The Blog Where I Review 1 Movie A Week Until I Die

On Hiatus

2011-03-12T22:06:00.000-08:00

As mentioned in a few other outlets, I'm going on hiatus (hopefully temporary). I have enjoyed scribbling in this journal over the past two years, but right now I need the time to focus on other things. If anyone has any suggestions or comments on my writing, I would like to hear them. Otherwise I shall pick this back up in due time.

Odd Man Out (1947)

2011-03-05T21:30:00.001-08:00

Directed by Carol Reed.
Starring James Mason and Robert Newton.

In a Nutshell: A wounded revolutionary disappears into the city, evading a manhunt.

The potential hotbed of political posturing and outlandish plot trappings quickly evaporates from one’s viewing of Odd Man Out. Before Carol Reed transformed Vienna’s war scars into an expressionist dreamscape, there was Ireland’s Belfast. Shot by Robert Krasker (also of Third Man status), the streets become a twilight-lit purgatory for its wounded protagonist. Johnny McQueen (James Mason), a notorious leader of the Irish Republican Army, is left dying at the scene of a botched robbery turned accidental murder. He struggles for catharsis and escape, rubbing up against urchins, vengeful authoritative types and a trio of the eccentric-destitute. It makes a surreal journey, not just from Johnny’s slowly ebbing life, but his disorientating exposure to the world above, heightened through baroque angles and lighting. Framed within an opposing neorealism, ally Kathleen (Kathleen Ryan) keeps a cool head as she scrapes together a future for her love; fate looms ominous.

One point of interest: the IRA and Belfast are never called by name, most likely to sidestep any overt politicizing. If there is any drawback, it over-generalizes the machinations of Johnny and Kathleen. Their emotion is broadcast in sight and sound, but overall both remain too enigmatic for a narrative hinging on redemption. In that respect, the attention to subsidiary characters can feel like a grope for “meaning” with allegorical figureheads in place of realism. Still, all the more accolades for Reed and Krasker, whose work transcends the material with a visual, poetic aura. The audience feels Johnny’s debilitation beyond the physical and earthly strife, even if they cannot speak it. It stands a film of beautiful, sensory experience, in its purest form.

Touch of Evil (1958)

2011-02-26T22:12:00.001-08:00

Directed by Orson Welles.
Starring Charlton Heston and Janet Leigh.

In a Nutshell: A corrupt sheriff and upright narcotics officer clash over a murder case.

Given a final bid at an American audience, Orson Welles pulled out all the stops for his B-movie cop-thriller noir. Panned then, acclaimed now, it offers the goods with such immense conviction that it rejects an involvement beyond admiration. It is a film that broaches themes as varied as drug enforcement, racial tension and corruption without using them for more than framework for its plot. And yet it hardly needs thematic discourse, not with such energetic filmmaking prowess on display. The plot itself is overshadowed by the ideological showdown between two investigators of a recent murder; self-righteous narcotics official Miguel Vargas (Charlton Heston) and crooked “police celebrity” Hank Quinlan (Welles). While Vargas officiates a by-the-book approach, Quinlan is suspected of planting false evidence to incriminate the most likely suspect (who may be a target of Quinlan’s racism). Vargas suspects this as all too commonplace for Quinlan’s investigations while Quinlan is choked with bitterness, believing that his past police work let his wife’s killer go free.

Drowning in fatsuit padding, Welles makes for a memorable tyrant. His pathos is cohesive, but never in the foreground as the film calls for comeuppance without enlightenment. Again, the audience gets a plot detail rather than anything “meaningful.” But again, it hardly detracts. In fact, Touch of Evil teems with so much detail that it illuminates its own stark luridness and amoral complexity, maybe even for film noir as a whole. That famous opening shot oversees the hustle and bustle of the bordertown, zeroing in on Vargas and his bride, Susan (Janet Leigh). Their newlywed bliss is centered in a shot beginning with a bomb being wound and ending with its detonation in a car’s trunk. It is a flicker of pleasure that becomes trapped within our witness to the main crime. By the end, Susan will be brutalized by the film’s characters and marginalized by its story.

Taken as mere execution over concept, Touch of Evil exemplifies the sort of tonal and visual panache that can make film such an intoxicating medium (pardon my hyperbole). It is a film built on strokes of filmmaking, from Welles sweeping camera movements and jagged cutting to colorful bursts of acting from the stock players. Henry Mancini saturates the screen with a jazzy soundtrack that veers from sinister to vulgar to explosive rage. It is no wonder it became a staple influence of the French New Wave’s experimentation. Touch of Evil is nothing but craft, a dark, indelible testament to the surface medium.

A Clockwork Orange (1971)

2011-02-19T21:29:00.001-08:00

Directed by Stanley Kubrick.
Starring Malcolm McDowell and Patrick Magee.

In a Nutshell: A teenage hoodlum is brainwashed into rejecting immorality.

A directorial career rife with controversy, Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of Anthony Burgess’ satire may stand as one of his most contentiously debated. Branding it Kubrick’s Clockwork Orange seems adequate for the crucial variation on Burgess’ thesis. Violence and sexual deviancy are not just youthful sins that time’s passage shall erode but traits ingrained within our very being (just as the apes evolved into violence in 2001: A Space Odyssey). We can choose to obey such instincts; the film argues that the ability to retain that choice is far more crucial than leading a chosen life of compassion. Alex (Malcolm McDowell) has made the wrong choice, beating, stealing and raping the denizens of dystopian London. Far from acting out of desperation, Alex feels an unexplainable zeal for his actions, matched only by his appreciation for Beethoven. An accidental murder lands him in jail where he volunteers for an experiment that would “cure” him of sin. Alex’s treatment is a success, but due to an unintended side effect, listening Beethoven brings on crippling sickness. A hollowed-out soul, Alex must face a future eager for his suffering.

There is a lot to love in this film including McDowell’s magnetic performance and Wendy Carlos’ bizarre score. Its thematic presentation can be a difficult experience to detach from, if only from Kubrick’s brazen manipulation of his audience. Alex is our first-person perspective, and the entire film is shaped in his morally repugnant mind. Scenes of violence and rape are distinguished by inappropriate soundtrack cues (typically classical music for an air of faux-refinement). Many of those scenes burst with vitality while several post-incarceration scenes drag from thematic repetition and over-attention to detail. Supporting performances are grotesque caricatures, with authority figures characterized as corrupt and self-interested.

All of this seems destined to elevate Alex into the only true sympathetic character. One can only ascertain Kubrick’s intentions from these elements. Alex may find joy in the pain of others, but those restricting that choice seem just as immoral (or in this context, worse). The film seems to thumb its nose at those angling to reform “instinct” but seems more willing towards juvenile condemnation than anything too probing. Its subject matter may be too polarizing to be viewed without one’s biases providing its own interpretation. But it is still admirable how Kubrick never falters in his devil’s advocacy. If you do not agree, who is he to make up your mind?

The Asphalt Jungle (1950)

2011-02-12T21:03:00.001-08:00

Directed by John Huston.
Starring Sterling Hayden and Louis Calhern.

In a Nutshell: A group of criminals pull off a heist with devastating consequences.

It can be said with some confidence that nearly every heist movie can be traced back here, one that owes that distinction to weakening censorship of the Production Code. Specifically this refers to the actual heist itself, a detailed centerpiece celebrated for its authenticity. Every action, every move is studied, slowly sealing the fate of the crooked men behind it all. The Asphalt Jungle is pure noir abandoning a potboiler appeal for a thesis on societal decay and amorality. Though that is markedly less engaging compared to its narrowed character focus; seasoned criminals upholding their degenerate lives with dignity, if only to escape desperation. Atalented cast of supporting actors handles the characterization; highlights include Louis Calhern as the financer wrestling with a burdensome conscience, and Sam Jaffe as the mastermind whose clipped delivery suggests an incarnation of Walter Huston in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.

Director John Huston revels in constructing the house of cards, though it may leave some finding the first act shapeless. But once the heist collapses, the plot momentum moves with crushing intensity, undoubtedly the film’s greatest strength. Despite its judgeless lens on the criminal element, it offers little authentic insight. Its portrayal of the law is no better; cops are flabby, corrupt or John McIntire’s snarling bulldog. Though such complaints feel extraneous given its necessity to the plot, one already colored by enough fine atmospheric detail. The Asphalt Jungle leaves little to chew over, but it exists beyond its moralistic musings. A well-to-do stroke of masterful Huston storytelling.

Secret Honor (1984)

2011-02-05T21:32:00.000-08:00

Directed by Robert Altman.
Starring Philip Baker Hall.

In a Nutshell: A fictionalized portrayal of former President Nixon’s reflections.

What sort of truth can be ascertained within fiction? Particularly when it so brazenly skews well-documented fact? Secret Honor attempts this, showcasing a memoir, drunkenly dictated by Richard Nixon (Philip Baker Hall). The account is near-complete fabrication, but portrayed as if it could have happened. Nixon himself is not quite the man we know, more of an expansion on his public persona. Though that would in fact make him a more familiar figure than the “real” Nixon; self-righteous, bitter and willing to stand before the American people their victim. Hall treads that line between embodiment and impersonation in a similar vein, running the emotional gamut to near apoplexy (not a criticism per se, but a clear example of how jarring stage acting can sometimes feel on film). He veers from emotional high to low, dotted with sputtering digressions and unconscious profanity, expertly exposing Nixon’s wounds underneath.

Ever the dependable “actor’s director,” Altman observes with little fanfare. Though he does restate one noticeable motif; Nixon’s image in a television monitor; a parallel to his own self-created image, now washed out and trapped in recorded history. This image created by Altman, Hall and writers Donald Freed and Arnold M. Stone (the latter a former lawyer for the Justice Department and the National Security Agency) is able balance both sides of the political spectrum. Nixon is still the left’s adversary, but abused by his friends on the right into a man willing to extend the Vietnam War for drug money. This Nixon can only absolve himself by his own hand and the movie presents an intriguing invention to the Watergate scandal. Without aligning with any real history, it does well to exploring the shady moral waters that run our country, and what sort of man it produced. Or could have produced and probably did anyhow.

Shadow of a Doubt (1943)

2011-01-29T21:22:00.001-08:00

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
Starring Teresa Wright and Joseph Cotten.

In a Nutshell: A girl suspects that her uncle may be a serial killer.

The commercial and critical success of Rebecca and Suspicion aside, Hitchcock may have produced his first quintessential "American" film with Shadow of a Doubt. Not merely due to strength in technical elements (though there is that) but for its attention to the angst of upper-middle class suburbia (which would become increasingly heightened after the war). Being a Hitchcock film, this sets the stage for murder. Charlie Oakley (Joseph Cotton) is such a man disgusted with the decedent lives of the wealthy, specifically widows. He returns to his sister’s house to hide from the authorities, reestablishing his bond with his niece Charlie Newton (Teresa Wright). Their shared namesake had evolved into what Young Charlie describes as telepathy. But Uncle Charlie’s secret life gradually comes into focus, a terror only Young Charlie can grasp.

This is the sort of suspense film not set in darkened alleyways but sunny, welcoming neighborhoods. The Newton household is gloomy, seemingly lit with just dappled sun streaks, a contrast to the bitterness seeping through Cotten’s benign façade. Though he would argue, it is dark world. Even odder peculiarities are burrowed under this all American-family, including Mr. Newton’s (Henry Travers) obsession with murder mysteries or the youngest Newton girl’s aggressively precocious (and ignored) social commentary. The progression from second act to third act keeps this worldview only as an intriguing layer to the suspense plot. But even then, a broken step or billowing car possesses an unnerving familiarity.

Young Charlie becomes the only Newton capable of exposing Uncle Charlie to the feds. Her decision is not so much a question of morals, but whether Young Charlie can bring herself to stir the calm. The ending seems dismissive of such status quo fury, but a closing shot of well-dressed ladies swaying around a ballroom (also the opening shot) demonstrates Hitchcock’s cheekiness. No matter what the script says, once you “rip the fronts off houses,” Hitchcock cannot let you unsee the swine within. It makes for a wicked coda and another fine example of this film’s dark charms.

The Battle of Algiers (1966)

2011-01-22T19:50:00.001-08:00

Directed by Gillo Pontecorvo.
Starring Brahim Hagiag and Jean Martin.

In a Nutshell: A recreation of the revolutionary battle within the Algerian War.

In 1954, native Algerians began to strike back against French colonists through urban guerilla warfare. French counter insurgency assassinated or captured the leaders of the National Liberation Front (FLN), sometimes acquiring crucial information through torture. While this culminated in a victory for the French in the city of Algiers, the countrywide uprising would help the French lose the Algerian War. Now we come to Gillo Pontecorvo’s film, a frank account of the struggle on both sides of the opposition. Pontecorvo idealizes the FLN, but the French are allowed sympathy, portrayed as dutiful men tasked with an invisible threat. Still a starkly political film, it renders its ideas without sensation thanks to its unvarnished documentary-style of filmmaking.

The film does not weigh on the struggles on any one person, but does obtain the perspectives of two peripheral characters. One is Ali la Pointe (Braham Haggiag) a petty criminal who rides the revolution wave to become one of the FLN’s most prominent figures. The second is fictional French commander Mathieu (Jean Martin) who accepts his job with taciturn resourcefulness. Ali contrasts with his callow and radical ways, ready to give plenty of malevolence to the French. Both have the necessary pathos to extend to their troops waging their own horror. Pontecorvo’s impartiality leads to extremities in Algerians’ depiction. Close-ups of innocent café patrons are shown seconds before an Algerian woman’s bomb blows them up. However, when the French detonate a terrorist’s house, the soundtrack mourns the bodies being pulled from the wreckage.

With its use of actual Algerian streets and untrained cast members, Pontecorvo is plainly looking for aesthetic realism to support its political honesty. It works, even partisan viewers can value the film’s deconstruction of the French’s strategic errors. Since its release it has been screened before military experts (including a publicized 2003 Pentagon screening) to question the efficiency of brute force and torture. Alternatively, revolutionary parties have used the film as a blueprint. Either appropriation circles back to its historical honesty, offering new answers for the next generation at war.

Raging Bull (1980)

2011-01-15T21:26:00.000-08:00

Directed by Martin Scorsese.
Starring Robert De Niro and Cathy Moriarty.

In a Nutshell: The life of self-destructive boxer Jake La Motta.

Like the real Jake La Motta, Raging Bull has been prized for its unforgiving, brutal nature. For a biographical film with a firm pulse on the emotions that constituted Taxi Driver’s forlorn soul (inadequacy, jealousy, hatred) it is a far more effective portrayal than a study. Much has been written about the process, and it deserves no less than the accolades previously bestowed. Perhaps its insight can only rise from the technique that Scorsese, writer Paul Schrader and Robert De Niro bring to their recreation. Even the real-life La Motta’s work as a technical advisor does not yield a picture that burrows into his mind. The insecurities portrayed are vast, complex. Could La Motta have answered these questions? Without being privy to that knowledge, one can only draw their conclusions from the screen’s output. It would be foolish to praise this film for its objectivity, but it succeeds without the need to comment or blame.

Key to this method is Jake’s many relationships with the supporting characters that play off of his intensity. To them, Jake is an angry, paranoid, dangerous brute (a very deserving view, mind you) to be engaged gingerly, then rejected after reaching rock bottom. Schrader’s script gives the surest definition of La Motta by utilizing his repeated motif of character study through solitude. La Motta’s anguished cries curse the burden of his inexplicable self-destruction. Violence and his unbearable sexual anxiety have consumed him; La Motta’s redemption does not triumph over these primeval emotions nor does it render them dormant (as the end of Taxi Driver suggests). Raging Bull’s catharsis champions our self-forgiveness, knowing that men like La Motta can never escape such feelings. It is material Scorsese never has to explain beyond the bare authenticity. The result is visceral, devastating.

Sansho the Bailiff (1954)

2011-01-08T18:34:00.001-08:00

Directed by Kenji Mizoguchi.
Starring Kinuyo Tanaka and Yoshiaki Hanayagi.

In a Nutshell: A family is cruelly separated, each member on their own journey back.

Based on Mori Ogai’s writing, Sansho the Bailiff is a tale of grand tragedy, blessed by the compassionate nature it extols. Social tyranny and divine sacrifice strike an aristocratic family, united through their redemption and love, if not on this earth. The plot unfolds simply, with its characters at odds with their own parallel suffering and catharsis. A bullying military force exiles a deputy governor for defying the draft. The governor’s wife (Kinuyo Tanaka) is sent to live elsewhere with her two children, but while en route, she loses them to kidnappers and is sold into prostitution. Under the rule of the cruel slave master Sansho (Eitarō Shindō), elder son Zushio (Yoshiaki Hanayagi) evolves into an obedient torturer while Anju (Kyōko Kagawa) continues to practice her father’s teachings, never losing hope for freedom. As she labors, Anju continually hears her mother’s voice calling for her children. The children plan for escape, setting the stage for Zushio’s salvation.

Mizoguchi opens with the quote; “This tale is set during the late Heian period an era when mankind had not yet awakened as human beings.” There is a simple directive to the characters’ portrayals; power aligns with cruelty as Zushio and Anju’s father demonstrates the foolishness of kindness within the hierarchy. True to this mythical structure, it boxes its characters into firm definitions. The titular Sansho exemplifies this. Not just as a villain who wields his influence the way his minions wield branding irons. But in his static characterization, firmly couched in his role, existing in the past, remembered only for the destruction he has caused for the present. It is a storytelling technique used throughout. Mizoguchi traps his characters within a variety of framing devices. Each sweeping camera movement defines their fate, tracking every ascension, retreat, descent or progression as a careful notation for the future. The camera also acts as storyteller, cherishing intimacy and shielding pain.

But for this entry, an excess of technical deconstruction pales behind the sheer emotive power of this film (pardon the hyperbole). Tragedy comes not just from its characters’ physical separation, but the separation from their own compassion. Its resolution may be bitter, but it celebrates our humanity and our ability to discover our compassion and find redemption. Mizoguchi has constructed a film of passion and understated delicacy, a film that can be touted as a purely emotional experience. Such cinematic beauty is almost impossible to further scrutinize. Perhaps one can justly sum it up by quoting Gilbert Adair’s proclamation, “Sansho the Bailiff is one of those films for whose sake the cinema exists…”.

Le Cercle rouge (1970)

2011-01-01T21:39:00.000-08:00

Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville.
Starring Alain Delon and Bourvil.

In a Nutshell: A thief enlists a murderer in a heist while pursued by the police.

Cigarettes, trench coats, fedoras, deception. Le Cercle rouge is heaven for noir fetishes, and a refreshing example of conduct for film’s sake. Its characters seem to act in spontaneous harmony like jazz musicians, all within the unspoken code of criminals. But it is fate’s will that noir’s fatalism shall bury them in the end, their fate orchestrated by its master Jean-Pierre Melville. Le Cercle rouge could be a case study of the actions of men, if such actions existed outside of the hard-boiled universe that only novels and films can entertain. Alain Delon stars as Corey, a thief who in true Alain Delon fashion, broods intensely behind a guarded blue gaze. Upon prison release, he encounters a man named Vogel (Gian Maria Volonté) who escaped from the grasp of police captain Mattei (Bourvil). Corey enlists Vogel and ex-cop Jansen (Yves Montand) for a heist while Mattei pressures nightclub owner Santi (François Périer) for information.

Everything unfolds and collapses for the men with Melville stripping down any frills and redundancies. Sparse mise-en-scène and clipped dialogue complements the men’s bare characterization. Even with such austere “cool” assigned to the players, Bourvil and Montand skillfully play up their respective character’s pathos, while Delon, Volonté and Périer squirm and bluff under the heat. The mannered tough-guy aesthetic makes every plot twist and coincidence feel fated, but understated enough that its artifice does not feel self-aware. It is the most advantageous stylistic move by Melville, and the folly of each man rolls out with unforced precision offering a complete view of this gangster world. Undeniably studied, but fewer films hold its internal laws to such rigor.

If.... (1968)

2010-12-25T19:42:00.001-08:00

Directed by Lindsay Anderson.
Starring Malcolm McDowell and David Wood.

In a Nutshell: A group of boarding school students form a revolt against their superiors.

“Violence and revolution are the only pure acts,” youthful musings of the restless and lost. Director Lindsay Anderson’s film studies the subculture of an English boarding school, a storm that has rebellious student Mick Travis (Malcolm McDowell) smirking in its eye. If…. is a unique film; it subverts realism without falling into stylized trappings that would fetishize its anarchic thunder. Yet Anderson manages a finely detailed portrait, all fading into the larger picture. What that larger picture “is” the film never concretely outlines, as the 60’s provided plenty to rebel against. But Anderson is not interested in that sort of statement, at least not enough to find the humanity in his characters. As the chief instigator, Travis is embodied by McDowell as an imp and dreamer, with just a glint of devilishness. His wide-eyed ruminations and refined cultural sensibilities inject romanticism into his deeds, albeit steeped in naïveté. As a poster child for the audience’s rebellious cravings, he is indelible.

Travis’ world is deftly constructed. Though filled with archetypes, a talented array of character actors infuses Anderson’s character sketches with life and personality. Anderson catches small moments of the microcosm, defining a whole world with little exhibition (the blossoming love between one of Mick’s revolutionaries and a prepubescent tells its entire story in as little as three scenes). One odd touch is randomized scenes devoid of color, explained by Anderson as cost-cutting measures during interior filming (though Anderson would have preferred to shoot entirely in black and white). Narrative-wise, the scenes carry no additional pattern but a dreamy ambience, carrying into the boys’ waking fantasies.

Such tones of revolt, wistfulness and dark humor do not seem to contrast, but flow to capture the tumultuousness of youth. Anderson was suspected to be closeted, and the burning rage and despair he might have felt emanates through the boys’ desire to break free. Its much-discussed ending encapsulates the film’s tone into pure action, carried forth by the surrealism. Is it necessary? Particularly as the ending shatters the satirical context into pure protest. It may be hard to judge from a modern context, but could not blame If…. for having its finger on the pulse of youth, requiring such a scene to hammer home their frustration. And as Mick would argue, it stands as one of the film’s purest act.

The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976)

2010-12-18T23:14:00.000-08:00

Directed by John Cassavetes.
Starring Ben Gazzara and Seymour Cassel.

In a Nutshell: A club owner must commit a murder to pay off a gambling debt.

In response to his detractors, John Cassavetes once quipped, “A movie tries to pacify people by keeping it going for them so that it's sheer entertainment. I hate entertainment. There’s nothing I despise more than being entertained.” Perhaps there is a hint of facetiousness, though it is still a statement worth considering while viewing this film. Its premise suggests noir pulp, but Cassavetes pushes all that into the background for an unapologetically realistic character study. And that character may be John Cassavetes. His protagonist Cosmo Vittelli (Ben Gazzara) is a man proud of his meager lot in life. When we meet him, he has just paid his last debt to acquire full ownership of the strip club Crazy Horse West. As entertainment, Cosmo offers tawdry peep shows boasting a low-rent artistry. His shows are earnest, deeply personal but humiliating in their faux-sophistication. Too soon, Cosmo accumulates a heavy gambling debt with some mobsters who offer him a way out; kill a Chinese bookie.

True to the noir genre, Cosmo is fatalism-infected scum, and knows it. The pride he takes in his strip-theater performers seems born of sweaty desperation. He has little else for show, all the better than to cling to what you got. The artist id is split between Cosmo and the Master of Ceremonies, Teddy aka Mr. Sophistication (Meade Roberts) who is self-pitying and yearning for audience approval, when not upstaged by the girls’ bare breasts. He is the counterweight to Cosmo’s workingman ethic, yet naked with his insecurities while Cosmo struts a faux-suavity. Only when the inevitable comes in full terror by the end, does Cosmo try to pin down his facade as motivation for the troupe. Everything is fraud, just “choose a personality.”

That is only what the film is, but how is it? The original cut is flourished with diversions featuring the film’s supporting characters including some extra performances. Though to say diversions may be missing the point of Cassavetes’ film; it is these cinéma vérité moments that he is interested in, not the bookie business (save what it can tell us about Cosmo and the gangsters). Cassavetes keeps the camera bare inches from the characters’ faces, thrusting this world at us and magnifies the barest quiver underneath Cosmo’s facade. Similarly, Cassavetes hides his character turmoil in full view within the gangster-noir murder plot (you know, “macho” stuff). We are left to explore this world and his lost characters, looking for art, looking for love, meaning, anything at all. Before the relief of the final curtain.

Fires on the Plain (1959)

2010-12-11T22:44:00.001-08:00

Directed by Kon Ichikawa.
Starring Eiji Funakoshi and Osamu Takizawa.

In a Nutshell: A private in ailing health struggles to survive WWII combat.

1959 yielded two humanistic war films intent on tarnishing the legacy of military nationalism in WWII-era Japan. Masaki Kobayashi's sprawling The Human Condition witnessed the slow, grinding demise of idealism and the human spirit. Kon Ichikawa’s Fires on the Plain depicts quick, ugly cruelty. It tests the will of man’s survival when reduced to the barest of resources. When Private Tamura (Eiji Funakoshi) becomes stricken with tuberculosis early on, he is ordered to consider two choices: find medical care (to continue fighting) or suicide. The battlefield offers far worse. Ichikawa tracks Tamura through the hell of combat with each repugnant side inflicting different brands of hostility. But there is purity to Ichikawa’s study of the human will at odds with the bleakest of frontiers.

It is an unnerving film, with Tamura’s journey void of the rigor and civility that keeps society from folding in on itself. Ichikawa is not shy in revealing the haunting details, cut with occasional shots of scenic beauty too heartbreaking to smack of irony. But it is that compassion that reverberates with Tamura’s arc and his dogged refusal to submit to the elements. With his ambiguous ending (deviating from the novel) Ichikawa suggests little else is worth claiming. The cost is still great; even inner peace rewards no certainty. For Tamura, it becomes the only solace taken into abyss, moving towards the unseen salvation one prays will await on the horizon. In his pitiless rendering of war’s horrors, Ichikawa achieves the same revelation, and never looks back.

Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974)

2010-12-04T22:27:00.000-08:00

Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder.
Starring Brigitte Mira and El Hedi ben Salem.

In a Nutshell: A lonely widow is ostracized when she falls in love with a younger Arab.

Fassbinder conceived Ali: Fear Eats the Soul as a directing exercise in between two other projects. This hardly telegraphs a labor of love. But his speedy production schedule must have granted an unfettered simplicity to the film’s unlikely love affair. The story is a thematic reworking of Douglas Sirk’s All That Heaven Allows, supplemented with two like characters from his early work The American Solider (a far grimmer tale about discrimination). But Fassbinder presents this tale without irony, projecting Sirk’s subtext to boot. The end result is a beautiful love story between two flawed individuals aching for acceptance.

The film's greatest achievement can be felt through the soulful performances of the resilient Brigitte Mira and sad-eyed El Hedi ben Salem. Today, ben Salem’s work carries a haunting truth. As Fassbinder’s real-life lover, the hostility he found in Germany built up until he stabbed three men, then hung himself in prison. As “Ali,” he faces victimization, even Mira’s unconscious prejudice, exhausting him to the point of emotional detachment. Mira’s Emmi faces the same tough decision of defying her family and peers for Ali’s love, and Fassbinder is careful not to define her plight as social martyrdom. Their conflict within themselves could reflect Fassbinder’s own struggle to find happiness, the unfortunate causality of human nature. Though the film’s end champions its progression as well.

Select shots of visual artifice present still moments of separation or proximity. Such shots adopt any number of manners; evocation of Emmi and Ali’s love frozen in time or the overt manipulation each character feels within their given “role”. Or it may just be Fassbinder’s extreme depiction of his own experiences. It may feel unnatural, but not inappropriate. Much like its title, these shots express a blunt simplicity akin to the couple’s union. Fassbinder has crafted a moving love story, but even its original intent demonstrates his command. Cribbing from Sirk forecasts lazy movie making. But Fassbinder’s personal melancholy illustrates the story’s backbone, uncovering depths of humanity that would have been strangled by Sirk’s feverish melodrama. Only something as ineffable as Emmi and Ali’s love deserves his simple honesty.

Blast of Silence (1961)

2010-11-27T20:29:00.001-08:00

Directed by Allen Baron.
Starring Allen Baron and Molly McCarthy.

In a Nutshell: A hired killer is sent to New York where his past resurfaces.

Devoid of studio varnish, Allen Baron’s independent classic is a bitter tribute to the bare essence of noir. As lean as Samuel Fuller’s best, flavored with John Cassavetes’ emerging expressionism, it digs into the coarse heart of all noir; embittered isolation. Baron stars as hitman Frankie Bono with Lionel Stander’s raspy tenor functioning as his inner monologue. Once in New York on an assignment, Bono is confronted with past melancholies and begins losing the focus that molded his intense professionalism. Shot on a shoestring budget on location, Merrill Brody’s imagery mirrors Bono’s desolation, with ubiquitous shots of Christmas decorations for a wisp of coy irony. Baron tracks nearly every step of Bono, deepening the seething hostility he projects at the city. In his life of slimy dealers and spiteful dames, it is that inward loathing that centers Bono, refining his craft. Blast of Silence projects the noir mood into cold comfort against the suffocating bleakness of day-to-day.

What makes Blast of Silence such an indelible underground hit is how built-in these qualities were. Baron bucked the studio system, effectively alienating himself to roam the city streets. His acting technique is inhibited, but perfect for shading Bono’s unease. The pointed disgust Bono exudes seems to have coalesced with Baron’s ambitions to defy convention, create real film-making by the skin of his teeth. The end result faded quickly from audience consciousness and Baron’s career descended into TV Hell. Blast of Silence shares Bono’s lonely fatalism, with nary a flicker of humanity to be found.

Metropolis (1927)

2010-11-20T21:26:00.001-08:00

Directed by Fritz Lang.
Starring Alfred Abel and Gustav Fröhlich.

In a Nutshell: The societal crisis between workers and owners of a capitalist dystopia.

A film that has not just changed our vision of our future, but the future itself through art, literature, culture, feeding into our perception of contemporary problems in a futuristic lens. It is a film of audacious visuals and grandiose ideas, one of the strongest survivors of silent cinema (and one of the most extravagant, equaled only by Intolerance and Greed). Eighty-three years later it has returned in as definitive a restoration as there may ever be (twenty-five additional minutes), and as powerful as ever. Metropolis concerns the struggle of class warfare, antiquated slightly by a proletarian impulse. The haves rule in sky-lofted paradise while the have-nots toil beneath the city. The privileged Freder (Gustav Fröhlich), son of an autocrat, falls in love with Maria (Brigitte Helm), an angelic beacon through the working-class smog. Witnessing an industrial accident propels Freder to defy his father and lead the workers in a revolution. Impeding his success is a mad scientist’s creation, a robot double for Maria, intent on sabotaging the workers from within.

For all of Fritz Lang’s gloriously baroque expressionism and narrative absurdity, its conceptualization of social strife with the growing industrialization feels ageless. Both classes are hive-mind forces of destruction, united only by spiritual idealism, not equality. It is a message even Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels could embrace, championing the dissolve of political bourgeoisie for reform of the labor force. Lang himself expressed dissatisfaction in later years, but the thematic power he brought to these ideas is unmistakable. Garnished with the very finest German Expressionism, Lang turns buildings into heaven-piercing castles and the city’s machinery into an electric monster, insatiable in its appetite for worker blood. The deco of Rotwang’s (Rudolf Klein-Rogge) lab has birthed nearly every mad scientist lair since.

Metropolis’ is a message film, one that is far too starry-eyed for our post-Marx society. Even with its newfound footage, not every narrative gap is bridged. But no matter. Few films can boast the literary and pictorial heights Lang brought to the medium. It is broad, occasionally over-explicit spectacle, but also buoyed by the unfiltered ideology that insulates Lang’s futuristic universe. There are hardly better examples that explore the capabilities film can be used to reflect our own struggles and shape our perceptions of tomorrow. I urge you all to see Metropolis in newly remastered glory, a landmark achievement in its final triumphant form.

Brute Force (1947)

2010-11-13T21:38:00.001-08:00

Directed by Jules Dassin.
Starring Burt Lancaster and Hume Cronyn.

In a Nutshell: Oppressed prisoners plan their escape on drainpipe detail.

The classic film noir is always about the luckless, the forsaken. Those crushed by society and try to worm their way to power only to fall on their own swords. Are they just and honest men? Not always, but they personify a struggle that separates haves from the have-nots. Jules Dassin’s prison noir Brute Force plays to this convention making our noir heroes are actual prisoners, but bad men only by title. They are gruff but kind-hearted, united in camaraderie and only guilty of minor crimes (usually in the name of love). Their prison is lorded by a gutless warden commanding a wave of fascist guards. Hardly a muddy moral line can be drawn before the prisoners plan to escape. Not just a physical release, but from the squeeze of imperialistic terror.

The prison setting gives Brute Force a hard structure that bluntly highlights its politics. Its characterization is archetypical, but this is not a story that requires nuance. Given its release date, it functions as a Word War II parallel or civilian muscle versus the capitalist regime, relevant to any era (little surprise that Dassin was a member of the Hollywood blacklist). Such bleak commentary fused with a thundering Hollywood climax pitches Brute Force as a fine, rousing foray into the noir or prison genre (take your pick). Dassin may be overly earnest in his convictions, but his unshaken voice for liberation rings authentic.

L’Avventura (1960)

2010-11-06T22:11:00.001-07:00

Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni.
Starring Gabriele Ferzetti and Monica Vitti.

In a Nutshell: A woman becomes involved with the lover of her missing friend.

If it is hard to measure the impact L’Avventura had on cinema upon its release, perhaps it is because so little of it feels dated today. The first of Antonioni’s Incommunicability Trilogy, and the one where Antonioni found his voice in the privileged desolation of his characters. Translated, the title is “The Adventure,” a wry comment on the stunted emotions of the wealthy Claudia (Monica Vitti) and Sandro (Gabriele Ferzetti). Sandro had been the lover of Claudia’s friend Anna (Lea Massari), stuck in a relationship that grew more estranged by the day. After a visit to a deserted island, Anna disappears. Not just from the scenery; once Claudia and Sandro begin their love affair, it is as though Anna had never existed. There is a Hitchcock element to this first act, but Antonioni does not seem to care about Anna anymore than Claudia and Sandro do. And there is something very wrong with that.

The island of Anna’s disappearance is an abyss of edged, sloping rocks, with hardly any plants and no animals. On land, the extravagance of Sicily has never looked so barren or its people so drab and clammy. The opening scene watches a vast patch of lush earth being excavated. Such images (courtesy of Aldo Scavarda) reflect despair on the amorality of its people. No crescendo of love is ever reached; Claudia and Sandro pass through their affair like lost spirits. When Sandro shatters the white noise, it is as though Claudia regains an entire consciousness, remembering what it is to feel again.

Perhaps that is a harsh characterization. Vitti (Antonioni’s muse in three subsequent films) delicately navigates Claudia’s plight: to batter against one’s own hollowness, grasping for happiness. She does not judge Claudia, and neither does Antonioni. Instead he offers the experience (the “adventure”) as its own commentary. Pure mood, L’Avventura is liberated from structure or a tangible purpose to its events. This made it a breakthrough in storytelling. And it is that story, of empty impulses and insulated angst that has earned L’Avventura’s legacy into our modern day. Draw your own conclusions about the sad, sterile lives of Claudia, Sandro and the rest. For their adventures will continue to reinvent themselves as our lifestyles continually leave the moral landscape in disarray.

The Hole (1960)

2010-10-30T22:02:00.001-07:00

Directed by Jacques Becker.
Starring Mark Michel and Jean Keraudy.

In a Nutshell: Five inmates attempt an escape.

The final film of director Jacques Becker is a marvel; smoothly unsophisticated in its depiction of grimy, laborious escape. Filmed in pseudo-documentary style with long unbroken takes, untrained actors (including real-life prison escapee Jean Keraudy) and no score, The Hole has a somber authenticity to its mechanisms. It does not thrive on grand spectacle or proclamations; the characters’ actions pulse with the animalistic instinct, be it freedom, desperation or brutality. But it is also a world of unity, one tested by the arrival of the fifth (Mark Michel), an adulterer sentenced for accidentally shooting his furious wife. He gradually enters the four’s inner circle as they plan to break through their cell floor to freedom’s beckon.

Drawing the viewer into the exertion is done with minimalist skill. One of the most famous shots has a four-minute take of the men pounding away at the concrete floor. This is real labor, not the sort of detail glossed over in a cut or dissolve. Close-ups of hands, dim lights and sweaty faces shrink close us into the spiritual purity of the struggle. The tremors of each new development and bond resonate against the bareness of the production. Becker has his finger on the pulse of the collective, the scrutiny of the prisoner’s day-to-day and the yearning to escape into the darkness. The underground that the men must traverse becomes a mythical labyrinth where, forgoing all earthly tension, each man becomes one with the same resolute hunger. By the time two of the men get a glimpse outside the walls, each is stirred in awe. But through Becker’s eye, even the slightest glance can tell so much more.

Good Night, and Good Luck (2005)

2010-10-23T21:10:00.000-07:00

Directed by George Clooney.
Starring David Strathairn and George Clooney.

In a Nutshell: Edward R. Murrow brings down Joseph McCarthy over his news show.

America’s anti-Communist movement of the 50’s found a regrettable mascot in Joseph McCarthy whose witch-hunts spread fear and ruined reputations. Sickened by McCarthy’s dishonest slander, Edward R. Murrow sought to disrepute him from the desk of his nightly CBS news show. Director/co-writer George Clooney frames this as an ode to Murrow’s legacy if also a cautionary tale his successors. The film is an undeniable champion of Murrow. By keeping this focus on Murrow, Clooney gives an absorbing account of journalism’s fight for civil liberty, trimmed with all necessary period details. McCarthy is played by stock footage, showing the man as a spitting, raving bully before his shameful Army hearings. David Strathairn’s Murrow acts as a beacon of quiet, reserved principle amidst his anxious newsroom peers.

The McCarthy fight seeps into every single scene, creating an insular world of news and politics. Compounded by Strathairn’s news-ready close-ups, Clooney magnifies the film into a grand struggle for television’s soul. Strathairn’s Murrow feels mythical, though the actor is canny to allow a glimpse of humanity even when the script does not. That the film follows a single-minded approach to Murrow feels refreshingly old-fashioned. Murrow’s epilogue mourns the loss of media ethics and our appetites for baseless fear mongering. If the ending reads too blatantly (but sorely deserving of current audiences), it only exemplifies the unstated social strife beneath every monologue. With the fear of communism antiquated beyond our memories, Clooney pleads for our media to account for the delusions and smears that run our news cycle. With Good Night, and Good Luck, his direction can at least take its advice to heart, sticking straight to the story and nothing less.

Bande à part (1964)

2010-10-16T22:22:00.001-07:00

Directed by Jean-Luc Godard.
Starring Anna Karina and Sami Frey.

In a Nutshell: Two youths enlist a young woman in their next robbery.

“A few words chosen at random. Three weeks earlier. A pile of money. An English class. A house by the river. A romantic girl.” And the most fun ever to be had at a Godard movie. Bande à part is a crime film only in theory, disposing its pulp origins for a breezy cadence. The plot has two hoods (Sami Frey and Claude Brasseur) ensnaring a virginal classmate (Anna Karina) into robbing her aunt. That is a plot, but it is not the movie. This outing has Godard’s self-consciousness and pop-culture bitterness in check. His characters are still living through cinema; play acting gangsters while fumbling for the next conquest. For a while, Godard asks us to live this, to want to live it. And we can, because it is just so much fun.

Before the heist, Frey, Brasseur and Karina engage in youthful delectation, rendered by a parade of set-pieces aped to this day. Take the Madison sequence where the characters dance to a jukebox swing. For just a few minutes, they move in step (Karina in between the boys) unnoticed by the café’s patrons. Godard’s amused voiceover cuts through the soundtrack. “Parenthetically, now’s the time to discuss their feelings,” as if such isolated bliss could never be so pure.

Godard leaves a distinct nostalgia-infused tinge on his film, from the mist-covered villa of Karina’s character to the confused materialism of Frey and Brasseur. But his smoother pacing and camera movements diffuse his pretensions. As with the later Masculin, feminine, the characters are not cultural figures, their America worship an oddity of their own delusions. That fantasy eventually shatters (death is involved), but is quickly followed by the cheeky promise of an American sequel. It is those humorous reflexive touches that make Bande à part so enjoyable, such freedom from Godard’s chord of disdain. At least for some.

The Man Who Wasn’t There (2001)

2010-10-09T21:32:00.001-07:00

Directed by Joel and Ethan Coen.
Starring Billy Bob Thornton and Frances McDormand.

In a Nutshell: A barber’s blackmail scheme goes awry.

Pre-Cold War era noir casts a hard-bitten glare over the alienating suburbia slice-of-life that is the Coen Brothers’ The Man Who Wasn’t There. The Coens have proven insidious manipulators of whatever genre strikes their fancy. Here they bring an expert’s restoration to film noir, bustling with timely idiosyncrasies. Its protagonist, Ed Crane (Billy Bob Thornton), is the quintessential noir icon; a man condemned to misery for wishing a better life. Though Ed is a greater puzzle, narrating about his dull barber job and unpleasant wife with deadened candor. He hardly seems aware his life is one worthy of unhappiness. When Ed is offered a business investment, he blackmails his wife’s boss (Ed suspects they are having an affair) without pause.

But something goes wrong and Ed kills one of his transgressors. I will speak no more of the plot, though the manner in which it circles back to Ed is more happenstance than contrivance. Such plot mechanisms benefit from the ease of the film’s languid pacing filled with ancillary subplots and other asides. Plenty diverts from the film’s core conflict, moving in step with its solemn narrator, musing on the little details. This is pure narrative style, nearly supplanted by Roger Deakins’ chillingly crisp cinematography and Thornton’s dry calm. It can feel far too mannered and insular, like a malevolent puppet show. Taken as an exercise in lavish cinematic aesthetic, it will not disappoint. Besides, it is not as if Ed Crane was there to begin with.

The Big Sleep (1946)

2010-10-02T21:29:00.001-07:00

Directed by Howard Hawks.
Starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall.

In a Nutshell: A PI is hired to untangle a family’s underworld involvements.

Sometimes all a film needs is charisma to overcome its own limitations. Howard Hawks’ adaptation of the hardboiled Raymond Chandler novel succeeds this, with no small thanks to the studio. The executives behind The Big Sleep recognized its overly convoluted plot as too disposable for audiences. Re-shoots and re-edits changed the film’s rhythm from a morose noir into a coy love story amidst a tumultuous underworld. Even with the outsider influence, the current incarnation of The Big Sleep remains definitively Hawks-ian; relaxed and cynical, but hardly morose.

Philip Marlowe (Humphrey Bogart) is sent to clear the names of an infirm general’s daughters (Lauren Bacall and Martha Vickers) centered on a family employee’s disappearance. Though Marlowe becomes quickly steeped into a web of hoods, gamblers, pornographers and other riff-raff. Bogart was the first to play Marlowe, honing the weary romanticism that has lived in film PI’s for decades. The plot throws out tight bits of suspense, with Bogie retaining his collected wits. It is as “cool” as movie “cool” gets. Bacall, Bogart’s love on and off set, matches the whip-smart repartee with the aplomb of a seasoned pro. With the murders and motivations fading from moviegoer memory, it is their crackling, cutthroat courtship that has burnished their reputation as one of cinema’s most iconic couples.

If The Big Sleep could keep one distinction, it demonstrates exactly how to bottle star power. It rolls along good-naturedly through sin and vice without acting wary of its own shadow. This effortless “cool” can be distilled to the inward manner Bogart sizes up an adversary or deflects a sexpot’s advances. Hawks and a trio of screenwriters punch up the noir gloom with droll self-amusement, nimbly avoiding histrionics. Without a proper structure, it could be argued that The Big Sleep coasts on its surface strengths, but that’s just it. It is not the plot that leaves us spinning, but great dialogue, great acting, great scenes. As free floating as cinematic jazz, albeit with some outside improvisations.

Bigger Than Life (1956)

2010-09-25T21:55:00.001-07:00

Directed by Nicholas Ray.
Starring James Mason and Barbara Rush.

In a Nutshell: An experimental miracle cure wrecks havoc on a teacher’s mental state.

Tapping deep into the yearning that defines the “Nicholas Ray hero,” Bigger Than Life makes the persuasive case for setting that man loose in bourgeois society. It is a film that rattles the chains of 50’s American life, far and away from any sly Douglas Sirk-ian understatement. We begin with the sort of drab ripped-from-the-headlines melodrama that many thought they were buying; prim schoolteacher Ed Avery (James Mason) becomes deathly ill and finds a cure with an experimental prescription of cortisone. In order to get back on his feet (including a night job as a taxi dispatcher to make ends meet), Ed takes dosage after dosage. Not only does he get better, but Ed also transforms into the idealized advertisement of 50’s patriarchdom (football lessons, shopping sprees and disciplinary lessons soon follow). Though once the drugs seize Ed’s mind, the American dream slides into expressionistic nightmare.

Over the years, Bigger Than Life is upheld for its critique of 50’s values. While Ed may take these to frightening extremes, he nearly breaks free from his suburban conformity (or at least closer than Jim Stark and his hungry brooding). Even after a horror-movie showdown and a skeptically happy ending, the question remains. Is he a rebel or a monster? Ray either keeps his cards hidden or remains as divided. Within Ed’s megalomania is a drive for self-improvement with no room for lenience. It heightens, and nearly rips his family apart, but until then, Ed had mastered his life’s duties to live in comfort with all the gadgets a successful life could provide. Is that happiness? Even a tearful embrace at the end cannot tell.

Despite his conspicuous British accent, Mason hits every right note. From meek to might to menace, his performance is matched on by Ray who shifts genres without becoming a pastiche. Under Ray’s eye, the Avery house is a shadowy prison of domestic clutter and excess. Ed’s life peaks and bottoms out in such a scant amount of time that it beautifies the film’s brutality into a broad stroke. Bigger Than Life lives up to its title only to befit its study of our own inhibitions. Even as it weighs Ed’s struggle between conformity and liberation, the most unnerving impression one can take is that even Ray cannot give an easy answer. It is a puzzling, harrowing and outsize as life itself.

Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959)

2010-09-18T21:40:00.000-07:00

Directed by Alain Resnais.
Starring Emmanuelle Riva and Eiji Okada.

In a Nutshell: An actress and architect conduct an affair in postwar Hiroshima.

Hiroshima Mon Amour; a film heralded for helping to birth the French New Wave and one of the most innovative film narratives since Citizen Kane. Éric Rohmer predicted that Hiroshima could be recognized as, “the most important film since the war, the first modern film of sound cinema.” Lofty, but justified praise. The shifting blend of time, memory and reality becomes the domain for Alain Resnais and writer Marguerite Duras to exploring the relationship of two adulterous lovers in postwar Hiroshima. She (Emmanuelle Riva) is a French actress in an international peace film. He (Eiji Okada) is a Japanese architect who experienced the bomb’s destruction firsthand. They have a passionate, anonymous love. Later, they discuss the pain residing in their lives, in an extended two-day conversation.

When Rohmer spoke of Hiroshima’s reputation, he may not have foreseen Resnais’ influence through fracturing and shuffling time. Sometimes, it amounts to an interesting experiment (Last Year at Marienbad). Here, Resnais is more personal. Hiroshima observes two people whose lives have been ripped apart from their private involvement with the war. He lived through Hiroshima; a tragedy shared by millions. She recounts her punishment for her carefree affair with a German officer, glimpsed in fragmented flashbacks. It is never clear how much was real and how much was distorted by memory.

When the film opens, both are swept in the moment’s embrace as newsreel footage of Hiroshima fills the screen. They speak openly about the lives lost, the destruction, their own place in this turmoil. It is a vivid evocation of how absolute the past is within our present and how sorrow and ecstasy become one. This theme winds through the couple’s talk with the woman’s past unexpectedly resurfacing among Japan’s collective remembrance. Riva defines the film’s soul; unsure how to reconstruct her life with the big picture looming in the foreground. Resnais meshes the horrifying mundane of Japan’s ghost town with delicate surrealism to move with Riva’s sadness. While sidestepping any grand historical proclamations, the film defines what it means to bear emotional scars; what they meant then, what they mean now, particularly in a nuclear age. The world has long since recovered from World War II, but Resnais and Duras’ work will always speak for our anguish and uncertainty, past, present and future.

La Dolce Vita (1960)

2010-09-11T21:40:00.001-07:00

Directed by Federico Fellini.
Starring Marcello Mastroianni and Anita Ekberg.

In a Nutshell: A gossip journalist spends a hedonistic week in Rome.

“This is the art I prefer. The one I think we’ll need tomorrow. A clear, precise art without rhetoric, that doesn’t lie, that isn’t flattering. Now I have a job that I don’t like, but I often think about tomorrow.” The words by detached journalist Marcello (Marcello Mastroianni) describe the ideal purpose of art, the art he enjoys. Fellini is far too extroverted, far too unambiguous a director to hide this self-commentary, but this time he has earned it. La Dolce Vita lets the ecstasy and muddy morality of post-war Rome wash over its audience; all the objectivity of neo-realism with Fellini’s loving theatrics. Marcello’s week yields seven vignettes; each swims in decadent fantasy before staggering into the bleak dawn. Portraying Fellini’s alter ego, Marcello acts as agent and observer but never the moralizer.

Comparatively tame by today’s excesses, the film does not risk frolic for fright. Every scene that whetted 60’s audiences for “the sweet life” found itself anchored with startling reality. By the time a reactive, self-loathing Marcello derails a listless orgy, the film feels exhausted by Rome’s lost glamour. La Dolce Vita is wonderfully expressive; the bluntness of its visual compositions fails to diminish the impact. Which made La Dolce Vita less revolutionary for how it communicated with its audience (though Fellini’s delicate balance between realism and caricature need not be overlooked) than the commentary itself.

And yet Fellini can wring a shot of Anita Ekberg frolicking in a fountain for all its worth. Fellini is an unabashedly indulgent director; I love him no less for it. But La Dolce Vita, with its deeply cynical backbone and glittering show-biz extravagance, hits a nerve that will never dull in our similarly materialistic age. Fellini never needed to reach for these truths; every memorable scene pulsates with an authenticity all its own. It is a rare experience of a movie, shamelessly baroque though hardly its own moral wasteland. As long as men like Marcello continue to claw through their own emptiness, La Dolce Vita will never go out of style.

Love in the Afternoon (1972)

2010-09-04T21:23:00.000-07:00

Directed by Éric Rohmer.
Starring Bernard Verley and Zouzou.

In a Nutshell: A man contemplates infidelity with an old acquaintance.

Éric Rohmer’s Six Moral Tales, brought a decidedly textured approach to film’s exploration of sexuality. Though Rohmer’s work comes is less interested in experimentation (or titillation for that matter), and more for putting our emotional battles under the microscope. Love in the Afternoon (the final Moral Tale) involves Frédéric (Bernard Verley), a man with a good job, happy marriage and two adorable children. This is a fine life and Frédéric knows it, but he enjoys the fleeting thrill of flirting with other women. Soon he finds his magnetism wearing off, just as Chloé (Zouzou) comes back into his life. The bohemian flame of a friend (with no love lost between them), she seeks a job at Frédéric’s firm as a way to get her feet on the ground. The two soon develop a relationship (close though sexless) that takes a different turn when Chloé asks Frédéric to be the father of her child.

What could have congealed into a sex war allegory is instead refined naturalism with no clear battle lines. Surely Frédéric is no deviant even as we meet him fantasizing magical ways of ensnaring women on the street. He misses the feeling of repeated first loves while suffocating in marriage. He even categorizes his women, radiating an old calm over own actions. While Frédéric speaks to the sexually restless, Rohmer’s camera never judges. Nor Chloé. She knowingly offers herself as an emotional challenge to Frédéric, but she is hardly “the temptress”. A washed-up model and ex-trophy wife, Chloé seems aloof to her own insecurities, but confident in her abilities. A bit of a mess, but hardly a villain. Strength in character detail encapsulated Rohmer’s career; this movie is just one good example. Frédéric’s decision goes beyond lust into a study of what stability can mean for our own happiness. How Frédéric finds that happiness only demonstrates the simple beauty of love coming full circle.

Masculin, feminin (1966)

2010-08-28T18:41:00.000-07:00

Directed by Jean-Luc Godard.
Starring Jean-Pierre Léaud and Chantal Goya.

In a Nutshell: An idealistic youth chases an up-and-coming pop singer.

In its own way, Masculin, feminine plays a similar function in Godard’s oeuvre as Fellini’s La Dolce Vita. Retaining just enough objectivity, both films portray the social and political maelstroms of their times. They stoke the wistful fantasies of its first audience, while leaving insight for its detached viewers. Though Godard’s commentaries are hardly straightforward; here on the culture born of French New Wave. “La Nouvelle Vague” famously birthed Truffaut’s 400 Blows where Jean-Pierre Léaud’s troubled youth insolated himself within the movies and Godard’s Breathless where Jean-Paul Belmondo’s criminal aped Humphrey Bogart. Now, we have Léaud as Paul, another film-lover who occasionally impersonates Belmondo impersonating Bogart. In between political discussions and small revolutions, Paul pursues Madeleine (Chantal Goya), a yé-yé singer groomed for the teenybopper crowd.

Paul and Madeleine are a curious pairing; he a child of Marx, she of Coca-Cola. The two size each other up, feigning indifference to a love they cannot define. The battle of the sexes is compounded by three more, though Godard does not push the quintet towards allegory. Even outside of the bedroom, Paul lives a life that is both movie fiction and that fiction’s reflection; hedonistic in a chaotic world. Non-sequiturs buzz about the frame’s edge, punctuated by empty gunshots. Filmed as cinéma vérité, its collection of scenes and interviews feel improvised. The film breathes; its observations about war, love, film and the like do not feel like statements, but experiences. Godard holds the immediacy to youthful introspection even when names and events have dated. Godard displays intrigue for this generation of restless, yearning narcissism. In between snatches of essayist musings, Masculin, feminine hints at a more loving ode for its characters and their cinema-seeped lives. How else could Godard regard his own children?

Lola (1981)

2010-08-21T20:53:00.001-07:00

Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder.
Starring Barbara Sukowa and Armin Mueller-Stahl.

In a Nutshell: A building commissioner falls for the mistress of a corrupt developer.

Lola should have been the moment when Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s career peaked. Nimbly avoiding muddy pastiche, Lola mixes satire, melodrama and a world-bitten cynicism into a charming caricature of class struggle politics. It takes its material to extremes, skipping an overt manipulation on Fassbinder’s part, while slyly deconstructing bourgeois under its audience’s nose. The film takes place in a post-WWII West Germany town, governed by amorality. Its contractors and businessmen hustle money from town officials for “reconstruction” purposes. Enter Von Bohm (Armin Mueller-Stahl), a building commissioner deemed un-corruptible thanks to a principled idealism (and just a touch of naivety). Von Bohm’s methods bring fear to the crooked, namely Schuckert (Mario Adorf). He complains to his mistress, a cabaret singer and prostitute named Lola (Barbara Sukowa), implying that such a woman would be beneath Von Bohm. Shuckert bets that Lola would not be able to court Von Bohm. She does, though their relationship grows faster than either would have predicted.

A vibrant palette and slow burning love story do little to take out the bite of Lola’s send-up of the post-war values. The distinctions do not offset each other, just a dark undertone to the dreamy, candy-coated festivities. And they are quite festive. Adorf is delightfully incorrigible while Mueller-Stahl’s can convey a wistful innocence with only his ice-blue gaze. Both are little match for Sukowa’s run of the emotional gamut. To balance so many facets of her character (dedicated mother, wounded mistress, ambitious social climber while both ashamed and empowered through her prostitution) risks the same tonal mess of the rest of the film. Sukowa more than succeeds; her rendition of “The Fisherman of Capri” at a key discovery is a masterpiece of frenzied insecurity.

Its other values aside, Lola’s biggest attraction is still Fassbinder’s auteurism. Lola, Von Bohm and Schuckert are portrayed as multi-dimensional while still acting allegorically. Their stories and interactions work in the same manner; humanism coloring in historical observation. This way, Lola shirks the obvious sentimentality of pat conclusions about its people or time. Fassbinder just tells us a story, flourished with honest human detail. Unfortunately, what should have been the height of Fassbinder’s career became his antepenultimate after drug-induced heart failure. But Lola can be lovingly regarded as his archetypal Fassbinder. Sheer joy, blunt characterization, a dark satirical aftertaste and everything else Fassbinder; a cornerstone of a peerless career.

Buffalo ‘66 (1998)

2010-08-14T21:14:00.001-07:00

Directed by Vincent Gallo.
Starring Vincent Gallo and Christina Ricci.

In a Nutshell: An ex-convict kidnaps a dancer en route to extracting revenge.

Buffalo ‘66 is a film worthy of Vincent Gallo’s irregular career; raw emotion with fantastic bursts of creative filmmaking, if short of cohesion. It is a film about unrequited love, but not necessarily a “relationship film”. We become steeped into a character’s desire for revenge, but it is not a “revenge film” either. While it has a driven plot, Buffalo ‘66 is far more enamored in the details, small moments that bring its protagonist to his conclusion. Gallo plays Billy Brown, a man who served time after botching a bet on the Buffalo Bills. Once paroled, he aims to murder the Bills’ placekicker. From the opening scene of Billy pleading to use the prison bathroom, Gallo risks turning Billy into a grating pile of tics. Gallo’s whiny demeanor and volatile reactions certainly succeed in defining Billy as a damaged, unctuous creep. Not the sort who would immediately garner our sympathies, particularly when he kidnaps dance student Layla (Christina Ricci).

Billy forces Layla to pose as his wife (named for a schoolyard crush) so he could show off for his oafish parents (Ben Gazzara and Anjelica Huston). It is a task that Layla takes with an odd confidence, improvising within the role in a way that unexpectedly charms Billy’s parents. This section was shot in Gallo’s own childhood home, with the caricatured portrayals of Billy’s parents a focused chord of malice at Gallo’s own upbringing. Whether renewed with a found sympathy or afflicted with Stockholm syndrome, Layla attempts to connect with Billy and draw him away from his vengeful goal. But even then, Buffalo ‘66 does seek to become a “redemption film.”

No, this film refuses to be placed in a certain box and is all the better for it. It exists as a string of scenes where Gallo and Ricci explore their characters; lost souls who find solace in each other simply through their own company. Gallo’s Billy swings from dejected, to malicious, to wounded with a jittery grace; Ricci’s Layla is similarly childish and lonely, but wonderfully defines a character, rather than a plot device. Aside from Gallo’s attention to emotional detail, he employs a nice variety of techniques including frames within frames, an Ozu-style framing and even a pivoting freeze-frame that predates The Matrix. These could be gratuitous stunts without any resonance to Billy’s turmoil, a fine example of Gallo’s skill as a director. Undeniably unconventional, Buffalo ‘66 burns with a memorable emotional urgency. A hard film to shake off.

The Last Picture Show (1971)

2010-08-07T21:05:00.001-07:00

Directed by Peter Bogdanovich.
Starring Timothy Bottoms and Jeff Bridges.

In a Nutshell: Two boys mature in a dying Texas small town.

Anarene, Texas is a lonely town, one caught at the mercy of time’s rapidity. Its small-town pleasures have degraded into dilapidated touchstones of a forgotten era; a pool hall, café and matinee theater. There is little to do, and no way out except the war, sex or death. As Anarene recedes into the dust, its citizens conduct passionless affairs or glue themselves to their televisions. The Last Picture Show sadly observes our fleeting mythologies while dreading the banal future. It is simply told and tenderly realized. When the movie theater closes after a final screening of Red River, its characters effectively lose the Western myth that has sustained its past. Embodying this loss is Ben Johnson’s Sam the Lion, owner of Anarene’s three attractions. He reminisces on his glory days with melancholy fondness; little else is worth living for.

Peter Bogdanovich, a disciple of John Ford and Orson Welles, sinks into the era in a way that far surpasses a few pop tunes on the soundtrack. Sexual and social issues dot the characters’ lives without heightening to melodrama. There are mild laughs and searing confessions within the characters’ foibles and exploits. Everyone may grope for meaning in their pointless lives, but never without Bogdanovich’s sympathetic lens. As two good ol’ boys, Timothy Bottoms and Jeff Bridges appeal to our good-natured sensibilities; in the wake of crushed football dreams and the verge of sexual discovery.

The camera's view of Anarene rarely rises above the skyline, keeping us caught in the human drama. Even as it evoked moods and values that were two decades prior to its audience, it hardly feels dated. What Anarene loses besides the Western myth (supported by its movies) is community. A finale death of one of its inhabitants only deepens the riff between its citizens, how alien each has become. The Last Picture Show is painful, honest and eager to embrace the clumsiness of its relationships. To continually laud its images and acting might veer into redundancy. A perfect evocation, frozen in time.

Lolita (1962)

2010-07-31T19:38:00.001-07:00

Directed by Stanley Kubrick.
Starring James Mason and Shelley Winters.

In a Nutshell: A professor becomes infatuated with his teenaged stepdaughter.

Anyone familiar with the salacious and sardonic novel by Vladimir Nabokov knows the risks Stanley Kubrick faced in bowdlerizing to appease early 60’s sensibilities. Kubrick’s movie descends into sexual desire, infused with a tone both sly and dispiriting (but never at the same time). The movie begins with the book’s tragic ending. An air of pathos hangs over the movie, allowing us to observe literature professor Humbert Humbert’s (James Mason) pursuit of Lolita (Sue Lyon) with greater distance. Call it the Kubrick touch. Mason is perfectly cast as a man who regards his own perversion with bemusement, then ignores the warning signs anyway. The history of Humbert’s nymphet infatuation is now ordinary lust, inspiring pity and a knowing grin rather than disgust.

The emotional swings of Humbert’s tryst with Lolita more than account for the sharp tonal contrasts. Unfortunately, the censors may have had their way in muting any eroticism; all that is left are dark humor and middle-aged angst to grip the viewer. Tighter editing could have eliminated superfluous, if funny, scenes that cost the movie an appropriate curtness (too many involve Peter Sellers’ as a slippery playwright; a funny performance, but deserving of a different showcase). Rare for a Kubrick film to feature such extroverted acting; Mason’s flawless portrayal is given plenty of strong support. Newcomer Lyon balances petulance and callousness with ease while Shelley Winters fills her punchline role of Lolita’s needy, psuedo-cultured mother with an earthly charm.

A true adaptation may have been out of Kubrick’s grasp during past censorship, but finds the film’s own footing in obsession. A few slapsticky and superfluous scenes are championed by more meaningful moments; the emotional beats between Mason and his co-stars are wonderfully realized. Nabokov’s probing narration loses its voice, keeping perversion at bay. By the end, Humbert’s downfall has become more uncomfortable than his obsessions. We mourn his loss even if we cannot truly enter Humbert’s amoral psyche. One wonders if a censor-free Kubrick could have given a greater (if uncomfortable) depth to Humbert and Lolita’s relationship, but the film remains a stimulating treat.

Punch Drunk Love (2002)

2010-07-24T21:34:00.000-07:00

Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson.
Starring Adam Sandler and Emily Watson.

In a Nutshell: A mentally unstable man falls in love while deflecting an extortion scheme.

The comedy of Adam Sandler, built on humiliation and unforeseen bursts of hostility, has never been universally loved. Critics have dismissed for cajoling its viewers into laughing at Sandler for those qualities, including his outward attacks on the film’s proposed villian. Such forms the basis for Paul Thomas Anderson’s delightfully off-kilter romance, Punch Drunk Love. Sandler plays his usual persona, with Anderson exploiting those unsettling undertones. Barry Egan, a salesman of novelty items, is the product of years of repression and sibling bulling. He is lonely, prone to odd obsessions, and incapable of expressing himself outside of uncontrolled sobbing and violent outbursts. An ill-conceived phone sex call threatens Barry with extortion, goading Barry’s unpredictable nature. But Barry’s life begins anew once he meets the shy and mysterious Lena (Emily Watson).

Previous Anderson films have coyly aped past directorial trademarks. Now the homage is genre-specific; Hollywood (pre-irony) romance with a shot of psychological darkness. It is an erratic pairing, which Anderson illustrates with a Technicolor palette, jittery cuts and soundtrack cues, and the swooning glide of each tracking shot. Such are the details that enliven a script that feels intentionally underwritten. Particularly Lena; is she too timid to offer anything but unconditional support or is the on-screen Lena just Barry’s interpretation? Theirs is a love that takes an open-minded audience to fill in the blanks.

A brisker affair than the typical Anderson picture, Punch Drunk Love is still a genre experiment (film romance and the undercurrents of uncomfortable comedy) rather than conceived as a character study. Sandler and Anderson give an unrelenting portrayal of the anger and fear of one bordering on illness, without becoming cinematic psychiatrists. As a romance, it lets Barry’s hopefulness and ecstasy run equally amok, and the film becomes as joyful as a MGM musical. Anderson has crafted one 90-minute emotional high, sold with panache and more visual creativity than the most accomplished of romance films. Like the harmonium that appears before Barry in the opening minutes, it is puzzling and delicate, while yielding something as pure as those first plunked notes.

Brazil (1985)

2010-07-17T21:40:00.001-07:00

Directed by Terry Gilliam.
Starring Jonathan Pryce and Kim Greist.

In a Nutshell: An office drone unravels a terrorist plot while perusing his dream woman.

Our filmmaking industry needs more Terry Gilliams, and perhaps Gilliam needs more of the industry. As a filmmaker, Gilliam is dependably imaginative and commendable in his pictures’ scope but can trip on visual and thematic overload. Perhaps that criticism is unnecessary; this sort of unchecked invention is precisely what films should be for, even the worst ones. Brazil is at once his most extravagant and most focused, a comic distortion of dystopia. At its heart, it is the story of a dreamer in a world of steel and paranoia. Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce) toils at a low-level government job while fantasizing of flight, monsters and a beautiful woman (Kim Griest). Sam finds his muse to be Jill, the neighbor of a suspected terrorist. Jill becomes the government’s target when she correctly accuses the bureaucrats of apprehending the wrong man.

Nary does a futuristic touchstone go untouched by Gilliam’s lens. Terrorism, consumerism, the monotony of office work and the needless intricacy of household appliances are scorn to Gilliam’s deadpan wit. Its darkest themes of government propaganda do not disappear so much as they become shrouded in absurdity. Brazil’s aesthetic is born of 40’s era optimism. Every backdrop flaunts its steam-powered artifice to excessiveness for further comic effect.

This muddle is weighed by the wistful dreams of Lowry, a venue for more Gilliam-esque visuals while gracing the delicate hopes to escape it all. It is a sad note that follows the film to the very last frame. Of Gilliam’s Imagination Trilogy, Lowry’s plight cuts deepest, if only by having the most horrid world to escape from. Much can still be lauded over in Brazil; Michael Palin deserves accolades for his work as a nice guy who just happens to be a torturer. Its overstuffed script and mise-en-scène can sacrifice coherency for creativity, redeemed by Gilliam’s eagerness and the humanism of Lowry. A studio head or some outside collaborator could have reigned in Brazil’s excess. But it wouldn’t be this movie.

Faust (1994)

2010-07-10T00:24:00.000-07:00

Directed by Jan Švankmajer.
Starring Petr Čepek and Jan Kraus.

In a Nutshell: A man becomes trapped in a stage production of Faust.

The story of Faust has been retold countless times, inviting any fresh perspectives. Surrealist animator Jan Švankmajer’s version may not delve into the psychology of Faust but is unique in its own charms. His adaptation is not a straight retelling; rather an Everyman (amusingly deadpan Petr Čepek) traps himself in a curiously sinister stage production of the tale. The man assumes the role of Faust, becoming a life-size marionette for the play’s unseen, God-like director. As the man scoffs at his predicament, gladly sealing his own fate, the play starts blurring the lines of reality. The puppet co-stars continue the show off-stage, from the streets to a sunny Eden-esque meadow. While Faust is tortured, Švankmajer amuses us with cutaways to Faust’s audience, even during intermission.

Švankmajer’s offbeat sensibilities are the film’s strongest point; the puppet and stop motion oddities play like Pee Wee’s Playhouse written by Franz Kafka. But Švankmajer seems all too happy to fill the screen with his oddities and little more. Faust is too lengthy and too surface-weird to stick in the mind. Švankmajer has stated that his Faust’s manipulation is a commentary on the spread of capitalism. Čepek’s induction into the stage production (with accompanying audience) may speak of the parts we unwittingly play before the passive masses. But the film only grazes these themes, content with stretching its visuals over a too-long 90 minutes. Too obscure for some, but fans of the surreal will need little persuasion to check out Švankmajer’s Faust.

The Night of the Hunter (1955)

2010-07-03T21:07:00.001-07:00

Directed by Charles Laughton.
Starring Robert Mitchum and Shelley Winters.

In a Nutshell: Two children guard their father’s fortune from a serial killer.

The Night of the Hunter is a film unique in its isolation, being the debut and swan song of Charles Laughton’s directorial career. It is a shining example of unpolished experimentation, and its flaws are easily trumped by Laughton’s creativity and vigor. A hybrid of Gothic folk tale and children’s horror, the film follows frighteningly eloquent murderer and faux-preacher Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum) out to claim a fortune hidden by his former cellmate. He preys on the man’s widow (Shelley Winters), but only the children (Billy Chapin and Sally Jane Bruce) know where the money is stashed. Powell stalks the children through a rural America, shot by Stanley Cortez into nightmarish abstraction. In this world, adults are weak, petty or cruel (save Lillian Gish’s hardened evangelist) with only childhood innocence as a means to survive.

As a remnant of Hollywood’s Golden age, the tone and scenery are impressively exaggerated, either as a child’s eye view or classic cinematic distortion. Unfortunately the third act, that rescues the children from Powell’s treachery, shifts into Sunday school treacle about Good versus Evil. The final scene belongs in a starkly different movie, though perhaps Laughton was providing relief to his honorable characters. Though it leaves little beyond unequivocal pretense, the innovation to the imagery and performances creates its own nuances. Mitchum brings a fascinating understanding to the character of Powell, a man who finds his cleverness as an absolution to his depravity. Chapin and Bruce have fine naturalistic instincts, but a few stagy moments betray Laughton’s confidence.

Covering so many film styles (German expressionism, fantasy, documentary, etc) can make it easy to regard the film as artless or self-conscious. With themes of little texture, it is that willingness to push the movie into unique territories that remain its most enduring aspect. At its core, the movie is a world through the virtue of children; any social critiques of small-town values and the Christian faith barely leave the film’s edges. Haunting at best, artificial at worst, The Night of the Hunter is a production unafraid to veer into unexpected directions to culminate into the perfect child’s nightmare. It pulsates with enough unbridled artistry to wonder the sort of auteur Laughton could have become.

8½ (1963)

2010-06-26T21:19:00.001-07:00

Directed by Federico Fellini.
Starring Marcello Mastroianni and Claudia Cardinale.

In a Nutshell: A film director struggles to find inspiration for his next project.

Has there ever been a movie more in tune with life than Federico Fellini’s masterpiece 8½? Bursting with Fellini’s inventive style and essayist human turmoil, it has remained unequaled as the top movie about moviemaking. As a landmark in Fellini’s career, it displays a confidence and grace that eluded his later, overly-flourished work. 8½ tells the story of celebrated director Guido Anselmi (Marcello Mastroianni), consumed and bored by his vices, searching for meaning in his latest movie. Unbeknown to his financers, actors, and confidents, Guido has yet to overcome his crippling director’s block. As he buckles under the strain, Guido’s psyche is explored through his reality, memory and dreams.

To uncover the neurosis of ambition and human anxiety is a daunting task, one that Fellini ironically has no issues rising to. Fellini and his camera glide through 8½’s many famous set pieces, blending memory with fantasy. Even Guido’s real life (played like a crumbling aftermath to La Dolce Vita’s hedonistic Hell) bustles with an infectious rhythm, aided by the many musicians and bands that float into view. That the film ends in a parade is only too perfect, a vision of Guido’s relief. Guido has his troubles (surely a reflection of Fellini’s own), but why settle for dourness? He delights in the baroque, fashioning outsize sets and colorful characters to illustrate Guido’s mind. Even regarded as simple visuals, it is a triumph of cinematic expression.

This sounds like a celebration of a man’s creative strife, and perhaps it is. Guido/Fellini is not asking for forgiveness, but to embrace the chaos. Guido/Fellini leave space to ponder the meaning their ambitions have on their lives, the poignancy that stops 8½ from becoming an inert pile of whimsy. The real beauty is how real Guido is to our own selves. He hides, lies, romanticizes and repeatedly yearns for his carefree days as a child. 8½ is less about director’s block (or Fellini’s invention) than the measure of one’s life and the roles we play. A searing introspection, diffused with the visual flair of purest escapism. A masterstroke of cinema, encapsulating life at its most turbulent.

Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004)

2010-06-19T21:05:00.000-07:00

Directed by Quentin Tarantino.
Starring Uma Thurman and David Carradine.

In a Nutshell: An assassin seeks to confront her would be-killer/ex-lover.

More talky than violent, Volume 2 of Quentin Tarantino’s saga is an admirable attempt to rein in the first volume’s chop-socky brutality for a quieter resonance. Loftier goals to be sure, but Tarantino’s indulgences work more against his aims for Volume 2. A few footnotes on the first volume are sufficient to catch any viewer up to Volume 2; The Bride (Uma Thurman) has defeated half of the Assassination Squad that massacred her wedding (seen in flashback). On the way towards defeating the rest, she will reunite with her daughter (presumed dead before birth) and Bill (David Carradine), her ex-master, ex-lover, father of her child, and orchestrator of her would-be murder.

Tarantino clearly loves his characters and treats the Bride and Bill’s relationship with care. Thurman and Carradine give toughened, subtle performances to illustrate a deeper history and dimension. Expected of any Tarantino film, there is dialogue, heavy with faux-Eastern burnishes. Though with a film with a clear need for momentum, long passages of talk only sandbag and lack the bite of his earlier features. Volume 1 may have been a thin update of trash, but had the kinetic skills to flirt with its own origins. Now, Tarantino’s portrayal of motherly anguish and betrayal spills out in turgid, self-mocking passages of “sophisticated” geek-speak. The production of Kill Bill suggested that this dissonance between the two volumes was organic. Both productions are still overly indulgent, one livelier than the other. Volume 2 is a worthy effort, but exists in a different universe than its first volume, where Tarantino’s bracing love of films can shatter its boundaries.

Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003)

2010-06-12T20:36:00.001-07:00

Directed by Quentin Tarantino.
Starring Uma Thurman and Lucy Liu.

In a Nutshell: An assassin, left for dead by her former allies, seeks revenge.

Perhaps the most forceful element of Quentin Tarantino’s two-part revenge drama is not the geysers of blood, or the Girl Power, or the eclectic, genre-bridging soundtrack. Kill Bill may be the purest expression of cinema love from the industry’s top cinema geek. Tarantino famously loves his movies without irony and affectionately uses Kill Bill to distort and pay homage to “trash” genres (kung-fu, spaghetti western, giallo, etc). Volume 1 (occurring between Volume 2’s events) has little going for it besides fight scenes and bursts of lavish storytelling. This can come off as self-indulgent, but Tarantino is having too much fun with his toys to care. Ultra-violent to be sure, though Kill Bill arguably does not glorify its violence. It glorifies cinematic glorifications of violence with enough sense to not be gruesome.

Despite being produced as one film, Volume 1 carries a starkly different presence. Free of any backstory or conclusion, it is just gleeful exercises of cinematic embellishment. Kill Bill’s relentless flourishes can leave the emotional base (a mother’s anger over her child) out of Tarantino’s grasp. Though that may be beyond the “point” of Volume 1’s ambitions to honor excess cinema. Any narrative incoherence, cartoonish consequence or stilted acting free becomes instantly free from criticism with Tarantino’s imagination left to run amok. Too many scenes of geek worship (e.g. a cameo by martial arts legend Sonny Chiba) or sickening subtext (some business with a slimy male nurse) detract from the film’s spryness. But overall, Kill Bill Vol. 1 remains unfettered with a skilled command of cinematic joy. Undeniably self-indulgent, but fun nonetheless.

My Own Private Idaho (1991)

2010-06-05T21:41:00.000-07:00

Directed by Gus Van Sant.
Starring River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves.

In a Nutshell: A prostitute searches for his mother with his unrequited crush.

An odd blend of storytelling, My Own Private Idaho is a loose reworking of Shakespeare’s Henry IV framed inside its own tale of lost love. Like its narcoleptic protagonist Mike Waters (a puppyish River Phoenix), the movie is detached from ordinary conventions, making life an abridged, waking dream. His condition is detrimental to his life as a prostitute, but finds companionship with fellow hustler Scott Favor (Keanu Reeves). Scott’s prostitution serves to defy his parents, knowing he can reclaim his wealth at the right time. Mike falls hopelessly in love with the confident Scott, and the two make a trip to find Mike’s mother in Idaho.

The film was released during the height of the AIDS hysteria, but decides to ignore this and forgo condemnation of male prostitution. Stripping the environment of this criticism, Gus Van Sant can bury into the aimless of street youths and Mike’s longing for Scott. Employing the Shakespeare concept is an inspired touch, Scott playing Prince Hal with the grungy mentor Bob (William Richert) as Falstaff. Besides the role-playing, some of Shakespeare’s language is garnished to fit Scott and Bob’s life. Though it only amounts to a cute parallel with Reeves’ hollow delivery underlining the (albeit amusing) artifice.

When the film centers on Mike, it becomes tender and visually poetic. Sped-up shots of desolate landscape and grainy home-movie flashbacks convey the surrealism of Mike’s inner thoughts. His travels with Scott have a truncated, episodic nature to fit his narcoleptic state, which fail to drive any story momentum. The shapeless narrative swirls around Phoenix’s deeply felt portrayal of innocent yearning, the only anchor among Van Sant’s abrupt style shifts. When Van Sant is not enamored with his Shakespeare parallels, My Own Private Idaho perfectly adopts Mike’s sadness. Mike’s unconscious and reality become one; we do not move with him, but drift. Van Sant may have made an aimless film, but its melancholy resonates.

L’eclisse (1962)

2010-05-29T21:12:00.000-07:00

Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni.
Starring Alain Delon and Monica Vitti.

In a Nutshell: A woman leaves her lover and drifts into an affair with a stockbroker.

L’eclisse marks the end of Michelangelo Antonioni’s trilogy following the dissolve of modern relationships. It follows similar themes of alienation and the cold affront of modern technology. His discomfort with the world’s direction is all the more heightened; Rome’s architecture is photographed like the cities of a science fiction movie. Equally disaffected is Vittoria, played by Antonioni regular Monica Vitti. After a fight with her writer beau (Francisco Rabal), she breaks off their affair but is unable express why. Before meeting the cocky stockbroker Piero (Alain Delon), Vittoria wanders the land, finding comfort outside of the city and within her imagination. Her eventual meeting with Piero reveals an indecisiveness that gradually fades, though far from true affection. Their love is surface, and this shallow attraction is one of the few emotions that technology has yet to erase.

Dialogue is so sparse that L’eclisse could affect as a silent film. Love does not go unsaid; Vittoria and Piero have no honest feelings to articulate. Antonioni studies the banality of their relationship with careful detail. Their moments together are disjointed as if the narrative keeps choking on any momentum. Both characters share most of their scene separately and do not appear to inhibit the same world. Antonioni’s commentary on Piero’s life turns the stock exchange into a hermetically-sealed pit of chaos. Vittoria’s world is quieter, but one where she desires to escape (she uses blackface to try identifying with an African woman in a reference to the Second Italo–Abyssinian War). When the two meet, the small beats in their talk linger long enough to ring hollow.

Vittoria and Piero follow the path of every doomed Antonioni romance, with unrealized explanation. L’eclisse is more refined than the previous Incommunicability films in presenting the destroying power of environment, not just its people. We do not know explicitly what compelled Vittoria to distance herself from her lovers, and Antonioni wisely avoids blunt answers. He frequently holds our attention on the couple, daring us to weigh their relationship against their vacuous world. Shot with equal beauty and cold sterility, L’eclisse quietly comments on humanity’s loss granted by modern life. A poetic stroke of human instability.

In the Mood for Love (2000)

2010-05-22T22:19:00.000-07:00

Directed by Wong Kar-wai.
Starring Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung Chiu Wai.

In a Nutshell: The spouses of an adulterous couple find solace in each other.

To watch In the Mood for Love is like experiencing a memory. There are deep, regretful yearnings, a lush palette with time moving at a standstill. It is Wong Kar-wai’s story of two well-off neighbors living in Hong Kong, pre-1966 Riots. After a few encounters, both discover that their spouses have been carrying on an affair. Through an initially platonic relationship, they soothe their wounds together. They even devise imaginary scenarios of their spouses’ adultery in an attempt to reject their growing attraction. There is a sensual charge in the air, pulling them closer together, but neither one can break their moral stance. "For us to do the same thing, would mean we are no better than they are."

There relationship is achingly unconsummated with little progression from their meeting to their parting. What Wong understands is the power of setting and tone to feel the same longings as the characters. He follows the characters in eroticised slow motion, to no apparent payoff. Shots will inexplicably repeat, some will quickly fade or linger on minute details. There is no “meaning” but the dream-like quality this pacing brings, heightened by its elegant, melancholy atmosphere. Presented as a recollection, their relationship gathers a certain purity, remaining distant while treasuring its fleeting intimacy.

As the would-be lovers Mr. Chow and Mrs. Chan, Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung are effortless in their character’s understated sadness. The artistry of their performances mixes with William Chang’s set and costumes to produce a beautifully fragility. This dissolves at the end where the film catches up with its characters, both have moved on from their courtship and living in a more tumultuous world. In the Mood for Love’s pacing, lighting, and visual design is stylized to the point of fetish. But few films have successfully used these elements to recreate the pain of a lost experience. Through the epilogue, time’s progression ensures that Mr. Chow and Mrs. Chan’s love can never happen again; too much has changed. In the Mood for Love is haunted by the regrets of our past, crystallizing its beauty with a bearable sadness.

Videodrome (1983)

2010-05-15T23:01:00.000-07:00

Directed by David Cronenberg.
Starring James Woods and Sonja Smits.

In a Nutshell: A TV executive discovers a disturbing program intent on mind-control.

While Network took a sharpened, satirical look at television’s dehumanizing effects, Videodrome takes the concept to grotesque extremes. In true David Cronenberg form, television is presented as literal mind-control for the perverted and masochistic. Rick Baker’s imaginative special effects appropriately disgust. The human link navigating through is James Woods’ Max Renn, the president of a TV station that broadcasts softcore pornography. His sleaziness is of job-necessity. One of Max’s workers discovers Videodrome, a broadcast signal showing torture and murder. Believing it to be faux-snuff TV, Max eagerly pirates the show, hoping it will attract a wider audience. Max’s search for Videodrome’s origins uncovers a more sinister ideology behind the broadcasts. Originally developed as a way to supplement real-life with television, Videodrome became a system for controlling the minds of smut-obsessed Americans through tumors formed in the viewer’s brain.

Max aims to destroy Videodrome from within in a bizarre finale that blurs reality for the viewer and Max. The film narrowly avoids sinking in its own confusion thanks to Cronenberg’s sly execution. He ruthlessly attacks television as a means of exploitation and hypnosis. It is metaphorically broad and very gross, but allows Cronenberg’s disgust to peal. Max invariably belongs in this corrupt universe, but Woods avoids caricature allowing us to find our own twisted desires and desperations in him. The story veers into science fiction while linking to modern-day consumerism. Most telling is Max’s refuge in a church that offers the homeless television as a way to “stay connected” to the larger world. In this world, you can either shun TV and become an outsider or enslave yourself to its powers. Videodrome is hardly subtle, but Cronenberg knows how to give a memorable skewering of the modern day.

Network (1976)

2010-05-08T22:13:00.001-07:00

Directed by Sidney Lumet.
Starring Faye Dunaway and William Holden.

In a Nutshell: A TV network exploits an insane news anchor for ratings.

For a film like Network not to collapse under its own thematic weight is no easy task. Ample praise has been doled out to Paddy Chayefsky’s script, seeping with bitterness, and the performances of the ensemble cast, all knocking out their Oscar moments with skill. But it is Sidney Lumet who keeps the movie’s gears from overworking themselves. Network attacks not only the television medium but also the divide of generational values, capitalism, sexism, social class, and on and on. Some of it played for laughs, other issues have the characters literally screaming at the viewer. Lumet strikes a realistic tone early on, inching slowly towards destruction. Never too much content at too fast a pace, allowing Lumet to balance Chayefsky’s bile with more humanistic undertones.

That is not to say the movie is merciful to its audience or characters. The catalyst for the plot is the breakdown of new anchor Howard Beale (Peter Finch). Fired for low ratings, he threatens to commit suicide on the air. Ratings shoot up prompting the show’s producer Diana Christensen (Faye Dunaway) to build a programming circus to complement Beale’s increasing madness. The old-fashioned news executive Max Schumacher (William Holden) loses his career and finds himself sucked into an affair with the icy Diana. Characters are either ruthlessly ambitious or become (unfairly) dragged down by TV’s soulless mechanisms. That these two groups are exclusive to each generation is surely no accident on Chayefsky’s part.

Network has an appealing dark edge that did not distance the audiences that Chayefsky was attacking. As much as the film attacks the broadcasting process, it is the viewers who support the market for such garbage that are scathed the most. Beale may be the clearest voice in a station full of inane blandness, but to the end, he continues to play ball in the network’s ratings game. At least until a higher calling drives him completely over the edge. If Network’s ending feels unsatisfying, it is hard to wonder how Chayefsky could have reined his viewpoints into a tidy conclusion. But it is just as well; thirty-five years and Network only becomes timelier.

Boogie Nights (1997)

2010-05-01T22:58:00.000-07:00

Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson.
Starring Mark Wahlberg and Julianne Moore.

In a Nutshell: A high school dropout becomes a porn sensation, falls into drug addiction.

The late 70’s, early 80’s period of Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights takes a look back at the glory years of indulgence. Everyone was burned out on their own pleasures without daring to peek at their own emptiness. The music and movies, meant to simulate the public’s hedonism had a plastic feel, even when done in earnest. It is a tricky line to recreate the pleasures of a shallow, if glitzy, life. But Boogie Nights lovingly relishes in the campy fun while uncovering the characters’ miserable lives. It is neither silly, nor gloomy; just a faithful recreation of every high and low. At the center of the impressively Altman-esque is rising porn superstar Dirk Diggler (né Eddie Adams) played by Mark Wahlberg (Anderson makes good use of the actor’s callowness). He is discovered by Jack Horner (Burt Reynolds), a patriarchal director eager to test the artistic boundaries of porn. Diggler instantly rises to the top and fills his days with sex, cocaine, muscle cars, and suede clothing like an overprivileged kid at a toy store.

After a first half that revels in 70’s fun without irony, the film takes a dark shift. There are expected dramatic themes of drugs, death and abuse. What Anderson gives the most weight is the way the characters’ futile dreams have ended. Horner and his actors mistake their work for artistic credibility. Once real life interrupts the party, they refuse to confront their self-damage while society threatens to marginalize them. It is a credit that Anderson juggles the lives of so many diverse characters without showing how hard the screenplay is sweating.

Anderson delights in the attention to period detail and nails the mediocre production values and delusions that follow Dirk’s career. His only weakness is a tendency to be overly proud of his skill, lifting shots from other movies (e.g. Goodfellas, Soy Cuba) and overusing gaudy era-appropriate songs to add some extra flash. But perhaps that is the point; using excess stylistically is appropriate in portraying this lifestyle. By the movie’s end, Anderson has debased the lifestyle, but not its people. Even with too much human drama to spread, its compassion shines in its own unconventional way. As humane as it is exhilarating, Boogie Nights is a loving testament to artistic folly and the fleeting joys of a value-free life.

Rebel Without a Cause (1955)

2010-04-24T22:41:00.001-07:00

Directed by Nicholas Ray.
Starring James Dean and Natalie Wood.

In a Nutshell: A defiant suburban teenager handles life’s difficulties.

The kids in Rebel Without a Cause did not have rough upbringings. They did not have poverty, gang warfare or social prejudice to take to bed every night. And yet, their world is a wasteland of violence and confusion, open only to emptiness and rejection. Director Nicholas Ray often employs the rebellious and tormented protagonist, now in modern youth, where such feelings are the most potent. Here he has found a unique id in James Dean’s Jim Stark. An iconic crystallization of teen angst, Dean navigates through a suburb of kids who have been abandoned by their parents, leaving them searching for answers. So they fight, they drink, they perform reckless stunts to impress each other. While a clear finger is pointed at parental guidance at the kid’s behavior, there is an unarticulated rawness to the movie’s self-expression. It offers no clear solutions, which cuts through dated melodrama to unveil a direct look at suburban youth culture.

The film’s iconic visage belongs to Dean, even if time has weakened his contribution. Nowadays, it is easy to see Dean’s acting as Brando-light at worst, green at best. Dean is admirable for going against the grain though his style is oddly mannered. His cohorts include Natalie Wood’s Judy, the actress unburdened by her late-career artifice, and Sal Mineo’s Plato, whose performance suggests overt gay overtones. Once freed from the cruel gang and their distant parents, the three form an alternate family to bury their household angst. It is an innocent interlude before the climax, showing Ray’s compassion for the needs of these delinquents. Early criticisms of the movie’s glorification of rebellion should have been wise to examine this scene’s support of domestic restoration.

Rebel leaves much unexamined, but maybe it never had to. Young filmgoers could fill in the blanks themselves and the film’s DNA became scattered all over American New Wave. Suburbia’s underlying darkness continues to be examined today; its impact has never truly left American subconscious. Some narrative structuring and overly broad characterizations of its adult characters date Rebel, but do not diminish. When it works, Rebel Without a Cause is remarkably truthful. A bold deconstruction of 50’s values, as powerful today as it ever was.

Daisies (1966)

2010-04-17T20:57:00.000-07:00

Directed by Věra Chytilová.
Starring Ivana Karbanová and Jitka Cerhová.

In a Nutshell: Two girls inexplicably start spreading chaos.

Daisies is a maddening comedy of poor taste, one that may too entrenched in its zeitgeist. Two teenaged girls, both named Marie (Ivana Karbanová and Jitka Cerhová) decide to be “bad”. There is a brief interlude by a fruit tree, linking to original sin, with their mischief aimed to exploit materialism. And oh what a jaunty spree it is. The girls flirt, steal, spoil parties, tease older men and tear into banquets of rich food. It amounts to a silly, formless anarchy that builds to far more serious consequences. Bright colors, cartoon actions and jolting sound effects affront the senses, even with the brief run time.

Watching Daisies would require an appreciation for the burgeoning social and political commentary that came with 60’s New Wave cinema. Daisies delights in wreaking havoc on wealth and bourgeois culture. But with the shock value diminished, it comes off as dreary and juvenile today. The Maries could be taken as Věra Chytilová’s marionettes, posing as nihilistic ideals and not characters. Their rebellion amounts to manic submission; the world is going bad, so why not go bad with it? From the opening scene, the girls cease human motivation and personality. When they misbehave, they are no longer at the controls. Daisies is a unique commentary, but a chore to endure. The Maries are certainly grating enough to convey Chytilová’s disgust of anarchic values. Unfortunately, the film’s frantic tone and garish style are queasy enough to date Daisies’ experimental form. A notable piece of surreal pop art, but I would leave this one in the time capsule.

The Double Life of Véronique (1991)

2010-04-10T23:23:00.001-07:00

Directed by Krzysztof Kieślowski.
Starring Irène Jacob and Philippe Volter.

In a Nutshell: The mirrored lives of two unrelated, but similar, women.

Few films will ever be as full of warmth, beauty, and mystery as The Double Life of Véronique. Krzysztof Kieślowski affectionately depicts the lives of two identical women; Weronika, a Polish choir singer and Véronique, a French music teacher. Both women look the same, were born on the same day and have a heart condition. Neither woman is physically aware of the other’s presence, but both are connected spiritually. The women pursue their musical interests passionately, with no shades of depravity. When tragedy strikes Weronika, a pang of sadness comes over Véronique. She abandons her current life and forms a bond with a puppeteer while searching for a greater happiness.

Beauty comes in Irène Jacob, in her first of two landmark works by Kieślowski, as the duel women. Slawomir Idziak’s photography casts a heavenly aura over Jacob’s features, enriching the frame with a variety of earthy reds, greens and yellows. Jacob is a cinematic gift who seems to act without direction. Every thought, every act of joy shines with unforced naturalism. At one point, Weronika and Véronique spy each other across a busy plaza. This moment crystallizes the film’s essence; the feeling of your soul inhibiting another life. Duel identity is treated as a comforting thought; the notion of another existence in communion with the other.

To try and explain the film or boil it down to a literal explanation is beside its purpose. Kieślowski has captured the poetry of life, without a conflict or resolution to sew it all up. Both characters lead imperfect lives, and the small moments of bliss are held close to their hearts and we share the experience. Imagery and motifs appear, but nothing builds or exists as an allegory. The details become clues to a mystery that never existed. We faintly sense their importance just as Véronique can feel Weronika in her life. To experience the movie is to become wrapped in its embrace without knowing why. But it is warm and familiar and instantly you know why you belong.

The Passenger (1975)

2010-04-04T00:26:00.001-07:00

Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni.
Starring Jack Nicholson and Maria Schneider.

In a Nutshell: A journalist steals the identity of a look-alike and goes on the run.

David Locke (Jack Nicholson) is a man of emptiness. An unremarkable journalist, we meet him hopelessly interviewing guerilla rebels in the Sahara desert. Little awaits him at home save a loveless marriage and irksome producer (Ian Hendry). Locke briefly befriends an Englishman named Robertson who later dies of a heart attack. Possessing an uncanny resemblance to Robertson, Locke switches identities and leaves the country. He discovers that Robertson was a gun dealer for the guerillas. But Locke has no intentions to exploit and ends up stuck with the baggage of Robertson’s past life. After meeting with an enigmatic young woman (Maria Schneider), Locke runs away. Though he desires to leave behind his marriage, his job and Robertson’s opponents, Locke seeks out the chance to live as another persona and fade into the distance.

As a thriller, one could accuse The Passenger of its meandering pace, but the film does not seek to create urgency. Long, expansive and silent shots present Locke’s world with ethereal disconnect. This world is still as lonely and empty as before. Locke’s future becomes fated for collapse, as he vainly tries to leave both identities behind. Taking on Robertson’s life becomes less an escape and more an imprisonment as he ends up with a new problems and a new sense of meaninglessness. Michelangelo Antonioni distances us from really “knowing” Locke’s character, and audience sympathy is purposefully neglected. We only observe.

But who is the titular passenger? When Locke comes across Schneider’s character, he abandons Robertson’s identity, leaving this unnamed girl the only real presence between them. Antonioni disconnects us from Locke; only the girl can bear witness to Locke. Without her, Locke and “Robertson” would cease to exist. What Locke attempts is a release from everyday constructs, to fade into his own insignificance, to escape his own fate. But Locke never achieves it. The Passenger is simply that need to liberate oneself from existence, even if we are all just passengers to that journey.

Persona (1966)

2010-03-27T21:08:00.001-07:00

Directed by Ingmar Bergman.
Starring Bibi Andersson and Liv Ullmann.

In a Nutshell: The identities of an unstable actress and her caretaker begin to overlap.

Persona is an avant-garde classic of identity with a beauty and clarity that has endured mere art-house cliché. Ingmar Bergman, famous for the use of overlapping visages, demonstrates the intertwining souls of two tortured women living in solitude. One is Elisabet (Liv Ullmann), an actress who has inexplicably gone mute, possibly in protest or anguish. Nurse Alma (Bibi Andersson) is certainly skilled enough to deal with trauma patients. But while caring for Elisabet, she finds herself becoming increasingly vocal with her hopes and fears, while Elisabet intently listens. Both relate moments of intense hurt (Elizabet’s unwanted and deformed child) and ecstasy (Alma’s beach orgy), but find themselves numb to more worldly crises. While holed up in a seaside cottage, the two women begin to share an unexplained emotional link where each experiences the other’s memories and dreams.

As a film of abstract imagery, it is simple to interpret on a literal level; the two women share a bond that gives the other insight to their pain. But Bergman explores a more ambiguous definition of identity through his own cinematic illusion, and the subtext that illusion creates. Persona’s opening montage of disturbing imagery experiments with the power these pictures have on the human perception. The sequence pulls back to reveal a small boy viewing it from a projection; an experience solely of emotion. Elisabet and Alma’s identities are result of their own projections, shaped by the roles society has forced them to play (even within Elisabet’s chosen life of role-playing).

It is never explained why these two women become joined or what each discovers. One could infer two sides of the same woman or a singular identity between two entities. But that is still subjective. Even if no concrete conclusion can be attached to Persona, is a film experience in the truest sense. Bergman senses the pull of the film medium and spins his ideas into haunting visual poetry. Like its characters, it refuses to be pinned down, becoming a new movie for each viewer’s reading. A peerless work of art, no matter what persona it takes.

The Face of Another (1966)

2010-03-20T21:09:00.001-07:00

Directed by Hiroshi Teshigahara.
Starring Tatsuya Nakadai and Mikijiro Hira.

In a Nutshell: A man receives a lifelike mask and undergoes a personality change.

How much of our own selves are internal? Would we still be same person in a different exterior? The Face of Another, based on Kōbō Abe’s novel, confronts these questions within grim contemplation. Its main character is a businessman named Okuyama (Tatsuya Nakadai) whose face was horribly burned in an industrial accident. He seethes in bitterness as co-workers and his skittish wife (Machiko Kyō) try to distance themselves. Seeking professional help, he finds the office of the sinister Dr. Hira (Mikijiro Hira) who uses Okuyama to model a lifelike “mask” that hides his deformity. Okuyama’s new freedom allows him to commit crimes and frame his wife for adultery. Unable to forget the world that cast him aside, The Face of Another challenges Okuyama’s true identity as one of self or circumstance.

Hiroshi Teshigahara has a gracefully control over the film’s surreal tone. Lighting and mise-en-scène shift between shots, giving Okuyama’s world an irregular sensation. The frame’s changes convey shifting identities as Okuyama finds his freedom skewering his morality. Scenes of cities feel ghostly even when crowded. Some may find the scenes of Okuyama and Hira pondering the effects of their experiment to be cumbersome. Though enough of the film’s material evolves organically from Okuyama’s experiences to justify their talk. Their Faustian relationship builds to a chilling conclusion where both find freedom from the experiment.

A parallel story tells of a beautiful girl (Miki Irie) who was scarred from U.S. atomic bombs. She accepts her disfigurement, but the scars of war erode her sanity into tragedy. Japan was still recovering from Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the material’s conceptualization. Okuyama’s story works as an allegory to Japan’s wounded anger or of modern urban torment. One could recoil at the choice human nature takes when faced with no consequence, or find it hypothetical at its most extreme. Even if The Face of Another offers no answers, it explores its subject with fascination that will draw its viewer in. A minimalist beauty and uniquely constructed microcosm of its times.

Being John Malkovich (1999)

2010-03-13T23:26:00.001-08:00

Directed by Spike Jonze.
Starring John Cusack and Cameron Diaz.

In a Nutshell: A puppeteer discovers and exploits a portal into John Malkovich’s mind.

A furiously inventive take on our celebrity-obsessed culture, with a gleeful execution to match its premise. Being John Malkovich takes a manic comic approach to its identity issues, layering depth in its comedy. A self-pitying puppeteer named Craig (John Cusack) finds employment in the Monty Python-esque 7½ floor of an otherwise inconspicuous corporation. After finding rejection at the aggressive Maxine (Catherine Kenner), Craig discovers a portal that allows him inside the mind of actor John Malkovich for 15 minutes at a time. This John Malkovich is portrayed by the real deal and exhibits the usual Malkovich-ian distance and personal amusement. It is to the real Malkovich’s credit that he manages a sly riff on his own persona without incessantly winking at the audience. This Malkovich also becomes the epitome of celebrity; everybody knows and adores him, but can never remember why.

Craig plans to partner with Maxine to offer up Malkovich’s portal to paying customers with two issues in the way. Craig has fallen madly in lust with Maxine while Craig’s wife Lotte (Cameron Diaz, having fun trying to be ugly) finds a sexual awakening inside Malkovich’s head. She falls for Maxine, with reciprocated feeling, but only when Lotte is in Malkovich. Malkovich himself becomes aware of the portal and the movie gives the surreal pleasure of Malkovich inside Malkovich. It only gets weirder from there.

Both director Spike Jonze and scribe Charlie Kaufman dole out the absurdity gradually, letting their ideas breathe before rolling out new ones. It is a well-paced farce and all the main players shine in the madness. Craig eagerly manipulates Malkovich for his own gains. But Cusack manages a relatable desperation in Craig, rather than misguided selfishness. Keener and Diaz are equally effective while exploring new territory in gender relations. Both Jonze and the cast play the story straight rather than marveling at their own oddities. Whatever analogy is grasped, Being John Malkovich is a delightful brain-twister of limitless surprise. Rarely has the metaphysical been so fun.

Spirit of the Beehive (1973)

2010-03-06T21:10:00.000-08:00

Directed by Víctor Erice.
Starring Fernando Fernán Gómez and Teresa Gimpera.

In a Nutshell: A girl becomes transfixed by the film Frankenstein and seeks its spirit.

A withdrawn little girl named Ana (Ana Torrent) watches James Whale’s Frankenstein in her post-Spanish Civil War town. One of the film’s most famous moments depicts the monster drowning a little girl before he is burned alive. Later that night, the little girl obsessively asks her sister Isabel (Isabel Tellería) about the monster; "Why did he kill her, and why did they kill him later?" only to hear that everything was staged for the camera. But the sister decides to then trick her into believing the monster is real and Ana can summon his spirit to an abandoned barn. The story is total nonsense, but Ana’s sudden consciousness of death has already taken hold. She calls the monster’s spirit, coinciding with a Republican soldier’s refuge in the barn.

Ana’s pursuit of the monster’s spirit conveys her understanding of the world’s lies to a small child. The movie, her parent’s unstable relationship, and the incriminating identity of “the monster” are all deceptions. Once her ruthless father (Fernando Fernán Gómez) discovers the soldier, Ana’s innocent worldview is torn to shreds. No longer can her childhood perception disguise life’s cruelty and Ana retreats to the wilderness. But even nature does not offer solace, its hidden treachery revealed earlier by a father’s dutiful walk with his daughters.

There is a quiet social commentary to Ana’s non-conformity (a jab at Francisco Franco's rule over Spain), but Spirit of the Beehive is more effective in portraying the melancholy of growing up. The golden-hued Spanish landscape (shot by Luis Cuadrado) is both a world of quiet beauty and daunting expansiveness. Ana’s days consist of routine events that director Víctor Erice magnifies to capture a child’s fascination. But it is Torrent who is the centerpiece. Her fragile beauty and solemn expressions create a presence of fearlessness and naivety. Through her eyes, we can recognize a child’s helplessness to the world’s harshness and the power of own distortions. We leave Ana unguarded by her new worldview, unable to comfort herself with imagination. With Spirit of the Beehive, sometimes our earliest lessons become the hardest.

Brand Upon the Brain! (2006)

2010-02-27T22:36:00.000-08:00

Directed by Guy Maddin.
Starring Gretchen Krich and Sullivan Brown.

In a Nutshell: A man reflects on his deranged childhood.

Brand Upon the Brain! is an insidiously enjoyable experience showcasing the joy of Guy Maddin being Guy Maddin. Maddin gleefully celebrates and distorts the silent movie into a nightmarish adventure fantasy with just enough space to cut into some of our most human of fears and desires. The film consists of twelve interlinking vignettes told in flashback by a grown Maddin. As a child, he tells of the orphanage his parents operated inside of a lighthouse. Father would work in solitude in his mad-scientist lab. Mother (Gretchen Krich, theatrically terrifying) would fixate herself on achieving eternal youth while trying to constrain her children’s budding sexuality. Outside of either parent’s eye, Guy (Sullivan Brown) and Sis (Maya Lawson) discover a sinister black market for the orphans. Teen detective Wendy Hale (Katherine E. Scharhorn) investigates the case while disguised as her brother Chance (also Scharhorn). Already the object of Guy’s obsession, she falls into a forbidden romance with Sis that continues even after she discovers the real “Chance”.

Maddin intertwines sexual identification, memory and Oedipal attraction through the madness. That little elaboration is made is no detraction, but a testament to the command of Maddin’s visual style. He combines rapid editing with a reproduction of grainy film stock, awash in deep shadows. It is a style both playful and feverish, a complement to the film’s dark humor and bizarre themes. A fair number of viewers may become alienated but those with a firm grasp on Maddin will delight in his invention. Brand Upon the Brain! dips into some of the most perverse reaches of the human subconscious while tying in a detailed love for film history. It is bold, it is brilliant, and above all, it is undeniably Maddin.

NOTE: The film was originally presented live in an auditorium to recreate the silent movie experience. An unseen celebrity narrator and a live orchestra were also present. The Criterion DVD features a recorded soundtrack by composer Jason Staczek and the option to choose between any of the featured narrators (including Maddin himself).

My Life as a Dog (1985)

2010-02-20T21:31:00.000-08:00

Directed by Lasse Hallström.
Starring Anton Glanzelius and Tomas von Brömssen.

In a Nutshell: A troublesome boy is sent to live with relatives during his mother’s illness.

It is possible that the titular dog is Laika, sent into space by the Russians. The launch was a fantastic achievement, but only for the Russians. The dog starved in isolation. Or it could be the pet of twelve-year old Ingemar (Anton Glanzelius), a kind-hearted pet, prone to uncontrollable acts of mischief. Ingemar likens himself more to the former, but contents that his life is never as a bad as Laika’s. Though it is not without its share of turmoil, Ingemar continually tries to keep perspective, creating an enormous emotional burden for such a young boy. Ingemar’s mother is slowly dying of tuberculosis, and has just enough energy to loudly scold Ingemar and his brother. One too many disobedient acts results in Ingemar getting sent off to live with his maternal aunt and uncle, both entrenched in adolescence. Indeed their whole town is of a youthful air, finding Ingemar just on the edge of puberty.

Ingemar finds equal doses of love and loss at his new home, careful not to reveal his guilt over his mother’s illness. Director Lasse Hallström shows a light touch in balancing Ingemar’s joys, confusions, hopes and fears without sinking into saccharine. He gives his characters (many of them small-town eccentrics) an understated quality that welcomes sincere human comedy. Hallström’s later career has been marked by plodding Oscar-baiting melodrama. My Life as a Dog finds truer happiness and sorrow in smaller moments, moments that feel so much bigger when we were twelve. It may not make many daring departures to the “coming-of-age” standard, but rarely has the breadth of childhood turbulence been handled so gracefully. Nor have its hardships been so deeply felt by its protagonist. Ingemar muses how despite his pain, he is fortunate to live the life given to him. Hopefully we can all be that lucky.

My Neighbor Totoro (1988)

2010-02-13T21:52:00.001-08:00

Directed by Hayao Miyazaki.
Starring Noriko Hidaka and Chika Sakamoto.

In a Nutshell: Two girls discover a hidden world of benevolent forest spirits.

My Neighbor Totoro is Hayao Miyazaki at his most gentle and melancholy, with deep respect towards nature and family. It acts on a smaller scale than his later work, but no less delightful. Miyazaki’s work acts as a fine contrast to the standard Disney film; Totoro has no villains, heartless adults, or manufactured plot contrivances. It is still a fantasy, but uses those elements lightly to complement its human story. Here, fantasy is an escape and a place of innocence for its two main characters; sisters Satsuki and Mei. They move with their father to the country in order to be closer to the hospital where their mother is ill. With their mother’s condition an ever-haunting presence, they discover a host of benign spirits that act as protectors of the forest.

Miyazaki’s dream world is one built on the comforts of nature and the thrill of discovery. The mere act of planting one of Totoro’s acorns becomes a celebration and a hope for the future. Both Satsuki and Mei are wonderfully characterized. Satsuki has been forced into an adult role to cope with her mother’s absence and it is a joy to watch her rediscover herself through Totoro and company. Mei’s wide-eyed exuberance never falters and we share in her infectious childish bliss. A family crisis presents itself (the girls’ mother is unable to see visitors), but is handled with a respectable realism. The girls’ concern for their mother speaks to every child’s fear of death, particularly to the ones we love. Miyazaki skirts an easy resolution, instead accepting the occasional hardships of life with strong optimism.

Totoro diverts the girls from their sadness, but the film achieves far more. My Neighbor Totoro is a heartfelt experience bringing the delights of imagination and the challenges that usher us into adulthood. Miyazaki is only too happy to welcome us into his world of sensible, trusting adults and wondrous landscapes. It understands the heartaches of life while longing to bring us into a warm embrace. A masterpiece of animation.

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)

2010-02-06T21:00:00.000-08:00

Directed by Steven Spielberg.
Starring Dee Wallace and Henry Thomas.

In a Nutshell: A group of children befriend an abandoned alien.

A contemporary fairytale that has delighted generations of moviegoers, E.T. the Extra Terrestrial is ever bit as sublime as you remembered. As a hallmark of Steven Spielberg’s career, it also stands as one of his simplest and direct works. Its emotions, terror, and humor all strike universal chords, only deepening over time. The story of its homesick alien botanist needs little introduction. E.T. is presented to us as both a healing Christ-like figure and an innocent child. He is impressionable and adventurous, but still pines for the comforts of home. But even as ideas on alien culture, government and family relationships develop, Spielberg never lets us forget our need to return to the ones we love.

E.T., both the character and the movie, both tap into areas that we never grow out of. Spielberg rarely keeps the camera out of a child’s distorted POV. The nighttime woods are a calm, mysterious and hauntingly beautiful. Halloween is a grotesquely fascinating parade and the onslaught of government forces become a faceless, voiceless monster. For both E.T. and his friend Elliott (the delightfully nuanced Henry Thomas) we all wish to find our sanctuary, with all the delights and fears that come with it.

On a purely technical level, E.T. is not flawless. Sometimes John William’s score is too much of a good thing; pacing in the middle can be too quick while it becomes more drawn-out at the end. But these are inconsequential nitpicks. Spielberg has solidified himself as a director capable of connecting to moviegoers on a wide scale. He taps into the personal fears and needs of modern suburbia while offering the same hope for interstellar peace that came with Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The E.T. character is more than a marvel of puppetry and animatronics, but a wholly human presence. Both film and character find purity of childhood and all the highs and lows that come with it. An arrestingly heartfelt film, and one of Spielberg’s finest.

The 400 Blows (1959)

2010-01-30T21:11:00.000-08:00

Directed by François Truffaut.
Starring Jean-Pierre Léaud and Claire Maurier.

In a Nutshell: A young boy is labeled a troublemaker by his parents and teachers.

The 400 Blows is a semi-autobiographical tale about its director, François Truffaut. It is sparse and simply plotted, but not a “coming-of age” that shrugs off misfortune with a veneer of nostalgia. Truffant’s alter ego is Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Léaud), a boy on the cusp of his teen years. A product of impoverished living and inattentive parents, Antoine is unlucky enough to be picked on by his teachers for minor offenses. His attempts to evade trouble (read: lying) and a misguided attempt at homage only dig him a deeper hole. Small acts of childish thievery do not do him much better. Though his story is not that of tragedy, Truffaut effectively brings us closer to Antoine’s troubles and the desire to break free.

One of the film’s linchpins comes in the debut performance of Jean-Pierre Léaud. While projecting a childish disposition, he has the world-weary gaze and broken spirit of someone much older. It is a deeply natural performance using the impishness and melancholy of youth. As a landmark film of the French New Wave, it is the identification Truffaut felt within cinema that resonates strongest throughout The 400 Blows. One example is the solace Antoine finds in the readings of Honoré de Balzac, mirroring Truffant’s relationship with cinema. Balzac’s words become so ingrained within Antoine that he does not recognize plagiarism when he lifts words for a school paper. Like Godard, Truffaut is playing with our perception of cinema, implying that our experiences and cinema have now become one and the same.

But even without the cinematic subtext, The 400 Blows is effective in its portrayal of the adult carelessness that can leave children in alienation. Antoine may not be the model child, but is unworthy of his teachers’ demonizing and his parents’ immaturity. Truffaut stages the distresses of Antoine’s life with minimal flourish to suggest just how routine everything has become. They cannot understand Antoine’s growing teenage restlessness but the sincerity of Truffaut and Léaud make it heard. The famous closing shot, a still of Antoine’s face after a recent escape, shows an eternally frozen look of the vacant, unfocused rebellion that defined many a childhood. Truffaut would follow Antoine through many chapters of his life, but The 400 Blows continues to stand still in the joy and sorrow of our youth.

Time Regained (1999)

2010-01-23T21:04:00.001-08:00

Directed by Raúl Ruiz.
Starring Catherine Deneuve and Emmanuelle Béart.

In a Nutshell: Marcel Proust reminisces about his past while on his deathbed.

The film Time Regained is based on the final volume in Marcel Proust’s In Search of the Lost Time. While on his deathbed, Proust (played by various actors at various stages, but largely by Marcello Mazzarella) reflects on his past though not in a straight recollection. His thoughts are distortions, influenced by his own writings (in this case, the final volume) and told in an episodic, stream-of-consciousness narrative. Characters swim in and out of focus while conflicts mount and then disappear. It is a disorienting feel, but one of a raging mind lost in thought. Films of this nature do confront some limitations. An episodic manner can leave ideas and plot points hanging in the air and a cohesive story is never entirely realized. Raúl Ruiz seems less concerned in accurately adapting Proust’s work than using it to illustrate the nature of our memories.

While this impedes any dramatic momentum, the film can be enjoyed for the significance to Proust that comes with each vignette. Memories of love, betrayal and class warfare float up from Proust’s dying mind; frozen moments that he would never relive, but would never regret. His experiences equal our own, as do our fondness for them. For those unfamiliar with Proust’s work (myself included) Time Regained provides enough of his perspective to provoke curiosity. Proust was obsessed with the past and its impact on our present-day selves. Ruiz’s dream-like narrative passes seamlessly through time to make Proust as vivid a child as a dying man, while holding desperately onto his memories against the passage of time. Time Regained was never meant as a straight adaptation, but is a beautiful meditation on the thoughts we hold dear; little fragments of heaven lost in time.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

2010-01-16T20:59:00.001-08:00

Directed by Michel Gondry.
Starring Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet.

In a Nutshell: A couple undergoes a procedure to erase each other from their memories.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, from the pen of Charlie Kaufman, is a unique work of narrative surrealism and a touching romance for our technological era. The film opens with two strangers Joel (Jim Carrey) and Clementine (Kate Winslet) meeting on a train where the two feel an unexplained spark, possibly déjà vu. In flashback, we see that the two were in fact a couple for roughly two years. However, a nasty fight led to Clementine erasing Joel from her memory “on a lark” through the medical firm Lacuna Inc. A hurt Joel decides he wants Clementine erased, though mid-process he begins to have doubts and tries holding onto the faintest memory of Clementine.

We enter into Joel’s subconscious and watch his relationship unfold in reverse order, with Clementine vanishing from sight. Joel relives and tries to alter his memories, trying to tuck Clementine into scene from his childhood. It makes for an inventive storytelling tool to explore the power of our perceptions. The good times appear far more vivid in Joel’s recollection, which constructs his own version of Clementine (who he thinks she was) to aid Joel in avoiding the memory wipe. Through the heartbreaking struggle, we can see the manner in which our personal recollections define our relationships and ourselves.

Such a twisty story needs its human core and the against-type casting of Carrey and Winslet weigh down the free-spinning illogic. Carrey is reined in and mannerism-free as a lovesick introvert still prone to awkward fumbling around girls. Less constrained is Winslet who turns Clementine into a bundle of aggressive spontaneity and barely concealed neurosis. Both are ill suited but the film identifies their union as a longing for companionship. The reunion of Joel and Clementine suggests that our stupid mistakes and the impassive dominance of technology cannot interrupt true love. We leave Joel and Clementine with optimism, hopeful that they will rebuild was has been destroyed. For all its disorientation, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind cherishes our relationships and how they color our remembrances. Sometimes all we have left of our joy is our memory, and once that becomes lost, so do we.

Solaris (1972)

2010-01-09T23:00:00.000-08:00

Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky.
Starring Natalya Bondarchuk and Donatas Banionis.

In a Nutshell: A man is visited by an apparition of his dead wife on board a space station.

Andrei Tarkovsky’s work expresses a pensive quality that can be refreshing or infuriating, depending on the pace at which you are accustomed. A movie like Solaris, a crown jewel in his filmography, does not immediately gain depth through its languid pacing and Tarkovsky’s lingering hold on shots. But it helps to draw us into the film’s aura and its meditations on our existence. Our main character is psychologist Kris Kelvin (Donatas Banionis) who has been instructed to evaluate the conditions of a space station science crew orbiting the ocean planet Solaris. A pilot had returned from the planet claiming to have seen a child on the planet’s surface, despite his data holding little water with the science brass on Earth. On board, the crew is distant and uncooperative while a video log of a dead scientist warns Kelvin of any supernatural activity, eluding that it drove him to suicide.

Kelvin then finds an apparition of his deceased wife, Hari (Natalya Bondarchuk) created by Solaris’ psychic effects. Hari is not a pure replication, but a physical manifestation of Kelvin’s memories (minus any knowledge of the real Hari’s suicide). She starts to gain thoughts and emotions of her own despite being constantly aware over her non-existence. This unfolds at an almost unbearably slow pace, but Tarkovsky uses this a means to explore the issues of Hari’s sudden manifestation. If Hari is nothing but Kelvin’s memories, does this make her real? Through this incarnation of Hari, we see both the unknown around (the planet of Solaris) and the unknown within.

Solaris is not a guns and spaceships science fiction film. It is not even a sci-fi film about discovery (like 2001: A Space Odyssey, a vastly dissimilar film). But with the sci-fi elements Solaris provides, Tarkovsky can explore what it means to be human and our place in the universe. Yes, the film is lengthy and slow, but can establish a lonely, unfamiliar atmosphere to reflect on. It stands as a rare science fiction film built on emotion rather than intellect while still utilizing the genre’s freedom. Solaris is more an experience than a structured film, but a hauntingly beautiful one at that.

Last Year at Marienbad (1961)

2010-01-02T22:16:00.000-08:00

Directed by Alain Resnais.
Starring Delphine Seyrig and Giorgio Albertazzi.

In a Nutshell: A man tries to convince a woman of their past relationship.

Now this is one heck of a cinematic puzzle. Last Year at Marienbad is no clear-cut tale; its story folds time and space over each other until memory and reality become indistinguishable (both to the audience and the film’s characters). Alain Resnais has claimed the film had no meaning, but that does not give it less merit. As an experiment in film narrative, Marienbad is captivating, even if my hold on the film is still developing. The initial plot is initially and deceptively simple; a woman referred to only as A (Delphine Seyrig) attends a party at a château. She meets a man, X (Giorgio Albertazzi) who claims the two had a relationship last year at Marienbad and planned to meet at the château at year later to leave her controlling partner, M (Sascha Pitoeff).

The movie flashes back to the night of A and X’s encounter, and every shot changes. Costumes, scenery, and even the exact events at each encounter never stay constant. Characters change their perceptions and remembrances as new details come to light, almost as though some unseen force is changing their minds (and therefore the events) at whim. On the surface, it is narrative nonsense, a stream of consciousness that rolls truth, lie, and fantasy into one incoherent visualization. Taking into account Resnais’ “meaning” to Marienbad, I conclude that the film is simply that; an exercise in the control and the surreal. Characters do not act on their own, but as though under a spell (A becomes increasingly receptive to X as details from their alleged encounter fill in, X remembers M committing a murder, and then changes his mind). They are puppets, just as every single film character is a tool utilized by its director and writer. A is ordered around and bends to X’s will while M creates conflict (or maybe not).

What I believe Last Year at Marienbad can be whittled down to is a look into the subjunctive, a depiction of controlled perfection in the mind of its author. The lavishly designed château becomes a ghostly labyrinth with its guests occupying their space like statues. Francis Seyrig fills the air with an organ score worthy of a horror movie, drawing us further into the mansion’s haunting elegance. The atmosphere creates an unreal atheistic for its constantly shifting story, which exists for its creator (X) to tell it his own way. Last Year at Marienbad provides no answers, and has been famously reveled for its ambiguity. I can hardly fault it for its artificiality and its lack of resolution; that is the point. Last Year at Marienbad is no more than a means to observe the way we control our own memories, what we choose to omit and desire, whether they exist or not. But such a puzzling film has no clean explanation; this is only how I remember it.

Sans Soleil (1983)

2009-12-26T21:04:00.000-08:00

Directed by Chris Marker.

In a Nutshell: A montage of videos from cultures across the world.

Sans Soleil is one of the most poetic and rich films I have seen in a very long time. But in writing this review, how on earth do I describe it? The simplest explanation I have is this. Sans Soleil is a collection of videos taken worldwide, organized like a travel log. Much of the focus placed on the impoverished Guinea-Bissau and the technologically advancing Tokyo. Also included is Paris, a shot of Iceland from the 60’s that bookends the film, and a detour to San Francisco that indulges in seeing the locations Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo was filmed. The movie is narrated by an unseen woman, revealed at the end to be a man named Sandor Krasnar, who is actually Chris Marker’s alter ego. That is the film, but at the same time nowhere near what the film “is”.

It has little structure and little concreteness to hang a summation on. One of the clearer ideas that surfaces is its analysis of Vertigo. Narrative-wise, it drops in apropos of nothing but is not entirely random. Vertigo is a film about the dangers of memory and the past’s destructive influence on the present. Sans Soleil is wed to the similar idea that the true resonance of the past cannot be captured and even the simple photograph or recorded video cannot hold truth. At the odd moment, the film will enter into “The Zone” where a Japanese computer scientist (again, a Marker alter ego) turns the film into dichromatic, flat images. It captures the image, but renders it unrecognizable. One image that survives this deconstruction is the idyllic shot of the girls in Iceland. Even though neither Marker nor the audience knows the true nature behind the girls, but the film keeps it as an untouched emblem of purity.

There is no way I can make a concrete statement to summarize this film. I imagine some who are reading this still have no idea what this is about. I believe San Soleil does not wish to trick the viewer into the somewhat altered views of Marker’s travelogue but revel in how the power of the subjective human memory. It is a film with no set context or aim, but let’s the assemblage of video and narration shape its own interpretation for each viewer. This is a film you just need to experience for yourself.

There Will Be Blood (2007)

2009-12-20T00:02:00.000-08:00

Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson.
Starring Daniel Day-Lewis and Paul Dano.

In a Nutshell: A ruthless prospector’s quest for wealth during America’s oil boom.

Leaning shamelessly on the hyperbolic, I will boldly pronounce There Will Be Blood to be American filmmaking at its very finest. It completely immerses into its universe; every scene meticulously crafted into its own masterpiece. But enough indiscriminate fawning, to what degree is this film so masterful? To begin, the rise and fall of oil baron Daniel Plainview (a soon-to-be iconic performance by Daniel Day-Lewis) is a microcosm on the sweeping themes that define our American history. Community versus the individual, capitalism versus religion, ruthless self-assertion mixed with ambition, and the self-made American’s empire built on lies, opportunism and misanthropy. Both Lewis and director Paul Thomas Anderson say these with a glorious embellishment, but TWBB never resembles self-parody.

Despite the film’s grandiose themes playing front and center, TWBB never loses sight of its main focus, the corruption of Plainview. Formally a shrewd businessman raising the orphaned son of one of his workers, his volcanic rise into oil poisons his soul beyond salvation. The quiet displays of humanity quickly burn up in Plainview’s uncontrollable greed and anger, culminating in a horrifying, nearly inhuman monster. Day-Lewis is simply transcendent, a ferocious intensity barely restrained by his assured, taciturn delivery. Paul Dano as an equally opportunistic preacher displays a childish petulance that is wholly indicative of the character, and was unfortunately mistaken by some to be overripe acting.

There Will Be Blood is no less a culmination of laudable scope and beautiful execution. Robert Elswit’s haunting cinematography turns the American West into a harsh, alien landscape. Not just for our experience, but for Plainview’s; eyeing the burgeoning civilization and its inhabitants as simple exploitation. Jonny Greenwood’s unique score supplies a foreboding resonance to Plainview’s story and is strong enough as a standalone masterpiece. As the story unfolds, tragedy comes by hand of God and man and Plainview’s growing success further robs him of his ties to humanity. The finale scene shocks not by its animalistic nature of its actions, but of the way ambition coupled with materialistic hunger has damaged Plainview beyond repair. Anderson has masterfully constructed his own tale of brutal success and comeuppance, a truly American tale sparing no spilled drop of blood. True cinema excellence.

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)

2009-12-12T22:10:00.001-08:00

Directed by John Huston.
Starring Humphrey Bogart and Walter Huston.

In a Nutshell: Three men find themselves at odds after a successful excavation of gold.

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is an unflinching, black humored parable on the greed of men. For a studio film carrying some serious matinee appeal, it unabashedly strikes at the moral complexes that would leave us to sell our humanity for some buried treasure. The film stars Humphrey Bogart and Tim Holt as Dobbs and Curtin, drifters caught up in a quest for gold by the seasoned Howard (Walter Huston, John’s father). They make their way to Mexico and, sure enough, find plenty of gold to abolish any future job worries. It is keeping the gold that ends in downfall.

While there is some zesty adventure to be had, it is the characterizations of the three protagonists and the fates that ascribe for themselves that drive TTotSM. Bogart plunges fearlessly into his role as the pitiful, desperate Dobbs. Devoid of any movie star charm, Bogart teeters on self-destruction, never letting go of his prize. Huston is the old-time prospector and has a few amusing moments with that character. But Huston gives Howard a quiet sensibility to his surroundings, knowing all too well the cost of their success. Holt is also effective as a good heart tested by his situation. The plot unfolds into false pretenses, murderous bandits, and the cruelty of Mexico’s heat (photographed in scorching detail by Ted McCord) as the men hold onto their remaining sanity.

By the end, each man gets what he deserves, to varying severity and Huston has given an uncompromising look at the crumbled ruins of men’s souls. The screenplay (also written by Huston) does not wallow in analytical probing, but shows us through every action, gesture and line the pathos of each man’s struggle. Shot on location, there is a haunting, rugged beauty to the sparse plantation and arid sun that complements the film’s realistic focus. A perfectly competent adventure film, but an even more powerful depiction of the material hunger that can comprise even the purest of consciences.

Straw Dogs (1971)

2009-12-05T21:35:00.000-08:00

Directed by Sam Peckinpah.
Starring Dustin Hoffman and Susan George.

In a Nutshell: A newlywed couple face the harassment of a rural England town.

Sam Peckinpah, despite his well-earned reputation as “Bloody Sam,” is an incredibly underrated director in his depiction of humanity versus life’s cruelty. Though with Straw Dogs, it’s questionable whether his nihilism got the better of him. Straw Dogs involves two young newlyweds, meek mathematician David (Dustin Hoffman) and childish flirt Amy (Susan George). They move to Amy’s hometown where David’s American ways immediately irks the townspeople. David also hires one of Amy’s old beaus as a handyman, and Amy does not miss an opportunity to flaunt herself before the workers. Amy defines herself as a woman who can control others with her sexuality, though her teasing finds herself raped by her ex. That she ends up succumbing to the rape, evokes an adolescent confusion between both men and whatever uncontrolled feelings that follow. But when David takes in a man wanted for murder, he summons up enough muscle to defend his home from the mobbing townspeople in a lengthy, unrestrained bloodbath. And this was where the film lost me.

That is not to say the scene of David defending his home is what undermines the movie (though its excessiveness is borderline pornography). But it compromises what the movie could have been about. Throughout the movie, David is a wimp; a portrait of man pushed and kicked around by the crude townspeople. His marital conflicts with Amy never come to closure and the tension she creates just ends up being more fuel for David’s fire. If everything about this film is presented exactly as Peckinpah intended, I can only infer that he intended to show the animalistic capacity of civilized men within placed in the most barbaric of settings (That sounds offensive to small-town British folk, but given Peckinpah’s portrayal, I have no apologies). There is the meditation on violence. David is left unsure of his own murderous tendencies, but the film’s events can only apply to David. As a commentary on our own capacity for violence, its presentation is too extreme to resonate. It seems like Peckinpah had the seeds of a good idea, but too much broad characterization and plot elements leave it a blood-soaked mess.

For the basic gist of Straw Dogs at only a fraction of the running time, I advise watching this. Believe me, it is no less ridiculous.

Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972)

2009-11-28T21:08:00.001-08:00

Directed by Werner Herzog.
Starring Klaus Kinski and Helena Rojo.

In a Nutshell: Conquistadors travel down river in an ill-fated search for gold.

Werner Herzog’s Aguirre, the Wrath of God is as haunting a decent into madness as cinema will produce. Anything to the contrary needs only to look into the glazed, bright and curled lips of Klaus Kinski as the aforementioned Aguirre. He is the member of an expedition chosen by Gonzalo Pizarro to find El Dorado; a team woefully unprepared for the horrors that await them in the jungle. Following the death of the team leader, Aguirre is put in command and leads the group further into the unknown. With a production as rife with misfortune and madness as the finished piece, Herzog brings an amused detachment to the conquistador’s self-destruction.

Aguirre presents the story of the quest for greatness and the elements of nature that crush it in the end. Here, the jungles of the Amazon are an insidious force against the men ready to swallow them whole. A whole raft of men is shown mysteriously slaughtered in the morning. Men are fallen by silent arrows shot from the forest. Herzog himself never really delves into the minds of any one character. Even Aguirre himself, despite the electricity of Kinski’s performance, is only the unstable, greedy dreamer that others see. But it is all that is needed to suck the audience into Aguirre’s blind obsession for gold and to feel dread at the danger he ignores.

The film’s opening shot of the conquistadors descending down the mountains carries a poetic resonance. But on the same coin, Herzog views them at a distance, enough to have them lost in the thicket of trees and vegetation while the inhuman strains of the organ plays them on. Their river trip is not full of plot contrivances, nor is it just a parade of hallucinatory imagery (though there is plenty of the latter). It is a harrowing view at immoral ambition in the face of the impossible and the ensuing tragedy. The final scene is one of great sadness with Aguirre stranded forever in his own delusions against an unforgiving reality.

Apocalypse Now (1979)

2009-11-21T22:02:00.001-08:00

Directed by Francis Ford Coppola.
Starring Marlon Brando and Martin Sheen.

In a Nutshell: An army captain is sent into the jungle to assassinate an insane colonel.

Equal parts spectacle and meditation, Apocalypse Now is one of the grandest examples of modern cinema. The story of introverted army captain Willard (Martin Sheen) sent to confront rogue colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando) in the jungles of Cambodia, Francis Ford Coppola’s retelling of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness provides a searing cinematic look into the delicate balances that keep most men on the edge of madness. Though I hold Apocalypse Now to very high esteem, there is not much new ground to tread in terms of film discussion. However, Coppola did release a Redux cut in 2001, adding in previously deleted scenes to give the film a slightly new narrative. While met with largely positive reaction, I felt that it turned a near perfect film into one that was merely pretty good. Most of the changes are minor, but all of the big additions take a little bit away from the horrifying 1979 masterpiece. Without much ado, Coppola’s biggest Redux changes.

Psychotic air colonel Kilgore (Robert Duvall), a man whose love of carnage is only outmatched by his penchant for surf and opera, is by far the film’s most memorable character. His senseless and bloodthirsty reputation shows the sort of madness held in respect by the U.S. military. He creates a memorable impression despite only 20 minutes of screentime. After his famous napalm speech in the Redux version, we are witness to Kilgore throwing a tantrum at his surfing buddies and then yelling at Willard via copter for his surfboard back (which Willard stole in a decidedly uncharacteristically light moment). Besides ruining his perfect send-off, the additional scenes edge Kilgore into cartoon territory and just prove unnecessary. Later in the film, Willard and his crew encounter a downed Playboy bunny helicopter in the middle of a monsoon. Willard negotiates some fuel for some bunny time for his crew, in another lighthearted moment. This interlude does show the madness of Vietnam taking effect on the bunnies, but is still unneeded. Keeping the scene in sacrifices the poignancy of the helicopter leaving the USO show with soldiers desperately clinging on.

Even more intrusive is the crew’s stay at a French plantation. The scene takes place after Willard makes it to the last U.S. outpost before Kurtz, so the whole sequence is incredibly disruptive to the narrative’s path to the finale. At the plantation, Willard receives commentary by the plantation’s head about the French’s relationship with the Vietnamese compared to the U.S.’s. Again, not needed since Apocalypse Now is not about Vietnam or any of the politics, just a descent into madness that just happens to occur during the war. Willard also romances a widow, with far too much emphasis put on his duel nature (the half shrouded image of Willard juxtaposed against a stone statue says this far more effectively). One final unnecessary scene has Kurtz reading Willard some articles from Time magazine about America’s fabricated success in Vietnam. Again, more war commentary that just does not add anything. And it is curious to note that this is the only rime Kurtz is glimpsed in broad daylight. It breaks the powerful, mysterious air about the character and not for an interesting scene either. To conclude, between the original and the Redux version the choice is clear. The Redux version is just too loaded down by extraneous scenes that add too little or too much. For a truly cinematic experience, revisit the original in all its glory. All the bombast, the madness, and the horror, the horror.

Synecdoche, New York (2008)

2009-11-14T21:42:00.000-08:00

Directed by Charlie Kaufman.
Starring Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Samantha Morton.

In a Nutshell: A director confronts his mortality while creating his own life on stage.

Here is a movie that almost begs not to be understood, and is as full of visual and narrative trippiness as one would expect from Charlie Kaufman (making his directorial debut). It is a film of great ambition, but also about ambition and how it brings us closer towards finding meaning (any meaning) in our short blip here on Earth. Phillip Seymour Hoffman stars as Caden Cotard, a theater director who uses the MacArthur genius grant to create his life’s masterpiece. He plans to transpose his entire life onto the stage, to celebrate and revel in the mundane of everyday life. Cotard expands production into a life-size model of New York with doppelgangers of Cotard and every meaningful person in his life.

During his production, Cotard tries to play God and crams his actors into the roles he believes their real-life partners play. Through his own double (a man who was studied him for 20 years), he becomes conscious of his own personality. As time wears on, his loved ones die and his city fades into a gray, abandoned void. To follow every plot thread and hallucination threatens to turn the viewing experience into an analytical one, rather than an emotional one. Hoffman’s Cotard remains the most accessible part of the movie. He fears growing old, he makes mistakes with his many love interests, laments losing touch with his daughter and uses this sprawling city-sized play as his path to creative fulfillment. This is a dense film, with no logical entry point to tackle its themes. But why discard this in favor of fast-food culture junk like Transformers? Synecdoche, New York embraces all the fears and neurosis that encompass our existence. If that doesn’t hold important to you, then I don’t know what will.

Close-up (1990)

2009-11-07T22:28:00.000-08:00

Directed by Abbas Kiarostami.

In a Nutshell: A man goes on trial for impersonating Mohsen Makhmalbaf.

Abbas Kiarostami’s Close-up is a sort of mutant documentary that blurs the lines between reality and simulacra. The film is about the trial of Hossein Sabzian who impersonated filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf and to trick a family into appearing in a movie for him. His reasoning lies in a love for art and the clout to spread knowledge of Iran’s cinema to its people. It is reenacted with the same real-life players from the incident, though it is never clear how much has been fabricated for the cameras. Close-up is endlessly self-reflexive, but seeks to echo our obsession with media fame and respect. And rather than scorn, Kiarostami gives a simple, yet touching look at our fixation on film.

Such a story could have seen its absurdity spun into a film capitalizing on the desperation and failure of a man like Sabizan. But Kiarostami approaches with humanistic concern, showcasing the purity of a man who overcame his self-consciousness in the skin of another man. Sabizen was now somebody, someone with a voice and the influence to project it onto the screen. Though given that Sabizan is playing himself playing Makhmalbaf, Kiarostami hardly needs to force our sympathy and the lines between performer and reality blur together. Close-up is not about our perspective on Sabizan’s saga, but of Kiarostami’s. He moves past his hall of mirrors to question the self-meaning we cultivate from art and the identity we forge.

In the end, Makhmalbaf himself greets Sabizan in open arms. Makhmalbaf asks Sabizan if he prefers his stolen identity to his own. Sabizan tearfully explains, “I’m tired of being me.” Kiarostami has shown that the masks we wear and the realities we project are no less real, and no less driven by our deepest desires. The final scene shows both men driving off on Makhmalbaf’s motorcycle, redeemed through their unifying passion. A beautiful achievement on our most human of artistic longings.

F for Fake (1973)

2009-10-31T20:56:00.000-07:00

Directed by Orson Welles.
Starring Orson Welles and Oja Kodar.

In a Nutshell: Orson Welles examines the nature of fraud.

In the opening scene of Orson Welles’ final movie, F for Fake, he presents himself as a sly magician, making a quarter disappear and reappear before a child’s awe-struck eyes. The self-described charlatan turns to the camera with a winking air, and promises the audience an “essay film” on the nature deception, adding that not everything in this film will be entirely truthful either. Guided by Welles’ rapid (and many times misleading) editing, the film examines four artists whose careers have skewered the line of authenticity; art forger Elmry de Hory, faux Howard Hughes biographer Clifford Irving, Pablo Picasso (in a story reenacted with Welles’ real-life partner Oja Kodar), and Welles himself.

The movie is structured as Welles’ inner monologue reminiscing on both the nature of fakery and his own success (which arose from his infamous War of the Worlds radio broadcast and fictionalized Hearst biography). Welles openly questions whether or not their fraudulent nature nullifies them as artists. He reflects with a jesting air, though his narration can never find a cohesive thread to rest on. It threatens to confuse the viewer out of Welles’ presentation, but is saved by the grace of his compelling subjects and personal observations on his own life. That is key to enjoying F for Fake; putting yourself entirely in the trust of Welles’ storytelling.

Throughout, Welles offers plenty of wry, but not cynical observations about his own esteemed and commercially unsuccessful career. It is this self-reflection that allows him to playful examine Hory and Irving in their chosen career of deception and unravel their motivations for doing so. This makes F for Fake a love letter to the art of moviemaking, how the distortion of reality uncovers hidden truth. At the end, Welles reveals the fakery perpetrated within the very film and is becomes clear that Welles the magician was no mere put-on. Free of the constraints of the normal documentary, F for Fake remains one of the most inventive non-fiction films and one of the better pranks of cinema.

Rashomon (1950)

2009-10-24T21:05:00.001-07:00

Directed by Akira Kurosawa.
Starring Toshirō Mifune and Machiko Kyō.

In a Nutshell: A murder and rape is depicted through four conflicting perspectives.

During Rashomon, one character states, “It's human to lie. Most of the time we can't even be honest with ourselves.” An almost verbatim quote from Akira Kurosawa himself, Rashomon is a still powerful film about how we can distort our own reality. Its famous storytelling approach was revolutionary, but beyond gimmickry; Rashomon was the first of its kind to supply conflicting realties and then never arrive at some tidy conclusion while the camera betrays the trust we have to report the truth. The film begins in a rundown gatehouse where a woodcutter (Takashi Shimura) and priest recount a horrific incident that occurred one muggy afternoon. A feared bandit (Toshirō Mifune, a bundle of animalistic fury) rapes the wife (Machiko Kyō) of a samurai (Masayuki Mori). That much is fact, but the accounts of the bandit, woman, samurai (through a medium) and woodcutter give their own set of details that alter motivation and who exactly killed the samurai.

But the actual chronology of events is not the objective, something too many Rashomon derivatives invest too much importance in. Instead, Rashomon tells us that no man can ever obtain absolute truth. Each participant in the crime tries to twist the events based on their own guilt and delusions. For example, with Mifune’s samurai, we can easily see how each version still has the same person even as he tries to present himself in a nobler light. The samurai and his wife are more fluid and can come off as weak-willed, victims, or brave depending on who is telling the story. Only the woodcutter acts as an outside witness, but his uncertainty does not make his version any more reputable.

Rashomon is not only a terrific advancement in storytelling, but beautiful on a technical level. The woods are rendered in crisp black and white, the midday heat radiating off the screen. Meanwhile the sparseness of the courtroom and gatehouse convey the deceiving simplicity of Rashomon’s tale against the character’s distortions. That Kurosawa never resolves the crime does not infuriate, but brings new facets of the characters upon each viewing. To add a solid conclusion would undermine the film’s purpose to study how we report the truth. Rashomon distinct mark in film has inspired many like-minded works, but its intensity and fascination will never be duplicated.

Scenes from a Marriage (1973)

2009-10-17T21:56:00.000-07:00

Directed by Ingmar Bergman.
Starring Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson.

In a Nutshell: The portrait of a couple’s disintegrating marriage and enduring love.

Scenes from a Marriage, the saga of one couple’s relationship pre and post divorce, may be one of the most intimate and honest look at marriage ever put on screen. The marriage is between divorce lawyer Marianne (Liv Ullmann) and college professor Johan (Erland Josephson). Both are intelligent, independent and successful, with no real issues disrupting their lives. Until early in the film, Johan announces he is having an affair and decides he will walk out on Marianne. She is willing to save the marriage, but he leaves, stranding Marianne without any sense of identity. The film follows the next ten years of their lives as they fight against the resentment and attraction between each other.

To watch these two struggle against their feelings and fail to make a clean break is wrenching. Little emotion is left out or unexpressed, and Ingmar Bergman fearlessly dives into the character’s souls. Once Johan leaves with his mistress, Marianne feels misplaced but slowly regains a free-spirited self that dilutes her sexual confusion. But Johan returns, desperate for Marianne’s affection. Marianne complies, but only to prove to herself that she truly does not love him anymore, which causes Johan to lash out at her violently. The relationship only gets increasingly hard to end. Bergman keeps the whole film indoors (and in few locations) with tight framing on the two leads. We feel trapped in their fight, uncomfortably so, but allows Bergman to present the marriage as openly as possible.

None of Johan and Marianne’s relationship would have had an ounce of depth if not for its textured performances. Ullmann must balance her character’s stifled independence without becoming a bland wallflower, but handles it with grace. Her scenes of liberation from Johan are some of the most touching in a film full of wounding emotion. Johan could have easily been a weak man, aloof or uncaring to his self-interest only to come crawling back on his knees. But the screenplay develops him into a well-rounded insight into male societal expectation that Josephson’s understated performance complements well. The film may examine its couple almost too closely, but it takes great care to examine why Marianne and Johan continue to find solace in each other many years after their marriage ended. Such brutal, naked honesty fails to define Johan and Marianne’s relationship into mere words, but as a fundamental human desire for love and understanding. It is as mature a look into marriage as you will ever see on film and one of Bergman’s absolute best.

Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

2009-10-10T20:58:00.000-07:00

Directed by Stanley Kubrick.
Starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman.

In a Nutshell: A doctor infiltrates a sex cult after a marital secret comes to light.

Eyes Wide Shut, a disorienting look into dehumanized marriage, is a worthy bookend to Stanley Kubrick’s peerless and polarizing filmography. It is also Kubrick’s most adult picture, exploring the lies of happy marriages and the sexual nightmares that occur beyond closed doors. Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman (married at the time) star as Bill and Alice Hartford, a wealthy New York couple living an ideal marriage. Bill is a respected doctor attracting plenty of unwanted attention, but finds security in Alice’s fidelity. However, the night after a Christmas party, where both find themselves deflecting advances from guests (Alice’s in particular being the most transparent of seducers) Alice reveals that she nearly left Bill for a navel officer many years ago. Shaken, Bill decides to wander New York after attending a house call. He ends up meeting with an old friend, who leads him to an orgy where Bill’s involvement may have lead to the death of a party guest.

That handsome and multimillion dollar movie stars Cruise and Kidman were asked to play the central couple already places Bill and Alice’s marriage in a higher plane than our own, allowing our objective view into their (soon to be ruined) utopia. Bill is unassuming to his wife’s secrets, that end up puncturing a world he once thought he had control over. And indeed, the city of New York becomes a parade of characters that try to edge Bill towards their own sexual agendas. The orgy Bill attends is by far the coldest and most artificial expression of sex throughout the film, as masked guests passionlessly and noiselessly embrace together in isolation. Therein lies the dichotomy of Bill’s two options; impersonal sex with the women he meets, or his wife, fully realized before him, but now no more than another fixture in his upscale NY life.

This movie delves into many themes on the nature of men and women, marriage, even conspiracy. But what makes the film so memorable is not Kubrick’s exploration, but in his presentation of his beautifully unreal world. Eyes Wide Shut’s New York is a studio set sapping any of the charm accompanying an on-location shoot. The interior locations (the orgy, the Christmas party, the Hartford’s apartment) convey an European-like demeanor, stately but detached of warmth. Cruise gives a passive, restrained performance (unlike Kidman, a sensational window into the female cognition) that both enforces his disconnect with the world around him, but allows him to act as the audience’s surrogate through his strange adventure. In ideas alone, Eyes Wide Shut is not the most revolutionary in examining the collapse of marriage, but gives a thrillingly cinematic portal into Kubrick’s mechanized view of love. The final scene provides the glimmer of hope that Bill and Alice will improve their marriage. It is slight, but maybe it proves that Kubrick was not so cynical about human progression after all.

La notte (1961)

2009-10-03T21:54:00.000-07:00

Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni.
Starring Marcello Mastroianni and Jeanne Moreau.

In a Nutshell: A writer and his socialite wife become aware of their loveless marriage.

La notte is the middle chapter of Michelangelo Antonioni’s Incommunicability Trilogy and the most frustrating to endure. Its main couple, a successful writer named Giovanni (Marcello Mastroianni) and his bored wife, Lidia (Jeanne Moreau), are the sort of people we cannot help but hold no sympathy for. Both are wealthy, attractive, surrounded by friends of equal stature and spend their lives attending parties and mixing with high culture. Both can barely pretend there is any life left in their marriage as Giovanni shamelessly chases women while Lidia half-heartedly deflects advances from other men. As both move from one social gathering to the next, it becomes to clear just how far the crack in their relationship has grown.

Antonioni has always been a director of spaces. Wide, desolate planes where his character’s hopelessness and modern angst fills the screen. Everything down to the parties that Lidia and Giovanni attend feel uninhabited. Thankfully, Antonioni’s style gives his material a maturity and restraint that could have easily delved into over-wrought visual clichés. Particularly since Giovanni and Lidia’s problems are not revolutionary in film’s history of marital crisis’s. But it is familiar and the viewer’s own loneliness and insecurity becomes the film’s backdrop.

One of the aspects presented with a great sadness is the transition from an old-fashioned Catholic world to a secularist one. As duty-bound to their union as Giovanni and Lidia are, each is drawn into hedonism, though no one acts on infidelity. Their greatest struggle seems to be the burden of being decent people, unwilling to confront their issues to each other for fear of tarnishing some old moral code. As the empty, aged cities crumble around our couple, we see the values of yesterday begin to dissolve with every hopelessly uncaring look between them. Each is afraid to speak up and shatter the fragile illusion of their happy marriage. By the end, as man and wife make for one last grasp to reestablish their love, even we know that nothing can mend their rift.

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)

2009-09-26T21:16:00.000-07:00

Directed by Mike Nichols.
Starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.

In a Nutshell: Two married couples meet for drinks and expose marital secrets.

Adapted from the Tony Award winning play by Edward Albee, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is gold standard in black comedy. It is a barrage of marital hatred, tenderness, victimization, and whatever is left in the emotional gamut. The plot is two couples; George and Martha (Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor) and Nick and Honey (George Segal and Sandy Dennis) with George and Nick professors at the same university. George and Martha are middle-aged, unaccomplished, and stuck in a routine of one-upmanship and hateful verbal sparring. Nick and Honey have far less contempt for each other, but realize through George and Martha’s union just how unstable their rock is. As the two couples unite one night for drinks, the true nature of the two marriages unfurls in a fury of emotional wounding and booze-soaked tirades. The title comes from a poor joke repeated past its expiration date, a fair metaphor for the film’s comedic sensibilities. Though according to Albee, it relates to the fear of living without false illusions, a fear that defines the lives of George and Martha.

Mike Nichols (making his directorial debut) has the right sense to stick to the sharpened, wounding (and very adult) dialogue and claustrophobic scenery; the later credited to cinematographer Haskell Wexler transforming the suburban home into a cavernous lair into Hell. The casting of matinee couple Taylor and Burton caused the most publicity, but both display not a shred of star vanity. Taylor’s alcoholic is a matron Godzilla and the bully of the foursome; loud and cruel to safeguard her own demons. Burton is far quieter, but a slight vocal inflection or wincing look gives us all the insight we need. Segal has the least showy role, but is apt as the audience proxy while Dennis explodes from reserved housewife to childish drunk under George and Martha’s tutelage.

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is unforgiving, but would not be as cutting if it did not provide some resonance. Both George and Martha have holed up in their routine of put-downs and incessant wrath, but it is that empty desire of one-upmanship that has kept together for this long. Their sudden friendship with the naïve Nick and immature Honey is only an extension of that self-superiority. I shall not reveal George and Martha’s damning marital secret, but it can be seen as an empty cipher to imprint their pains and struggles while exercising their desire to control (for so much of George and Martha’s ambitions have been lost in weakness). George and Martha are ugliness amplified, but like the film, do not seek to merely terrorize.

Contempt (1963)

2009-09-19T21:02:00.000-07:00

Directed by Jean-Luc Godard.
Starring Brigitte Bardot and Michel Piccoli.

In a Nutshell: A confrontation with a film producer dissolves a screenwriter’s marriage.

Contempt may be the most Hollywood of Jean-Luc Godard’s filmography, but it is also his most personal. It is a film with big name stars and audience-appeal touches while also serving to deconstruct Godard’s clash between art and commerce. As its characters create a film adaptation of Homer’s Odyssey, their own lives begin to mirror the same story as well as Godard’s tumultuous relationship with wife Anna Karina and the film’s American distributor. In the Godard role, screenwriter Paul Javal (Michel Piccoli) is asked to rework his Odyssey script by a crass American producer (Jack Palance) to make it a Hercules derivative. Paul accidentally leaves the producer alone with his wife Camille (Brigitte Bardot). Following the encounter, Camille has nothing but resentment for Paul and his work.

Camille’s sudden contempt is never explained to Paul or us. Perhaps the ease at which the producer steals Camille led her to believe Paul was letting her sleep with him as a bargaining chip. Neither Paul nor Camille clears the misunderstanding. Paul ends up accepting the producer’s job and is moved to the rich, spacious apartment that Camille always wanted. The couple hole up in their new home, embroiled in an extended marital spat. Both struggle to reclaim an unconditional love so that at least one will not have to admit fault. It is painful to watch the two half-heartedly communicate without exposing their insecurities; Camille to her wounds of betrayed love and Paul to his (possibly) accidental prostitution to further his career.

While a devastatingly hopeless tale of love gone awry, Contempt is still Jean-Luc Godard’s catharsis on the battles facing him as an artist in the film industry. The odious producer and the steadfast director (Fritz Lang as himself) fight over the final Odyssey cut, just as Contempt is torn between photogenic eroticism and raw marital anguish. This is where the film may not completely connect. As a love story, it is heartbreaking. Though balancing that with a movie about the making a movie, while serving as a commentary on moviemaking, Godard’s meta angst calls too much attention to itself. It is in Paul’s new apartment, where the lavish set, cinematography and showy direction threaten to vulgarize Godard’s matrimony deconstruction into cheap commerce. It is a sly, subtle joke, but far more effective than a petulant Jack Palance hurling film reels.

Grizzly Man (2005)

2009-09-12T21:59:00.000-07:00

Directed by Werner Herzog.

In a Nutshell: An analysis on the life and death of environmentalist Timothy Treadwell.

Timothy Treadwell is such a Shakespearian portrait of fortitude on the edge of madness, that it is no wonder he caught the eye of Werner Herzog. A quick backstory; Treadwell was a drug addict and a failed actor who found a communion with nature, specifically with the grizzly bears living in an Alaskan peninsula. He resided amongst the bears for thirteen summers as a grassroots preservationist, interacting with them like an equal. For the last five years of his study, he brought along a video camera to capture authentic bear footage. However, following the summer of 2003 an altercation at the airport inflamed his contempt with humanity, and he and his then-girlfriend Amie Huguenard, went back to his home with the bears. Unfortunately, many of Treadwell’s familiar bear companions were in hibernation and the scarcity of food led to Treadwell and Huguenard being mauled by a grizzly. Herzog, no stranger the cruelty of nature, has constructed a breathtaking nature film, a portrait of a lone environmentalist resisting civilization, and a haunting story of a troubled man stalked by his own doom.

Despite the debate that Treadwell’s eccentricity has caused amongst his peers (illustrated through interviews of Treadwell’s friends and family as well as disapproving naturalists and park rangers), Herzog remains unbiased in his retelling of Treadwell’s life. Herzog also possesses audio of Treadwell and Huguenard’s final moments, but honorably refuses to play it and instructs one of Treadwell’s ex-girlfriends to destroy the tape. In fact he only interrupts Treadwell’s musings to weigh in on what he feels is “the overwhelming indifference of nature.” He holds a fascination with nature as intense as Treadwell (as evidenced in his other works) but lacking any sort of romanticism. All he sees the chaos of nature that enveloped Treadwell and is the closest Herzog gets to showing his cards on his subject.

Grizzly Man is a peculiar movie, but nothing short of engrossing. It may contain the most unrefined videos of grizzly bears in the wild (a view shared by Herzog, who praises Treadwell as a filmmaker), but never romanticizes nature. And Treadwell remains a study in himself; either an outcast who found an unexplainable unity within America’s most dangerous carnivores or an exhibitionist grasping for the attention he never received as an actor. Herzog certainly tries his best to paint an accurate portrayal with the footage Treadwell allowed to be filmed. We see Treadwell rage incoherently about civilization, baby talk to the bears, set up multiple takes for “spontaneous” observations, and so on. Whatever our interpretation we can see how such a man of oddball idealism could have found himself exiled by society and identified only within the perilous splendor of nature. Herzog dutifully does not prod us to judge, but to merely observe this tragic life of one man’s lonely embrace with death.

Collateral (2004)

2009-09-05T21:58:00.000-07:00

Directed by Michael Mann.
Starring Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx.

In a Nutshell: A cabbie is forced to aid a hitman in a string of nighttime killings.

Collateral is one of those films that manage to overcome its paltry script with exhilarating direction and first-class acting. It plays like the darkest of buddy comedies, playing heavily with the conflicting personalities of the two leads. Vincent (Tom Cruise) is a skilled assassin who must kill five witnesses before morning. To get around, he gets into a cab driven by Max (Jamie Foxx) and attempts to keep his job a secret until one of his victims accidentally falls on top of Max’s cab. Now, Max is forced to transport Vincent from hit to hit, and the two men are continually at odds with each other. Vincent believes not just in “living in the moment” but at accepting and living with the spontaneity of life. Meanwhile Max, who is in his twelfth year as a cab driver, carefully plans out each moment while aspiring to one day have enough money for his own limo company.

If the characters feel organic, it’s not because of the writing, which saddles them with awkward chunks of monologues posing as character development. It is far too clunky for Michael Mann’s smooth direction, turning nighttime L.A. into the bleakest of wastelands. The city’s own haunting emptiness plays off Max, now trapped in his cab with Vincent acting as his catalyst to aim for a better life. Tom Cruise got a lot of attention for finally playing the villain, albeit a “safe” villain role. On paper, Vincent, with his philosophy quotes and superhuman assassin skills, could have been a chic Terminator, but Cruise gives him the necessary dimension to avoid being a complete monster. Foxx is even better and despite his comedy background, never overplays Max’s initial shock and weakness when confronted by his misfortune. When Max is forced into self-empowerment through Vincent’s teachings (and whatever plot diversions come his way), it feels wonderfully unforced even the face of an uninspired third-act chase.

Being a Michael Mann film, Collateral still has its action (check out the Asian nightclub scene with Vincent at odds from both sides of the law). Even more notable are the duo’s various meetings with other denizens of the night. From Vincent’s targets to Max’s comic relief mother, Mann treats us to vignettes that open up the underworld to breadth of stock characters made genuine. Less so is the finale that finally pits Max’s newfound empowerment against Vincent. But by this time, Mann’s visuals have managed to buck the clumsy script to maintain a naturalistic vibe within the moody L.A. underworld and the opposing nature of his leads. Collateral is little more than a fun ride, but succeeds in playing far better than it reads.

Le Samouraï (1967)

2009-08-29T21:19:00.000-07:00

Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville.
Starring Alain Delon and François Périer.

In a Nutshell: Following a recent killing, an assassin for hire must dodge the police.

Or in John Woo’s words, the perfect movie. I admit, that statement leans on hyperbolic, but Le Samouraï is still worthy of classic status. It commands the audience’s attention with its thinly dressed settings and concise bits of dialogue, complementing a story that only gets more complex as it progresses. The plot involves an impossibly gorgeous and solitary assassin Jef Costello (Alain Delon) whose code of honor is equivalent to that of a samurai’s (as the fictional opening text explains). After he successfully kills a nightclub owner, he is seen by several patrons, including a musician, who refuses to name him to the police. Despite the backup of an alibi from his girlfriend, the police superintendent (François Périer) doggedly peruses proof that Costello was the killer. Costello much also avoid retribution from his employer, who he believes persuaded the musician not to identify him.

Jean-Pierre Melville’s filmmaking style is akin to Sergio Leone’s. Both director’s works are films about films; collages of cinema sprung from their fondest of American movie memories. Le Samouraï is a love letter to American noir films of the 1930’s and 40’s, with a fresh treatment that strips away contrived plot devices and cheap suspense tactics. His world is almost graceful, demonstrated in the code of honor Costello has to his assassination methods. Costello’s delicate features and near silence shifts focus to his ruthlessness, making him a true portrait of a samurai warrior.

Le Samouraï is a precise and patient film, enabling itself to achieve level of suspense with as much minimalism as possible. Every character action becomes augmented against the bare mise-en-scène with the most mundane of actions moving with an otherworldly beauty. If there’s one reason why I disagree with Woo’s praise is that I just found it a cold movie. That’s not a just criticism, it was meant that way. That just is not my idea of movie perfection, especially since Delon’s robotic iciness began to ware itself out, giving Costello few dimensions outside of “honorable loner”. The film’s visual style of metallic gray and muted dull colors sets drains the film of passion and spontaneity (much like Costello himself). Le Samouraï is an exercise in meticulousness, both in Melville’s directing and Costello’s line of work. It may present emptiness a bit too well for its own good, but remains a beautifully dream-like noir.

Naked (1993)

2009-08-22T21:36:00.000-07:00

Directed by Mike Leigh.
Starring David Thewlis and Lesley Sharp.

In a Nutshell: An aimless young man wonders the streets of London, seeking interaction.

Naked is a bleak and haunting comedy about a lonesome, though intelligent man named Johnny (David Thewlis) who returns to his old girlfriend’s house after committing a sexual assault. After an incredibly brief relationship with his ex’s clingy roommate, he walks off into the night, projecting his thoughts to anyone who will listen. Immediately, I knew this was going to be of those rip-your-guts-out types of movies. Johnny, his ex, her roommate and the people he encounters in London’s underbelly are those that have been swallowed up by their own hopelessness. Sure, they are well-read, capable people who could have led decent lives with a steady job, loving family and functioning friends. But be it lack of ambition or self-destruction, they have found their lives an empty void with no fulfillment or hope for something better. I have yet to experience the “real world” and hope that I will not have to for a few years. But Naked is a poignant look at what could be should fate or my own actions run sour.

Though for all its bleakness, Naked is an invigoratingly unconventional movie with a strong, caring attachment for the lost lives it explores. Mike Leigh is always a director about observations, without any tight plotting or scripting. Once Johnny leaves the apartment to lurk the streets, the film consists of his encounters with the denizens of the night. As he ambles about, the characters that Johnny meets take on varying degrees of importance while he pours out musings about everything from evolution to God to the apocalypse. This is where a film could have dragged but Thewlis is spry, witty and manically mesmerizing. Johnny may be a wreck, but his ramblings take on an engaging electricity as he pushes through the torment to connect with others. One of the best vignettes is Johnny’s conversation with a security guard who uses his dull job as a way to spend time planning for a secure future.

While it is talky, I was never bored by Johnny’s adventures until an unsatisfying last act conflict involving a scornful landlord. It only seems to exist as a clumsy parallel between what Johnny has refused to become by failing to direct his life. But for much of the film’s duration, Naked gives an honest look at the going-nowhere lives of city dwellers. The numbness, lack of decisiveness, and ugly truth are uncovered like raw nerve endings but Leigh never loses any humanity within the picture. He lets Johnny’s odyssey reveal his inner muse while peering into the meaningless lives of strangers, without contempt or disgust. Naked is one of those movies that will linger in your mind long after it’s over; its dank scenery, Thewlis’ frenzied pathos, and the exposed sincerity of the whole affair.

Pickpocket (1959)

2009-08-15T21:26:00.000-07:00

Directed by Robert Bresson.
Starring Martin LaSalle and Marika Green.

In a Nutshell: A man becomes addicted to thievery at the behest of his loved ones.

Pickpocket, a study on the criminal mind, is the film that is claimed to have heavily inspired Taxi Driver. Like Taxi Driver, Pickpocket relies heavily on voiceover (at this time, a new progression for film), allowing Robert Bresson to have his actors underplay every scene and let the narration control the mood. Both films also chronicle the lives of a men who likens themselves above society, and uses that superiority complex as a justification for crime. Although instead of becoming an unhinged vigilante, Michel takes to the high of thievery. His love of thievery and desire to be punished (casting aside the pleas of his moral-bound girlfriend to redeem himself) leads us down to Michel’s inevitable imprisonment. But at barely an hour and a half, Pickpocket is a very lean, gripping movie that wastes no time in chronicling Michel’s spiral.

Pickpocket, with its controlled, detached acting and uncluttered framing never seems to be passing judgment on Michel’s lifestyle. It is incredibly minimalist, straight and despite Michel’s narration to guide us through his moral journey, his actions and consequences do not dramatize themselves. The movie took its inspiration from Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, but avoids any moralizing despite the similarities between Michel and Raskolnikov’s views. But in both forms, the emotional hollowness that leads men to defy society is well represented. Michel’s addiction to crime is the only thing that keeps him feeling fulfilled, even though he knows of how it may end. Pickpocket may be a sparse film, but its terseness allows for Bresson to cut right to the film’s core of portraying the void criminals desperately hope to fill with their sins.

Taxi Driver (1976)

2009-08-08T21:00:00.001-07:00

Directed by Martin Scorsese.
Starring Robert De Niro and Jodie Foster.

In a Nutshell: A lonely and disturbed cabbie lashes out violently on New York.

Few films have explored into the decaying mind of the loner as effectively as Taxi Driver. And few films have portrayed New York as the simmering cauldron of despair, hostility and hatred that Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) rages against. In a word, Travis Bickle, who may or may not be a veteran of Vietnam, is a sick man and the sort of social alien whose attempts a human contact only isolate him further. Travis spends his waking hours driving cabs on the night shift in New York’s seediest of neighborhoods. The unbearable isolation and his disgust for the city have warped him into a man of twisted conscience and soul. But when he rants about the city and the hostility of others, it is not as though he’s exaggerating. Which is the true core of Taxi Driver; a man whose insanity and loneliness has been birthed from his accepted and yet morally corrupt surroundings.

Travis nearly finds redemption through two women, a campaign worker named Betsy (Cybill Shepherd) and a child prostitute named Iris (Jodie Foster). His brief relationship with Betsy collapses in his ill-advised attempts to form a more intimate connection. In this case, he takes her to a porno movie, proving that Travis’ thinking may be indistinguishable from the depraved society he despises. His unsuccessful attempts to save an indifferent Iris from a life on the streets unveil a more compassionate Travis, before the constant pain of rejection drives him to attempt to assassinate a political candidate. But all the while, Travis is very much the awkward everyman, not a standoffish psycho with one hand on the trigger and Scorsese keeps him familiar with our sympathies.

Taxi Driver is powerful film, and important in its depiction of society versus the lonely soldier. With the American life in degeneration, it is only understandable that any sane man would have trouble accepting the conditions around him. Yet it is Travis’ delirium that prevents him from being seen as anything more than an insane shooter. It is Iris who projects society’s mindset; she has fallen into prostitution but is either apathetic or unaware to her plight that she remains content. When Travis finally makes his stand against the candidate, he ends up being chased straight to Iris and his actions save her from a bleak future. He may have been transformed into a media hero by saving a little girl, but his anger is all too conveniently swept under the rug. That way the world can continue operating in its usual, unprincipled way. It is the close proximity of Travis’ hero status from political assassin that defines this man, someone whose frustration at the world treads a fine line between valor and madness.

Repulsion (1965)

2009-08-01T21:04:00.001-07:00

Directed by Roman Polanski.
Starring Catherine Deneuve and Ian Hendry.

In a Nutshell: A sexually confused woman suffers a breakdown while in solitude.

Repulsion, Roman Polanski’s first English language movie, plays as great warm-up to the much more famed Rosemary’s Baby. Both involve women on the edge of insanity and the apartments that serve as their asylums. With Replusion, we enter the mind of Carole Ledoux (Catherine Deneuve), a painfully introverted hairstylist who, despite her beauty is uncomfortable about her sexuality. She flees from even the most honest of suitors and is disgusted with her sister’s relationship with a married man. When the couple goes away on vacation, Carole is left alone to her thoughts, leading to a psychological breakdown with nightmarish hallucinations that jostle between perverse pleasure and madness. As reality begins to slip away, Carole begins to lash out violently at the world around her.

Deneuve, who was in her early 20’s during shooting, gives an incredibly mature performance though much of the effectiveness lies in cheating the audience out of Deneuve’s objectification. Instead through a lack of character study, the audience never sees the motives behind Carole’s madness, only an onslaught of the surreal. Polanski’s later work is distinguished by far too much excess, but Repulsion chills with the smallest details. The constant dripping of water of the buzzing of a fly. The sight of a dead rabbit in Carole’s purse. Or most effectively, Carole listening to her sister and boyfriend noisily making love, which outlines Carole’s sexual terror without having to be gratuitous. The film’s shortcomings lie in any explanation towards Carole’s sexual confusion (save maybe the last shot). Polanski is far too concerned with filling Carole’s mind with decay than bog itself down with exposition. If Deneuve’s performance never begged empathy, perhaps it is because the movie would not have allowed it anyway. But with the viewer looking for any meaning behind it all will only discover the continuing fascination of Carole’s fear and desire becoming one.

The Shining (1980)

2009-07-25T21:16:00.000-07:00

Directed by Stanley Kubrick.
Starring Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall.

In a Nutshell: The caretakers of an isolated hotel are terrorized by an evil presence.

Stanley Kubrick is typically (or in my experience) one of the first directors that burgeoning film students gravitate towards. And why not? He’s fairly modern, has a very consistent theme of dehumanization (that many seem to respond to) and has experimented in a wide variety of genres (sci-fi, horror, war, comedy, historical epic, family drama). Though since many people believe that filmmaking begins and ends with Mr. Kubrick, I find myself to be too critical of his work, which is unfair. Even his worst work is uncompromising, tightly directed and contains at least three or four iconic scenes. Of his entire filmography, The Shining would be in the bottom half, but still deserves its classic status.

Unlike most modern horror movies that pile on cheap shocks and gore, The Shining runs on a looming dread and a menacing atmosphere. The scenery takes on a life of its own, courtesy of Kubrick’s expansive framing, with shots that continually track the Torrance family (on par with the hotel’s portrayal as an omnipresent entity). Jack Nicholson’s Jack Torrance deviated a lot from Stephen King’s character, and rather than succumbing to cabin fever from his own alcoholic weaknesses, was instead a murderous psychopath all along. It is understandable why King and King fans would be upset at this change; Jack’s progression from family man to murderer feels less organic and more expected. It lessens the shock, but to judge the movie on its own terms, that Jack’s murderous tendencies were always there, then the film’s build to the rampage is as ominous as inevitability can be.

One element of the film that was unjustly criticized was Shelley Duvall as Jack’s wife Wendy. Duvall is out of her comfort zone in The Shining; her most frequent collaborator was Robert Altman whose freewheeling directing style could not be anymore different than Kubrick’s. Plus, King’s Wendy was also a different character, this time a more self-reliant and stronger woman. Duvall’s main acting challenge is to be flighty and hysterical, and Duvall is effective. It is hardly her fault the material has her do little more than wail, shriek and be bullied by Jack for half of the movie. Audiences and critics were also decisive of the film’s enigmatic qualities. Not much is explained about the hotel’s need to have Jack a murderer and several scenes that were explained thoroughly in the novel come off as non-sequiturs. There is no doubt this was deliberate, and it does show Kubrick’s faith in his audience to either form our own interpretation or take every mysterious occurrence at face value. Perhaps its instance on not explaining everything is exactly what makes it so enduring, so inexplicably horrifying. It manages a sinister mood that few have been able to replicate making The Shining a horror classic and that still beats the hell out of today’s horror flicks.

A Woman Under the Influence (1974)

2009-07-17T21:24:00.001-07:00

Directed by John Cassavetes.
Starring Peter Falk and Gena Rowlands.

In a Nutshell: A housewife’s mental illness threatens her family’s welfare.

Plenty of movies out there, devoid of any violent or sexually graphic content (unlike Man Bites Dog), that make me extremely uncomfortable. A Woman Under the Influence, John Cassavetes’ mediation on the struggle to maintain marital serenity, is one of those movies. The woman in question, Gena Rowlands as homemaker Mabel Longhetti, is a victim of trying too hard to please her husband, Nick (Peter Falk, at his most un-Columbo). She’s too eager to please at social functions, laughs too loud and too long, cries with a misplaced passion and generally gives off an uncomfortable vibe. But she’s never this way because she wants to be; she only wants to please her affable, if a tad loutish husband who she loves dearly. She is a victim of society’s pigeonholing and can never cram her psyche into the traditional housewife role. It does not take long for Nick to get fed up with her manic behavior and ends up sending her to a mental institution. It is then that Nick becomes an even worse caretaker, exploding with anger and sharing beers with his kids at the beach. He too feels the strain of being shoved into society’s trapping as assured and always in control.

When I say the film made me uneasy is no knock on its quality. But two and a half hours of yelling and dissolving marriage is just exhausting. But the movie does showcase Cassavetes’ strength as an actor’s director. Gena Rowlands gives a forcefully high-strung performance as Mabel, giving her eccentricity and irritating tics a sad, personal touch. Her inability to realize herself in her suffocating, suburban world begins shattering her psyche, and Rowlands can channel rage, desperation and faux joy in one look like no other. Peter Falk’s Nick is just as dysfunctional and well-meaning, relying mostly on violence and excessive shouting to restore order. But his outbursts are of the same nature as Mabel’s; an attempt to reinforce a notion of tradition that plagues American households.

Cassavetes has presented a searing, though overdone look at the American family. It’s overdone only in the sense that no real people could sustain the amount of dysfunctional energy that Nick and Mabel can. Or at least I hope not. But both characters are so well developed that the film could run on its own spontaneity and the lead performances boldly dive into the abyss that has defined Nick and Mabel’s lives. It’s as touching as it is nauseating to watch these two wrestle with their societal roles as their sanity is threatened. Both mean well, but the influence of our position in this culture can drive any well-meaning individual to madness. In the end, as painful as it was to watch, A Woman Under the Influence expertly defines the struggle between who we are and who we should be.

A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)

2009-07-11T21:46:00.000-07:00

Directed by Elia Kazan.
Starring Vivien Leigh and Marlon Brando.

In a Nutshell: A Southern belle clashes with her family and descends into insanity.

A lot has been written over the years about Marlon Brando as Stanley Kowalski. There have been morally unsound characters in movies long before Stanley, but they have all been played with reservation and restraint. But Brando brought the Method-style in full focus with Stanley; drinking, hitting, yelling, and never backing down from his character’s irredeemable qualities. He doesn’t submit to a simian cartoon (despite what many of the film’s characters would say) but instead expresses his anguish as a man who cannot think to summon such dimensions. It is hardly hyperbole to say that screen acting today would be quite different were it not for Brando’s fearless commitment to Stanley.

But for all of Brando’s acting revolutionizing, the film still belongs to Vivien Leigh as the unglued Blanche Dubois. She’s painted to be just as likeable a protagonist as Stanley, but Leigh’s performance is one of great tragedy as the audience waits for her downfall to arrive. She’s as brittle as a dry twig but her constant attempts at reclaiming a normal life (or deluding all around her that she can) are heavy lifting for an actress. Her tailspin to insanity, laced with homophobic jeers, nymphomania and possible cradle robbing (much of which was restored in the latest, uncut version), is hypnotic and achingly poignant in Leigh’s hands. Particularly her scene where she tries to seduce a young paperboy, her voice barely hiding the sexual longing in her sad life. It straddles a line between depressing and tawdry, but Leigh never buries Blanche’s inner turmoil.

The current DVD release presents the film uncensored leaving in the extended rape scene and scenes that sexualized Stella, Blanche’s sister and Stanley’s wife (Kim Hunter). The original cut gave little understanding as to what would attract her to such a brute and keep the marriage held together. It cheapened her character for audiences, but is now presented as a fully fleshed out figure (despite all the abuse she suffers from Stanley). The sexuality between the characters heightens through the constant manipulation and doesn’t devalue the tension with too much bedroom dealing. It keeps the heat in Blanche and Stanley’s battle as sweltering now as it did in 1951. The film continues to remain an engrossing insight into adult sexuality and as enduring as Brando’s raw passion.

Saragossa Manuscript (1965)

2009-07-04T21:36:00.000-07:00

Directed by Wojciech Has.
Starring Zbigniew Cybulski and Iga Cembrzyńska.

In a Nutshell: An old book tells folded tale after tale of a soldier’s grandfather.

I think I can safely say that Saragossa Manuscript is one of the densest, twisted, more convolutedly plotted movies I have ever seen. Perhaps I’ll change my mind once I’ve seen more movies, but this one will be tough to beat. Saragossa Manuscript (which was adapted from a novel by Jan Potocki) begins as a soldier reading a tale about his grandfather, Alphonse van Worden (Zbigniew Cybulski) being lured by two princesses who want to marry him. Instantly, he is brutally awakened from this vision and the movie soon follows a path of intertwining stories all ended with the reoccurring gag of the characters being sucked right out of them in a jolting manner. Many of the stories connect or undermine others, but one will need a spreadsheet to keep track of how all the characters and stories connect.

With the movie’s three-hour length (courtesy of fan Jerry Garcia who fought for an American release of the original cut), there is a problem of it lost in its own labyrinth. I have been told that I seem to have a problem with enjoying movies on a basic level (e.g. Transformers), and one would suppose that to enjoy this movie, you just have to let it take you for ride. For all the complexity, it always seems to be grinning at the audience; nothing is ever weighted down by melodrama. The actors seem to know this and never add an ounce of gravity to the performances. The directing is more theater, and less cinematic eschewing any sort of grandeur in the scenery. And the offbeat pacing from story to story only adds to the drug-trip like state of it.

And about that drug-trip vibe; Saragossa Manuscript seems to aspire to an all-encompassing window into everything, and I mean everything. The stories range from cautionary tales on temptation, religious guilt, and satire on narrative itself. The movie’s reality is never in stone, nor should it be. I’m still not sure if I liked this movie just because it kept throwing me for a loop, dozens of times. I guess to truly enjoy the movie, I would not fear becoming lost in the maze but just try to make out the scant whips of meaning within the various tales; no matter how the big picture fits together. Enjoy it for what it is; a disjointed window into humanity that can never measure up, but is charming in its effort. Saragossa Manuscript is confusing, overreaching, and taxing on the brain, but what a journey. A deserving cult classic and a trip for even the most sober of moviegoers.

Millennium Actress (2001)

2009-06-28T11:44:00.000-07:00

Directed by Satoshi Kon.
Starring Miyoko Shôji and Mami Koyama.

In a Nutshell: A reclusive actress relives her life during a documentary interview.

I hope this isn’t the only anime film I watch for my blog/journal. I have a great respect and adoration for Japanese animation, but when it’s done well. Most of the Saturday morning garbage and Adult Swim series lose me. Far too much of it is wrapped up in its own fiction and comes off as culturally unfamiliar (Argument for another day). That said, Millennium Actress is a very moving drama that plays with the fabric of reality and just happens to be animated. The movie centers on a fictional movie star named Chiyoko Fujiwara who retreated from the public eye for 30 years. One of her greatest admirers and his cameraman seeks her out for a documentary. Chiyoko treats him to a retelling of what led her to seclusion while the filmmaker and cameraman become immersed in her storytelling. Before becoming an actress, she talks of helping a man escape from Japanese right socialism. He leaves behind a key for safekeeping and her entire life has been to reunite with her love. It’s an innovative plot devise in traveling through time, with film and history, present and past all occupying the same plane.

The movie does get confusing since many of the scenes never distinguish whether we are experiencing Chiyoko’s actual life or a movie shoot especially when the two doc-makers also start living her fictional exploits. Her films cover even more of Japan’s history from the Edo (military government) and Meiji (westernized centralized government) periods to a futuristic space age (that also serves as her acting swan song). This narration lends itself to a compelling study on the nature of make-believe and the way it bleeds into our own lives. Anime should not be segregated to its own genre, which is why I would strongly recommend this movie to anyone with a sense for both romance and storytelling. To envision this film in any different medium would be unthinkable given the range of history, the scale of human drama, and the sweeping, line-blurring narrative. It’s a touching tribute to the past and present, our idolization of film, and the pursuit of lost love.

Children of Paradise (1945)

2009-06-20T21:13:00.001-07:00

Directed by Marcel Carné.
Starring Arletty and Jean-Louis Barrault.

In a Nutshell: A mine, actor, thief and aristocrat vie for the affection of one woman.

There are many films that exist on a purely cinematic scale, lifted high above the flatness of the everyday. Characters shine with their vibrant eccentricities, the frame dazzles with excessively ornate sets and costumes and nobility shines through in the darkest of times. Children of Paradise is one of those films, a large-scale romance in the same spirit of Gone With the Wind. Though it exudes a similar ambition for storytelling, Children of Paradise showcases a darker depiction of its characters and its environment. Many are actors, and the film follows suit with its lovingly embellished performances and lavish soundstage sets. It may lack the grit that the New Wave was built upon, but it sincerely embraces the life-as-theater coda with style.

The film takes place in late 1820’s Paris, full of starving street actors, prostitutes, pickpockets, and other low-lifes. For a film of this time, it certainly reveled in the seedier side of society, but as a viewer today, everything seems very bright and dream-like. The cities are bathed in white light with even the most ancillary of characters busy with activity, bringing a worldliness to the smallest of details. Even when the characters start to tear their relationships apart, the movie looks magnificent as though it prides itself in showcasing these human dramas. The characterizations are fantastically done as well. Arletty, the woman who finds herself fought over by four men is a far more grounded variation on the classic temptress role. Arletty was in her early 40’s during filming, but her age works with for her; she displays a hard-earned experience that allures even the most depraved. The four men are a bit more varied in personality, but no man is too noble or immoral to make her decision easy.

This movie’s romanticism is the impossible type that can only exist in the movies, but revels in its theater style. Children of Paradise is able to support five richly defined characters in its story. Using Paris' theater as a backdrop gives Children of Paradise a unique soul that takes joy in its ungrounded flair. Equally impressive is the story behind the making, which involved making and releasing the movie around Nazi involvement. That such an arrestingly romantic movie could have been born from such circumstances is nothing short of miraculous.

Man Bites Dog (1992)

2009-06-13T21:44:00.001-07:00

Directed by Rémy Belvaux.
Starring Benoît Poelvoorde and Rémy Belvaux.

In a Nutshell: A crew of filmmakers follows a serial killer’s exploits.

It isn’t everyday that a film comes along that gives me pause. And I’ve shuffled through a lot of films that would rank as controversy lightning rods without any issue. This probably isn’t a sign of my endurance, but more so just fatigue or a better perception on the difference between vision and voyeurism. I guess to cut to the quick, many films that try to satirize violence fall incredibly short for me. I have a hard time picking apart any sort of critique on the nature of violence apart from any actual violence, which only makes the filmmaker look like a psychopath. Man Bites Dog is an incredibly violent film (One particular break-in/rape scene made even my stomach churn, and that is a pretty hard thing to do). While it’s not shy, its focus is not necessarily on the nature of violence, but on the media’s affixation on it (as well as the authors and filmmakers who find it such a reliable benchmark for their works; the psychopaths in question).

As black as comedies can possibly get, the movie involves a film crew documenting Benoît Poelvoorde’s serial killer, Ben, as though his activities were commonplace. The casualness to his actions is darkly (and I mean darkly) amusing at first, but it makes sure the viewer never gets too comfortable (though most normal people should feel uncomfortable from the get-go). In between murders, Ben loves literature, film, architecture, all while displaying a boyish, gleeful zeal with his killings. All the while, the filmmakers try to reserve emotional detachment from Ben. But by the end of the film they’ve become close to his friends and family and participate in his crimes.

It’s sickening, but a clever statement on our own media’s obsession on violence. Most people wouldn’t describe themselves as violence-craving and yet serial killers and school shootings will be the stories that make the cover of TIME or dominate a news shows’ weekly content. People like Eric Harris, Dylan Klebold, Ted Bundy, and Charles Manson have become household names for the sake of viewership and satisfying viwer curiosity. The way Ben’s film crew become sucked into his homicidal ways is all too telling about the way media attempts a sense of distance from murderers while in actuality giving them the perfect spotlight for their doings. Man Bites Dog would not be so shocking if it wasn’t so accurate about the way media views violence. It is a true satire, but a hard watch.

Hard Core Logo (1996)

2009-06-06T21:43:00.000-07:00

Directed by Bruce McDonald.
Starring Hugh Dillon and Callum Keith Rennie.

In a Nutshell: A self-destructing punk rock band is documented during a comeback stint.

Or probably more accurately, Unfunny Spinal Tap. True, this movie is not without a few dark laughs, but if you liked This Is Spinal Tap, you will not necessarily like Hard Core Logo. But it’s a bit unfair to make the comparison since both films are aiming to accomplish two completely different tones. The concept is the same; the film is a fake documentation of a band making a final gasp of a comeback tour. Though instead of the endearing Spinal Tap fools, trying to grab depth and meaning out of thin air, the band-mates of Hard Core Logo are the standard “rage against the establishment” sort. The band’s frontman Joe Dick (Hugh Dillon who, thanks to his experience in the band The Headstones, brings an untrained authenticity to his role) plans on roping back guitarist Billy Tallent (Callum Keith Rennie) for the tour to benefit one of Dick’s idols. However, Tallent is poised to be signed into an alternative pop band. Their relationship is far more hostile than ‘old married couple’ given Dick’s knowing insecurity (barely disguised by his coarse machismo) at fading away, unlike Tallent whose, well, talent will surely give him a life outside of HCL.

Too many critics felt this movie was too cringe inducing and never really went anywhere; none of the scenes build and the plot just meanders. Which makes me wonder if a documentary recreating a punk band’s exploits should be a labyrinth-plotted, light-hearted romp (I don’t think so, HCL’s style is more than appropriate). There we were many small details that I thought gave it an edge over other fake-docs. Particularly the way that Bruce McDonald (playing himself) and his camera crew were not just observers of the madness, but added to the band’s annoyance and had plenty of interactive moments (including one insane drug trip that may have stepped outside the documentary style). And the simmering anger between Dick and Tallent really gets under the skin; the movie’s progression makes it clear the payoff will be far more explosive than that between Nigel and David. I would recommend this movie, but maybe not to any Spinal Tap fans. Maybe fans of Apocalypse Now. Group dynamic destruction over an arduous journey into madness that nobody wants to be on? Maybe that’s overreaching, but in all, this is not a fun film. It is accomplished in its discomfort and makes itself impossible not to watch with horror. A fine, if incredibly squirmy piece of fauxdocumentary.

This Is Spinal Tap (1984)

2009-05-30T21:36:00.000-07:00

Directed by Rob Reiner.
Starring Michael McKean and Christopher Guest.

In a Nutshell: A heavy-metal band is profiled during their American comeback tour.

The movie that launched the mockumentary genre, stripped away the empty self-importance of rock music and helped make Christopher Guest a cult comedy icon. So does it still go to 11 (sorry, unavoidable), even after the years of endless praise and almost predicable appearances on every comedy laundry list? Oh yes. As technically faultless as Zelig is, This Is Spinal Tap succeeds as a far greater comedy and study of the music industry. Its focus is on Spinal Tap, a fledging heavy metal band that gained their fame for being “one of England’s loudest bands.” The band mates are vacuous and show little grasp of cognition, but the film never ridicules them or forces us to feel disgust. We love them because their pursuit of rock star glory leads them into the black hole of musical careers; malfunctioning stage props, failed signings, Air Force performances and so on. But even as the misfortunes come one after the other, the band members’ optimistic sensibilities remain so that they can still stroke their brittle, attention-craving egos by continuing to reclaim the limelight. It’s never cruel and is respectable towards its targets, which is perhaps the reason why it has sustained such a long shelf life.

The movie manages to push the humor as far as it can go without completely breaking the reality (spontaneous combustion not withstanding), particularly with the music, which sounds generally bad enough to be the real deal. But the movie’s true durability is not just in the comedy but in the way it has made a punchline of every self-important rock band since. Having been embraced by the industry it’s mocking, no longer can any band inflate their egos without the inevitable comparison to Spinal Tap. In the end though, This Is Spinal Tap is a classic. Delusions of grandeur, limited I.Q.’s, fading celebrity, and the music industry’s mechanisms are ripe for satirizing and the film hits every mark. It never settles for gentle laughs, but never seeks to wound. There’s not too much else I can discuss without going to into a retelling of my favorite scenes, but it’s a gem and deserves its legacy.

Zelig (1983)

2009-05-23T21:36:00.000-07:00

Directed by Woody Allen.
Starring Woody Allen and Mia Farrow.

In a Nutshell: A psychiatrist tries to understand the nature of a human chameleon.

Not one of Woody Allen’s better known features, but worthy of mention. Zelig is a near perfection of the mockumentary format, though perhaps not the best overall example of the genre. The plot involves a man named Leonard Zelig (Allen) who can take on the characteristics of any person he is in the presence of (and not just physically). He takes the nation by storm during the 20’s and 30’s prompting a psychiatrist (Mia Farrow) to cure him of this abnormality. The film’s strength lies less in the comic premise itself (which is a bit one-note, albeit a slight commentary on identity struggle) but the technical detailing. Thanks to old newsreel footage, blue screen technology and a variety of cinematography techniques, Leonard Zelig is seamlessly integrated into early America. Even when the premise begins to wear out its welcome, Allen’s insertion of himself into bygone American is incredible. Taking full advantage of the flaws and limitations accompanying early media (as well as his recreation of American doctor testimonials) the film works mostly through the presentation itself.

But given that Allen took such care to make Zelig look as authentic as possible, it’s too bad he chose himself to star. I would doubt that an unknown taking on black, Chinese, obese, etc. characteristics would be as funny as seeing them on the Allen. And since Allen’s performance is mostly in small grabs of archival footage (much of it dialogue-free) and photographs, so it’s not like an actor of great depth or gravitas was needed. But that does show the limit to the Zelig character. Allen doesn’t give the character much more personality beyond the concept, and the role is very easy for him to play. In keeping with the documentary feel, the movie could have had a greater life with an unknown (or at least someone not as recognizable) that could give a more chameleon-esque performance, doing away with the more overt dialogue from the doc’s commentators. I did not dislike Zelig, but by Allen playing to his limitations, too much of Zelig is explanation over performance. The format is brilliantly deadpan and well perfected the mockumentary format before Christopher Guest and makes it a quickly enjoyable movie. But it is just too bad Zelig couldn’t have offered more Zelig.

Alphaville (1965)

2009-05-16T21:10:00.000-07:00

Directed by Jean-Luc Godard.
Starring Eddie Constantine and Anna Karina.

In a Nutshell: A secret agent must destroy an oppressive computer in a dystopian future.

Boy, is this a strange, strange movie. I should mention to not make this your introduction to Jean-Luc Godard, preferably start with Band of Outsiders or Breathless, even if you are twice the sci-fi nut I am. It takes some time to settle into the film’s style (including lots of seemingly inapt music and bizarre shots), but the end makes Alphaville a very fascinating riff on noir pulp and Americanized science fiction. According to my Netflix sleeve, it was filmed entirely on the streets of Paris, and though Godard has effectively transformed it into a dark, absorbing futuristic setting (and not with a bunch of robots or policemen in Robocop style outfits). Eddie Constantine as secret agent Lemmy Caution from the Humphrey Bogart mold. His mission; to destroy a supercomputer that has controlled or eliminated free thought and emotion from the city of Alphaville. Basically, Godard’s commentary against technology, predating both the novel and film of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Despite all the absurdity, Godard has a given a haunting tale on technology’s control and the incessant need to apply logic to everything. Shots such as the citizens flaying around without their computer overlord are particularly powerful (as well as a sequence at a diving board that would take too much time to explain without context). What really gives it that punch was Godard’s refusal to make the film too futuristic. The post-modern buildings and neon signs wouldn’t seem all that special without the cinematography and the dead, controlling mood of the future. We don’t feel disconnected from this society because it is all too familiar (or at least it was back in the 60’s in France).

It is too bad that much of the comedic, comic strip-esque moments can conflict so much with the dystopian noir. It’s creative, but it does jar the viewer out of being sucked into the movie like a good movie should. Brazil had moments of even greater absurdity, but never acted as though they were not integral to that universe. Alphaville may have been too movie-ish for some likings, but Godard’s message about technology control still resonates. And future filmmakers would do themselves good to study Godard’s methods at stylizing the future from modern-day Paris. Sure, it’s far more retro than 2001:ASO, but no less captivating. Still a strange, strange movie though.

Shoot the Piano Player (1960)

2009-05-09T21:18:00.000-07:00

Directed by François Truffaut.
Starring Charles Aznavour and Marie Dubois.

In a Nutshell: A mild-mannered pianist is drawn into his brother’s life of crime.

Another French noir film, this one carrying itself far differently than its contemporaries. It doesn’t deal with hardened, murderous criminals, sultry dames, long shadows along dark alleys and the swagger of its morally ambiguous hero. No, Shoot the Piano Player is far lighter than the other films, but just as good, thanks to the piano player, Charlie Kohler (Charles Aznavour). Charlie is not the sort of dangerous personality that most noir can be founded on. He’s timid, thoughtful, and above all, wants nothing to do with his criminal family’s shenanigans. The film is given with a largely piano score (consistent with Charlie’s job as a once famous pianist) that sets a mood more romantic than mysterious. This failed to connect with audiences upon its release with hallmarks that at the time were rule breaking for a crime movie. But those elements (overly long music numbers, Charlie’s voiceovers where he expresses his agitation about the fairer sex, criminals more idealistic than thuggish in their musings, warm-hearted prostitutes) add a casual enjoyment to what could have been a hard-boiled tragedy and would have been lost in the landscape of dark noir dramas.

It is a bare story, with a lot of time for the character and plot to meander around. In flashback, we see Charlie’s previous life as a more infamous pianist (under his real name Edouard Saroyan) that led him into trouble. Now, he is married to the barmaid Lena (Marie DuBois) and the two have long conversations about love and trying to restart Charlie’s career in music again. Ever since his first wife’s suicide, Charlie has been content to live in his sealed off world with his kid brother and prostitute neighbor, playing for restless crowds at late-night pubs. But while Lena gives him the confidence to break out of his shell, it is that newfound daring that leads him into trouble with his older brother’s criminal activity.

In my final thoughts, while I was not expecting such a playful movie, this movie is a great precursor to the tongue-in-cheek crime movies of today. Aznavour is touching as a sensitive romantic lost in his own thoughts while this odd world pops around him. It may be joshing you around even when somebody is being held at gunpoint or kidnapped, but it’s not without substance. It is the love François Truffant has for Charlie and his semi-seedy, uncluttered life that really makes this film shine.

Elevator to the Gallows (1958)

2009-05-02T21:12:00.001-07:00

Directed by Louis Malle.
Starring Jeanne Moreau and Maurice Ronet.

In a Nutshell: A broken elevator inconveniences a murder plot.

Yup, another French noir film and this one is scored by the legendary Miles Davis. This film was the first by legendary noir director Louis Malle, and it is one breathtaking debut. It has a wickedly dark sense of humor and is an engaging parable on the price of grand romanticism. The plot is wonderfully uncontained and irregular; a man named Julien Tavernier (Maurice Ronet) who plans with his lover Florence (Jeanne Moreau) to murder her husband and live the high life. However, en route to leaving the crime scene, the power goes off and he is stuck in the building’s elevator. During this, a teenage couple, swept up in their own romanticism, steal Tavernier’s car and (in the male’s case) identity as they themselves commit murder. While Tavernier is physically stuck, albeit with an incriminating alibi for the teenager’s murders, a ghostly Florence wanders the streets, believing that Tavernier left her for the female teenager. Quite the inopportune of plot twists for Mr. Tavernier.

I admit to not having been totally emotionally involved with this movie, even when all was said and done. Tavernier, Florence, and the teenage couple are given no real likeability in their immorality, they exist to either be screwed over by the plot’s mechanisms or move it forward in delightfully misguided ways. The closest there is to a real character is Moreau as Florence who spends much of the film roaming the desolate streets, having felt abandoned by her love. At first I was bothered by Moreau’s performance, which looked like she was just ambling around while being hypnotized (even when being arrested on a mistaken prostitution charge). Though I gradually awoke to the idea that she was supposed to act trance-like. She may walk around like a hollow shell, but Moreau is so good at looking detached, I almost mistook it for flat acting. The teenagers make for a nice parallel between the more mature and equally blinded by love couple. Though their grand gesturing is much more pathetic thanks to their naive youthfulness.

It seems to have been Malle’s intention to have so little involvement with the protagonists, much more eager to watch his characters squirm about through the plot. Malle would go on to direct much greater films, but Elevator to the Gallows, with its jazzy haunting score and disconnected performances makes it an elegant descent into humanity’s lesser quality. Would highly recommend, but only as a start into more Malle films.

Bob le flambeur (1956)

2009-04-25T21:14:00.000-07:00

Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville.
Starring Isabelle Corey and Daniel Cauchy.

In a Nutshell: A gambler schemes to rob a casino and runs afoul of his two protégés.

Free of any moralizing climax, Bob le flambeur is a decadent love letter to the skuzzy pits of the streets that hold movie criminals so dear to our hearts. Robert “Bob” Montagné (Roger Duchesne) is a gambler, but one so endearingly lousy that he is friends with nearly many well connected underworld contacts (and even a few authority figures). Duchesne is not wooden or blank in his acting, but Melville has given him very few close ups, reaction shots, and scenes alone. So to the viewer, we only know of Bob through the other character’s dialogue. And they paint a fascinating portrait of a man, hopeless but bound by duty and an unspoken honor towards the street life, while Duchesne’s poker face gives us no further clues (and gives the movie an unspoken cool guy edge).

Before the heist is planned, the movie indulges itself in detailing Bob’s lifestyle and displays a France at the twilight of its romanticism. A young protégé (Daniel Cauchy) nips at his heels and ends up falling for Bob’s new crew member, a corruptible street walker played breathlessly by then-non-actress Isabelle Corey. However, like Bob, her appeal is less character building, more a few well staged looks and other character’s dialogue.

After losing far too much money, Bob stages a robbery that ends up on the lips of every man and woman in town. Disaster is inevitable, but it is charming how Bob escapes the crush of failure by simply playing it as he always does; all-knowing and good humored as though he anticipated it to all go awry. After all, Bob and his most loyal of accomplices live in a self-inflated (and easily shattered) world of delusions of criminal greatness. At the end, it is hard to say if Bob has truly risen above his fantasy world or just lived straight through it. Bob le flambeur is fantastic movie about the criminal world and the incorrigibility of man too wrapped up in his own self-delusions to act with caution. But it’s that recklessness that gives Bob that edge. Great character and great movie.

Rififi (1955)

2009-04-18T21:15:00.001-07:00

Directed by Jules Dassin.
Starring Jean Servais and Carl Möhner.

In a Nutshell: Thieves pull off one final heist but an old nemesis threatens their success.

One of the things I always find to be interesting when watching old cinema is seeing how the DNA of one particular movie can be ingrained into so many current releases. Rififi has been remembered throughout the years as the first heist film to deal with its thieves’ twisted moral codes. The men who stole were not just common trash, but fully fleshed out human beings with sincerity in their reasons for crime. The film was also notable for its violence and sexual content all of which was groundbreaking at the time (though much is implied).

Rififi stars Jean Servais as Tony le Stéphanois, an aging criminal, recently freed from prison, looking to pull off one last big steal with three other accomplices (one played by Dassin under an alias) before retiring. Though they do not have long to enjoy their swag as a rival criminal tries to bully his way into claiming the bounty for himself. Deceptions are made, people are killed, and even a final act kidnapping is in order. Though never has the scuzziness of underworld politics seemed so elegant. These men are not above jewel thievery, but to betray one of their own, that is criminal.

The film’s centerpiece isn’t even the heist itself, but the heist scene remains the film’s best-shot scene. Roughly a half hour long and containing no dialogue and music, every move by the criminals is done so precisely and so carefully that one could probably rob their own jewelry store after watching this movie. After that, it’s only a matter of time before the gang’s unity collapses under the rival gangster’s power. There are many touches that call attention to the melodramatic approach to the gangster’s downfall (a child’s toy gun, a murder in a theater, the gaudy diamonds presented to a mistress) that try to push the climax into a cheap “crime-does-not-pay” parable. Though the main attraction is still the process and not the outcome, though it is still refreshing that the film can still remain a gripping study on human weakness. Still, Rififi would pave the way for many excellent French noir films. A fine film, and a worthy early addition to the crime genre.