) in
the modern scenes. Based on a play by Wadji Mouawad, the film is structured
like a detective story, with the twins uncovering clues about their mother and
her relationships on the way to a final revelation that plays like Greek tragedy
borne out of the horrors of war. I guess
Mouawad didn’t name the war-torn country so that the themes could generalize to
all war-torn areas in the world, which unfortunately seem to have increased
since the film was made. As usual, it is
the poor and powerless who suffer the most. Worth a rewatch (if you are ready
for serious fare).
Apparently, Spielberg meant this as an homage to old
films noir – or at least they are a stated influence on this film (which is a mélange
of many influences). This allowed me to get over what seemed to be a flawed
ending, too obvious, too slow to play out once the villain is already exposed –
but, in actuality, many of the old noirs (especially those with late-breaking
villains) also played out in this way. And Minority Report’s ending, when you
ponder it, isn’t quite as simple as it seems because the villain’s choice
really could have gone either way, cementing the fact that it was a choice
(i.e. the key to the whole film). Seeing this film again (decades later) made
me think I really need to read more Philip K. Dick novels, having only read A
Scanner Darkly, which was great, claustrophobic and paranoid, but great. Minority Report is also paranoid, about a
future where three “pre-cog” individuals (led by Samantha Morton) lay in a
milky pool in a Washington DC office building having visions of future murders,
either premeditated (brown ball) or crimes of passion (red ball). This has
enabled a “pre-crime” task force to apprehend murders before they actually
commit their crimes. The Year is 2054
and they chase criminals using jetpacks. Of
course, this is also a Tom Cruise action film, but don’t let that dissuade you –
he’s playing a drug-addicted father of child who has been abducted (and
presumably killed). So, there’s a grimness to the film that is solidified by
its murky cinematography (by Janusz Kaminski) providing glimpses to a high tech
but grimy future (with shadowy burnt out areas not unlike those in Escape from
New York). Once the plot kicks into high gear, there are some action scenes,
allowing Cruise to strut his stuff, but the vibe here is dark, not fun. Worth a
relook, if it has been awhile.
After a stressful week, I was looking for a calming
film and finally settled on this late colour classic from Yasujirō Ozu, which I
hadn’t watched in ages. It always felt a bit different in his oeuvre from the
well-known and very familiar-feeling classics (Late Spring, Tokyo Story, Early
Summer, even Late Autumn which is also in colour). Perhaps this is because he
had the opportunity to make this film for Daiei studios rather than his contractual
home Shochiku. Or maybe it was working
with celebrated cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa (Rashomon, Yojimbo, Ugetsu,
Sansho the Bailiff, etc.)? Also, it was his first time working with Machiko Kyôand Ganjirô Nakamura (two Daiei stars) – they play
travelling actors, presenting rough and ready kabuki shows to country towns in
Japan. Nakamura was actually a very
well-established kabuki actor so he pressed Ozu to change the name of the film
from “The Ham Actor” because he thought that might tarnish his reputation. He also refused to appear on stage in the
film so his badness is only implicit.
The plot sees the troupe arrive in a small seaside town where Nakamura
meets up with an old flame (Ozu favourite Haruko Sugimura) with whom he had an
illegitimate son, now a young adult. When his latest flame (Kyô) cottons on to
this, she causes trouble for the son and for Nakamura’s “Master”. So, it’s a family drama of common people
(shomingeki) just like Ozu’s other films -- and the “family” here is under stress
and falls apart just as in some of his other films. Other Ozu trademarks – static tatami-level
shot-reverse shot combinations, red objects in the frame, still life “pillow
shots” as punctuation, are all here.
Yet, the film (for all its sadness and conflict) feels light-hearted and
often breezy, possibly due to the Nina Rota-like (Fellini-esque) music and the
bright colours. With this combination of
emotions and especially the film’s ending, where life goes on, I guess we might
agree it is wistful (perhaps mono no aware?). So, as an antidote to a stressful
week, it worked a charm.
Shayne P. Carter is probably best known for leading the
Flying Nun band Straitjacket Fits in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, as
singer/guitarist/songwriter.They were
part of a New Zealand music scene (along with the Chills, the Clean, the Bats,
the Verlaines, etc.) that became popular in the college radio scene in the US
while I was a d.j.I don’t think I ever
saw them live back then but I admit that they weren’t my favourites from the
scene, tending toward something more dramatic, possibly like arena rock (if Flying
Nun could ever reach that scale), which wasn’t exactly my cup of tea. That
said, songs like “She Speeds” and “Hail” were on heavy rotation in my world. I didn’t know them at the time but Carter’s
earlier band, the DoubleHappys, fit my indie-rock mold better (I discovered
them later). Perhaps the difference was in Carter’s collaborators, trading bassist
and songwriting partner Wayne Elsey for David Wood (bass) and Andrew Brough
(guitar/vocals), retaining drummer John Collie. Tragically, Elsey had been
killed while on tour, falling from a train in Carter’s presence (they were both
only 21), which had a traumatic impact and affected Carter’s life as well as
his musical direction.A moving single, “Randolph’s
Going Home” (in collaboration with Peter Jefferies), was Carter’s way of paying
tribute to his friend and documenting the tragedy.Later, Straitjacket Fits got signed to Arista
Records before imploding and subsequently Carter founded Dimmer who have had
continued success in New Zealand.In
2019, Carter published his autobiography which inspired filmmaker Margaret
Gordon to track him down to make a film out of it.Like many Kiwis, Gordon has spent time in
Melbourne and has contacts with some of my friends who were drawn to
collaborate on the film (Reece Sanders worked on motion graphics and Simon
Wright helped with some editing, I think).When the producers struggled to afford to pay for the music rights for
some of the clips, I contributed $50 to their kickstarter campaign (and have my
name in the credits – is this a conflict of interest for this review?).
Although I didn’t get to see the film on the big screen when local shows happened
here last year, I did see Carter’s solo show at the Northcote Social Club (which
was great). I also bought his solo album from 2016 (Offsider) on bandcamp,
which is a stark piano-based affair, an instrument Carter apparently taught
himself for this release (recommended!); he’s also recorded with an orchestra,
provided accompaniment to stage performances, and generally taken artistic
challenges and risks rather than played it safe.I finally had the chance to watch the film on
Amazon Prime last night and, having spent the last year refamiliarizing myself
with Carter and his music, I found this a deep and moving experience.He’s an amiable character, funny and self-deprecating
despite his success. Beyond the music (which is well-documented here from the
early Dunedin scene to beyond), Gordon’s film takes us into Carter’s personal
experiences growing up half-Maori/half Pakeha (European), feeling that he didn’t
belong in either culture. Since he didn’t
feel comfortable reading passages from his memoir aloud for the film, he
recommended NZ newsreader Carol Hirschfeld to do this instead, an odd conceit
but well explained (and which also informs us a bit more about Carter’s
character and the walls of defence he has erected, which may also include his
humour). At any rate, I am pleased to say that the doco is never less than
engaging, finding a way through editing, music, graphics, found and shot
footage (visiting old haunts), and carefully chosen talking heads(archival and new) to flesh out Carter’s story and the
adjacent stories of his bandmates and other scenesters (he volunteered as a
carer for Chris Knox after the latter’s stroke!). This is a film and an artist
that you should definitely check out!I’ve
been re-evaluating Straitjacket Fits and Dimmer now in this new enriched light.
Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger
(2024) – D. Hinton
Martin Scorsese is omnipresent talking about film, particularly classic
films and film preservation. He has 493 “self” credits on iMDb which is
probably an underestimate. Occasionally,
he has made his own documentaries or essay films about his relationship with
cinema and the influence of movies he’s seen on his own oeuvre, such as A Personal Journey
with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies (1995) or My Voyage to Italy
(1999). This time, as directed by David
Hinton, he talks us through his feelings about the films of Michael Powell and
Emeric Pressburger (and their production company The Archers). I’m also a big fan of this duo – there are 16
reviews on my two blogs for films directed by Powell and often also written by Pressburger.
I gave 5 stars to The Thief of Bagdad (1940), I Know Where I am Going (1945)
and Black Narcissus (1947) and 4.5 stars to The Edge of the World (1937), A
Canterbury Tale (1944), A Matter of Life and Death (1946), and Peeping Tom
(1960). Scoresese has a particular affinity for the ballet films, The Red Shoes
(1948; 4 stars) and The Tales of Hoffmann (1951; which I still haven’t watched all
the way through) as well as The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943; which I
need to watch again and review). He narrates his way through all the films with
a healthy dose of clips and also links them to choices he made in his own films
(primarily Raging Bull, 1980). He highlights the risks they took -- their
experiments with plot, Technicolour, composition – and their fierce
independence (leading to many ruptures with producers and companies). Scorsese
also discusses his real interpersonal relationship with Powell who became a
friend and mentor and who eventually married Scorsese’s longtime editor Thelma
Schoonmaker. He talks a lot about Powell’s love for England and his embodiment
of the stereotypical English reserve.
Pressburger, a Hungarian Jew who moved to Berlin and then escaped to
England, also gets his fair share of behind-the-scenes stories and clips. In
all, it’s a touching and insightful tour through the Archers’ body of work,
although inevitably it contains an arc that moves from success to decline and
disregard. Fortunately, Scorsese isn’t the only voice heralding the cinematic
output of this great duo (and they were finally re-appreciated in their
lifetimes). If you haven’t checked out any of their great films, what’s
stopping you?
I’m pretty sure I didn’t really appreciate the Minutemen
when I saw them open for R.E.M. at the Mosque Theatre in Richmond, VA, in the Fall
of 1985 (except perhaps their Creedence cover “Have You Ever Seen the Rain?”).
This turned out to be their final tour before singer/guitarist/lyricist d. boon
died in a van accident in December of that year. Knowing that outcome adds a lot of extra
emotional weight to this otherwise straightforward doco about the band – even the
predictable ex-punk talking heads seem to have an extra level of tenderness toward
the band. Of course, a lot of that
devotion is due to the striking contribution of this band to music
history. They were punk, yes, but not in
the stereotypical sense. Instead, they were flying flannel as self-professed
corn-dogs out of San Pedro, CA, ready to absorb classic rock, country, jazz, and
everything else they heard into their short sometimes abrasive songs; they grew
into musicians with superb creative technique (drummer George Hurley gets many
kudos here). Our guide through the band’s history is bass
player/singer/lyricist Mike Watt, now an elder statesman of the music scene (as
well as in 2005). I guess I did not realise how many of the band’s songs he
wrote himself (nor the fierce rivalry between him and d. boon) – thinking about
it now, you can see the difference between boon’s political lyrics and Watt’s
more narrative take (esp. on “History Lesson Part 2” of course). He’s down to
earth, switched on, and authentic in his spiel. I’ve got 3 or 4 of the band’s
albums, including their opus Double Nickels on the Dime, which was designed not
only to compete with Husker Du’s Zen Arcade, another double LP, but was a reference to Sammy Hagar’s “I can’t drive 55” because his driving might have
been crazy/exciting but his music was boring – the Minutemen opted for the
converse, boring driving (at 55 or below) but crazy/exciting music.
Let’s face it, after the high-water marks of Walkabout
(1971) and Don’t Look Now (1973), director Nicolas Roeg never really made it as
an auteur (he also co-directed Perfomance, 1969, with Donald Cammell and served
as cinematographer for Lester, Schlesinger, Truffaut, others). This might be his last hurrah (though there
were other attempts to follow this theme to come). Perhaps following on from
the cut-up technique he used to edit the Julie Christie-Donald Sutherland sex scene
in Don’t Look Now, he used that technique for Bad Timing, although for the
entire film. Some reports suggest the film
was shot as a straightforward erotic thriller and only later sliced and diced (à
la William Burroughs) but I prefer to see it as a puzzle film, intended as
such. After Tom Waits’ “Invitation to the Blues” plays, we are in an ambulance
with Art Garfunkel tending to a comatose Theresa Russell (subsequent versions
of this scene include “Who Are You”). From there, we jump back and forth in
time across their (intense) relationship. It’s an “opposites attract” scenario
with free spirited Russell living in the moment and Freudian psychotherapy
professor Garfunkel trying to control her. In keeping with Garfunkel’s
occupation, sex and death are the main themes here, but it isn’t clear who is
unravelling more as the film “progresses” (or just as more details are added to
beginning, middle, and end). At some point,
we realise that Harvey Keitel is actually a police detective investigating
whether any malfeasance has taken place on the night that Russell was sent to
the hospital and suspicion rests on Garfunkel. Things do conclude with a
revelation and I guess that cements the feeling that both characters are equally
damaged by this oil-and-water affair. But the reason to watch this film (if you
are fully prepared) is for the madness and intensity and brave acting by both
Russell (who subsequently married Roeg) and Garfunkel (previously in Carnal
Knowledge, 1971, another risky choice) who don’t shy away from nakedness
(physical or emotional). Reviews suggest
this is polarizing (no surprise).
This is the fourth Sean Baker film I’ve watched and I
came to it a bit late, after all the hype surrounding its Best Picture Oscar
win (and the Best Director, Screenplay, and Editing wins for Baker) has died
down. I wasn’t sure if I was prepared to
like it, given the Cinderella story marketing frame, to which I only barely
paid attention, seemed a bit cliché. And, as the film unfolded, the blue-collar
erotic dancer meets spoiled Russian heir plot seemed just an opportunity to
show decadence on the screen rather than to explore any meaningful ideas about
class differences. But then the fairytale
plot evaporated and the intensity and stress racheted up, scene by scene, so
that this felt more like a Safdie Brothers outing (although I haven’t yet seen
their solo efforts) than the keenly/wryly observed naturalistic films of Baker’s
oeuvre (e.g., Red Rocket, 2021; The Florida Project, 2017; Tangerine, 2015). The
chaos and breakdown of relations between the characters is both comic and harsh
and although Anora (Best Actress Mikey Madison) remains the heart of every
scene, there are some excellent character turns by Karren Karagulian and Vache
Tovmasyan. Still, it was hard to tell if this was just a thrill ride for
viewers or something deeper – and then the final scene between gangster/minder
Igor (Yura Borisov) and Ani/Anora made the film for me. Not only did this
provide the necessary emotional release for the character but it revealed just
how many defenses had been up, perhaps for a very long time, as a protective
shield necessary in a hard hard world (even if the temptation to dream about
that fairytale might be omnipresent, if not fully conscious).
I was very enamoured with Park Chan-wook’s previous
film, Decision to Leave (2022), a hazy film noir romance that felt like an ode
to Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958). Now his
new film takes a Donald Westlake novel (The Ax, previously adapted by
Costa-Gavras, to whom this film is dedicated) and turns it into a dark comedy
about our era of industrial transformation and the mass layoffs it is creating. Man-su (Lee Byung-hun) works for a large Korean
paper company that is taken over by an American corporation that promptly sacks
a chunk of its workforce including Man-su.
An expensive present from the company (an eel dinner) foreshadows the
pink slip. The film then follows Man-su
and his family, including his wife Miri (Son Ye-Jin) and two children, Si-one
and Ri-one, a possibly autistic cello prodigy and a typical teen getting himself
into trouble, as they cope with the disaster. The family struggles to make ends
meet (Miri goes to work as a dental assistant) and with the bank about to
foreclose on the family home, Man-su hatches a desperate plan to ensure that he
is the prime candidate for any job opening at other paper companies (there seem
to be quite a few). The film takes its
time as Man-su identifies his competition and builds up the courage to take
them out. Of course, it’s messy, and Man-su creates too many clues and loose
ends for the police to follow -- but director Park revels in the opportunity to
create eccentric characters, stage some magnificent shots in beautiful colour
(kudos to cinematographer Kim Woo-hyung), and basically let things get weird
and goofy. Lee Byung-hun holds it all together
with a charismatic performance (rightfully nominated for a Golden Globe). Another
highlight in Park’s already excellent oeuvre.
It’s probably easy to underestimate Aki Kaurismäki,
the 68-year-old Finnish director. His films are short, understated, and droll.
In Fallen Leaves, the characters interact in a version of Helsinki filled with
movie posters – including for films by Bresson, Godard, David Lean, and Jim
Jarmusch (whose film, The Dead Don’t Die, 2019, the central couple go to see). This
provides some hints about Kaurismäki’s intent – his film may feel slight, but
it is actually linked carefully to film history, though unique in its own style.
Bresson is a clear inspiration because we often see the characters doing
things, small things like looking at the expiry date on food or sweeping a factory
floor, which puts viewers in an existential mindset (thinking about doing and
being). This is part of the so-called “Proletariat Trilogy” (the fourth film,
following 1990’s The Match Factory Girl) which speaks to the class differences
which were pivotal to Godard’s politicised cinema; including ongoing reports of
the war in Ukraine every time a radio is switched on also reminds us of Godard’s
intertextual approach (his bold colour palette also shows kinship). As far as the plot goes, David Lean’s Brief Encounter
(1945) seems to be a touchstone, although in Fallen Leaves, Alma Pöysti’s Ana
and Jussi Vatanen’s Holappa aren’t married to others and approaching an affair –
they are just lonely strangers who struggle to make their connection
happen.Kaurismäki observes them
nonjudgmentally (even when Holappa’s behaviour is clearly self-destructive, but
with a wry eye that suggests that finding humour in life is one way to survive
its repeated letdowns. Bemusing sequences, such as in the karaoke bar, are
played as deadpan as you can get (a tendency also shared with his friend Jarmusch).
Things go wrong, yes, but it’s never as bad as it seems – or at least the
characters pull themselves together and get on with it (as existential
proletariats must do). Music ties the whole thing together, bringing the
melancholy, especially with a Finnish version of the French song “Les Feuilles Mortes”
(known in English as “Autumn Leaves”, and translating to the film’s title here)
and a Finnish version of Gordon Lightfoot’s Early Mornin’ Rain. Holappa’s
friend Huotari (Janne Hyytiäinen) sings a traditional Finnish ballad at karaoke
and indie-rock duo Maustetytöt get showcased in a bar. Definitely worth 80
minutes of your time.
My Fellini period was decades ago, in the 1990s; so
revisiting Nights of Cabiria felt almost like seeing a new film. Yet, Fellini’s early style, mixing (Italian) neo-realism
with something more personal, poetic, episodic, remained familiar. This film
belongs to Giulietta Masina (Fellini’s wife and muse) who plays Cabiria, a
downtrodden prostitute with an indomitable spirit (she won the Best Actress
award at Cannes for this performance). The arc of the film follows Cabiria
(full circle?) from our first glimpse of her being pushed into a river (nearly
drowning) by a seedy paramour only after her purse, through a series of
encounters where we see other sides of her, sometimes disparaged but often her
(not clichéd but perfectly acted) heart of gold shows through and invites
warmer treatment, eventually from a gentle accountant (François Périer) who
promises to take her away from the life. Emotions follow this same arc: bitter,
melancholy, playful, amazed, despondent, resilient. Fellini started as a
screenwriter and his talent shines here. The sets and locations, from squalor (older
prostitutes living in caves) to astounding luxury (the film star’s mansion), allow
Masina to act as the viewer’s emissary to unknown worlds, adding empathy and
identification. Is she looking for true
love? Well, so are we. After this, Fellini
moved onto the decadence of La Dolce Vita.
Director Alice Rohrwacher’s most recent feature and
her first since her breakthrough with Happy as Lazzaro (2018).(She seems to make a lot of shorts).La Chimera feels very European (Rohrwacher is
Italian), even if it stars British Josh O’Connor (he barely speaks and usually
in broken Italian). Isabella Rossellini plays a matriarch (the mother of O’Connor’s
lost girlfriend). As in Lazzaro, there’s a communal feel to the casting, with a
lot of amateurs, possibly non-actors, in bit parts or just part of the gang. Is
this Fellini-esque? Rohrwacher also seems to enjoy gazing at faces. The blurb
at iMDb seems to position this as some sort of arthouse Indiana Jones but I have
to tell you that even though O’Connor plays a sort of archeologist (or perhaps
just a graverobber), this is not that (although there are some beautiful
arthouse shots!). Instead of action, we get an elusive meditation on our
connections to the past, both cultural (as in the hunt for artefacts or lost treasures)
and personal (as in returning to one’s old haunts or dwelling in one’s thoughts
about people who have passed). Not so much bringing the past to light in the
present but perhaps escaping to the past, not necessarily but especially one’s
own past, not an updated version? But that’s just one of the themes and ideas
free-floating through the film. Rohrwacher again toys with magical realism with
O’Connor also a sort of dowser for graves, overcome when near treasure-filled hollows
in the ground. But how do these lost souls feel about giving up their riches?
It seems to me that Frank Capra is one of those filmmakers
that you first encounter as a child or youth (from It’s a Wonderful Life, 1946,
to Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, 1939, and maybe to Mr. Deeds Goes to Town,
1936), when his “Capra-Corn”, full of sentimentality and simple populist
politics, can have its biggest impact.But there’s no denying the pleasures available to adult viewers in a
film like It Happened One Night (1934), winner of 5 Oscars for Capra,
screenwriter Robert Riskin, and stars Claudette Colbert and Clark Gable, not to
mention Best Picture.Gable is at his charismatic
best as the no-nonsense straight-talking but principled reporter who gets
drunk, gets fired, and then stumbles onto the story of a lifetime: heiress
Colbert has run away from her over-protective banker father (Walter Connolly)
to elope with an older aviator, acknowledged by all to be a fraud. When her bag
is stolen, bystander Gable helps her to navigate the journey from Miami to New
York to meet her fiancé (by night bus and other modes of transport), teaches
her about hitch-hiking (the thumb!), piggy-back rides, and donut-dunking – and also
falls in love with her. There are some highly-charged erotic moments when the
couple are separated by the Walls of Jericho (a blanket suspended between two
twin beds). When they aren’t fighting (which is most of the time), you can see
the care developing between them.Anyway, it’s a comedy with the kind of plot that puts all sorts of
obstacles in the way of young love until we reach the requisite happy ending. They
don’t make them like this anymore.
For some reason, I haven’t checked in with director Yorgos Lanthimos for quite a while (last time was The Favourite, 2018), so I missed his two previous collaborations with Emma Stone. After watching Bugonia, also starring Stone, I think I’m going to need to go back and catch up. To be honest, I wasn’t certain that I would like this one. I mean, “conspiracy theorists who kidnap a CEO because they think she is an alien” sounded either too facile or trying too hard to be weird. So, the film had to work hard to convince me – and by the time it was done (with those amazing freeze-frame shots), I was convinced. Jesse Plemons and Aidan Delbis play the conspiracy theorists, none too bright, but Plemons (playing “Teddy”) is clearly obsessed while Delbis (playing “Don”) appears to have some sort of disability and is more ambivalent (and not lacking in empathy). The film plays out sort of exactly how you think it would – CEO denies being an alien but tin-foil-hat guys persist. Yet Lanthimos keeps adding extra details and the cast fully inhabit their roles, going for broke. To say that this production pushed things as far as they possibly could is probably an understatement. Weird, but not only for weirdness’s sake – there are some deeper themes here about corporate greed (of course), the destruction of the environment (particularly bees – which relates to the ancient Greek origin of the film title) but also about power’s need for victims (even the cop-babysitter evokes this) and the merry path to hell that we humans are currently traversing… Perhaps this could be read as one big cosmic joke but the final moments arrested that thought. Highly recommended.
I guess I lost track of director Kelly Reichardt since
the pandemic but I have enjoyed all of her films that I’ve seen (particularly
Old Joy, 2006, and First Cow, 2019). With The Mastermind, Reichardt has brought
her technique and themes to the heist drama. (It is always hard to know whether
these arthouse directors choose to make genre films to attract a wider
audience, for commercial prospects, or because, like many of us, they are truly
fond of the genres). The setting is Framingham, Massachusetts, circa 1970.
Reichardt and her team (including longtime cinematographer Christopher Blauvelt)
use film stock and camera techniques to evoke films shot in this period (gauzy,
washed-out colour) alongside pitch-perfect art design and set-decoration and costumes
(furniture, cars, buildings, shirts, dresses, etc.).The plaintive jazz soundtrack by Rob Mazurek
lends an emotional note to the proceedings even when some scenes are scored
only by extended drum solos. The plot centres on Josh O’Connor’s failing
carpenter/architect/art-school graduate, married (to Alana Haim) with two young
sons, who concocts a plan to steal some abstract paintings from the local art
gallery with a couple of local guys/friends. Reichardt takes us step-by-step
through the caper and its aftermath in true slow-cinema style, allowing viewers’
awareness of the genre to fill in some of the gaps in the plot as she hones in
on a character study of O’Connor’s “mastermind”. Rather than using other
characters to psychoanalyse him, Reichardt allows O’Connor’s actions (and the little
bit of context we glean about him and his past) to help viewers to draw their
own conclusions. The film concludes, with Vietnam War protests on TV and on the
streets, with a sort of sudden ironic joke and no denouement (possibly one could
see 2/3 of the film as a long long denouement, I guess!). Slow but always absorbing.
Ostensibly narrated by a primary school girl from
whatever small town in America the film takes place, lending a fable-like
quality to the proceedings, we begin the tale with the key mystery to be
solved: on one particular school day, all of the students in one classroom
(save one) fail to turn up to school (in fact, they each left their houses at
2:17 AM and disappeared). Distressed parents focus their anger on the class
teacher, played by Julia Garner. The film is divided into three parts: Justine’s
story (the classroom teacher), Archer’s story (one of the parents, played by
Josh Brolin), and Alex’s story (the one boy who did show up for school, played
by Cary Christopher). Everyone is desperate to understand what happened to the
missing children – and, of course, to find them. Amy Madigan, playing Alex’s
Aunt Gladys, was nominated for a Golden Globe for best supporting actress for
this film but did not win. To say any more would be criminal but I left the film
thinking about the Brothers Grimm (and although I was hoping for a strictly supernatural
film, I did wince on a few occasions that involved some violence and gore).
Worth a look (if you dare)!
I will have to watch this one again, having only seen
it on my trans-Pacific flight to the USA on the tiny back-of-the-seat screen
(possibly with an airline crash edited out).However, even with these conditions, I’m confident that this is director
Wes Anderson’s best feature since The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014). Although I
enjoyed them well enough at the time, Asteroid City (2023) and The French
Dispatch (2021) felt like a letdown. Here, Benicio del Toro stars as
businessman Zsa-Zsa Korda, who may have a shady past and also the target of
various attempts at his life (possibly leading to multiple airplane crashes,
all survived). He is trying to put together the financing for one last
engineering feat, which involves visiting a series of former business partners
around the globe. Along with him are Mia Threapleton playing his daughter
Liesl, now a nun, to whom he plans to bequeath his estate, and Michael Cera
playing Bjorn, a tutor hired to teach him about insects. The characterisations (including
from the many, often familiar bit players) are sublimely eccentric. Although
not scaling the droll comedic peak that Grand Budapest conquered, Phoenician
Scheme offers many amusing moments as Korda seeks to eliminate “the gap” in his
financing. As could be expected, the art design, set decoration, and music
(Alexandre Desplat, plus curated classical and jazz selections), are highly stylized
and exquisite.Recommended, particularly
if you’ve more or less given up on Wes recently.
