Film Update

Velvet Goldmine - 1998

Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Christian Bale, and Ewan McGregor in what is essentially a 124-min Glam Rock Music video detailing the rise and fall of David Bow... errrr Brian Slade. Captivating evocation of the period.

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SCUM - 1979

British Juvie is one rough ticket. These kids aren't acting.

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23 "Nichts ist so wie es scheint" - 1998

German Hacker/Espionage film with several references to Robert Anton Wilson's book Illuminatus (and even a guest appearance!) I read the book about a year ago- quite tickled to see its use in cinema.

Although far from perfect, 23 has a level of sophistication that makes Hackers look like it was scripted by someone that doesn't know the difference between a backslash and its opposite. The story is based on true events.

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Transformers - 2007

Occasionally I'll see a mega-budget Hollywood "blockbuster" just to remind myself of how shallow, repetitive and profit-driven the American film industry is.
In this case I was pleasantly surprised- what a fun movie. Cleverly scripted and excellent CG action make for a damn entertaining experience.

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Quick Update Part 2..

Time for another quick update (lacking time + energy today)--

The Singing Detective (BBC TV) - 1986

I'm so glad I stumbled across this series. Most of the time I've got the typical filmsnob frown when it comes to the merits of television, but this one is completely different. It's like a 415min epic film (yes- I watched most of it in 1 sitting.. just like I spent an entire weekend once watching all of Fassbinder's Berlin Alexanderplatz!) The Singing Detective is extraordinarily well written; full of dry, witty humor and the typical noir-ish love of quick snappy dialog. Surreal flourishes abound and the plot interchangeably weaves between present + future, fact + fiction with effortless ease. Often these very boundaries become blurred, just as the mind of Phillip Marlow is blurred in his bed-ridden state. The music is also fantastic- mostly songs from the 30s and 40s full of wonderfully subtle lyricism.
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Pasolini prossimo nostro (Pasolini next to us) - 2006

This documentary is mostly composed of audio interviews and still photos from the filming of one of the most controversial films in cinematic history - Salò or the 120 days of Sodom. Not only does it provide insight into the purpose behind Salò and his own Marxist critique of modernity, but it also contains some of his last recorded thoughts before his brutal murder shortly after he completed its filming.

As an aside, Pasolini is one of my favorite directors, period. I hope to write a bit about his work in the future, when time permits.
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Cross of Iron - Sam Peckinpah - 1977

Often considered a minor work in Peckinpah's oeuvre-- I'd tend to agree. Unconventional (hasty?) editing along with the director's trademark slow-motion scenes of balletic violence played out on the German side of the Eastern front. Throw in a nonconformist, grizzled veteran hero and a careerist commanding officer as his arch-rival and you've got this film in a nutshell.

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Quick Update

The following films were viewed in the past week, only time for quick impressions today.


Short Night of the Glass Dolls - 1971

An early giallo set in stunning Prague with soundtrack by Ennio Morricone.

Sadly dubbed in English, though a feast for the eyes. Plot can be described as Sunset Boulevard meets Eyes Wide Shut. IMDB



Sex and Fury - 1973

Classic "Pink" revenge flick. Mostly unimpressive in terms of both sex and violence. Lady Snowblood does it far more stylishly and actually manages to be sexier without nude swordsmanship.
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The Baby Of Macon - Peter Greenaway - 1993

I've been looking out for a chance to see this for years. A true aesthetic experience from beginning to end. Elaborate, bombastic set design. Tear-inducingly beautiful medieval music. Haltingly gorgeous framings captured by Sascha Vierny's lens. Here Greenaway completely lives up to his reputation as a true cinematic stylist. Passion, chaos, and brutality in all of its wonderful Baroque excess.
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Vernon, Florida - 1982

Errol Morris' early documentary on the strange inhabitants of a rural 1-stoplight town is alternately hilarious and strangely depressing.

These people seem to be leading full, meaningful lives in the blissful ignorance of their own constructed reality. Are we any different?

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Film: Léolo - 1992

Leo is an imaginative 12-year old that writes with a lyricism well beyond his years. He writes to escape the stifling ennui of a working class Montreal family composed almost entirely of idiots and the mentally ill. He's a gifted outsider fighting the pressure to succumb to the muted brutality he was born into. His refutation: "Because I dream, that is not what I am."

Nearly every line of narration is a poignant portrayal of childhood's fear, discovery, joy, and ultimate sadness. Reality becomes the plaything of a boy coming to terms with the disconnect between the way he believes things ought to be and how they actually are. The lens often illustrates Leo's perspective with surreal flourishes of astounding creativity. The soundtrack is phenomenal and eclectic- ranging wildly from Tom Waits' melancholy blues, to medieval Tallis chorals and Tibetan throat singing. "Léolo" was French Canadian director Jean-Claude Lauzon's second and final feature-length film before his tragic death in a plane crash.


It's late at night. Consuming darkness abounds except for a small sliver of light illuminating the face of a boy intensely absorbed in the pages of a book. Leo is on the floor of the kitchen wearing mittens and a ski cap, reading by the light of the refrigerator.
Narration:
"I don't try to remember what happens in a book. All I ask of a book is to give me energy and courage to tell me there's more to life than I can take... to remind me of the need to act.

It was the only book in the house. I never wondered how it got there. It was thick. The words were pushed together and required enourmous effort and concentration to yield their secret.

At home, I never saw anybody read or write. Television and Billboards cluttered my brain. In the beginning I read the underlined passages without really understanding. I remember wanting to give up because there were no pictures.

I find my only real joy in solitude. Solitude is my castle. That's where I have my chair, my table, my bed, my breeze, and my sun. I sit in exile. I sit in a fake land.

Because I dream, I am not. "

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Film: Betty Blue - 1986

Playing catchup this morning again, this was seen on 8/23.



Essentially a tragic romance film for the art-house set, Betty Blue completely exceeded my expectations. This film is full of life, and more importantly it's real - without belief in the genuine connection between the lovers, a film in this genre fizzles into a dead exercise in meaninglessness. Zorg and Betty mean a great deal to each other; he keeps her wild light grounded in reality and she fuels his buried artistic impulse. To the film's immense credit the touching interdependence between the two develops in a completely believable way without relying on the cliches and gimmicks that the genre typically makes use of.

I have the feeling many people were drawn to this one because of it's uncompromising erotic content. Admittedly, there is quite a bit of nudity (male and female), but it's far from crossing the boundry into softcore tripe. On the topic of of nudity, Betty Blue emphatically shouts (in my best French accent) "It's only natural!" The love between Zorg and Betty is real, so sex needs to maintain this naturalism as well. In a particularly memorable scene, an older fat disheveled-looking man enters Zorg's beachfront bungalow one morning and finds Zorg and Betty in bed, both completely nude without any tactically placed sheets covering them. They've obviously had one hell of a night, and the old guy's silly smirk of admiration shows he knows it too. Betty wakes to see this stranger staring at them, asks who the hell he is but doesn't cover herself. Zorg gets out of bed and asks the man to pardonnez-moi because the old guy is sitting on his pants. Hillariously the fat man remarks "I like to sleep naked too." Zorg proceeds to make coffee and it's back to business as usual. In essence, the film's nudity doesn't have an erotic intent; rather it serves to convey the unabashed intimacy of two people in love.

Betty Blue is quintessentially French in all the best possible ways. Part of the pleasure of watching this film is in how it just nails the details of that culture. From its naturalistic handling of nudity to its love of romance, good food, wine and friendship; Betty Blue is a vibrant reminder of a culture that values the important things in life above all. Of all the wonderful little details of French life contained in this film one illustrates this slant perfectly. Zorg is running late delivering a piano to a client. He borrows the a huge truck from the small provincial grocer's brother-in-law. As he's speeding down the winding roads of the French countryside (with a full concert grand in tow) he's pulled over by a completely unsympathetic policeman. Of course Zorg doesn't have his license with him, doesn't own the truck, and was obviously well over the speed limit on a road not meant for such an enormous vehicle. His excuse to the cop: "I just found out today I'm going to be a father." Suddenly the officer changes his tune entirely, a huge smile of congratulations appears on his face and, as is only fitting, sings a song about fatherly responsibility. He waves Zorg off as he once again barrels down the road. Indeed, in France even the police officers have secret manuscripts that they're desperately trying to get published.

Echoes of Cassavettes' "A woman under the influence" are evident in the concluding tragic turn of this film as a gut-wrenching reminder that some flames just burn too brightly for this world.

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Film: Shanghai Express - 1932

I'm almost ashamed to admit this is the first Marlene Dietrich film I've seen. Why did I wait so long? She's absolutely G-O-R-G-E-O-U-S. She easily dominates every frame with her disruptive beauty and laconic elegance.

Oh yeah.. and the film ain't bad either. Actually, Shanghai Express is really very good. The story is interesting, the romantic dilemmas intelligent, dialog witty, Von Sternberg's directing flawless, and cinematography that should serve as a textbook for mastery of light and darkness.


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Film: Calvaire - 2004

In the mood for survival horror in the vein of 2005's superb Wolf Creek, Belgium's yarn on demented country folk failed to deliver.

"Calvaire" (The Ordeal) slowly builds the right atmosphere, but when things begin to get out of hand Bartel just does not exhibit the pure malevolence expected from the primary antagonist of this type of film. He's more like a jolly mad uncle than the personification of evil. The loony villagers have a certain deliverance-like charm, but barely add to the waning tension. It doesn't help that the protagonist is a wimp. Pardon the pun if you've seen it, but in this case the dress fits.

In sum, find your shocks elsewhere.

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Film: The Silver Globe - Andrzej Zulawski - 1977/1987

I viewed Zulawski's "Na srebrnym globie" (The Silver Globe) a week ago and its haunting images are still reverberating through me.

Zulawski is like no other director I've ever come across. His films are masterworks of unrivaled intensity, often laying bare the deepest irrational spaces of the psyche. Purposeful absurdity and extreme emotional breakdown characterize nearly every frame. If I were to relate an image to this master, it would be like a peyote-crazed Shaman cursing the great void with all his being.

The Silver Globe is sadly an incomplete film. The Polish Ministry of Culture stopped the filming in the late 70s under the pretence of financial burden. Large sections of the film are missing, but have been filled in with Zulawski's own narration set to (quite bizarrely) footage of a bustling modern city. Fortunately, the bulk of the film has been pieced together from footage shot before filming was abandoned.

A short synopsis of the plot. A crew of 4 cosmonauts crashland on an earth-like planet in hopes of creating a new way of life that avoids mistakes made on earth. One dies early on, the other 3 set about procreating and eventually give birth to legion of primitive pseudo-tribal offspring. Time functions differently on this planet as birth to adulthood takes place with incredible rapidity. The original cosmonauts are worshipped by their children as gods from a legendary heaven called "Earth." Many years later, after the original explorers have died another "god" steps from a rocket. He is commissioned to lead the battle against evil bird creatures that live across the great ocean.

Religious allegory? Yes.
Political treatise? Perhaps.
Nearly 3 hours of insanity, panic, philosophical ranting, emotionally exhaustive beauty and horror? Most definitely.

How can one describe the experience of this film? Maddening, frustrating, hallucinatory, trance-inducing, enlightening, frightening, gorgeous... these are just a few adjectives that come to mind.

I can safely say there is really nothing else like it. Well, besides perhaps other Zulawski. Most of his films are notoriously hard to come by. The only other of his works I have seen (both of which I treasure dearly) are Possession and Diabel.

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Film: The Fountainhead - 1949

Playing a little catch-up today. This was viewed on 8/16.

An adaptation of the novel, the screenplay itself was written by Ayn Rand. A novel, incidentally, that had a great influence on me several years ago.

Can a sprawling, 700+ page experience be faithfully condensed into 2 hours? No.

Predictably, this one falls victim to the "I-read-it-first" syndrome. The actors are nothing like the characters pictured while reading, large swathes of non-trivial plot points are left on the cutting room floor, precious details are glossed over, insightful monologues become stagy, overacted embarrassments. It's like a hasty puppet-play of the novel with none of its depth and richness.

The film has 2 hours to effectively convey Rand's theory of objectivist individualism to the masses, and in my opinion fails due to heavy-handed pedagogical spoon-feedings and cold, cardboard cut-out characterization.

Oh, and Gary Cooper as Howard Roark? What on earth were they thinking.

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Film: Hausu - 1977

Few films deserve a genuine "wtf" - this is one of them. In a good way.

Japanese Pee-wee's playhouse on visual overload set to a horror theme starring nubile schoolgirls. Or something closely resembling that.

Mind boggling, completely random, and wonderfully unique... to quote the crazed watermelon vendor- "they don't make em like they used to."

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Documentary: The Bridge - 2006

24 people died by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge in 2004. A film crew captured the daily comings and goings of the place that holds so much mystique to earn its reputation as the single location in which the most suicides are committed.


Very tastefully made, there is no distracting voice over full of facts and statistics or a voice of supreme moral judgement. Shots of life as it happens on the bridge, wrapped in wistful music make up the bulk of the film. The occasional jumps often come unexpectedly and are quite jarring. Interviews with friends and relatives of jumpers attempt to provide insight into their character and motives.

Sad and morbidly absorbing, this is one proves to be interesting, insightful and highly conducive to self-reflection.

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FIlm: Bad Boy Bubby - 1993

This was viewed on 8/10/07.


Quite the undiscovered gem. It's like Herzog's Kasper Hauser set in early 1990s Australia. Touching, disturbing, and reproachful all in the same breath, it really starts to roll after the first 30mins.

An IMDB user took the time to type this out, it's an excellent quote from one of the many strange characters Bubby meets... worthy of copying here:
You see, no one's going to help you Bubby, because there isn't anybody out there to do it. No one. We're all just complicated arrangements of atoms and subatomic particles - we don't live. But our atoms do move about in such a way as to give us identity and consciousness. We don't die; our atoms just rearrange themselves. There is no God. There can be no God; it's ridiculous to think in terms of a superior being. An inferior being, maybe, because we, we who don't even exist, we arrange our lives with more order and harmony than God ever arranged the earth. We measure; we plot; we create wonderful new things. We are the architects of our own existence. What a lunatic concept to bow down before a God who slaughters millions of innocent children, slowly and agonizingly starves them to death, beats them, tortures them, rejects them. What folly to even think that we should not insult such a God, damn him, think him out of existence. It is our duty to think God out of existence. It is our duty to insult him. Fcuk you, God! Strike me down if you dare, you tyrant, you non-existent fraud! It is the duty of all human beings to think God out of existence. Then we have a future. Because then - and only then - do we take full responsibility for who we are. And that's what you must do, Bubby: think God out of existence; take responsibility for who you are.

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Film: Gemini - 1999 - Shinya Tsukamoto

Quite a departure from previous favorites Tetsuo and Tokyo Fist, this one doesn't have the trademark hyperkinetic editing, high-octane industrial soundtrack, nor the visceral emotional punch of his best work.

This is in essence a rather tame revenge story, beautifully shot, set to ghostly theme music and bit of banal medical ethics thrown in.

Minimal and, in my opinion, rather insignificant work of Tsukamoto's.

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Film: Manderlay - 2005 - Lars Von Trier

With much regret I have to say this one wasn't nearly as intense, insightful, and involving as his previous film, Dogville.

It seemed more of an intellectual exercise, a political treatise of sorts devoid of any of the emotional rawness that made the first so great.

Grace has become an saccharinely idealistic, gullible, spoiled child that wants to impose her clearly unexamined, 2nd-hand moral perspectives on the unjust "state" of Manderlay plantation. Democracy introduced among those that aren't ready for it eventually results in murder. A dictator is toppled and the people, yearning for the comfort of habit, seek a new one. The point became all to clear in the closing credits with a picture of Bush and a zoom shot of the world trade center.

Humanity is what is lacking from this film. Perhaps this was part of Von Trier's point? Implementing abstraction requires superficial players.

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Film: The Cremator - 1968

Considered a Czech New Wave masterpiece, "Spalovac mrtvol" (The Cremator) flows from one scene to the next as smoothly as Mr. Kopfrkingl's effortless downward spiral into the role of mass "liberator of souls."

Words simply won't do the stylish and extremely artful filming/editing much justice. Incredible transitions, symbolic framing, fish-eye perspectives, strange angles- all pulled off in such a beautifully subtle manner, coloring the action and the ever-present monotone drone of Kopfrkingl's speech.

I've read some consider this one a dark comedy, I failed to find any humor in it. A tale of how a man's morality can easily be shaped to serve a new agenda, no matter how essentially immoral that agenda might be. When self-justification to the point of insanity gets rid of the dissonance, even murder transmutes into "the relief of suffering." A chilling insight that there is essentially no real basis for the tales one tells oneself- reasoning from arbitrary axioms permits anything.

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The sadness continues... Michelangelo Antonioni dies

So soon after losing one titan of art cinema, another passes. Michelangelo Antonioni dies at 94. I can't find any worthy news articles at the moment that do his tremendous work sufficient credit, so I'll link to THIS.

Antonioni, along with Bergman and Tarkovsky were my earliest experiences with serious cinema. His films convey a deep sense of sadness and loneliness that often shook me to the core. Characters tend to drift insubstantially from one liaison to the next, drawfed by an increasingly dehumanizing environment. Real, empathetic communication seems stunted if not impossible within these interpersonal voids. Those that are hyper-sensitive to this existential reality, such as Monica Vitti's character in "Red Desert" are discounted as mad in an essentially anhedonic world of masks.

I just had to grab a Nietzsche book and look up one of his many poignant quotes on this subject as it seems fitting in this context:
"We, too, associate with "people"; we, too, modestly don the dress in which (as which) others know us, respect us, look for us--and then we appear in company, meaning among people who are disguised without wanting to admit it. We, too, do what all prudent masks do, and in response to every curiosity that does not concern our "dress" we politely place a chair against the door."

Most articles on his death are focusing on Blow-Up as his most influential film, and with good reason as it's probably the most commercially successful and well-known. Although it's been several years since I've seen it, I have to admit it didn't impact me in the way his meandering character-driven films do.

My very favorite Antonioni films are the 4 he made consecutively between 1960-1964:
The Red Desert - 1964
L' Eclisse - 1962
La Notte - 1961
l' Avventura - 1960

I also really enjoyed the Passenger, but for very different reasons, and have been trying to track down Zabriskie Point for several years.

Ingmar Bergman died today :(

A sad day for serious film lovers everywhere. Ingmar Bergman dead at 89.

Bergman was in many ways a launching point for my love affair with art cinema, his film "The Seventh Seal" opening a vast world for a bored suburban teen almost 10 years ago. I'm sure the story rings true for many, many people.

One scene in particular always stands out in my mind. The knight meets the traveling caravan of performers and sits down in a meadow with them to share their berries and cream. A distinct hush of peace fills the scene- smiles, a laughing baby, and a faint breeze rustling the grass. A moment of pure worldly bliss that momentarily lifts the knight's existential angst (and my own).

Of the many I've seen and enjoyed, my personal very favorites:
Autumn Sonata - 1978
The Serpent's Egg - 1977 (can I really be the only Bergman fan that genuinely likes this one?)
Scenes from a Marriage -1973
Cries and Whispers - 1972 (favorite of favorites)
Hour of the Wolf - 1968
Persona - 1966
The Seventh Seal - 1957

...so many greats in his oeuvre, the above are my personal picks. Some films I feel bad about excluding, like "Wild Strawberries" for instance, but they didn't resonate as much as the above on first viewing. To be perfectly honest, I think Bergman is at his best when he addresses deep existential, spiritual, and psychological issues-- so I have to admit I've neglected his early comedies.

Film: Inland Empire - David Lynch - 2006

Finally! I've been wanting to see this one since it was announced, and I didn't hesitate when the opportunity arose this weekend.

Where to begin? A fitting question for a film as convoluted and maze-like as this one.

Long ago I had read it was shot entirely in DV, but this didn't prepare me for the initial almost distracting hyper-reality of this type of recording. I suddenly realized that my visual expectations were pretty rigid and that I've been jaded by the high-gloss artificiality of the standard Hollywood pictureframe. The home-video quality at the outset quickly dissolved as the masterful web of story began to take hold. In fact, later I had to marvel at the quality of the DV as it excels in the grungy reality much of the film portrays and is used masterfully for special effects.

The sound design is nothing short of brilliant and plays a key role as it does in so many Lynch films. Dark industrial rumblings, precisely-pinpointed noises, and endless reverbs that fade from scene to scene. Credits have Lynch listed as the sole sound designer, I'm impressed! The music is excellent, and often surreally unfitting to great effect. No Badalamenti involvement with this one as far as I know.

The story? Oh brother. Multiple layers of reality, filmic self-reference, rugs being pulled away from under me as soon as I formulate a theory about what the hell is going on. I love it. I think the best way to enjoy a film like this the first time is to suspend critical analysis and let it take you where it may... let it absorb into the subconscious and enjoy its mesmerizing whimsy.

I can pretty safely say this film is about Hollywood (the inland empire?), and more precisely about acting and the effect an actor has on the viewer. Laura Dern's character (btw probably the best acting I've EVER seen) is the driving force behind the plot, I feel like most of the film is a depiction of what is going on in her mind as she plays and lives through this role in "no more blue tomorrows" - but on another level the viewer (a lady often shown watching the action on a TV) is identifying with the action (perhaps sometime in the future) and superimposing her life onto the movie. The rabbit show seems to be a depiction of meaningless sitcoms with laugh-tracks tied to things that simply aren't funny. I have no idea where the Polish past comes into play... so much more to think about!

I will have to say at around 3 hours, Lynch fans will really get the most out of it. This one doesn't strike me as entry-level Lynch and is probably his most challenging yet.

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Film: The Shout - 1978

Hypnotically paced mind bender that reminds me quite a bit of some of Peter Weir's work, specifically The Last Wave which appeared a year before this one.

The Shout leaves a lot to interpretation and will probably reward repeat viewings.

"I've always found it hard to believe that the soul is imprisoned in the body until death liberates it. Don't you think that in periods of spiritual starvation that the soul may take refuge in a tree, a stone?"

On another note, John Hurt's character is an electronic musician, some of the coolest scenes are the creation of his soundscapes. His studio is full of EMS equipment like Putneys, Vocoders and I think I spotted a Roland Space Echo. Great stuff.

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Film: Venus in Furs - Jess Franco - 1969

The film's title is actually the only thing is shares with the great novel by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch. This is by no stretch of the imagination an adaptation of the book.

A little over an hours worth of beautiful women and cinematography, a hallucinatory ghost story and great down-tempo lounge and jazz music. Quite enjoyable.. as fleeting as it was...

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