THE TALL T (Budd Boetticher) viewed 3-5-03 on video (second and third viewing)
Grade A 1957
Held up very well on the second and third viewing. The narrative and characters are set up with casual economy, Boetticher great at telling his story with minimal excess. One of the best westerns ever made.
AUDITION (Takashi Miike) viewed 3-5-03 on dvd (fifth viewing)
Grade A 2001
(This review contains spoilers and should be read only after viewing the film)
When talking about Audition, everyone always talks about the ingenious tonal shift in the second half - compared by some to Psycho’s shift to slasher-film. Audition uses its tonal shift to seduce the audience in the same way the Shigeharu is seduced, unlike Psycho which uses its shift merely to jar the audience. The first half of Audition plays like a romantic drama of two lovers coming together, played with a dark undertone of unease. Everyone warns Shigeharu that Asami isn’t right but he goes on courting her despite their warnings.
The second half of the film (which starts with the abrupt smack of the blanket) turns into a psychological horror film, where we realize Asami is unstable. Shigeharu learns this as we do (although we get a few hints away from him: especially the moving bag in her apartment), but as he quests to find her we start to realize that Shigeharu is just as unstable a character. Filled with disillusion about Asami – and women in general, when he is first knocked out we get a prolonged dream sequence which works on two levels: cranking up the horror and revealing Shigeharu’s sickness. The scenes of their dates are replayed (minus the jump cuts of the first half) and Asami’s true nature is revealed and Shigeharu ignores the signs. Like Mulholland Drive which re-imagined reality (of the second half) into dream (of the first half), Audition re-imagines the entire film into the mini-dream sequence. Culminating with his wife (“no honey she’s not for you”) and his co-worker (filling in more blanks of the first half). Aligning Shigeharu with the grotesque man in the bag and the dirty old man, both sexual skeletons in her closet.
The visual style employed by Miike is brilliant at echoing plot elements. The first half shot in long shots with distractions in the foreground: golf balls, bartender with drink mixer or dog scraping across the floor. The only stretch that comes alive is the Audition montage, which has a nervous energy that resembles Shigeharu’s excitement at possibly finding a new mate. Shigeharu’s dates with Asami are especially visual interesting, often refusing them two-shots and then separating them in the frame. The second half is overwhelmed (immediately) with hand-held camera work and dutch angles. As we find out the true nature of the characters we start to get far more close-ups, and finally extreme close ups in the final scene of torture. The sounds are also very strong – symbolizing different stages of the story: bartender mixing as they talk about the audition, phone ringing showing Shigeharu’s interest in Asami, and Blanket flapping on bed to start second half of the film. Then as the horror elements build: the creaking of the wheelchair, burning of timbers, flapping of tongue, Shigeharu’s fall, Asami’s throwing up (over the grotesque man – mimicking some audience members disgust), the old-mans head falling, the pins, “deeper deeper” and the crunching of the wire on bone.
Audition was startling on the first viewing, but my appreciation for it grows on each viewing. Once you get beyond the impact of the images (which inspired walkouts when I saw it), the characters grow more complex – less pawns of the director and more meaningfully troubled. Most people compare the film to Psycho and although the tone shift resembles that film, it is actually a closer match to the themes Hitchcock explored in Vertigo or Marnie. The film is most haunting (at least for me) when the sanity of Shigeharu is called into question (by his friends and family). Like those Hitchcock films it is about a man who is psychologically pushed by his yearning for a dangerous and damaged woman, which is ultimately his downfall.
TEA AND SYMPATHY (Vincente Minnelli) viewed 3-6-03 on laserdisc
Grade C 1956
The fifties of this film seems like a completely different world, as perhaps a response to the queer themes of the story all the men are played as hyper-macho: throwing each other down on the beach, playing football, hugging (in a very manly bear-grip way) and acting out in a bizarre (blatantly homoerotic) hazing ritual. The queer boy in this film is actually not queer at all; rather he is just too sensitive and unable to express his love physically (a radical change from the play), drawing interesting parallels to 50s films like Rebel Without a Cause. Plays as camp now, although it seems very sincere about what it’s trying to express and falls apart in the second half. The bookending scenes don’t work at all and the final letter from Kerr, which explains the entire film and how to feel about it, inspired unintentional laughter from pretty much everybody in the screening room.
BITE THE BULLET (Richard Brooks) viewed 3-6-03 on dvd
Grade B+ 1975
A western epic that could never be made today, and feels foreign even to the seventies (probably why it was such an underachiever). The characters relationships grow as the race goes on, with many perfect small scenes of quiet dialogue played off against the race. Some slow motion scenes seem out of place in the film, which is otherwise fairly naturally directed.
DIAMOND MEN (Daniel M. Cohen) viewed 3-6-03 on dvd
Grade B 2002
I had the distinct feeling that the plot was going to get in the way of this film and the characters it had created. When the plot twists come in the last stretch and contradict some established character traits I felt betrayed. Sometimes it is refreshing to see a movie about characters where NOTHING big happens, and you get the feeling for interesting characters. Robert Forster is very good in this film and deserves to be cast by more experienced directors in the service of better films, that other Wahlberg isn’t half bad either.
IGBY GOES DOWN (Burr Steers) viewed 3-7-03 on dvd
Grade C+ 2002
Second rate Whit Stillman (Steers was in The Last Days of Disco) with some funny bits but too many annoying characters that keep getting in the way. Whereas Stillman’s films have mostly likable yuppies (and far superior dialogue), Steers writes only obnoxious twits and gives no somewhat normal anchor characters to gauge everything against. Cast is very good: it’s nice to see Goldblum playing a non-scientist/doctor/teacher, Peete naked again, Culkan good comedic timing and is that fucking Ryan Philippe growing on me.
GERRY (Gus Van Sant) viewed 3-8-03 in theater
Grade B+ 2003
Hard to justify a B+ for this film, since it’s as cinematically welcoming to the viewer as the desert is to the two guys named Gerry. Most of the shots go on forever, the dialogue is anecdotal, the character development absent and the plot one-note. That said, I expect my rating for Gerry will increase with another viewing and fully expect to be hailing it as a masterpiece by the end of the year. It keeps growing in my memory, gaining in meaning.
I’ll take all my plot complaints one-by-one.
The shots go on forever, and some of them are incredibly beautiful. The one with both Gerrys in the foreground bouncing up and down as they walk, is one of the most hypnotic shots I’ve seen in recent memory like something out of a Tarkovski film: with human traits personifying the movements of a running machine. The shot of the characters walking into a sunrise is haunting, with the characters moving like zombies across landscape colored like a foreign planet.
The dialogue is anecdotal but often funny and they pay off in the story. Early in the film they refer to “the thing at the end of the trail” as being the goal of their journey. As they walk they tell a story about Jeopardy and later by the campfire talk about a video game, both stories involve a victory that was lost for ironic reasons (only 12 soliders, all the letters but one). The quest the two Gerry’s take resembles these two anecdotes.
Character development is absent from the film, totally true. The characters in the films are not strongly defined and are not given any area to grow because all their dialogue is either anecdotal or practical (“I’m stuck on this rock”). However, nature is the biggest character in the film and it radically changes moods: from welcoming in the first section, to abruptly hilly and barren to finally inhospitable. The characters are forced to react against nature and any more dialogue or activity from the two characters would be blatantly unrealistic and undermine the predicament. The characters become more defined in the last third as they react to the hopelessness of their situation, and their blankness becomes more touching because it is easier to read ourselves onto them.
The plot is one-note but very economic and provides the character with enough narrative drive immediately as they are forced into survival mode. Onto this simple plot, the film is able to create a good amount of variation and depth to the problem. The scene with Gerry stuck on a rock is very funny (comparisons to Tati seem apt), and as the situation gets more serious in the film’s second half the tone changes keeping everything interesting.
I hate it when critics proclaim a film as being “not for everyone,” as I think it shows their elitist nature (“You won’t get this because I’m smart and you’re not”). And so it is with a heavy-heart that I proclaim this film not for everyone. I don’t think everyone will enjoy it and appreciate how daring Van Sant is for attempting it. I won’t guarantee you will like it, because you aren’t as smart as I am.
CONFIDENTIALLY YOURS (François Truffaut) viewed 3-8-03 on dvd
Grade A- 1983
I don’t understand the general critical apprehension towards this film, which seems to me – in it’s way – just about perfect. It’s not a deep film or a daringly unconventional one, but a loving homage to mysteries of the 40s and 50s and Hitchcock. The mystery is complicated, not that hard to figure out but Truffaut piles on the clues (most of which misdirect) and has a lot of fun with the material (Ardent investigating in a trench coat she can’t take off and other funny non-sequiturs). I dare you to not have a good time watching this allegedly lesser Truffaut film.
CITY OF GOD (Fernando Meirelles) viewed 3-9-03 in theater
Grade B- 2003
Meirelles surely learns from the best, as he piles every stylistic-excess he can think of into the film, ripping off true stylists like Scorsese or De Palma and mounting a sometimes dazzling but totally empty and immoral film. Meirelles doesn’t actually have anything to say about violence in the City of God, often playing it off against (or with) innocent jokes about growing up: the drug warfare plays as counterpoint to central character Rocket trying to lose his virginity. Rocket as the central character is a problem because his involvement in the story seems minor and forced. The story wants to be epic, spanning several decades broken down into individual stories, but the first is almost completely unnecessary to the central one and others ramble. That said, certain stretches of the film work very well especially the party scene, which has totally unnecessary split-screen that basically sums up Meirelles weakness as a filmmaker.
THE TALE OF ZATOICHI (Kenji Misumi) viewed 3-9-03 on dvd
Grade B+ 1962
Started out as a variation on Kurosawa’s Yojimbo - except this film has a blind samurai – with the protagonist caught between two rival gangs. However, this film quickly distinguishes itself as being more than a mere imitator: showing depth to the central character and developing an interesting relationship between him and the opposing master samurai. Misumi’s direction is confident and moody and allows the screen to be filled with shadow in some interior scenes. Some comic elements are allowed into the film as well, like when Zatoichi crosses the bridge on his hands and knees or as he slyly grifts money from the gangsters. The final showdown plays as less exciting than expected, lasting only a minute or so – but is very emotionally resonant and ends with an embrace that is very touching.
THE TALE OF ZATOICHI CONTINUES (Kazuo Mori) viewed 3-9-03 on dvd
Grade B- 1962
Less successful follow up to the first Zatoichi film, has a lot more swordplay but a pretty lame storyline. The development of Zatoichi’s character (especially in the last few minutes) inspires hope that the series will move in a different direction with the character (perhaps more bloodlust) and it will be interesting to see it happen. Part three coming in the next week.
THE 400 BLOWS (Francois Truffaut) viewed 3-10-03 on dvd (eighth viewing)
Grade A+ 1959
I’m at a loss as to where I should begin with this review of one of my very favorite films, which I saw for the first time about seven years ago. It is a highly personal film for Truffaut (although not entirely autobiographical as he co-wrote the script with Marcel Moussy – a schoolteacher), and thus my review will be highly personal. I saw it on the Independent Film Channel for the first time and didn’t expect to sit through the entire thing. It’s in black-and-white and French, which for me at 15 was still a bit of a turnoff. I didn’t know anything of Truffaut except that he was a highly regarded director. I knew nothing of The 400 Blows as an essential part of the New Wave movement, or its important breaks from traditional cinema of that time. I sat down and watched it and have never really recovered from it.
It’s not just the emotional experience that effected me - although it’s a highly emotional film - but rather a feeling of recognition. I’m not like any of the characters in the film, I’ve never remotely raised hell nor have I really wanted to. Instead I broke through the film and saw Truffaut, full of passion and shaking with emotion at what he was trying to get across. Not the characters or the situations, but breaking free from everything and putting the energy into something constructive.
There are several points in the film where everything breaks free of the narrative and exists in a state of sublime serendipity. First the scene on the spinning ride, where everything spins and creates its own force. Later perhaps the best example of the phenomenon is when Doinel breaks free from custody and runs for freedom. The last three shots of the film (by far the longest in the film) give the feeling of the very film breaking free with Doinel. As though any constraints have been lifted on everything, everything now free!
No film is as breathless as The 400 Blows and I don’t mean breathless as excited but rather as a state of transcending form into an emotional spastic orgasm. Even the quietest or most heartbreaking scenes have an overwhelming flurry of emotional turmoil beneath the surface. Or maybe that’s just the emotions that come to the surface when I see the film. In fact, now I’m a bit breathless and unfocused so I’ll try to focus my attention to certain aspects (images or whatever) that I haven’t yet covered in my insane rambling.
Jean-Pierre Leaud’s performance is the best child performance I’ve ever seen, completely natural and unforced. His responses in the psychological interview scene are so fucking remarkable at how he is able to suggest a life separate from what we’ve seen.
Truffaut’s compositions are scope and magnificent, never using his mise-en-scene in an uninteresting way, beautifully contrasting Doinel’s various states of being in the film (among the group of kids in school, free in frame when away from everyone, made little by parents and enclosed in the last section). My favorite shot right after Doinel and his friend ditch their backpacks and the camera whip-pans cuts to a whip-pan of them entering the cinema.
The scene with the kids at the puppet show is a minor masterpiece that stands aside as something that doesn’t forward the plot and would be cut today. It is essential because it shows Truffaut’s warmth for children (as do other episodic moments) and contrasts these kids to Doinel’s experience. It may be the most essential scene at establishing the outer world of the film, and allows a comparison to gauge against the behavior of the other children we have seen onscreen.
Truffaut broke free of his troubled youth with his love for films and in this film you can constantly see the constraint of a young artist struggling to break free of an oppressive environment. When punished in the first scene (for marking on a girlie photo) he is given detention in the corner of the room, where he then writes a(n attempted) poem which gets him in further trouble from his teacher. Later a shrine to Balzac catches on fire and an attempt at homage is condemned as plagiarism.
JOHANNA D’ARC OF MONGOLIA (Ulrike Ottinger) viewed 3-11-03 on video
Grade C- 1989
The first hour of Johanna d’arc of Mongolia doesn’t go anywhere but it is pleasant enough that I hoped a decent story might develop from the established characters. When the second hour starts there is a radical twist in the narrative (from chamber piece to ethnography) and it never really re-enters the realm of narrative cinema. The film might be of some anthropological interest to some wanting to learn about the Mongolians, but they will have to sit through a pointless first hour to get to the interesting Mongolians. I would have preferred staying on the train with the small group of established characters, rather than go where the film eventually took me (eventually being an apt word – the film runs 165 minutes and feels even longer).
CAT PEOPLE (Jacques Tourneur) viewed 3-11-03 on video (second viewing)
Grade A 1942
The unexpected theme of sexuality, especially female sexual repression into Cat People is what makes this film so truly daring and affecting. Tourneur aligns Cat People to the fear we have of our bodies and creates a complicated work that reminds me of Cronenberg’s best films. The underlining theme of beautiful or exotic things disguising the terrible and horrific is Tourneur favorite ground to establish his films on. The two scare scenes hold up very well (both were replicated in Schrader’s 1982 Cat People), relying on darkness and shadow (provided by Tourneur moving his hand in front of the camera) rather than creature effects.
THE HOURS (Stephen Daldry) viewed 3-14-03 in theater
Grade C 2002
Like Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia, Daldry’s The Hours creates character drama – and tragedy – after everyday things that face us. In The Hours, characters are faced with a friend with cancer, aids, a party, depression, work anxiety and baking a birthday cake. These items set as problems for characters in three storylines all focusing on middle-aged women unhappy with their domestic lives. Whereas Magnolia builds to a sublime pitch by editing the plot threads together, The Hours keeps crosscutting between the character to show us that they are connected by some (supernatural?) force, like they have crossed through some bizarre time wormhole. The coincidences that connect the stories together (explicitly reminded by insistent editing) are increasingly annoying. The performances aren’t strong enough to overcome the overall weakness of the film’s execution: Harris especially over-the-top, Streep and Moore too punctuated and Kidman hidden behind unfortunate make-up that makes her performance (the best of the bunch) seem gimmicky. The most overrated film of the year.
THE WIZARD (Todd Holland) viewed 3-14-03 on video (second viewing – first in ten years)
Grade D 1989
A film I remembered vaguely from my childhood and wanted to see again for nostalgia sake. I didn’t remember it as any masterpiece (I saw it when I was nine), but hardly remembered how awful the film really was. The film culminates in the unveiling of Super Mario Bros. 3 at a Video Game Competition, and also features such classic games as Double Dragon, Contra and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (which sadly made my long for my old NES system). The film is basically a commercial for Nintendo, with games featured every few minutes and all other plot secondary. It is worth noting that a subplot with a runaway tracker features many scenes that are (unintentionally) hilarious, as are the subplots praising the virtues of family.
DECISION AT SUNDOWN (Budd Boetticher) viewed 3-14-03 on video
Grade B 1957
Odd western, even by Boetticher’s standards, with Scott seeking revenge on the man who was responsible for his wife’s suicide. The film leads into standoffs that pay off in unexpected and unsatisfying, especially as the nature of Scott’s dead wife changes in the course of the film. An interesting twist of the western genre but not in the same realm of excellence as The Tall T.
DEMONS (Lamberto Bava) viewed 3-14-03 on dvd
Grade C- 1986
Starts very well with Bava showing some of his father’s mastery of creating suspense out of minimal material (especially in the first scene on the subway), but then turns abruptly into a splatter film and never turns back. Not without its virtues, including some stylish camera work and lighting, not to mention the essential 80s gore and nudity but the film feels aimless and overly derivative of George Romero’s zombie films. In the end its too much of a mess to even enter the same league with Return of the Living Dead (itself a derivative but incredibly fun mess).
DIARY OF FORBIDDEN DREAMS (Roman Polanski) viewed 3-15-03 on video (Severely Cut American Version)
Grade B 1973
Absurd, erotic take on Alice in Wonderland by Polanski – with his themes of isolation and abandonment played at an unabashedly comic pitch. The performances are all fun, especially from Rome who is game for pretty much anything and the first half of the film is some kind of lunatic masterwork. The second half is unfocused and sometimes confusing, which may be partly due to extensive re-editing by American distributors. I hope to have the complete, uncut version of the film in the next few months (whenever I can afford it).
FULLTIME KILLER (Johnnie To and Wai Ka Fai) viewed 3-15-03 on dvd
Grade B 2003
A fascinating twist on the traditional Hong Kong action film, with heavy influences from other action films entering into the discourse of the film (most fully cited). Comes across as self-parody at times, and then refreshingly post-modern at other times. Some sequences are brilliantly orchestrated: especially the street shoot-out and end abandoned factory shoot-out (complete with extensive fireworks – you gotta love those abandoned factories). The twist ending, showing two possibly outcomes to the shooting (complete with their own character-defined classical music), is pretty much perfect. An original work that gives variations to a genre I was losing hope for.
TWO OR THREE THINGS I KNOW ABOUT HER (Jean-Luc Godard) viewed 3-16-03 on video
Grade B 1966
GODARD!
the narrator whispers! – the city screams! – the women talk! – Vietnam must end!
everyone TALKS…
but what are words?
what good are words?
books piled together – meaningless
like the vietnamese
what do the americans care?
just another product
to consume
and sexualize
and dispose of
HOLLYWOOD more than anyone, man
just like all the other products
cluttering up our skyline
FIN
GODARD!