One of the masterpieces of Hollywood, the John Huston directed Humphrey Bogart masterpiece made in 1941.
This is one of the ultimate pieces of noir cinema. We have the German-expressionist tinged angular shadows, across the rooms from the blinds and across the tops of the character's faces. Bogart himself seems like a black absence at times, along with the rather bizarre widow. The cheap Warner Brothers sets are all in place, bare and badly lit. The camera also uses him to loom out of focus in certain foregrounds. It uses well the classic noir narrative P.O.V. of just one character, but is well done at not making this too obvious.
The one person focus makes the film seem almost like a character study of a man going mad. The whole thing could really be going on in Sam Spade's head. This almost referenced at times, the nearly comical constant interruptions, moves, chases, how he has not one second for a personality outside the case. The terror of the webs and traps is the terror of a mind where the entire murky world collapses and closes in on him, a very personal, psychological breakdown.
The dialogue and story give a new definition to the term 'whipcrack', to be fair it does make sense but the sheer speed of movement and dizzying pace of explication is, frankly, sensational. It also keeps the whole piece going at a rocket pace, absolutely gripping.
Bogart of course is wonderful, gripping in his lurches. The smart move that compromises him (did he kill Archer?) very early on well sets up the ambiguity, out in the open rather than creeping up. The femme fatale is not the greatest performance, but she does well convey a world of lies, lies, lies, the psychological terror of that, the McGuffin of the falcon that it suggests is a Mabuse-like bringer of terror; this isn't true, it is simply in the lives of each character to bring this on themselves.
The setting, the focus, the serious plot drive (characterisation brought out through this, good structuralism there), end up giving us a portrait of a man trapped in a society that is simply what HE himself is, the walls of his mind will collapse in, a kind of dizzying terror. This is one of the real high points of Hollywood cinema, a special kind of masterpiece.
Thursday 30 September 2010
La Nuit Americaine (Day For Night)
Truffaut's 1973 classic celebration of the movie business. This is a real feature of joy, lightness, with moves towards more serious drama at times, but always the pleasures that Truffaut cannot but help bring to the screen.
Truffaut is smart with his shots; he likes to use different kinds of shots in the same manner but on different occassions and situations, retaining an air of continuity while keeping the piece connected. We have the tracking shot horizontally, that picks up individual characters and stays with them for a bit, then moves along. This, like in 'Jules Et Jim', conveys a sense of almost hand-held excitment and movement. When the Hollywood star comes on in this film he also starts to use close-ups and more 'classic' still shots for the first time (compared to his usual mid-shots in motion). This conveys how the Hollywood actor sees her own life as some kind of Hollywood melodrama, in a way. It is an interesting side-point to see how she develops away from this until the filming from her point of view becomes almost, more typically Truffaut-esque, 'European'.
This film is in many ways a collection of sweet, interesting, and often genuinely funny scenes. Each one is a little joy in itself. They are interconnected with an emotional heft that is largely below the surface, only occassionally, when articulated, being realised (again, as in 'Jules Et Jim'). Truffaut just about gets away with this light/ serious duality.
For all this drama though, the film remains a twinkle in the eye. The scenes where Truffaut pays direct homage, the beauty of everyone involved, such tropes give a sense of a genuine celebration. The weird meta-character of the activity is also well done so as not to overly intrude, being open for analysis if one wishes, but not in a heavy handed manner.
A real pleasure for its entire run time, highly reccommended, one of the great films about filmaking.
Truffaut is smart with his shots; he likes to use different kinds of shots in the same manner but on different occassions and situations, retaining an air of continuity while keeping the piece connected. We have the tracking shot horizontally, that picks up individual characters and stays with them for a bit, then moves along. This, like in 'Jules Et Jim', conveys a sense of almost hand-held excitment and movement. When the Hollywood star comes on in this film he also starts to use close-ups and more 'classic' still shots for the first time (compared to his usual mid-shots in motion). This conveys how the Hollywood actor sees her own life as some kind of Hollywood melodrama, in a way. It is an interesting side-point to see how she develops away from this until the filming from her point of view becomes almost, more typically Truffaut-esque, 'European'.
This film is in many ways a collection of sweet, interesting, and often genuinely funny scenes. Each one is a little joy in itself. They are interconnected with an emotional heft that is largely below the surface, only occassionally, when articulated, being realised (again, as in 'Jules Et Jim'). Truffaut just about gets away with this light/ serious duality.
For all this drama though, the film remains a twinkle in the eye. The scenes where Truffaut pays direct homage, the beauty of everyone involved, such tropes give a sense of a genuine celebration. The weird meta-character of the activity is also well done so as not to overly intrude, being open for analysis if one wishes, but not in a heavy handed manner.
A real pleasure for its entire run time, highly reccommended, one of the great films about filmaking.
Wednesday 29 September 2010
Luis Bunuel Double
A pair of early Bunuel films, neither of which are quite feature-length.
Land Without Bread (Spain, France, Documentary, 1933); This is a genuinely tragic tale, indeed it seems at times that Bunuel has almost a cock eye too it, he knows that he is layering the misery on to an almost ridiculous manner, as though a mild parody of misery-docs. The direction tells a story which the image agrees with; not vice versa; this is a very manipulated film, note the weird swelling music. In fact, at times shots that should be spontaneous (man at stream, goat falling off a cliff) simply don't make sense unless they have been set up. Near the end we had to finally agree this is meant to be an exploration of the poverty, just perhaps a self-aware one. The postscript is perhaps the grimmest moment in film history, looked on in one sense.
L'Age D'Or (Spain, France, Re-Watch, 1930); The hour long piece, usually paired with 'Un Chien Andalou', that we had a chance to see her again. This is Bunuel's, perhaps, most crowd pleasing work. It has what the layman would recognise as the classic surrealist elements; the stone on the man's head, the cow in the room. This is perhaps as it is Bunuel at his most simple. He is displaying the psychologies of desire, of denunciation, of wishing and then rejecting. Also the key fetish elements in the main storylines. The parts around are baffling, though interpretation psychoanalytically, if one so wished, is surely possible. The priests can speak for themselves. A simple introdution to some of Bunuel's key later psychological themes.
Land Without Bread (Spain, France, Documentary, 1933); This is a genuinely tragic tale, indeed it seems at times that Bunuel has almost a cock eye too it, he knows that he is layering the misery on to an almost ridiculous manner, as though a mild parody of misery-docs. The direction tells a story which the image agrees with; not vice versa; this is a very manipulated film, note the weird swelling music. In fact, at times shots that should be spontaneous (man at stream, goat falling off a cliff) simply don't make sense unless they have been set up. Near the end we had to finally agree this is meant to be an exploration of the poverty, just perhaps a self-aware one. The postscript is perhaps the grimmest moment in film history, looked on in one sense.
L'Age D'Or (Spain, France, Re-Watch, 1930); The hour long piece, usually paired with 'Un Chien Andalou', that we had a chance to see her again. This is Bunuel's, perhaps, most crowd pleasing work. It has what the layman would recognise as the classic surrealist elements; the stone on the man's head, the cow in the room. This is perhaps as it is Bunuel at his most simple. He is displaying the psychologies of desire, of denunciation, of wishing and then rejecting. Also the key fetish elements in the main storylines. The parts around are baffling, though interpretation psychoanalytically, if one so wished, is surely possible. The priests can speak for themselves. A simple introdution to some of Bunuel's key later psychological themes.
Jules Et Jim
Very popular 1962 movie from the most likeable man in the business, Francois Truffaut.
This film's first hour or so is completely delightful. Truffaut adopts a camera of constant movement, choosing to pan sleekly and frequently around, combined with short scenes this conveys a real sense of excitment. The geuine kindness we see between the protagonists is at once rare and refresehing, the lightly worn period setting adding an elegance and interest without, to be sure, giving a dated plot.
The first world war is evoked wonderfully, the length of the library footage is a smart move; too short would be cursory, so we are made to dwell again and again at the diverified images of the war.
The whole film is, really, a wonderful character study. The character of Jules is most easy to directly identify with, we all know a Catherine, and Jim has a resolve to him that put us in mind of a character from Tolstoy. This kind of name-dropping is an indication of how Truffaut is both an intelligent enough person and a talented enough filmmaker to understand inner pyschologies on screen. He adopts the technqiue of presenting a sweet veneer, then shocking (mildly) the audience with an admission by one of the (admirably well played) actors.
For the last half hour there are perhaps too many twists and turns, sullying the purity a little, perhaps showing the script's debt to its novelistic genesis. Perhaps on second viewing this would come as less of a surprise.
Truffaut puts images together in largely mid shots, the music swells at times and is a point of interest in its own rights.
A film that starts off delightfully and, if it perhaps gets a little too complicated, retains a wonderfully new tone and characterisation to its end.
This film's first hour or so is completely delightful. Truffaut adopts a camera of constant movement, choosing to pan sleekly and frequently around, combined with short scenes this conveys a real sense of excitment. The geuine kindness we see between the protagonists is at once rare and refresehing, the lightly worn period setting adding an elegance and interest without, to be sure, giving a dated plot.
The first world war is evoked wonderfully, the length of the library footage is a smart move; too short would be cursory, so we are made to dwell again and again at the diverified images of the war.
The whole film is, really, a wonderful character study. The character of Jules is most easy to directly identify with, we all know a Catherine, and Jim has a resolve to him that put us in mind of a character from Tolstoy. This kind of name-dropping is an indication of how Truffaut is both an intelligent enough person and a talented enough filmmaker to understand inner pyschologies on screen. He adopts the technqiue of presenting a sweet veneer, then shocking (mildly) the audience with an admission by one of the (admirably well played) actors.
For the last half hour there are perhaps too many twists and turns, sullying the purity a little, perhaps showing the script's debt to its novelistic genesis. Perhaps on second viewing this would come as less of a surprise.
Truffaut puts images together in largely mid shots, the music swells at times and is a point of interest in its own rights.
A film that starts off delightfully and, if it perhaps gets a little too complicated, retains a wonderfully new tone and characterisation to its end.
Monday 27 September 2010
L'Argent
One of Robert Bresson's last films, made in 1983.
This is a film about the cycles of violence, of redemption. It can even be read as regarding the fall of mankind. Bresson is essentially a master of disaster, of gloom, of wreckage upon wreckage being piled on characters. We see how it is not their fault, how they come to represent all the struggles of mankind. And then we have the question of redemption; is it possible? Do we even want it? Here Yvon seems to become a psychopath; but does he get any more redemption than the perpetrator of ine of the original evils, the more obviously villainous Lucien. Bresson takes the further step and we see the character of sorrows kick out, ruin their own chance of holiness.
This collection of catastrophes does make his films rather predicatble; with one exception, this film could have been thematically deduced from the first twenty minutes. It makes it rather easy to drift.
Bresson talked alot about cinematographic writing, which appears to mean the balance of sight and sound. The visuals, in the distinctive manner of the minimalism and focus on the object, does have a freshness to it, though again it does not offer variety (Bresson's short lengths are really very necessary, in this respect). The sound is as innovative and masterful as ever, the amplification of the diagetic side noises, along with the ritualised scripts, given the impression of a slow stream flowing.
This film is predictable, but never strained or banal. Interesting and with a little pleasure.
This is a film about the cycles of violence, of redemption. It can even be read as regarding the fall of mankind. Bresson is essentially a master of disaster, of gloom, of wreckage upon wreckage being piled on characters. We see how it is not their fault, how they come to represent all the struggles of mankind. And then we have the question of redemption; is it possible? Do we even want it? Here Yvon seems to become a psychopath; but does he get any more redemption than the perpetrator of ine of the original evils, the more obviously villainous Lucien. Bresson takes the further step and we see the character of sorrows kick out, ruin their own chance of holiness.
This collection of catastrophes does make his films rather predicatble; with one exception, this film could have been thematically deduced from the first twenty minutes. It makes it rather easy to drift.
Bresson talked alot about cinematographic writing, which appears to mean the balance of sight and sound. The visuals, in the distinctive manner of the minimalism and focus on the object, does have a freshness to it, though again it does not offer variety (Bresson's short lengths are really very necessary, in this respect). The sound is as innovative and masterful as ever, the amplification of the diagetic side noises, along with the ritualised scripts, given the impression of a slow stream flowing.
This film is predictable, but never strained or banal. Interesting and with a little pleasure.
Sunday 26 September 2010
Mouchette
Robert Bresson, it is 1967.
This is a more complicated film, with more plot strands, than 'Joan'. Yet its similarities (as with 'Au Hasard Balthasar') thematically stand out. This is of the 'female of sorrows', the constant suffering piled on one individual by the society that doesn't understand, that is just cruel and cruel and cruel. In response to this, he gives his heroine a streak of lightning, moments of petulance, an anger.
Mouchette's terrible life is artfully drawn. The lighting and make-up on, say, the hair and so on shows a character who is really grubby. The use of sound on the shoes is very smartly done; this isn't Bresson's most signifcant film sound-wise, but the taps of the shoes are an important precursor, along with the gun shots. Added, the crackling of the fire and of the leaves, amplified fully, create a great sense of immanence on place.
Bresson again has a strong use of identification, we study the face with great intensity. Although we do actually go away at moments, the narrative following, with the classic Bresson characteristic of not showing the 'main action' actually on screen, gives us a greater sense of vulnerability in Mouchette.
She is a very well drawn character. A small problem in this film is the unremittingly bleak nature. Yes, it is very tough, done without mawkishness but endlessly, endlessly grim. Disaster, in small ways, piles on disaster. Does this indicate too much of a single pace in tone? It can seem so a little.
This is a richer film than some other Bresson's we have seen, and we enjoyed it accordingly. With the above mentioned problem as a slight counter-weight, it still remains a fine film.
This is a more complicated film, with more plot strands, than 'Joan'. Yet its similarities (as with 'Au Hasard Balthasar') thematically stand out. This is of the 'female of sorrows', the constant suffering piled on one individual by the society that doesn't understand, that is just cruel and cruel and cruel. In response to this, he gives his heroine a streak of lightning, moments of petulance, an anger.
Mouchette's terrible life is artfully drawn. The lighting and make-up on, say, the hair and so on shows a character who is really grubby. The use of sound on the shoes is very smartly done; this isn't Bresson's most signifcant film sound-wise, but the taps of the shoes are an important precursor, along with the gun shots. Added, the crackling of the fire and of the leaves, amplified fully, create a great sense of immanence on place.
Bresson again has a strong use of identification, we study the face with great intensity. Although we do actually go away at moments, the narrative following, with the classic Bresson characteristic of not showing the 'main action' actually on screen, gives us a greater sense of vulnerability in Mouchette.
She is a very well drawn character. A small problem in this film is the unremittingly bleak nature. Yes, it is very tough, done without mawkishness but endlessly, endlessly grim. Disaster, in small ways, piles on disaster. Does this indicate too much of a single pace in tone? It can seem so a little.
This is a richer film than some other Bresson's we have seen, and we enjoyed it accordingly. With the above mentioned problem as a slight counter-weight, it still remains a fine film.
Proces De Jeanne d'Arc (The Trial Of Joan Of Arc)
Back to Robert Bresson, a classic film of his, only an hour or so long, made in 1962.
Bresson's films require immense concentration, on the image, on the characters, and on the dialogue. This film has its very very sharp and minimalist structure, the same locations, the same style used over and over again, leading up.
The characterisation of Joan is fascinating, clearly a Joan for our time, clever use is made of here eyes and changes in her diction to indicate that she does waver. She appears to doubt herself, to be genuinely broken dowm by the interrogation. This kind of genuine, stripped back, development means we end up really studying her face, means the audience genuinely takes part in the identification; hence the power of the ending.
The bishop is also characterised wonderfully, a sensational performance of ambiguities in a craggy, side-lit face. Where does the sympathy come form? Tiny corners on the flick of the mouth. The spirituality of the film comes from similar sources. Who is the man, in white, helping Joan? No real indication given, probably some kind of orderly. But maybe, maybe...
Bresson uses his tropes smartly. Outside of the dialogue mid shots the only non-conventional ones we get (largely) are of the feet. This is a simple method to characterise well, to understand the use of the body.
We couldn't let a Bresson film pass with noting the use of sound, Bresson being perhaps the master of audio in cinema (a great claim, but he deserves the applause). The discordant drums at the beginning and end hark us back to paganism, to unsure and dark times. Wjat Bresson is greatest at is his use of diagetic sound. He deliberately makes footsteps seem to loom, on repeated mix as hell approaches Joan's cell.
This very short and clear film is, like Bresson's filmswe have seen previously, difficult. We are finding Bresson increasingly more and more emotionally powerful, but, yet, it remains very difficult. So we did enjoy this, but it remains, unrepentantly, a Bresson film.
Bresson's films require immense concentration, on the image, on the characters, and on the dialogue. This film has its very very sharp and minimalist structure, the same locations, the same style used over and over again, leading up.
The characterisation of Joan is fascinating, clearly a Joan for our time, clever use is made of here eyes and changes in her diction to indicate that she does waver. She appears to doubt herself, to be genuinely broken dowm by the interrogation. This kind of genuine, stripped back, development means we end up really studying her face, means the audience genuinely takes part in the identification; hence the power of the ending.
The bishop is also characterised wonderfully, a sensational performance of ambiguities in a craggy, side-lit face. Where does the sympathy come form? Tiny corners on the flick of the mouth. The spirituality of the film comes from similar sources. Who is the man, in white, helping Joan? No real indication given, probably some kind of orderly. But maybe, maybe...
Bresson uses his tropes smartly. Outside of the dialogue mid shots the only non-conventional ones we get (largely) are of the feet. This is a simple method to characterise well, to understand the use of the body.
We couldn't let a Bresson film pass with noting the use of sound, Bresson being perhaps the master of audio in cinema (a great claim, but he deserves the applause). The discordant drums at the beginning and end hark us back to paganism, to unsure and dark times. Wjat Bresson is greatest at is his use of diagetic sound. He deliberately makes footsteps seem to loom, on repeated mix as hell approaches Joan's cell.
This very short and clear film is, like Bresson's filmswe have seen previously, difficult. We are finding Bresson increasingly more and more emotionally powerful, but, yet, it remains very difficult. So we did enjoy this, but it remains, unrepentantly, a Bresson film.
Playtime
We didn't enjoy Tati's 'Mon Oncle', but had a minor conversion with this 1967 classic, with more Monsieur Hulot.
Early on, we worried on the same themes; the technology tropes were a little predictable, the shots seemed to last forever and be going precisely knowehere.
But yet Tati did succeed in drawing us in. His formal composition of shots seems to have unimaginably imprived. Their is some genuine beauty in his characteristic wide, wide shots, even if the little jokes of changing perspectives did become a little tiresome.
Tati has his smart little touches of deliberately not letting the obvious happen, of confounding expectations. It isn't particulalry funny, but the long long scenes (espeically when it doesn't follow Hulot, when it actual fact for the lot of the time it is better) can give a nice almost mourn, a quiet dignity. Something there in the opposite sides of the wall with the T.V.'s, in the images that show silence.
The scene that we really enjoyed was the long farce in the restaurant. Nicely balanced constantly changing, showing some repition yet staying inventive. It was a smart use of space, nicely lit and so on. Impressive.
Is this film too long? Probably, but time is a difficult notion in Hulot's films. The scenes do last so long, the notion of time in fact is almost suspended. It just extends constantly, the lack of linear structure means it doesn't so much go on, it just has an overall length, which may be a little tiring.
This film is like a party, in that somethimes charming really fun, bizarre in time as it meanders its bits and pieces together to a finish. We are happy to say that we now will take a little bit more time for Tati.
Early on, we worried on the same themes; the technology tropes were a little predictable, the shots seemed to last forever and be going precisely knowehere.
But yet Tati did succeed in drawing us in. His formal composition of shots seems to have unimaginably imprived. Their is some genuine beauty in his characteristic wide, wide shots, even if the little jokes of changing perspectives did become a little tiresome.
Tati has his smart little touches of deliberately not letting the obvious happen, of confounding expectations. It isn't particulalry funny, but the long long scenes (espeically when it doesn't follow Hulot, when it actual fact for the lot of the time it is better) can give a nice almost mourn, a quiet dignity. Something there in the opposite sides of the wall with the T.V.'s, in the images that show silence.
The scene that we really enjoyed was the long farce in the restaurant. Nicely balanced constantly changing, showing some repition yet staying inventive. It was a smart use of space, nicely lit and so on. Impressive.
Is this film too long? Probably, but time is a difficult notion in Hulot's films. The scenes do last so long, the notion of time in fact is almost suspended. It just extends constantly, the lack of linear structure means it doesn't so much go on, it just has an overall length, which may be a little tiring.
This film is like a party, in that somethimes charming really fun, bizarre in time as it meanders its bits and pieces together to a finish. We are happy to say that we now will take a little bit more time for Tati.
Friday 24 September 2010
Enter The Void
This absolutely stunning new film comes courtesy of Gaspar Noe. It is nearly difficult to say anything at all. It is completely wild, completely overpowering, completely brilliant. It keeps one thinking while it makes a truth of that old cliche; it 'blows one away'.
It all starts with the credits, it damages the eyes, makes one be both stunned and laugh with the film's visual audacity. It genuinely does something with the cinema image, using to effect the audience beyond the traditional technqiues. It deliberately, throughout, confronts the audience physically. It moves on to doing this thematically; deliberately pushing the limits in some of its contents.
The narrative coming out of it couldn't be too simple, and it isn't. The nearly entirely well handled stories are really an expression of the inner mentality of the world. Not that this is a simple subjective piece of psychologising; the idea of using a camera that floats above, or with Oscar as a sillouhetted block in the foreground, places us as either a plot heavy watcher or constantly aware of a distancing mechanism, as much from the audience to the screen as from Oscar to the action. Their is a kind of deliberate over formalism about the settings and so on; it is a wonderland, almost literally in that the fluorescent model turns onto reality.
This is a smart film though, that genuinely wants to investigate its themes. It does not shy away (to say the least) and genuinely delves into psychosexual undercurrents, chucking us deep into the darkest depths, that, whether they are there, are undoubtedly worth investigating. Are we in hell here? Perhaps. Or purgatory. Perhaps the most profane; could we be in a kind of heaven, of mother's milk?
It remains to be seen how long this film will stay in the mind, if it will last. For now, we have a film that stuns, but has more than just provocation. Smart backlighting gives the characters a delicacy, in the hair and the pudginess of their skin. It is not an anti-humanist film, but formally engages in a king of hyper-humanism, taken from context and supplanted in the new fastest world. Perhaps a masterpiece, for now, all we can say is that, on leaving the cinema, we have barely felt what we have here ever before.
It all starts with the credits, it damages the eyes, makes one be both stunned and laugh with the film's visual audacity. It genuinely does something with the cinema image, using to effect the audience beyond the traditional technqiues. It deliberately, throughout, confronts the audience physically. It moves on to doing this thematically; deliberately pushing the limits in some of its contents.
The narrative coming out of it couldn't be too simple, and it isn't. The nearly entirely well handled stories are really an expression of the inner mentality of the world. Not that this is a simple subjective piece of psychologising; the idea of using a camera that floats above, or with Oscar as a sillouhetted block in the foreground, places us as either a plot heavy watcher or constantly aware of a distancing mechanism, as much from the audience to the screen as from Oscar to the action. Their is a kind of deliberate over formalism about the settings and so on; it is a wonderland, almost literally in that the fluorescent model turns onto reality.
This is a smart film though, that genuinely wants to investigate its themes. It does not shy away (to say the least) and genuinely delves into psychosexual undercurrents, chucking us deep into the darkest depths, that, whether they are there, are undoubtedly worth investigating. Are we in hell here? Perhaps. Or purgatory. Perhaps the most profane; could we be in a kind of heaven, of mother's milk?
It remains to be seen how long this film will stay in the mind, if it will last. For now, we have a film that stuns, but has more than just provocation. Smart backlighting gives the characters a delicacy, in the hair and the pudginess of their skin. It is not an anti-humanist film, but formally engages in a king of hyper-humanism, taken from context and supplanted in the new fastest world. Perhaps a masterpiece, for now, all we can say is that, on leaving the cinema, we have barely felt what we have here ever before.
Fargo
The Coen brothers classic film, made in 1966.
The Coen Brothers camerawork is of the simple variety, which in Hollywood is a thing to celebrate in itself. They are not unafraid of using long scenes. What we have is the over the shoulder dialogue and the reverse, with an emphasis of whichever particular character is being identified with. We also have the longer, wider shots of the cars sweeping through the landscapes. A special little touch, unobtrusive but effective, is a sweep from character to character in the first analysis of the crime scene. As for the shots that last longer, the brothers hold their nerve nicely here, knowing they can't make too much of a show of this but still having a panache rarely seen in U.S. company.
This film is known for showcasing a wonderful sense of place. Visually, the snow indeed does so (if in quite a one dimensional manner). The dialogue is very well co-ordinated, the script wonderfully written, practically none of it jars. It is simple, as is this whole film, the whole narrative structure. There is never a great feeling of tension, or of worry, surrounding the whole thing. This is, again, simplicity.
The violence is artfully done, quite literally. This is part of the Coen brother's most distinctive, and perhaps their best, skill; an attention to detail that gives their films its peculiar laconic tone. The rendering of jacket lining when shot through with a bullet, or the extra little phrase added on to a chat to the bank teller. These are, in themselves, nothing. But they do mean that the concentration is taken from the main action. They may also make, so to speak, a 'safe haven' for the audience. When we see small pieces that remind us of our own little continuities, our own little moments of texture that make up life, we are taken from the on paper rather overheated plot.
A story that is in reality very simple, it comes together to make a straightforward, excellent film. The characters are well sketched, the pace jumps along, and the atmosphere is amixture of comfortable and hyper-entertainment. An excellent, excellent, film.
The Coen Brothers camerawork is of the simple variety, which in Hollywood is a thing to celebrate in itself. They are not unafraid of using long scenes. What we have is the over the shoulder dialogue and the reverse, with an emphasis of whichever particular character is being identified with. We also have the longer, wider shots of the cars sweeping through the landscapes. A special little touch, unobtrusive but effective, is a sweep from character to character in the first analysis of the crime scene. As for the shots that last longer, the brothers hold their nerve nicely here, knowing they can't make too much of a show of this but still having a panache rarely seen in U.S. company.
This film is known for showcasing a wonderful sense of place. Visually, the snow indeed does so (if in quite a one dimensional manner). The dialogue is very well co-ordinated, the script wonderfully written, practically none of it jars. It is simple, as is this whole film, the whole narrative structure. There is never a great feeling of tension, or of worry, surrounding the whole thing. This is, again, simplicity.
The violence is artfully done, quite literally. This is part of the Coen brother's most distinctive, and perhaps their best, skill; an attention to detail that gives their films its peculiar laconic tone. The rendering of jacket lining when shot through with a bullet, or the extra little phrase added on to a chat to the bank teller. These are, in themselves, nothing. But they do mean that the concentration is taken from the main action. They may also make, so to speak, a 'safe haven' for the audience. When we see small pieces that remind us of our own little continuities, our own little moments of texture that make up life, we are taken from the on paper rather overheated plot.
A story that is in reality very simple, it comes together to make a straightforward, excellent film. The characters are well sketched, the pace jumps along, and the atmosphere is amixture of comfortable and hyper-entertainment. An excellent, excellent, film.
Russian Ark
This 2002 work by Aleksandr Sokurov is scene as an important work in modern cinema. Formally fascinating, it doesn't hugely stir the emotions but is charming, brings the audience along, and is a wonderful piece of Euro-Russian meditation.
The great formal excitement is the fact that it is filmed in one, ninety minute long shot. This is, of course, utterly sensational. It leaves one constantly to wonder; how on earth did they do that? Fit through that space? Leave no traces of their working? Of course it was all major preplanning, but the real joy of the technqiue comes in the beautiful simplicity of the solutions. The master of moving elegance of camera in small spaces is 'La Regled De Jeu', and this work has the Renoir-esque ability to cut the Gordian knot of problems with wonderful sweeps.
The technique is succesful in two more direct effects it has on the audience; firstly, it quite literally creates a great sense of momentum, we are almost literally swept along. Secondly, it means we have a great sense of the subjectivity of the camera operator, the mumbling low monologue is given a weight, hardcore identification means we have an altered view of the other characters than a third person perspective would have had.
As for what happens, our French diplomat, and indeed what the hell is going on, remains opaque. One does not really learn a huge amount about Russian history, but one has a real sense of the atmosphere of the situation. The slow death of a society (of one particular one, the film gives us one period in time predominantly), a sense of grandeur and of slow melancholy.
So, beyond the ingenuity with putting lights in clever places, this film also has a great final philosophy. That final shot is really marvellous, an unexplainable imaginatory image. Not the most powerful film ever, but fascinating, an intelligent, quiet cry.
The great formal excitement is the fact that it is filmed in one, ninety minute long shot. This is, of course, utterly sensational. It leaves one constantly to wonder; how on earth did they do that? Fit through that space? Leave no traces of their working? Of course it was all major preplanning, but the real joy of the technqiue comes in the beautiful simplicity of the solutions. The master of moving elegance of camera in small spaces is 'La Regled De Jeu', and this work has the Renoir-esque ability to cut the Gordian knot of problems with wonderful sweeps.
The technique is succesful in two more direct effects it has on the audience; firstly, it quite literally creates a great sense of momentum, we are almost literally swept along. Secondly, it means we have a great sense of the subjectivity of the camera operator, the mumbling low monologue is given a weight, hardcore identification means we have an altered view of the other characters than a third person perspective would have had.
As for what happens, our French diplomat, and indeed what the hell is going on, remains opaque. One does not really learn a huge amount about Russian history, but one has a real sense of the atmosphere of the situation. The slow death of a society (of one particular one, the film gives us one period in time predominantly), a sense of grandeur and of slow melancholy.
So, beyond the ingenuity with putting lights in clever places, this film also has a great final philosophy. That final shot is really marvellous, an unexplainable imaginatory image. Not the most powerful film ever, but fascinating, an intelligent, quiet cry.
Sansho Dayu (Sansho The Baliff)
1954 classic from Mizoguchi, this is a sensationally good film, technically and formally beautiful, in its storytelling both simple and reverberating with depths of feeling.
Let us look at the technical side first. Miizoguchi uses diagonal lines to indicate a sense, unlike the squares of Ozu, of very much a world outside the frame. This outside world is often burnt through the film, with much overexposure. This gives the sense of an outside world that is dangerous, that oppresses the characters, espeically redolent in the scene where the family huddle under a tree. It chimes with the film's theme of the inhumanity of man, and how there is but this small island, the family unit, to hold it together.
The formal compostion of the shots is active on occassion, but largely it opts for the wide views and a wonderful sense of stillness. The inbetween establishing shots are not moments of contemplation, but rather reverberate. The stillness is not a stasis; it is rather a reminder, a placing of an object in the context and time of the action.
And now for what is actually on screen. The acting is excellent, the lead male is hysterical at times, screeching, which gives an interesting, almost unhinged dynamic. The plot is not afraid to surpirse us, even if we perhaps always know what the emotional mood of the conclusion will be. The story is paced well. Perhaps it does overheat on occassion, but is told in a nicely simple manner, without unnecessary overelaboration of plot points (meaning quite large events can happen, can change, quite quickly). The final scene is a masterwork. Notice especially the small touches, the side characters who add such a sense of universal humanity to the work. We are thinking of the fisherman in the final piece.
Mizoguchi's work is similar to Ozu in some of its atmospherics, but is formally a little different. Outside of this comparison, the director is clearly a master, and we look to seeing many more of his finest works. Though they will have to do well to beat this.
Let us look at the technical side first. Miizoguchi uses diagonal lines to indicate a sense, unlike the squares of Ozu, of very much a world outside the frame. This outside world is often burnt through the film, with much overexposure. This gives the sense of an outside world that is dangerous, that oppresses the characters, espeically redolent in the scene where the family huddle under a tree. It chimes with the film's theme of the inhumanity of man, and how there is but this small island, the family unit, to hold it together.
The formal compostion of the shots is active on occassion, but largely it opts for the wide views and a wonderful sense of stillness. The inbetween establishing shots are not moments of contemplation, but rather reverberate. The stillness is not a stasis; it is rather a reminder, a placing of an object in the context and time of the action.
And now for what is actually on screen. The acting is excellent, the lead male is hysterical at times, screeching, which gives an interesting, almost unhinged dynamic. The plot is not afraid to surpirse us, even if we perhaps always know what the emotional mood of the conclusion will be. The story is paced well. Perhaps it does overheat on occassion, but is told in a nicely simple manner, without unnecessary overelaboration of plot points (meaning quite large events can happen, can change, quite quickly). The final scene is a masterwork. Notice especially the small touches, the side characters who add such a sense of universal humanity to the work. We are thinking of the fisherman in the final piece.
Mizoguchi's work is similar to Ozu in some of its atmospherics, but is formally a little different. Outside of this comparison, the director is clearly a master, and we look to seeing many more of his finest works. Though they will have to do well to beat this.
Thursday 23 September 2010
Gion Bayashi (Gion Festival Music)
Ou first look at the work of the golden age Japanese master Kenzi Mizugochi, this film was one of his last (and isn't considered major), was made just before his death, made in 1953.
If this was minor Mizugochi, we can only look forward to major. Evenly composed, with a great freshness and simplicity, the director tells his story very simply. Comparisons to Ozu are easy to make, and certainly, early on, we had the similarities in some low shots, low shots of the meals, and in the confined, long spaces. Indeed Mizugochi likes his long corridors of light that move away. He also does not follow one character, but gives us an ensemble piece.
Mizugochi is though a different director, and here he has some close work, as well as some formalist touches of reverse shots that sillouhette characters against backlights. Mizugochi may not have wanted to have cut this much, but certain camera following tricks, and the close ups, are clearly his choice. Their is also an interesting characterisation piece involving angles, with the ladies seen from below on occassion, and, especially when dressed as Geishas, then seen as towering over the camera, as it had done to them before.
As for the mis-en-scene, the simple sets let the actors give nicely restrained performances, though not lacking in petulance and emotion. The women are portrayed as carrying rods on the back, while the men are without exception portrayed as louche, drunk, turning up and intruding on the female's quiet territory.
The sadness that underpins this work is not overextended, as we do not have a lot of direct identification, or constant narrative following; it rather creeps up in small moments, it has to be inferred. Sometimes, one will only suddenly realise the horror of the situation, the clearness of the camerawork and pale sets having nearly lured one in to acceptance. This nicely mirrors the atmoshere or conformity and the lacks of alternative.
This is a powerful piece, but the power comes from the viewer's own insight rather than being stuffed in the face. The narrative pops along at a good pace and stays (that word again) fresh. Fine work, we look forward to more from Mizoguchi, of his later work and perhaps his allegedly more formally innovative earlier pieces, along with some later, more balanced, masterworks.
If this was minor Mizugochi, we can only look forward to major. Evenly composed, with a great freshness and simplicity, the director tells his story very simply. Comparisons to Ozu are easy to make, and certainly, early on, we had the similarities in some low shots, low shots of the meals, and in the confined, long spaces. Indeed Mizugochi likes his long corridors of light that move away. He also does not follow one character, but gives us an ensemble piece.
Mizugochi is though a different director, and here he has some close work, as well as some formalist touches of reverse shots that sillouhette characters against backlights. Mizugochi may not have wanted to have cut this much, but certain camera following tricks, and the close ups, are clearly his choice. Their is also an interesting characterisation piece involving angles, with the ladies seen from below on occassion, and, especially when dressed as Geishas, then seen as towering over the camera, as it had done to them before.
As for the mis-en-scene, the simple sets let the actors give nicely restrained performances, though not lacking in petulance and emotion. The women are portrayed as carrying rods on the back, while the men are without exception portrayed as louche, drunk, turning up and intruding on the female's quiet territory.
The sadness that underpins this work is not overextended, as we do not have a lot of direct identification, or constant narrative following; it rather creeps up in small moments, it has to be inferred. Sometimes, one will only suddenly realise the horror of the situation, the clearness of the camerawork and pale sets having nearly lured one in to acceptance. This nicely mirrors the atmoshere or conformity and the lacks of alternative.
This is a powerful piece, but the power comes from the viewer's own insight rather than being stuffed in the face. The narrative pops along at a good pace and stays (that word again) fresh. Fine work, we look forward to more from Mizoguchi, of his later work and perhaps his allegedly more formally innovative earlier pieces, along with some later, more balanced, masterworks.
E La Nave Va (And The Ship Sails On)
This 1983 effort was one of Fellini's final films. It is rather good, without quite the clarity of purpose to turn it into a great piece of art.
The camera style is what we would expect from late Fellini; a few of the earlier visual tics, but largely elegant, unobtrusive, and not particularly interesting. The most interesting formal point is the opening and closing. Here Fellini essays silent cinema, using different filters in black and white. He also changes the frame speed. It smartly shows how Fellini's wide angle compositions do indeed mirror some silent work, it sets up the music of the piece well, though it is interesting to note that even an artist who uses longer takes, like Fellini, can seem a little rushed when compared so directly with the silent camera. The motif, repeated throughout the later Fellini's work, of an acknoweldgement and, on the part of the directors alter-ego, an address to camera, is also not so much clunky as an epigraph that we are not watching something, but a story of something; an interesting conceit, though the shots of the filmset at the end slightly overegg.
As to the piece itself, Fellini, as always, gets excellent understated performances from the actors. Always the small things, always the small things. This film examines petty conflicts and moments of hope in the return to the rustic, in music and in love. The themes never quite run together, though those of fate and decline are obvious, but this doesn't stop a series of wonderful individual scenes. The translation scene, singing to the workers, the blowing of the ashes, all come to mind.
So these scenes don't entirely gel, but this is a minor problem in what is really a film that we would be nearly comfortable calling a fine piece of work. With its deliberately stagey sets, it is a piece that deserves viewing for both curiousity and pleasure.
The camera style is what we would expect from late Fellini; a few of the earlier visual tics, but largely elegant, unobtrusive, and not particularly interesting. The most interesting formal point is the opening and closing. Here Fellini essays silent cinema, using different filters in black and white. He also changes the frame speed. It smartly shows how Fellini's wide angle compositions do indeed mirror some silent work, it sets up the music of the piece well, though it is interesting to note that even an artist who uses longer takes, like Fellini, can seem a little rushed when compared so directly with the silent camera. The motif, repeated throughout the later Fellini's work, of an acknoweldgement and, on the part of the directors alter-ego, an address to camera, is also not so much clunky as an epigraph that we are not watching something, but a story of something; an interesting conceit, though the shots of the filmset at the end slightly overegg.
As to the piece itself, Fellini, as always, gets excellent understated performances from the actors. Always the small things, always the small things. This film examines petty conflicts and moments of hope in the return to the rustic, in music and in love. The themes never quite run together, though those of fate and decline are obvious, but this doesn't stop a series of wonderful individual scenes. The translation scene, singing to the workers, the blowing of the ashes, all come to mind.
So these scenes don't entirely gel, but this is a minor problem in what is really a film that we would be nearly comfortable calling a fine piece of work. With its deliberately stagey sets, it is a piece that deserves viewing for both curiousity and pleasure.
Wednesday 22 September 2010
Prova D'Orchestra (Orchestra Rehearsal)
One of Fellini's late works (1978), this shortish piece was in fact mafe for television. It is a fun little piece, light but interesting and indeed gripping.
One can tell that Fellini has become less cinematic; the shots are not the baroque portraits, rather quite simple either wide shots or shots of the individuals in questions framed quite unpretentiously by the mock camera crew. the effects and so on are given quite simply, a bit of a shake to the camera and so on. The set, the bare walls that have their various art, is atmospheric and a smart use of light (the candles at the end give a nice sense of Fellini's more typical hell-fire striking reds).
The piece is, in part, a fascinating study of music. It genuinely makes on ethink about an orchestra, it draws one in to, more than usual, listen to the tonalities and consider the sounds of each instrument. Introducing the performers is fun. Fellini finds fine actors who do not over egg their parts, or overburden the conflicts. It is rather a question of small pettiness and little interruptions (which the camera does as well with cut-aways and so on- partly to deflate pretension, partly as a deliberate act of rudeness to emphasise the atmosphere).
The ending is rather worrying politically; sources indicate that Fellini had a certain authoritarian, conservative aspect to him, especially in his latter years. It is certainly an interesting counter document to the young revolutionaries Fellini had encountered across Europe in his time.
So this is a fun little spurt of Fellini, well paced if a little mournful in the penultimate scenes (though the final one could have been longer). Worth watching.
One can tell that Fellini has become less cinematic; the shots are not the baroque portraits, rather quite simple either wide shots or shots of the individuals in questions framed quite unpretentiously by the mock camera crew. the effects and so on are given quite simply, a bit of a shake to the camera and so on. The set, the bare walls that have their various art, is atmospheric and a smart use of light (the candles at the end give a nice sense of Fellini's more typical hell-fire striking reds).
The piece is, in part, a fascinating study of music. It genuinely makes on ethink about an orchestra, it draws one in to, more than usual, listen to the tonalities and consider the sounds of each instrument. Introducing the performers is fun. Fellini finds fine actors who do not over egg their parts, or overburden the conflicts. It is rather a question of small pettiness and little interruptions (which the camera does as well with cut-aways and so on- partly to deflate pretension, partly as a deliberate act of rudeness to emphasise the atmosphere).
The ending is rather worrying politically; sources indicate that Fellini had a certain authoritarian, conservative aspect to him, especially in his latter years. It is certainly an interesting counter document to the young revolutionaries Fellini had encountered across Europe in his time.
So this is a fun little spurt of Fellini, well paced if a little mournful in the penultimate scenes (though the final one could have been longer). Worth watching.
The Films Of Man Ray
Four short films from one of the greatest artists in the Dada and later the Surrealist movements.
Return To Reason (1923); this very short piece inflicts literal violence on the film. The scratches and so on were a development of the 'rayograph' methid. We have everyday objects taken into swirls. Really a test more than anything, if ends in a fascinating abstraction, patterns of light on a body making it seemingly not a body at all.
Emak Bakia (1926); Man Ray takes everyday objects of hardness, and reduces them to pieces, thousands of small tinkles, disintegrating. He takes the everyday out of context ('Ghosts Before Breakfast Style') and gives it a bendy, tactile quality, as though it hugs itself, it comes outside of itself. There is no special relations in the montage, these remain collections of images.
L'Etoile De Mer (1928); The first loosely (loosely loosely) narrative piece. Seen through frosted glass, again we have more focus on abstracting, on the gazre that tells us something different, throwing into question our ordinary gaze. The use of the starfish is enigmatic and fascinating, it challenged what should be there in any picture. How is this different from what we term the everyday? Regarding objects such as this, and the human body, Man Ray again abstracts, surprises.
The Mysteries Of The Castle Of D (1929); The longest piece. Man Ray is obviously n ot interested in the human as traditionally captured, or indeed in human sibjectivity. It is instead the texture and the feel he loves; that word again, tacticility. The stidy of Le Hasard fails to really grip, perhaps in the slightly meandering 'narrative' we get the best, almost postmodern in its openness, sense of this.
Man Ray is clearly not the great artist cinematically as he is in other forms. He does not really use the montage possiblities, and his use of light and so on is only fitfully interesting. Some curious pieces here, but not in the class of other Surrealist filmakers of the time.
Return To Reason (1923); this very short piece inflicts literal violence on the film. The scratches and so on were a development of the 'rayograph' methid. We have everyday objects taken into swirls. Really a test more than anything, if ends in a fascinating abstraction, patterns of light on a body making it seemingly not a body at all.
Emak Bakia (1926); Man Ray takes everyday objects of hardness, and reduces them to pieces, thousands of small tinkles, disintegrating. He takes the everyday out of context ('Ghosts Before Breakfast Style') and gives it a bendy, tactile quality, as though it hugs itself, it comes outside of itself. There is no special relations in the montage, these remain collections of images.
L'Etoile De Mer (1928); The first loosely (loosely loosely) narrative piece. Seen through frosted glass, again we have more focus on abstracting, on the gazre that tells us something different, throwing into question our ordinary gaze. The use of the starfish is enigmatic and fascinating, it challenged what should be there in any picture. How is this different from what we term the everyday? Regarding objects such as this, and the human body, Man Ray again abstracts, surprises.
The Mysteries Of The Castle Of D (1929); The longest piece. Man Ray is obviously n ot interested in the human as traditionally captured, or indeed in human sibjectivity. It is instead the texture and the feel he loves; that word again, tacticility. The stidy of Le Hasard fails to really grip, perhaps in the slightly meandering 'narrative' we get the best, almost postmodern in its openness, sense of this.
Man Ray is clearly not the great artist cinematically as he is in other forms. He does not really use the montage possiblities, and his use of light and so on is only fitfully interesting. Some curious pieces here, but not in the class of other Surrealist filmakers of the time.
Monday 20 September 2010
Fellini's Roma
Fellini's love letter to his hometown, made in 1972, is a series of vignettes, nearly documentary like at times.
There isn't really a consistent camera style here, which Fellini in a roundabout way explains in some weird meta-sections. Instead we just have the shots that apply to the particular moments. There is super colour in every scene, a certain use of pretty violent filters, that all round gives this the look that is now known as classic Fellini, that hyper styled look.
Some of the vignettes perhaps go on a little long, but each usualy manages to resolve itself in an image we can certainly remember (the fresoes as they collapse perhaps the mpst ambiguos, even the most pwerful, melancholic, mournful). This doesn't mean they are always funny, but Fellini is able to create atmospheres that genuinely surprise, take one off guard.
The vignette style has its high points and it has its limits. We can say the same thing as we said about the 'Satyricon'; the lack of continuity means these films are less fun to watch than some of his earlier ones. The character of the director himself is on the edge of films, deliberately not truly identified with and appearing in the corners of scenes, watched rather than watching. These earlier scenes are at once the most fascinating, and perhaps the most experience; what does Fellini really love here, what does he celebrate? Perhaps this is a bizarre kind of realism from Fellini; he wants to say that Rome is itself a place of fights and an ugly mess in some ways.
Other vignettes strike strongly. Let us take two examples; the scene going into Rome, first ot of all. This is a lovely meta-scene, with some nice quick cuts and that now cliched, but still spectacular, panorama of raining on cars. The cameras on screen add an extra element. The final shots are, genuinely, reall, electrifying. As the people of Rome come into focus, the striking angular beauties for the very first time, we see a locale transformed. Like a jolt of lighting, quite genuinely. And then we have that spectacularly colourised shot of the Colliseum. So spectacular, it is almost laughable. Deliberately stagey?
This aformentioned is perhaps the best, but the scene of the ecclesiatical fashion parade perhaps sums up the film better. It is not particularly funny, but the point is well made and then used and used, to the extent that the gaudiness takes on a beauty.
This film has its problems, and we would like to see more of Fellini's films that are 'conventional'. Perhaps this is our problem though, not Fellini's who has managed to create something individual, personal, a work of art that we find difficult to categorise in our traditional conventions.
There isn't really a consistent camera style here, which Fellini in a roundabout way explains in some weird meta-sections. Instead we just have the shots that apply to the particular moments. There is super colour in every scene, a certain use of pretty violent filters, that all round gives this the look that is now known as classic Fellini, that hyper styled look.
Some of the vignettes perhaps go on a little long, but each usualy manages to resolve itself in an image we can certainly remember (the fresoes as they collapse perhaps the mpst ambiguos, even the most pwerful, melancholic, mournful). This doesn't mean they are always funny, but Fellini is able to create atmospheres that genuinely surprise, take one off guard.
The vignette style has its high points and it has its limits. We can say the same thing as we said about the 'Satyricon'; the lack of continuity means these films are less fun to watch than some of his earlier ones. The character of the director himself is on the edge of films, deliberately not truly identified with and appearing in the corners of scenes, watched rather than watching. These earlier scenes are at once the most fascinating, and perhaps the most experience; what does Fellini really love here, what does he celebrate? Perhaps this is a bizarre kind of realism from Fellini; he wants to say that Rome is itself a place of fights and an ugly mess in some ways.
Other vignettes strike strongly. Let us take two examples; the scene going into Rome, first ot of all. This is a lovely meta-scene, with some nice quick cuts and that now cliched, but still spectacular, panorama of raining on cars. The cameras on screen add an extra element. The final shots are, genuinely, reall, electrifying. As the people of Rome come into focus, the striking angular beauties for the very first time, we see a locale transformed. Like a jolt of lighting, quite genuinely. And then we have that spectacularly colourised shot of the Colliseum. So spectacular, it is almost laughable. Deliberately stagey?
This aformentioned is perhaps the best, but the scene of the ecclesiatical fashion parade perhaps sums up the film better. It is not particularly funny, but the point is well made and then used and used, to the extent that the gaudiness takes on a beauty.
This film has its problems, and we would like to see more of Fellini's films that are 'conventional'. Perhaps this is our problem though, not Fellini's who has managed to create something individual, personal, a work of art that we find difficult to categorise in our traditional conventions.
Fellini's Satyricon
This 1969 piece from Federico Fellini is a point where Fellini has, undoubtedly, become indulgent. Loosely based on Petronius, loosely following one character while genuinely being a collection of vignettes.
Let us look at this visually, to start with. Fellini is not so pure visually as in his 'La Dolce Vita' and his '8 1/2'. He doesn't look at a character, rather they seem to skirt around the sides of his image more. He has also developed a tic of having an actor in only one half of the scene, as though there should be another, and they are in actuality all alone. The wide shots are now more often from either a high or a low level (the latter indicating staginess). This adds a hightened dramatic sense to proceedings, giving the theatrical, almost widely ridiculous element to proceedings.
The colours are another element to this. The obvious studio sets, the ridiculous almost Georges Melies-ish colours (post colouration?). The beach being a spectacular colour, the flushed skin and so on. Here we have the ssence of the deliberately over exuberant film.
Of course it comes off unfocussed at times, and more of a narrative continuity would be more immediately appealing. The film is almost deliberately infuriating, in that some scenes defer pleasure, give more, take it all away again. This film is all about pleasure, it is about desire and how it is given, how it is taken away. This is in tself quite an interesting text on psychoanalysis, in many ways, and has surely been decoded in various journals.
The images are piled on thick and fast, the random events either being simply a part of a dream scape, meaning something, or perhaps living in some kind of Bunuel-ean hinterland where we are told to interpret nothing, but there is so much already there.
This film can be a little trialsome at times, but it's not like there aren't a few spectacular moments. Less tight and straightforward enjoyable than the earlier Fellini, but fascinating, and often beautiful.
Let us look at this visually, to start with. Fellini is not so pure visually as in his 'La Dolce Vita' and his '8 1/2'. He doesn't look at a character, rather they seem to skirt around the sides of his image more. He has also developed a tic of having an actor in only one half of the scene, as though there should be another, and they are in actuality all alone. The wide shots are now more often from either a high or a low level (the latter indicating staginess). This adds a hightened dramatic sense to proceedings, giving the theatrical, almost widely ridiculous element to proceedings.
The colours are another element to this. The obvious studio sets, the ridiculous almost Georges Melies-ish colours (post colouration?). The beach being a spectacular colour, the flushed skin and so on. Here we have the ssence of the deliberately over exuberant film.
Of course it comes off unfocussed at times, and more of a narrative continuity would be more immediately appealing. The film is almost deliberately infuriating, in that some scenes defer pleasure, give more, take it all away again. This film is all about pleasure, it is about desire and how it is given, how it is taken away. This is in tself quite an interesting text on psychoanalysis, in many ways, and has surely been decoded in various journals.
The images are piled on thick and fast, the random events either being simply a part of a dream scape, meaning something, or perhaps living in some kind of Bunuel-ean hinterland where we are told to interpret nothing, but there is so much already there.
This film can be a little trialsome at times, but it's not like there aren't a few spectacular moments. Less tight and straightforward enjoyable than the earlier Fellini, but fascinating, and often beautiful.
8 1/2
This legendary 1963 film from Federico Fellini was tough to get our head around on first viewing. We will need to give it another go some time. It is true that the plot sounds pretentious on first viewing, but there is most obviously something going on here.
This is the film where Fellini genuinely moves into surrealism, moves away from the straightforward linear timescale. His central character does have his fantasies. It is difficult at times to keep us with exactly where we are, which reality we are in.
It is the way this film looks that is perhaps the most famous, and indeed the use of shadows is striking, stark, more so than in other Fellini films. The rest of the direction is classic Fellini, the profile shots mixed in with those wonderful, classical, wide images. We enjoyed these most in any Fellini films outside of 'La Dolce Vita'; Fellini obviously has a visual eye, to say the glib very least, indeed he is able to put images together in the almost unrivalled way of a true visual artist.
As for the plot, we have the themes of the confusion of the central individual, which is well evoked. Fellini is wonderful at evoking sympathy for the not on paper sympathetic.
This film probably requires another look; for now, it seems to be an interesting piece that we haven't quite put together in our mind, however visually stunning.
This is the film where Fellini genuinely moves into surrealism, moves away from the straightforward linear timescale. His central character does have his fantasies. It is difficult at times to keep us with exactly where we are, which reality we are in.
It is the way this film looks that is perhaps the most famous, and indeed the use of shadows is striking, stark, more so than in other Fellini films. The rest of the direction is classic Fellini, the profile shots mixed in with those wonderful, classical, wide images. We enjoyed these most in any Fellini films outside of 'La Dolce Vita'; Fellini obviously has a visual eye, to say the glib very least, indeed he is able to put images together in the almost unrivalled way of a true visual artist.
As for the plot, we have the themes of the confusion of the central individual, which is well evoked. Fellini is wonderful at evoking sympathy for the not on paper sympathetic.
This film probably requires another look; for now, it seems to be an interesting piece that we haven't quite put together in our mind, however visually stunning.
Il Bidone (The Swindlers)
This film was made by Fellini in 1955, the second of his trilogy of loneliness (between 'La Strada' and 'Knight Of Cabiria). It is an excellent film.
The swindlers story examines both the affects of alienation of the individual, the lack of connections, and of the end of exuberance he would mine later so sensationally in 'La Dolce Vita'. The first theme is well told in its own local manner, through each character individually. Great balance is achieved through a secure pacing, at once giving each scene time to breathe while letting us switch from one to another without forgetting anyone for too long. In these themes themselves Fellini is a master of the small things; the little tics when talking to the daughter, the small slights in the marriage, the little pettinesses over the coats.
Fellini also has the ability to make the horrible things the swindlers do very entertaining in itself, through our identifaction with them we are able to at once enjoy their success (as though asking the viewer, how uneasy do you feel? Why don't you feel more awkward for glorifying in the exploitation?) and understand their fall, and how low and little these men really are.
Visually, this is classic Fellini, the close ups to the long shots. Also the expressive use of shadowns, particularly around Augusto and his hats, is a lovely touch. Fellini is a filmmaker for the big screen; his long shots that balance, harmonise, and tell his tale work best the larger the projection.
This film may not have the size and grandeur of his later masterpieces, feeling a little like a moral tale at times, but that doesn't hold it back from being an excellent little piece of work itself, as Fellini moves towards his later masterpieces. Good fun, well told, intelligent and witty.
The swindlers story examines both the affects of alienation of the individual, the lack of connections, and of the end of exuberance he would mine later so sensationally in 'La Dolce Vita'. The first theme is well told in its own local manner, through each character individually. Great balance is achieved through a secure pacing, at once giving each scene time to breathe while letting us switch from one to another without forgetting anyone for too long. In these themes themselves Fellini is a master of the small things; the little tics when talking to the daughter, the small slights in the marriage, the little pettinesses over the coats.
Fellini also has the ability to make the horrible things the swindlers do very entertaining in itself, through our identifaction with them we are able to at once enjoy their success (as though asking the viewer, how uneasy do you feel? Why don't you feel more awkward for glorifying in the exploitation?) and understand their fall, and how low and little these men really are.
Visually, this is classic Fellini, the close ups to the long shots. Also the expressive use of shadowns, particularly around Augusto and his hats, is a lovely touch. Fellini is a filmmaker for the big screen; his long shots that balance, harmonise, and tell his tale work best the larger the projection.
This film may not have the size and grandeur of his later masterpieces, feeling a little like a moral tale at times, but that doesn't hold it back from being an excellent little piece of work itself, as Fellini moves towards his later masterpieces. Good fun, well told, intelligent and witty.
Marketa Lazarova
Frantisek Vlacil in 1967, this is known as the consumation of his art, voted rather recently the greatest Czech film of all time.
An epic it is and an epic it is. In an expressionist, non linear way we have the histories of the two tribes. There are obvious parralels running through it, with the character (who doesn't appear for large stretches) of Marketa herself perhaps representing in some sense the Czech country and people. The rather worrying aquiescene of her, a kind of fatalism surrounding it, shows a country at the mercy of persecution and hardship.
Let's get the negatives sorted out first. This film is, frankly, very hard to concentrate on throughout. The story is 'told' in such a fashion, of jumps and expressionist cuts, that one isn't sure where one is. This destroys a sense of build up, of mounting tension. Constantly switching which character we follow dissapates the tension. It is a film lacking continuity. Vlacil has also never quite succeeded in capturing the images he wants. He doesn't appear to have quite the patience, will, or love of his landscape. He retreats to hand held or to moving, fast swishes , when a more baroque setting would have given us a sense of calm this piece lacks. Finally, the expressionist montage is frankly baffling for large parts. The script (a bad translation) appears to be a collection of slightly pretentious non sequiters.
This is a film of a certain grandeur, however, largely through a hardline brutalism and well conjectured themes. We really have a sense of the violence that is at once casual and still aching on those who give and recieve. No redemption, no classic narrative tie-ups, just a sense of life at its worst. And though we do not belive Vlacil captures it to its best, the widescreen evocations of the fields, the snow, and the landscape always stun as the frame in their open ended way. Their is some nice fun with contrast, leading to some images (the white snow against the dark sky) that give the appropriately apocalyptic images.
This is a film of fragments, which requires much patience in its build up, but does achieve a kind of twisted power. Far far from being perfect, with many faults, it is still a film that intrigues.
An epic it is and an epic it is. In an expressionist, non linear way we have the histories of the two tribes. There are obvious parralels running through it, with the character (who doesn't appear for large stretches) of Marketa herself perhaps representing in some sense the Czech country and people. The rather worrying aquiescene of her, a kind of fatalism surrounding it, shows a country at the mercy of persecution and hardship.
Let's get the negatives sorted out first. This film is, frankly, very hard to concentrate on throughout. The story is 'told' in such a fashion, of jumps and expressionist cuts, that one isn't sure where one is. This destroys a sense of build up, of mounting tension. Constantly switching which character we follow dissapates the tension. It is a film lacking continuity. Vlacil has also never quite succeeded in capturing the images he wants. He doesn't appear to have quite the patience, will, or love of his landscape. He retreats to hand held or to moving, fast swishes , when a more baroque setting would have given us a sense of calm this piece lacks. Finally, the expressionist montage is frankly baffling for large parts. The script (a bad translation) appears to be a collection of slightly pretentious non sequiters.
This is a film of a certain grandeur, however, largely through a hardline brutalism and well conjectured themes. We really have a sense of the violence that is at once casual and still aching on those who give and recieve. No redemption, no classic narrative tie-ups, just a sense of life at its worst. And though we do not belive Vlacil captures it to its best, the widescreen evocations of the fields, the snow, and the landscape always stun as the frame in their open ended way. Their is some nice fun with contrast, leading to some images (the white snow against the dark sky) that give the appropriately apocalyptic images.
This is a film of fragments, which requires much patience in its build up, but does achieve a kind of twisted power. Far far from being perfect, with many faults, it is still a film that intrigues.
Sunday 19 September 2010
Winter's Bone
This recent American indie is exactly the kind of film that should be coming out America; a credit to everyone involved, a great shot of well directed, imagined, explored and artfully placed narrative.
The director (Debra Granik) looks set for an excellent career. The direction is largely of the close-up/reverse etc etc variety for dialogue, which is perfuntory and O.K., but around the edges of this lies a clear visual sense. She has a sense of balance, of the blealness of the landscape as well as a kind of beauty. Particularly early on we have a number of longer shots inclding dialogue. These are simply very well set up, with a great use of widescreen for panorama, with a great sense of distance, and terrific framing of the actors within the landscape. Examples would the washed out car that unobtrusively seems to leer, the one character in an entirely different colour frame from the other, distances accentuated by dark sheds or the protection of intermediary dogs. Granik also deserves credit for a great ability with incidentals; it is simply good awarness to have Ree a few steps behind Teardrop, or to give little instructions to the kids. She largely shows good discipline in the hardcore identification which this film is really all about.
The interesting story (adapted) is excellently told, pretty well paced. We have our establishing, which is the most interesting part visually, and the story builds up at a nice speed. The xtraneous stuff, that is the characterisation-led army bits, do not intrude on a film that is largely narrative (fair enough, if that's what it wants to be, at least do it properly, which it does well), instead it adds depth as intended. The film does turn very dialoguey, close ups in cars and rooms, lots of conversations, but, hey, it's a narrative piece, and it does grip.
The interesting intrusion of the macabre has to put this in the southern gothic category, it is done well. Not the overheated romantic kind, this is a new Southern Gothic of a cold desolation that has to face something, the human body, that is alien to it. Watch in conjuntion with the excellent excellent excellent 'White Lightnin'' from last year and you get a good idea of two ways of showing this same idea; this low key, the other more dialled up. The music teeters on a knife edge of whimsy, but in the end avoids disruption and, apart from maybe one too many 'looms', the country works well as a kind of idiotic accompaniement, out of contaxt but oddly in.
The supporting cast are excellent, the kids aren't annoying, everyone is believable and avoids cliche. But this film is all about the central performance of Jennifer Lawrence. It is first, first, first rate. In a narrative piece she is given the opportunity with a lot of camera time and she takes it, building in deep characterisation through a reticence. It's always the tiny things; a little moment of insolence, a tiny out of place expression. She underpowers is seemingly, but through this is excellent. No emotional crescendos here; just superb concentration on character, a great contintuity across. Give her every prize, and when she's a star let the woman act.
This film isn't perfect, it is a director's first film; their is a dodgy montage, bit sof dialogue occassionally are forced out the actors mouth, as we said it gets a bit talky.
Overall though, this is a most terrific film. Huge credit to Granik and Lawrence, major credit to everyone else. See it see it see it.
The director (Debra Granik) looks set for an excellent career. The direction is largely of the close-up/reverse etc etc variety for dialogue, which is perfuntory and O.K., but around the edges of this lies a clear visual sense. She has a sense of balance, of the blealness of the landscape as well as a kind of beauty. Particularly early on we have a number of longer shots inclding dialogue. These are simply very well set up, with a great use of widescreen for panorama, with a great sense of distance, and terrific framing of the actors within the landscape. Examples would the washed out car that unobtrusively seems to leer, the one character in an entirely different colour frame from the other, distances accentuated by dark sheds or the protection of intermediary dogs. Granik also deserves credit for a great ability with incidentals; it is simply good awarness to have Ree a few steps behind Teardrop, or to give little instructions to the kids. She largely shows good discipline in the hardcore identification which this film is really all about.
The interesting story (adapted) is excellently told, pretty well paced. We have our establishing, which is the most interesting part visually, and the story builds up at a nice speed. The xtraneous stuff, that is the characterisation-led army bits, do not intrude on a film that is largely narrative (fair enough, if that's what it wants to be, at least do it properly, which it does well), instead it adds depth as intended. The film does turn very dialoguey, close ups in cars and rooms, lots of conversations, but, hey, it's a narrative piece, and it does grip.
The interesting intrusion of the macabre has to put this in the southern gothic category, it is done well. Not the overheated romantic kind, this is a new Southern Gothic of a cold desolation that has to face something, the human body, that is alien to it. Watch in conjuntion with the excellent excellent excellent 'White Lightnin'' from last year and you get a good idea of two ways of showing this same idea; this low key, the other more dialled up. The music teeters on a knife edge of whimsy, but in the end avoids disruption and, apart from maybe one too many 'looms', the country works well as a kind of idiotic accompaniement, out of contaxt but oddly in.
The supporting cast are excellent, the kids aren't annoying, everyone is believable and avoids cliche. But this film is all about the central performance of Jennifer Lawrence. It is first, first, first rate. In a narrative piece she is given the opportunity with a lot of camera time and she takes it, building in deep characterisation through a reticence. It's always the tiny things; a little moment of insolence, a tiny out of place expression. She underpowers is seemingly, but through this is excellent. No emotional crescendos here; just superb concentration on character, a great contintuity across. Give her every prize, and when she's a star let the woman act.
This film isn't perfect, it is a director's first film; their is a dodgy montage, bit sof dialogue occassionally are forced out the actors mouth, as we said it gets a bit talky.
Overall though, this is a most terrific film. Huge credit to Granik and Lawrence, major credit to everyone else. See it see it see it.
I'm Still Here
Joaquim Phoenix and Casey Affleck team up to make what is certainly a hoax; or rather, the central idea is a hoax, but that does not preclude the fact that Phoenix 1) was bored of the industry and his persona & 2) was interested in hip-hop, and wanted to make some for himself.
For twenty minutes we get a sporadically funny look at the industry. Kept nicely on a knife edge in a particular verite style, there's a few moments of glee in the punturing of balloons and of pretension. This is where this film is at its best; in showing us how easy it is to fall into certain traps of fame, the silly little bits and bobs. How idiotic most of Hollywood is.
We darn well hope this is a hoax, as otherwise the frat-boy antics, the mysogyny and general nastiness which invades the film, makes us never want to see anything with the two 'stars' in it again. How are we suppossed to empathise with such vile people?
The last eight mintures of this film are magnifcently boring and unfunny. This is a one joke film ('Isn't he silly?') which gets very, very, very tired. Phoenix's performance is neither good enough, varied enough, or placed in sympathetic or relatable situations enough for us to care at all what happens. The final attempt at emotion is undeserved. And it goes on and on and on and on. Boring things happening to broing people, not funny, the joke had twenty minutes then got predictable, tedious. Of course the camera and compostion holds no formal interest, just wobbles. The supposedly funny and disgusting pranks just bore.
The real condemnation of this film is not that it's real and Phoenix's hip-hop career is awful; it is that it is fake, but not a very good fake. Phoenix has wasted a year in method weight-gain and career break to make a not very good mockumentary. Move along.
For twenty minutes we get a sporadically funny look at the industry. Kept nicely on a knife edge in a particular verite style, there's a few moments of glee in the punturing of balloons and of pretension. This is where this film is at its best; in showing us how easy it is to fall into certain traps of fame, the silly little bits and bobs. How idiotic most of Hollywood is.
We darn well hope this is a hoax, as otherwise the frat-boy antics, the mysogyny and general nastiness which invades the film, makes us never want to see anything with the two 'stars' in it again. How are we suppossed to empathise with such vile people?
The last eight mintures of this film are magnifcently boring and unfunny. This is a one joke film ('Isn't he silly?') which gets very, very, very tired. Phoenix's performance is neither good enough, varied enough, or placed in sympathetic or relatable situations enough for us to care at all what happens. The final attempt at emotion is undeserved. And it goes on and on and on and on. Boring things happening to broing people, not funny, the joke had twenty minutes then got predictable, tedious. Of course the camera and compostion holds no formal interest, just wobbles. The supposedly funny and disgusting pranks just bore.
The real condemnation of this film is not that it's real and Phoenix's hip-hop career is awful; it is that it is fake, but not a very good fake. Phoenix has wasted a year in method weight-gain and career break to make a not very good mockumentary. Move along.
Valley Of The Bees
Catching up with our mate Frantisek, it's 1968. Here's he's made his film about religion.
Deal with the visuals; a few bits of fun with contrast, blinding overexposure, a bit of underexposure on the castle. Atmosheric, not much continuity. He has toned down the huge faces, but still likes his close ups. He does not so much dwell on the landscapes, this film was shot in Acadmey ration unlike the squarer formats of the others, it makes little difference. He's coming to like nature, but it's a slow process.
In this film Frantisek does well to tease out the complex thematics of the metaphors of dogs and bees that swarm, that sting and kill in order. We wonder whether the castle life is really any different, in that it mirrors these enviroments and that of the knights. Questions of how to follow a religion are posed, we have sense of a genuine internal conflict even if we are not particularly let in.
The narrative follows intermittently, sometimes we are unsure which perspective we are really getting. This keeps us off balance, but also leads to a film that rather meanders.
Not the best, neither the worst, Vlacil. Occassionally a little tiresome, it nevertheless feels quite worthwhile. A bit of a 'meh' piece.
Deal with the visuals; a few bits of fun with contrast, blinding overexposure, a bit of underexposure on the castle. Atmosheric, not much continuity. He has toned down the huge faces, but still likes his close ups. He does not so much dwell on the landscapes, this film was shot in Acadmey ration unlike the squarer formats of the others, it makes little difference. He's coming to like nature, but it's a slow process.
In this film Frantisek does well to tease out the complex thematics of the metaphors of dogs and bees that swarm, that sting and kill in order. We wonder whether the castle life is really any different, in that it mirrors these enviroments and that of the knights. Questions of how to follow a religion are posed, we have sense of a genuine internal conflict even if we are not particularly let in.
The narrative follows intermittently, sometimes we are unsure which perspective we are really getting. This keeps us off balance, but also leads to a film that rather meanders.
Not the best, neither the worst, Vlacil. Occassionally a little tiresome, it nevertheless feels quite worthwhile. A bit of a 'meh' piece.
Saturday 18 September 2010
Frontier Blues
The new movie from Iranian director Babak Jalali. It is a fun and interesting film, a nice digression on formalism and place, on localism.
We have the long long shots of people who remain pretty still. When they do walk, they walk like puppets, often from a wide view. They directly address the camera (the talking photographer) on occassion. The dialogue is stilted and largely consists of non-sequiters.
As a formalist piece we enjoyed this very much. It might not have a huge amount to it in that sense, but it sure gave the images a good run at us. The balance and harmony were all there, quite self consciously so on occassions.
The use of these formalist tropes was nicely deconstrcuted on occassions, as indeed was the whole filmmaking process. We were always aware of the presence of the camera, recording these blank gazes.
It has a real deadpan humour to it, the 'performances' are completely underdone, which stops it getting all too ridiculous. The most interesting questions are well framed, the stasis and ridicuolous wish of ours to capture some 'colourful' or 'exotic' locales.
Obviously long shots with no story to speak of can be argued to get a little tedious, but this wasn't really the case in our viewing experience. The pretty darn horrendous locations, the repition, and the blankness of the whole piece gave it a real hypnotic quality, like tuning in and out. We won't pretend our mind didn't wander on occassion, but in the nicest way, the film sort of washed over us a little.
A few notes; there is an obvious Herzog reference, and the blankness, if not the actual shots, can remind one of him. This film is like 'Fata Morgana' except where they shoot is not spectacular.
There are also a couple of (to be honest, mildly annoying) Kiarostami references, with the photographer and the plant-motorbike. They also had a moment or two of Kiarostami-esque camera work during dialogue, but in general it was a mention rather than a stylistic homage.
A film of rythm and mood, a formalist piece, really, but this may have helped convey the realistic atmosphere better than other techniques. Interesting and worth seeing.
We have the long long shots of people who remain pretty still. When they do walk, they walk like puppets, often from a wide view. They directly address the camera (the talking photographer) on occassion. The dialogue is stilted and largely consists of non-sequiters.
As a formalist piece we enjoyed this very much. It might not have a huge amount to it in that sense, but it sure gave the images a good run at us. The balance and harmony were all there, quite self consciously so on occassions.
The use of these formalist tropes was nicely deconstrcuted on occassions, as indeed was the whole filmmaking process. We were always aware of the presence of the camera, recording these blank gazes.
It has a real deadpan humour to it, the 'performances' are completely underdone, which stops it getting all too ridiculous. The most interesting questions are well framed, the stasis and ridicuolous wish of ours to capture some 'colourful' or 'exotic' locales.
Obviously long shots with no story to speak of can be argued to get a little tedious, but this wasn't really the case in our viewing experience. The pretty darn horrendous locations, the repition, and the blankness of the whole piece gave it a real hypnotic quality, like tuning in and out. We won't pretend our mind didn't wander on occassion, but in the nicest way, the film sort of washed over us a little.
A few notes; there is an obvious Herzog reference, and the blankness, if not the actual shots, can remind one of him. This film is like 'Fata Morgana' except where they shoot is not spectacular.
There are also a couple of (to be honest, mildly annoying) Kiarostami references, with the photographer and the plant-motorbike. They also had a moment or two of Kiarostami-esque camera work during dialogue, but in general it was a mention rather than a stylistic homage.
A film of rythm and mood, a formalist piece, really, but this may have helped convey the realistic atmosphere better than other techniques. Interesting and worth seeing.
Alamar
This Mexican movie is meditative, beautifully shot, with an understated story of great power.
We follow the young Natan, we have the child's eye view. This allows some stunning shots of objects and the enviroment enlargened, the director wonderfully evokes the way a child experiences the world; weird little shapes, out of context feet (a beautiful moment) and so on. The director lets us dwell on the shots terrifically. It is all done in a most verite style, adding to a feel of documentary in the acting and plot that runs through. Indeed, it may be a documentary.
This could have been a piece of formalist genius of P.O.V. and long static shots had it not been for the fact that the director (quite understandably) chooses to show us some of the wonders he has filmed outside of the child's perspective. The images are always terrific, but this perhaps loses the narrative thread slightly; a minor problem, but one that moves this from being a disciplined masterwork to being a terrifically shot and calming joy.
And what a place he does choose to indulge on; these long static shots, the lifestlye that is presented as so iddylic. The 'story' in the background is all a couple of tiny suggestions that flower in the viewers mind. If you want a tough analysis of why the child is so, what the people's struggles are like, look elsewhere. O.K., it's hagiography, but of the finest subject. Not that we neglect the people; the fathers and children relation through a few hints develops, with little conflict but a lot of tactile understanding.
A real pleasure to sit through, pleasure is the word here. Highly reccommende for that.
We follow the young Natan, we have the child's eye view. This allows some stunning shots of objects and the enviroment enlargened, the director wonderfully evokes the way a child experiences the world; weird little shapes, out of context feet (a beautiful moment) and so on. The director lets us dwell on the shots terrifically. It is all done in a most verite style, adding to a feel of documentary in the acting and plot that runs through. Indeed, it may be a documentary.
This could have been a piece of formalist genius of P.O.V. and long static shots had it not been for the fact that the director (quite understandably) chooses to show us some of the wonders he has filmed outside of the child's perspective. The images are always terrific, but this perhaps loses the narrative thread slightly; a minor problem, but one that moves this from being a disciplined masterwork to being a terrifically shot and calming joy.
And what a place he does choose to indulge on; these long static shots, the lifestlye that is presented as so iddylic. The 'story' in the background is all a couple of tiny suggestions that flower in the viewers mind. If you want a tough analysis of why the child is so, what the people's struggles are like, look elsewhere. O.K., it's hagiography, but of the finest subject. Not that we neglect the people; the fathers and children relation through a few hints develops, with little conflict but a lot of tactile understanding.
A real pleasure to sit through, pleasure is the word here. Highly reccommende for that.
Thursday 16 September 2010
La Strada
Federico Fellini (How good was 'La Dolce Vita'? One of the greatest films we have seen this year) made this highly lauded piece in 1954. It has a something, a power to it, we would not call it a great piece of work, but it is above your run of the mill.
It is a story very well told, Fellini is simply an impressive storyteller, he knows how to pace his montage and movements. The ending is perhaps a mite overheated, but it is an interesting dialectic at the same time.
Visually, Fellini is keen to use the space towards and away from the camera. Again, he mixes in straight, close to mid shots with the longer ones where he reveals his ability to balance. As far as we are concerned, the more of the latter the better. The natural lighting and settings evoke neo-realism, the crumbling towns and the naturalism.
The most interesting thing in this film is the game of narrative identification. The first shot is terribly important; were it not for that, we may belive this is a film focussing our identification (and more empathy?) on Zampano, rather than Gelsomino. The first shot allows Gelsomina to be at once the centre of attention (to be fair, we follow her in the montage, just not with the camera) while in the scenes themselves she flitters about the edges, she is in the background. Indeed, this occurs to such an extent that we rather wonder if the emotional heart of this film is not Zampano, is the end rather leads us to. Is Gelsomino just a mythic figure, Zampano is us, fated?
The story is a condemnation of men's treatment of women, the ending unexpected in its harshness, which we appreciated as following the 'obvious' route would have been disastorous. This difference makes it a film above average.
It is not a masterpiece, it does not have enough visually, or the ambition thematically, to quite take us there. Worth a look, perhaps.
It is a story very well told, Fellini is simply an impressive storyteller, he knows how to pace his montage and movements. The ending is perhaps a mite overheated, but it is an interesting dialectic at the same time.
Visually, Fellini is keen to use the space towards and away from the camera. Again, he mixes in straight, close to mid shots with the longer ones where he reveals his ability to balance. As far as we are concerned, the more of the latter the better. The natural lighting and settings evoke neo-realism, the crumbling towns and the naturalism.
The most interesting thing in this film is the game of narrative identification. The first shot is terribly important; were it not for that, we may belive this is a film focussing our identification (and more empathy?) on Zampano, rather than Gelsomino. The first shot allows Gelsomina to be at once the centre of attention (to be fair, we follow her in the montage, just not with the camera) while in the scenes themselves she flitters about the edges, she is in the background. Indeed, this occurs to such an extent that we rather wonder if the emotional heart of this film is not Zampano, is the end rather leads us to. Is Gelsomino just a mythic figure, Zampano is us, fated?
The story is a condemnation of men's treatment of women, the ending unexpected in its harshness, which we appreciated as following the 'obvious' route would have been disastorous. This difference makes it a film above average.
It is not a masterpiece, it does not have enough visually, or the ambition thematically, to quite take us there. Worth a look, perhaps.
Germaine Dulac: Double Bill
Two short (40 odd minutes) from the French film theorist, involved in the surrealist movement.
The Smiling Madame Beudet (1922, France) is a slow and detached film. It is shot in two different styles; one with a Bunuel-ean conventionality, just normal framing and so on. But there is another aspect also, on occassion, at the piano for example, certain parts of the body and shapes are taken 'out of context', magnified, focussed on. Dulac has an uncanny ability to tell emotions, to draw one in, through this and other schemes. She puts us off balance, stirs us into the creation not just through the abovementioned technique but by drawing (for the time) uncharacteristically low key performances from her actors. Small movements, big affect. Yes, this piece is slow, but the mournful, fateful move (with a well done narrative continuity) towards the climax takes on a genuinely haunting, melancholy aspect. Dulac is able, through smart montage and precise knowledge of framing, to draw us in well. The surrealist 'special effects' also hold up well, they are not over intrusive but genuinely add.
The Seashell and The Clergyman (1928, France) is a masterpiece. It repeats the ability of the above to take the objects out of context, but it is really in the other tricks that it does that enables it to touch places so few other films can. It is fired with symbolism, throughout the connections are at best thematic, genuinely hallucinatory (achieved through montage and a high angle camera, giving a ghostly, mournful lighting, a half-life). It mirrors the true structure of a dream; the search, the taking away. The characters move in these wierd dialectical patterns, all excellent except for the slightly overdone lead. Again, Dulac understands narrative contuinity and we at once follow the vicar (repression, release, loss....) and keep at an arms length, genuinely like one has oneself in a dream. This is the perfect example of that so rare ability ('In The City Of Sylvia'?), a genuinely Proustian cinema. The recurring of tmemory that was never experienced, the float that digs and digs but always comes for air. It is slow, curious, often difficult. It makes no clear sense. It is a genuinely spiritual experience at the cinema. We look forward to returning to this great (and, though not unknown, perhaps underapreciated) work.
The Smiling Madame Beudet (1922, France) is a slow and detached film. It is shot in two different styles; one with a Bunuel-ean conventionality, just normal framing and so on. But there is another aspect also, on occassion, at the piano for example, certain parts of the body and shapes are taken 'out of context', magnified, focussed on. Dulac has an uncanny ability to tell emotions, to draw one in, through this and other schemes. She puts us off balance, stirs us into the creation not just through the abovementioned technique but by drawing (for the time) uncharacteristically low key performances from her actors. Small movements, big affect. Yes, this piece is slow, but the mournful, fateful move (with a well done narrative continuity) towards the climax takes on a genuinely haunting, melancholy aspect. Dulac is able, through smart montage and precise knowledge of framing, to draw us in well. The surrealist 'special effects' also hold up well, they are not over intrusive but genuinely add.
The Seashell and The Clergyman (1928, France) is a masterpiece. It repeats the ability of the above to take the objects out of context, but it is really in the other tricks that it does that enables it to touch places so few other films can. It is fired with symbolism, throughout the connections are at best thematic, genuinely hallucinatory (achieved through montage and a high angle camera, giving a ghostly, mournful lighting, a half-life). It mirrors the true structure of a dream; the search, the taking away. The characters move in these wierd dialectical patterns, all excellent except for the slightly overdone lead. Again, Dulac understands narrative contuinity and we at once follow the vicar (repression, release, loss....) and keep at an arms length, genuinely like one has oneself in a dream. This is the perfect example of that so rare ability ('In The City Of Sylvia'?), a genuinely Proustian cinema. The recurring of tmemory that was never experienced, the float that digs and digs but always comes for air. It is slow, curious, often difficult. It makes no clear sense. It is a genuinely spiritual experience at the cinema. We look forward to returning to this great (and, though not unknown, perhaps underapreciated) work.
Metropolis
Another look at the silent masterpiece. This really is a terrific story, so excitingly told, so well paced, building up to its crescendo at the end. Politically, the message may be all over the place, but that doesn't tmake it a worse stroy in terms of excitment.
Just to recapulate a couple of visual things; the strong centre lighting really does have a huge effect, so different from some of Murnau's, Wiene's, etc. Also, there is the critique that Lang deals in still, rather than moving images. This probably has a point, save a few exceptions.
Rotwang deserves a comment as well; is he the main character, the heart of the film? The man who is at once the closest to the machine (the mechanical hand) who yet wants to turn the machine into a man, give it a heart. He wants the machine and man to be one; he is destined to fail.
Also, surely the streams of still sheep-like workers in the last scene shows that Lang himself realises the vapidity of the solution offered; a fight against a screen play he disagreed with?
Also ,Lang is obsessed with straight lines and angles, the vertical and the horizontal are very strong, very powerful, in a different way from other expressionists. Sensational.
Just to recapulate a couple of visual things; the strong centre lighting really does have a huge effect, so different from some of Murnau's, Wiene's, etc. Also, there is the critique that Lang deals in still, rather than moving images. This probably has a point, save a few exceptions.
Rotwang deserves a comment as well; is he the main character, the heart of the film? The man who is at once the closest to the machine (the mechanical hand) who yet wants to turn the machine into a man, give it a heart. He wants the machine and man to be one; he is destined to fail.
Also, surely the streams of still sheep-like workers in the last scene shows that Lang himself realises the vapidity of the solution offered; a fight against a screen play he disagreed with?
Also ,Lang is obsessed with straight lines and angles, the vertical and the horizontal are very strong, very powerful, in a different way from other expressionists. Sensational.
Tuesday 14 September 2010
A Clockwork Orange
This hugely popular 1971 movie from Stanley Kubrick is a great example of the genius of that director. Far from perfect, it is still obviously a particular kind of 'domestic' (rather than 2001's 'intergalactic') piece from one of the few English language directors who achived greatness (He comes close to the Chaplin, Welles, Hitchcock pantheon).
To get the criticisms out of the way first, the main problem with this film is that it is far too long. The last twenty minutes are frankly a waste of time, seeming there to make a sociological point. The slightly heavy handed sociological analysis and slightly tiresome humour are exacerbated here. The direction can occasionally seem a bit self-consciously 'weird', though this may be the fault of audience anticipation more than anything.
This film has thousands of philosophical fragments which many spend lifetimes picking over, but violence and language are perhaps the most interesting.
Kubrick's aestheticisation of violence is fascinating. In the first shot, indeed throughout, he dares us to identify with a character who commits vile acts. The harmony and beauty of the early violence is perhaps an attempt to make this identification easy, and it is an interesting (Haneke-esque) meditation on cinematic violence that is brought down later by more explicit scenes.
Kubrick is perhaps the master of non-diagetic sound, and his diagetic sound (of which Bresson wins at, we argue) also fascinates. The tinny, airless empty room feel of the dialgoue is effective, and the sound affects, though a little 70's are beautifully timed. Burgess' script is wonderfully evoked, Kubrick uses the voiceover (espeically early on) very affectively to show the weird processes of alienation and smothering in language that occur.
Kubrick's style, using his warped lens, is very particular of an enclosed milleu. The montages and sexualised P.O.V. are of their time, but evoke an atmosphere well.
This is a weird film in that it is at once of its time, very strongly, but that doesn't really harm it. It does have its faults, but achieves first rate excellence in certain techincal and thematic features.
To get the criticisms out of the way first, the main problem with this film is that it is far too long. The last twenty minutes are frankly a waste of time, seeming there to make a sociological point. The slightly heavy handed sociological analysis and slightly tiresome humour are exacerbated here. The direction can occasionally seem a bit self-consciously 'weird', though this may be the fault of audience anticipation more than anything.
This film has thousands of philosophical fragments which many spend lifetimes picking over, but violence and language are perhaps the most interesting.
Kubrick's aestheticisation of violence is fascinating. In the first shot, indeed throughout, he dares us to identify with a character who commits vile acts. The harmony and beauty of the early violence is perhaps an attempt to make this identification easy, and it is an interesting (Haneke-esque) meditation on cinematic violence that is brought down later by more explicit scenes.
Kubrick is perhaps the master of non-diagetic sound, and his diagetic sound (of which Bresson wins at, we argue) also fascinates. The tinny, airless empty room feel of the dialgoue is effective, and the sound affects, though a little 70's are beautifully timed. Burgess' script is wonderfully evoked, Kubrick uses the voiceover (espeically early on) very affectively to show the weird processes of alienation and smothering in language that occur.
Kubrick's style, using his warped lens, is very particular of an enclosed milleu. The montages and sexualised P.O.V. are of their time, but evoke an atmosphere well.
This is a weird film in that it is at once of its time, very strongly, but that doesn't really harm it. It does have its faults, but achieves first rate excellence in certain techincal and thematic features.
Close-Up
This 1991 work from Abbas Kiarostami is much revered, and, of course (being Kiarostami), a complete masterpiece.
The idea of twisting between documentary and fiction is neither done as a meta-exercsie, nor brushed over. The questions of who is acting, when they are acting, when they are all acting, come to the fore. The medium is constantly present (in a verite style), we are constantly aware of it, yet we are aware of it as looking at someone, at seeing something. The scenes Kiarostami engineers are at once clearly engineered, in their deliberate atmosphere of almost-fakery, yet in a kind of Brechtian way only this forgery allows us to see truth; the true people bbehind the acting, only available when they are acting.
This isn't Kiarostami's most visually striking film, on first look. The images are more to do with making sure we have a good view of the protagonists faces, though we do get some wonderful Ozu-esque moments during conversation. The conversation is classic naturalist Kiarostami; never pretentious, always profound in an earthy way, never sentimental.
The P.O.V. doesn't follow anyone in particular, making for quite a rough film and a twisted experience to watch. We at once follow everyone and no one; we would hesitate to say that we ever really get anyone's perspective, apart from perhaps the cab driver's at the start.
This is a film that gives up its secrets less easily than a work of the greatness of 'The Wind Will Carry Us', it is a twisted journey, where even the incredible, audacious end is wreathed in dry humour and meta-questions. But do these questions really exist at all? This film is a response that can't be articulated, only on screen, only in Kiarostami. Great.
The idea of twisting between documentary and fiction is neither done as a meta-exercsie, nor brushed over. The questions of who is acting, when they are acting, when they are all acting, come to the fore. The medium is constantly present (in a verite style), we are constantly aware of it, yet we are aware of it as looking at someone, at seeing something. The scenes Kiarostami engineers are at once clearly engineered, in their deliberate atmosphere of almost-fakery, yet in a kind of Brechtian way only this forgery allows us to see truth; the true people bbehind the acting, only available when they are acting.
This isn't Kiarostami's most visually striking film, on first look. The images are more to do with making sure we have a good view of the protagonists faces, though we do get some wonderful Ozu-esque moments during conversation. The conversation is classic naturalist Kiarostami; never pretentious, always profound in an earthy way, never sentimental.
The P.O.V. doesn't follow anyone in particular, making for quite a rough film and a twisted experience to watch. We at once follow everyone and no one; we would hesitate to say that we ever really get anyone's perspective, apart from perhaps the cab driver's at the start.
This is a film that gives up its secrets less easily than a work of the greatness of 'The Wind Will Carry Us', it is a twisted journey, where even the incredible, audacious end is wreathed in dry humour and meta-questions. But do these questions really exist at all? This film is a response that can't be articulated, only on screen, only in Kiarostami. Great.
Monday 13 September 2010
Cobra Verde
It's 1987, Herzog and Kinski take their show, their last one together, to Africa.
This isn't the best of Herzog, but it is still leaps above others on visual implentation and on pure entertainment. At times Herzog seems almost bored to be able to play with the image as he does; every shot of the montage, as he effortlessly tells the story, is a beautifully balanced, harmonised, and lit (in his distinctive sweaty tones, red more here) moving tableau. Indeed as Herzog gets older he seems to have discovered a slightly more baroque eye, he is also keener to use tricks with lens and magnification.
Herzog does tell the story, in a slightly reticent manner. Cobra Verde has a lot of appearing half-way through a scene, Kinski is again completely out of his mind but looks old and rather sad. He is often quiet. He is an acting genius. The story trundles along, we get our wonderful Herzog side characters. We get our casual brutality (all riffs on that great moment in 'Aguirre' where Kinski, in the corner of shot, chucks the dead body back in the water) and our fantastically sketched and briefly seen side characters of insane wierdos.
The story is also another Herzog tale of cultural dissonance, a complete lack of understanding, the brutal obscenity and lack of any human categories in the natural gaze. The Africans are nicely shot by Herzog (he shoots them as this lumped together 'outside' because he admits to no way in for the westener to understand) as completely and utterly alien, but even there comical routines have a terrible and terrifying dignity.
This is a film where the slave trade is shown in its full evil, despite not a single debate about it and our central character (not really identified with, we have wide shots and much less face work than earlier Herzog) being an unrepetentant and unthinking trader. The final scene, by the way, is another fantastic image, as always.
Herzog wasn't at his very very best, this is a little ponderous, but overall he remains the master.
This isn't the best of Herzog, but it is still leaps above others on visual implentation and on pure entertainment. At times Herzog seems almost bored to be able to play with the image as he does; every shot of the montage, as he effortlessly tells the story, is a beautifully balanced, harmonised, and lit (in his distinctive sweaty tones, red more here) moving tableau. Indeed as Herzog gets older he seems to have discovered a slightly more baroque eye, he is also keener to use tricks with lens and magnification.
Herzog does tell the story, in a slightly reticent manner. Cobra Verde has a lot of appearing half-way through a scene, Kinski is again completely out of his mind but looks old and rather sad. He is often quiet. He is an acting genius. The story trundles along, we get our wonderful Herzog side characters. We get our casual brutality (all riffs on that great moment in 'Aguirre' where Kinski, in the corner of shot, chucks the dead body back in the water) and our fantastically sketched and briefly seen side characters of insane wierdos.
The story is also another Herzog tale of cultural dissonance, a complete lack of understanding, the brutal obscenity and lack of any human categories in the natural gaze. The Africans are nicely shot by Herzog (he shoots them as this lumped together 'outside' because he admits to no way in for the westener to understand) as completely and utterly alien, but even there comical routines have a terrible and terrifying dignity.
This is a film where the slave trade is shown in its full evil, despite not a single debate about it and our central character (not really identified with, we have wide shots and much less face work than earlier Herzog) being an unrepetentant and unthinking trader. The final scene, by the way, is another fantastic image, as always.
Herzog wasn't at his very very best, this is a little ponderous, but overall he remains the master.
Surrealist Film: Beginnings
A collection of four key films, moving from surrealist to Dadaist, moving from formal to content driven explorations of the unconscious, the dissonant.
Ballet Mecanique (France, 1924) is a formally daring piece where the montage becomes too fast for our eyes. The circles and triangle montage is so simple, it takes us to the edge of cinema and what we experience on a moving image. Incredibly powerful. The cogs and pendulums draw one in and draw one in. The repetition of the women mounting the stairs, again, asks us what we are seeing, where is the connection? Dwells too long occasionally, largely a wonderful and important piece of formalism.
Entr'acte (France, 1924) is mucking around with stop-motion and frame speed. It is excellent in certain sequences, the chase moving from interesting, to funny, to bizarelly sad. This film is surrealist in that it uses unexpected items out of context, it plays with them to disorientate. When we think we have solved the puzzle, it refuses to play the game. Dwells too long on some images, but interesting, if more of a game than anything else.
Ghosts Before Breakfast (Germany, 1928) is the Hans Richter piece we have seen before, and is again an interesting use of surrealist motif of the disocrdant object.
Un Chien Andalou (France & Spain, 1929) is the daddy of surrealist film, Bunuel and Dali. It is directed, as we saw with later Bunuel, in really a very conventional manner. The montage is the same, except for the jumps in time and space that do ask us questions about where we move from image to image. It is what is the content that makes this surrealist; surely there are myriad psychoanaltic reading to it, which we shall leave to elsewhere. The themes appear to be of horrors and of women. The eye slitting remains a great and revolting sight, genuinely powerful. Also of note is the music, Bunuel choosing such a peacful collection to undermine audience expectations.
These four film were fascinating, a great look and introduction to a huge and wide-ranging movement.
Ballet Mecanique (France, 1924) is a formally daring piece where the montage becomes too fast for our eyes. The circles and triangle montage is so simple, it takes us to the edge of cinema and what we experience on a moving image. Incredibly powerful. The cogs and pendulums draw one in and draw one in. The repetition of the women mounting the stairs, again, asks us what we are seeing, where is the connection? Dwells too long occasionally, largely a wonderful and important piece of formalism.
Entr'acte (France, 1924) is mucking around with stop-motion and frame speed. It is excellent in certain sequences, the chase moving from interesting, to funny, to bizarelly sad. This film is surrealist in that it uses unexpected items out of context, it plays with them to disorientate. When we think we have solved the puzzle, it refuses to play the game. Dwells too long on some images, but interesting, if more of a game than anything else.
Ghosts Before Breakfast (Germany, 1928) is the Hans Richter piece we have seen before, and is again an interesting use of surrealist motif of the disocrdant object.
Un Chien Andalou (France & Spain, 1929) is the daddy of surrealist film, Bunuel and Dali. It is directed, as we saw with later Bunuel, in really a very conventional manner. The montage is the same, except for the jumps in time and space that do ask us questions about where we move from image to image. It is what is the content that makes this surrealist; surely there are myriad psychoanaltic reading to it, which we shall leave to elsewhere. The themes appear to be of horrors and of women. The eye slitting remains a great and revolting sight, genuinely powerful. Also of note is the music, Bunuel choosing such a peacful collection to undermine audience expectations.
These four film were fascinating, a great look and introduction to a huge and wide-ranging movement.
Adelheid
Frantisek Vlacil, 1970 when he made this post-WW2 movie.
We think that this is not far off from being a very good film, but it probably pans out as average at best.
Vlacil seems to have decided to stop directing, he does not use his trademark closep ups, and only rarely does the looking up at the face thing. There is quite lot of most un-Vlacil like wide shots of people looking a bit lost in rooms.
The film is edited absolutely atrociously, it jars grimly. The acting doesn't intrude on our suspension of disbelief, but it also fails to take us anywhere. The speed this film goes at is mournful, and the colour scheme doesn't help.
The reason this film could have been very good (and in parts almost is) are two; firstly, the story is excellent. It would have benefitted from a bit of self-consciousness, a bit of Poe-esque hysteria around the house (which we never bloody well leave) but there are great psychosexual, fetishistic, and post-war reconcilliation things going on here. The nature of desire and that coming against the harsh realities of empirical war.
Secondly, in this film Vlacil is excellent in the small things. He does his identification and P.O.V. shots neatly, he is smart around the objects. Funny little things at the side, the painting and the cognac and the final scenes, are done with a great variety and lightness of touch.
This film could be really terrific with a remake. Not that the failure is Vlacil's fault; it just seems there was something off about the production. An oxymoron, an intriguing bore.
We think that this is not far off from being a very good film, but it probably pans out as average at best.
Vlacil seems to have decided to stop directing, he does not use his trademark closep ups, and only rarely does the looking up at the face thing. There is quite lot of most un-Vlacil like wide shots of people looking a bit lost in rooms.
The film is edited absolutely atrociously, it jars grimly. The acting doesn't intrude on our suspension of disbelief, but it also fails to take us anywhere. The speed this film goes at is mournful, and the colour scheme doesn't help.
The reason this film could have been very good (and in parts almost is) are two; firstly, the story is excellent. It would have benefitted from a bit of self-consciousness, a bit of Poe-esque hysteria around the house (which we never bloody well leave) but there are great psychosexual, fetishistic, and post-war reconcilliation things going on here. The nature of desire and that coming against the harsh realities of empirical war.
Secondly, in this film Vlacil is excellent in the small things. He does his identification and P.O.V. shots neatly, he is smart around the objects. Funny little things at the side, the painting and the cognac and the final scenes, are done with a great variety and lightness of touch.
This film could be really terrific with a remake. Not that the failure is Vlacil's fault; it just seems there was something off about the production. An oxymoron, an intriguing bore.
Sunday 12 September 2010
Burden Of Dreams
1982 documentary from Les Blank about the shooting and production of Fitzcarraldo.
This documentary is massively entertaining. It is narrated and shot in a blank, minimalist, almost offhand stlye (lack of footage) which makes all the wild revelations rather deapdpanned and frequently hillarious, rather than the portentous the could be. And what a story.
We won't go into the details of what happened, but the film manages to cover all the angles admirably, concentrating on at once the Indians and then the early footage (Mick Jagger on screen is marvellous).
Perhaps the one avenue this documentary does not explore (or 'explore' is the wrong word, it gives a five minute evaluation that leaves one hungry for more, a sign that it is doing it's job by piquing the interest) is the character of Kinski, much. This is done elsewhere. The star here is Herzog, we have a portrait of a man who is at once cool, angry, off his rocker, touchingly connected and empathetic. He is the real star here, a self-aware white man in the jungle who clearly knows he has his own issues. He has his vision, it is magnificent. The scenes where he rhapsodies, with a strange kind of blood in his eyes, about the 'obscenity' of nature are at once strikingly powerful and also completely hillarious in his teutonic eschatology.
The man is a hero, and a nuts one. We think we know where his characters come from.
A fine documentary on a more than fascinating subject, the time zipped by.
This documentary is massively entertaining. It is narrated and shot in a blank, minimalist, almost offhand stlye (lack of footage) which makes all the wild revelations rather deapdpanned and frequently hillarious, rather than the portentous the could be. And what a story.
We won't go into the details of what happened, but the film manages to cover all the angles admirably, concentrating on at once the Indians and then the early footage (Mick Jagger on screen is marvellous).
Perhaps the one avenue this documentary does not explore (or 'explore' is the wrong word, it gives a five minute evaluation that leaves one hungry for more, a sign that it is doing it's job by piquing the interest) is the character of Kinski, much. This is done elsewhere. The star here is Herzog, we have a portrait of a man who is at once cool, angry, off his rocker, touchingly connected and empathetic. He is the real star here, a self-aware white man in the jungle who clearly knows he has his own issues. He has his vision, it is magnificent. The scenes where he rhapsodies, with a strange kind of blood in his eyes, about the 'obscenity' of nature are at once strikingly powerful and also completely hillarious in his teutonic eschatology.
The man is a hero, and a nuts one. We think we know where his characters come from.
A fine documentary on a more than fascinating subject, the time zipped by.
Fitzcarraldo
Ou beloved Herzog's 1982 movie draws immediate comparisons with 'Aguirre, Wrath Of God', and there are great similarities, but also differences.
First a few quick technical notes; Herzog has a sensational sense of timing, mixing excitement of the quick cut with the 'just-right' respect for the image that the long shot affords. He, as the film goes, distances us further from Fitzcarraldo, underlying the sense of a man who becomes smaller (contrast to 'Aguirre', where the title character comes from the side to dominate). Kinski ergo does not eat everything in sight, as in 'Aguirre', but can often look tired, manic but not comically so. How can we say it? Kinski is almost restrained, but that madness underneath still make the eyes and back hubs of th electric. The focus on animals is really a thematic thing, but again is nicely timed.
Fitzcarraldo himself is much more sympathetic that Aguirre, a man we get to know rather than are imposed upon. His almost jarring early changes of mood effectively show a conflicted man. Unlike Aguirre, Fitzcarraldo would turn back, and would possibly accept second best. His kind of mania is rather naivety than the almost Kurtz-like drive of an Aguirre.
Fitzcarraldo also differs in that he is at the whim of events, rather than controlling them (even in a deranged way) a la Aguirre. Thus the camera moves out.
The use of the natives is interesting, Herzog does not try to understand them but rather lets our relation to them, of unknowable blankness, shine through. Our voyeuristic look at the stares of them is well evoked.
Is we know from the shooting, the almost documentary feel to some of the scenes is, well, because it's almost a documentary. Herzog is a director who mixes shots, the still and the jerky handheld, but the two do not come into conflict, a miracle of editing and, once again, timing.
Fitzcarraldo, like his film, does not have the shining purpose and purity of Aguirre and his piece. Fitzcarraldo perhaps does not shine as brightly, bite as hard, as the other, but it is still a magnificent work from someone who we belive is one of the great directors.
First a few quick technical notes; Herzog has a sensational sense of timing, mixing excitement of the quick cut with the 'just-right' respect for the image that the long shot affords. He, as the film goes, distances us further from Fitzcarraldo, underlying the sense of a man who becomes smaller (contrast to 'Aguirre', where the title character comes from the side to dominate). Kinski ergo does not eat everything in sight, as in 'Aguirre', but can often look tired, manic but not comically so. How can we say it? Kinski is almost restrained, but that madness underneath still make the eyes and back hubs of th electric. The focus on animals is really a thematic thing, but again is nicely timed.
Fitzcarraldo himself is much more sympathetic that Aguirre, a man we get to know rather than are imposed upon. His almost jarring early changes of mood effectively show a conflicted man. Unlike Aguirre, Fitzcarraldo would turn back, and would possibly accept second best. His kind of mania is rather naivety than the almost Kurtz-like drive of an Aguirre.
Fitzcarraldo also differs in that he is at the whim of events, rather than controlling them (even in a deranged way) a la Aguirre. Thus the camera moves out.
The use of the natives is interesting, Herzog does not try to understand them but rather lets our relation to them, of unknowable blankness, shine through. Our voyeuristic look at the stares of them is well evoked.
Is we know from the shooting, the almost documentary feel to some of the scenes is, well, because it's almost a documentary. Herzog is a director who mixes shots, the still and the jerky handheld, but the two do not come into conflict, a miracle of editing and, once again, timing.
Fitzcarraldo, like his film, does not have the shining purpose and purity of Aguirre and his piece. Fitzcarraldo perhaps does not shine as brightly, bite as hard, as the other, but it is still a magnificent work from someone who we belive is one of the great directors.
Dablova Past (The Devil's Trap)
It's 1962 when we again meet Frantisek Vlacil, and he has improved markedly from the rather pretentious 'The White Dove' (though we were worried after seeing the terrible short 'Sklenena Oblaka' ('Clouds of Glass') that he made in 1957).
This is an odd film, with changes of tone and mysteries of the supernatural that made us almost think back to, don't laugh now, the seminal Hollywood B-Movie 'Kiss Me Deadly'.
At the opening we have our usual Vlacil tropes, retained throughout, of the human face superenlarged until it takes up almost the whole screen. This kind of iconicalism and humanism, emphasised further by the camera that looks up and the sharp contrasts with sidelight that brings out pores and hair, is almost Soviet. That is Vlacil's style.
The happy thing here is that he has been reined in by someone else's script, so is forced to tell a story. Through some nice P.O.V., repition, and focus on objects he well conveys and atmosphere of uneven menace. The slightly weird tone, not sure where we are standing, is very affective. He usually keeps it interesting, though you can almost here him tearing at his harnesses in an attempt to ditch the story and become boring.
For the story itself we start off with a familiar rustic tale, yet theological elements unexplained (even at the end, really) are present. As we have some great scenes among the exposition, we start asking ourself who the 'devil' here really is. Vlacil doesn't have a big reveal; what the church insists may, all along, still be right.
The story goes completely nuts towards the end, while at the same time inserting a conventional and fitfully interesting romance. There are some interesting theologies in here too, though articulating them in the clear light of the outside may lead to nonsense.
Still, during the runtime we rather enjoyed the intelligence and atmosphere. Much much better, quite a decent film, all told.
This is an odd film, with changes of tone and mysteries of the supernatural that made us almost think back to, don't laugh now, the seminal Hollywood B-Movie 'Kiss Me Deadly'.
At the opening we have our usual Vlacil tropes, retained throughout, of the human face superenlarged until it takes up almost the whole screen. This kind of iconicalism and humanism, emphasised further by the camera that looks up and the sharp contrasts with sidelight that brings out pores and hair, is almost Soviet. That is Vlacil's style.
The happy thing here is that he has been reined in by someone else's script, so is forced to tell a story. Through some nice P.O.V., repition, and focus on objects he well conveys and atmosphere of uneven menace. The slightly weird tone, not sure where we are standing, is very affective. He usually keeps it interesting, though you can almost here him tearing at his harnesses in an attempt to ditch the story and become boring.
For the story itself we start off with a familiar rustic tale, yet theological elements unexplained (even at the end, really) are present. As we have some great scenes among the exposition, we start asking ourself who the 'devil' here really is. Vlacil doesn't have a big reveal; what the church insists may, all along, still be right.
The story goes completely nuts towards the end, while at the same time inserting a conventional and fitfully interesting romance. There are some interesting theologies in here too, though articulating them in the clear light of the outside may lead to nonsense.
Still, during the runtime we rather enjoyed the intelligence and atmosphere. Much much better, quite a decent film, all told.
Saturday 11 September 2010
Closely Observed Trains
Jiri Menzel's 1966 movie, a key part of Czech film history, is a delight to watch at times.
It tells a story lightly, personally, with hardcore characterisation through P.O.V. and close shots from the very start. Menzel likes his wide angles too, so for all the fast, fresh cuts we also have a nice reliance on the horizontal train image.
The light is natural and well evokes the waiting, half life of the characters who have this small existence in the middle of a big situation.
Menzel's punturing of the little beliefs, while at once emphasising how important they are, gives a great concluding bite to a film that could otherwise be condemned (or rather, slightly dismissed) as a little light. An excellent little bit of filmaking, not meant in the patronising sense.
It tells a story lightly, personally, with hardcore characterisation through P.O.V. and close shots from the very start. Menzel likes his wide angles too, so for all the fast, fresh cuts we also have a nice reliance on the horizontal train image.
The light is natural and well evokes the waiting, half life of the characters who have this small existence in the middle of a big situation.
Menzel's punturing of the little beliefs, while at once emphasising how important they are, gives a great concluding bite to a film that could otherwise be condemned (or rather, slightly dismissed) as a little light. An excellent little bit of filmaking, not meant in the patronising sense.
Metropolis
After 'Dr Mabuse: The Gambler' Lang went on in 1926/7 to make what is regarded as one of the defining achievements of silent cinema, the first and perhaps best sci-fi movie, now with a recovered forty minutes and a restored whole. It is a delirious masterpiece; what can be as great as 'Dr Mabuse?', but this film was no embarrasement as a follow up (and is widely cited more often now, for various reasons).
This piece is shot-wise maybe not quite so interesting as a 'Dr Mabuse', slightly less expressionistic in its sets. Yet in the art it is stunning, one of the great films, due to the incredible sets of the futuristic city, the heart-machine, the robot. Lang as usual lights it all up well, the flat faces of all and the robot inside us. Also noticeable is the deep sexualisation of the Maria character and her robot double.
The story is completely off its head, clinging on to making any kind of sense. It gets a bit hokey at times (Thea von Harbou, Nazi sympathiser), and the ending is an absolutely absurd, delirious, Deus Ex Machina. In fact the whole thing is, the plot is set to 'insantiy' then cranked up.
Lang simply creates beautiful images and puts them in an incredibly well executed plot. He keeps the excitment going and going, the epic quality much deserved due to the stunning images and crowd scenes (no characters among the proles of course) that truly evoke a sense of shared excitment, smart use of camera tricks, quick cuts, and speeded up film.
A monster of a film, with the smae Lang tropes as 'Dr Mabuse'. Lacking the gritty realities, and perhaps some of the compromised humanism of that film, 'Metropolis' is itself a bit like the heart-machine; huge, overpowering, perfectly slick and running through all of us. Sublime.
This piece is shot-wise maybe not quite so interesting as a 'Dr Mabuse', slightly less expressionistic in its sets. Yet in the art it is stunning, one of the great films, due to the incredible sets of the futuristic city, the heart-machine, the robot. Lang as usual lights it all up well, the flat faces of all and the robot inside us. Also noticeable is the deep sexualisation of the Maria character and her robot double.
The story is completely off its head, clinging on to making any kind of sense. It gets a bit hokey at times (Thea von Harbou, Nazi sympathiser), and the ending is an absolutely absurd, delirious, Deus Ex Machina. In fact the whole thing is, the plot is set to 'insantiy' then cranked up.
Lang simply creates beautiful images and puts them in an incredibly well executed plot. He keeps the excitment going and going, the epic quality much deserved due to the stunning images and crowd scenes (no characters among the proles of course) that truly evoke a sense of shared excitment, smart use of camera tricks, quick cuts, and speeded up film.
A monster of a film, with the smae Lang tropes as 'Dr Mabuse'. Lacking the gritty realities, and perhaps some of the compromised humanism of that film, 'Metropolis' is itself a bit like the heart-machine; huge, overpowering, perfectly slick and running through all of us. Sublime.
Dr Mabuse: The Gambler
This 1922 masterpiece, the two part four and a half Fritz Lang silent epic, is one of the great movies.
We start off with some wonderful scenes, episodic in the way it has the tales as this Mabuse character operates in different roles. We have some questions of identity, of evil, of doubles; who is Mabuse? Are they all Mabuse? These questions gain traction as it goes on, it is a question about the move towards the end of Weimar Germany. The scenes are of great drama, they raise fascinatingly movements of the will. The idea of Mabuse turning those he manipulates into robots, the terror of the loss of the will, is also brilliantly conveyed. Our favourite scene, by the by, is perhaps the stock market scene. As the penguin-like man rises above, we have a moment of terrifying, sublime transcendence.
The characters change as it goes on, Mabuse becomes more absurd, becomes more made up. Throughout, the female characters are heavily made up, most effectively portrayed by the relentless high tone lighting, that shines on the blacks and makes a mask of the face. The idea of the robot among men, the automaton, returns.
The atmosphere is evoked of a dirty morally compromised turn towards pure evil, the wonderful expressionist sets. Yet this film is smarter than that. In part Two we learn our characters more, we see how Wenk and Mabuse are similar (characterisation is important throughout; Lang is keen on his P.O.V. shots). We learn to sympathise with Mabuse, his desperate excesses. Sometimes, for one second it goes quiet; Went lays Cardozza down, Told wanders through his mansion, going to madness.
This is a straioghtforward masterpiece, desperately exciting, beautiful to look at, sublime in its scale and scope. We have barely touched on the masterful nature of the work in this piece. Perfect?
We start off with some wonderful scenes, episodic in the way it has the tales as this Mabuse character operates in different roles. We have some questions of identity, of evil, of doubles; who is Mabuse? Are they all Mabuse? These questions gain traction as it goes on, it is a question about the move towards the end of Weimar Germany. The scenes are of great drama, they raise fascinatingly movements of the will. The idea of Mabuse turning those he manipulates into robots, the terror of the loss of the will, is also brilliantly conveyed. Our favourite scene, by the by, is perhaps the stock market scene. As the penguin-like man rises above, we have a moment of terrifying, sublime transcendence.
The characters change as it goes on, Mabuse becomes more absurd, becomes more made up. Throughout, the female characters are heavily made up, most effectively portrayed by the relentless high tone lighting, that shines on the blacks and makes a mask of the face. The idea of the robot among men, the automaton, returns.
The atmosphere is evoked of a dirty morally compromised turn towards pure evil, the wonderful expressionist sets. Yet this film is smarter than that. In part Two we learn our characters more, we see how Wenk and Mabuse are similar (characterisation is important throughout; Lang is keen on his P.O.V. shots). We learn to sympathise with Mabuse, his desperate excesses. Sometimes, for one second it goes quiet; Went lays Cardozza down, Told wanders through his mansion, going to madness.
This is a straioghtforward masterpiece, desperately exciting, beautiful to look at, sublime in its scale and scope. We have barely touched on the masterful nature of the work in this piece. Perfect?
Thursday 9 September 2010
Le Pere Des Mes Enfants (The Father Of My Children)
Another look at Mia Hanen-Love's recent piece.
Last time out we found it unbalanced, but this may have been a little unfair. The film is almost deliberately unbalanced, the 'event' at the centre destroying the centrifugal force of the film and instead turn it into a game of empty rooms, of waiting, of a lack of a central drive. This is conveyed rather well.
The start, with the repeated and repeated and repeated shots of people walking past the camera, the camaera looking on plaintatively, is again impressive. As is the fact that the life depicted is rather sweet, when on paper it should be furiously annoying.
We really enjoyed it a lot more this time, it is a relaxed, at times joyful, but always confused, study of a certain kind of life. Everything and the kitchen sink is chucked in, there wasn't a lot of editing here, and about a hundred different plot strands jump up. These are always carried through with conviction though, only a couple of times misstepping slightly, so the full does justify its run time, even if you certainly feel you've been watching it for a good time.
Better than on last viewing, certainly an interesting and worthwhile piece of recent cinema.
Last time out we found it unbalanced, but this may have been a little unfair. The film is almost deliberately unbalanced, the 'event' at the centre destroying the centrifugal force of the film and instead turn it into a game of empty rooms, of waiting, of a lack of a central drive. This is conveyed rather well.
The start, with the repeated and repeated and repeated shots of people walking past the camera, the camaera looking on plaintatively, is again impressive. As is the fact that the life depicted is rather sweet, when on paper it should be furiously annoying.
We really enjoyed it a lot more this time, it is a relaxed, at times joyful, but always confused, study of a certain kind of life. Everything and the kitchen sink is chucked in, there wasn't a lot of editing here, and about a hundred different plot strands jump up. These are always carried through with conviction though, only a couple of times misstepping slightly, so the full does justify its run time, even if you certainly feel you've been watching it for a good time.
Better than on last viewing, certainly an interesting and worthwhile piece of recent cinema.
Scener Ur Ett Aktenskap (Scenes From A Marriage)
Bergman's 1973 endless meditation on marriage and relationships, with only two real characters. Very popular, highly lauded as a masterwork in certain circles. Nearly three hours long, and felt every second.
We're not going to deny that technically it is very well shot. The huge quantity of material is well paced and wonderfully edited. The performances are often note perfect depictions of naturalistic acting, the script has a couple of profound moments.
But we gave three cheers at its conclusion, were counting down the seconds before. Visually, it's just bourgeois drawing rooms shot with a focus on the face. Nice enough, but are attention span can't cope. The screenplay is so utterly humourless and lacking in consequence as to be absurd. Yes, these people are in a relationship like many others, no, we don't care. This is just some rich Swedes mooning over their relationship, yes we're all a bit like that, but do we have to be told? It is all magnificently boring, the character's supposed great self-refelction actually hides a lack of awareness of how broing they are. Talk about something else. Even better, stop talking and go outside.
The talking just goes on and on and on, quite deliberately going around in circles. It isn't too embarrassingly undergraduate (save for a couple of moments) but only piques the interest once every five minutes or so.
This is too boring people being boring for three hours. An excercise of techinical and historical interest perhaps, but about as fun as crouching in a ditch.
We're not going to deny that technically it is very well shot. The huge quantity of material is well paced and wonderfully edited. The performances are often note perfect depictions of naturalistic acting, the script has a couple of profound moments.
But we gave three cheers at its conclusion, were counting down the seconds before. Visually, it's just bourgeois drawing rooms shot with a focus on the face. Nice enough, but are attention span can't cope. The screenplay is so utterly humourless and lacking in consequence as to be absurd. Yes, these people are in a relationship like many others, no, we don't care. This is just some rich Swedes mooning over their relationship, yes we're all a bit like that, but do we have to be told? It is all magnificently boring, the character's supposed great self-refelction actually hides a lack of awareness of how broing they are. Talk about something else. Even better, stop talking and go outside.
The talking just goes on and on and on, quite deliberately going around in circles. It isn't too embarrassingly undergraduate (save for a couple of moments) but only piques the interest once every five minutes or so.
This is too boring people being boring for three hours. An excercise of techinical and historical interest perhaps, but about as fun as crouching in a ditch.
Wednesday 8 September 2010
The Fall Of The House Of Usher (+ Ghosts Before Breakfast)
One very short film (9mins), by the German Dada and Surrealist artist Hans Richter, made in 1928, 'Ghosts Before Breakfast'. Genuinely surrealist in its reapprasial of the everyday, the inanimate become animate, this is a fun film and one with a none-too subtle message (fetish quality of the object, comes to control us and rear up a life of its own), but interesting scenery and set design. The actual filming, using stop motion and different speeds, is experimental rather than assured, but shows a good sense of using cinema. Good fun.
The main feature is the hour long adaption of the great Poe story (with a little of 'The Oval Portrait'), made in 1928 by Jean Epstein. This was a sensational cinematic experience, beautiful, moving, powerful, eerie, elegiac.
Cited as a piece of surrealism or expressionism, this film refuses to fit into its category. Unlike the oft-compared 'Der Kabinet Des Doktor Caligari' this film uses pretty realist, straightforward sets. The atmosphere is eerie in a way much more similar to Dreyer's 'Vampyre', in its use of the veryday to confuse. The long rooms look underused, too little furniture, this kind of 'offsetting' rather than in your face expressionism. Indeed, the montage itself is not so much surreal as symbloic, an expressive holding of the narrative and metaphor. The eerie nature is generated by other mean.
Perhaps this is partly the exposure, the whites all incredibly burnt out. This film was presumably filmed in the dark, we have wonderful tiny texture differences of blackness and the most terrifying shafts of white brightness, that stun and kill and surround the house. Applied well to the set, this is exacerbated by its use on the characters. This film has the most expressive and brilliant use of front-lighting, especially on Roderick, who gets a lot of close ups and in whose blank features the sympathetic mystery and power of this film detonate, while leaving no difference on the shiny surface.
Around this kind of power we have a lot of tradtional camera shots, even if the order of what is shown and the subject are, though not surreal certainly expressive montage, there is a discipline in the use of /lond/mid/close up. This has exceptions, the coffin carrying and the start where we nip around the characters, the movement camera to follow speeding horse on occassion, not overused.
There are some incredibly beautiful shots here, the long shots of the castle room, helped by the above mentioned minimal sets and exposures, are simply incredible. Elegiac, the tiny figures move like rock marionettes across the horribly flat dancefloor. The thing, if we could pick on, we loved most about this film is perhaps the slow-downed frame speed. In 'Nosferatu' speed is terrifying, here sloth means a dreaminess, a sadness, a great beauty and understanding (Wong ar Wai in 'Chungking Express'? In 'In The Mood For Love' he's certainly knicked the wind on the curtains...). Impossible in sound cinema, here is the silent art at its best; the Poe atmosphere couldn't be better conveyed by this slight slow speed, the forethought, the fog of narrative, the fire that burns slowly and we wish to touch it, it tempts. Difficult to explain how the frame speed really does take this film to a higher level.
The narrative montage is key to the atmosphere, it is faithful to Poe in tone and adds more creep and melancholy than perhaps any of the filming techniques do. At the beginning we have a nice hide of the narrator, then the sudden reveal of Roderick, to disorientate. Roderick is main here, as mentioned above, his mystery and smiling whiteness leaving the viewer sympathetic but unclear. It appears always underplayed, mannered, despite moments of potential melodrama (and some melodramtic acting gestures, but done in a way as though the characters are at a distance, wathcning there own performances through frezen glass). The ambiguity of the ending, her death or not, seeps in slowly, around a narrative that does rather hammer its point home.
This is a sensational viewing experience, the genuine art of silent cinema is the form that can express such beauty, majesty, pathos. True art, the great cinema.
The main feature is the hour long adaption of the great Poe story (with a little of 'The Oval Portrait'), made in 1928 by Jean Epstein. This was a sensational cinematic experience, beautiful, moving, powerful, eerie, elegiac.
Cited as a piece of surrealism or expressionism, this film refuses to fit into its category. Unlike the oft-compared 'Der Kabinet Des Doktor Caligari' this film uses pretty realist, straightforward sets. The atmosphere is eerie in a way much more similar to Dreyer's 'Vampyre', in its use of the veryday to confuse. The long rooms look underused, too little furniture, this kind of 'offsetting' rather than in your face expressionism. Indeed, the montage itself is not so much surreal as symbloic, an expressive holding of the narrative and metaphor. The eerie nature is generated by other mean.
Perhaps this is partly the exposure, the whites all incredibly burnt out. This film was presumably filmed in the dark, we have wonderful tiny texture differences of blackness and the most terrifying shafts of white brightness, that stun and kill and surround the house. Applied well to the set, this is exacerbated by its use on the characters. This film has the most expressive and brilliant use of front-lighting, especially on Roderick, who gets a lot of close ups and in whose blank features the sympathetic mystery and power of this film detonate, while leaving no difference on the shiny surface.
Around this kind of power we have a lot of tradtional camera shots, even if the order of what is shown and the subject are, though not surreal certainly expressive montage, there is a discipline in the use of /lond/mid/close up. This has exceptions, the coffin carrying and the start where we nip around the characters, the movement camera to follow speeding horse on occassion, not overused.
There are some incredibly beautiful shots here, the long shots of the castle room, helped by the above mentioned minimal sets and exposures, are simply incredible. Elegiac, the tiny figures move like rock marionettes across the horribly flat dancefloor. The thing, if we could pick on, we loved most about this film is perhaps the slow-downed frame speed. In 'Nosferatu' speed is terrifying, here sloth means a dreaminess, a sadness, a great beauty and understanding (Wong ar Wai in 'Chungking Express'? In 'In The Mood For Love' he's certainly knicked the wind on the curtains...). Impossible in sound cinema, here is the silent art at its best; the Poe atmosphere couldn't be better conveyed by this slight slow speed, the forethought, the fog of narrative, the fire that burns slowly and we wish to touch it, it tempts. Difficult to explain how the frame speed really does take this film to a higher level.
The narrative montage is key to the atmosphere, it is faithful to Poe in tone and adds more creep and melancholy than perhaps any of the filming techniques do. At the beginning we have a nice hide of the narrator, then the sudden reveal of Roderick, to disorientate. Roderick is main here, as mentioned above, his mystery and smiling whiteness leaving the viewer sympathetic but unclear. It appears always underplayed, mannered, despite moments of potential melodrama (and some melodramtic acting gestures, but done in a way as though the characters are at a distance, wathcning there own performances through frezen glass). The ambiguity of the ending, her death or not, seeps in slowly, around a narrative that does rather hammer its point home.
This is a sensational viewing experience, the genuine art of silent cinema is the form that can express such beauty, majesty, pathos. True art, the great cinema.
Persona
In 1966 Ingmar Bergman certainly wasn't pulling any punches with this much lauded (it appears on some 'greatest ever movie' lists) and ambitious, rather short, piece of art-cinema. We found it powerful, thoughtful, exciting, and a little bit dated in some areas.
First the positives; the ambition of the montage, the wonderful use (again) of contrast. The tired whites gave a wonderful example. It is also a fasconating story, the expression of two women who may be one women, the slow bleeding (almost literal) of one to the other is evoked not through being overdone but through a pacing of story that manages to not be slow but at once take you in through the side-corridor. The repitions and so on at the end create a striking dream scape, questions ask that you are not quite sure how to phrase.
This film isn't particularly subtle, and parts of the imagery and tone can appear rather pretentious (partly as they have been over and badly used elsewhere). To a degree, everyone needs a slap. But this film does not drag itself over the audience, whenever one wants to really stick the knife in it changes, with an interesting new visual or thematic scene.
An exciting and interesting film, one we shall perhaps revisit and enjoy more. For now, we are happy to have seen it, quite simply.
First the positives; the ambition of the montage, the wonderful use (again) of contrast. The tired whites gave a wonderful example. It is also a fasconating story, the expression of two women who may be one women, the slow bleeding (almost literal) of one to the other is evoked not through being overdone but through a pacing of story that manages to not be slow but at once take you in through the side-corridor. The repitions and so on at the end create a striking dream scape, questions ask that you are not quite sure how to phrase.
This film isn't particularly subtle, and parts of the imagery and tone can appear rather pretentious (partly as they have been over and badly used elsewhere). To a degree, everyone needs a slap. But this film does not drag itself over the audience, whenever one wants to really stick the knife in it changes, with an interesting new visual or thematic scene.
An exciting and interesting film, one we shall perhaps revisit and enjoy more. For now, we are happy to have seen it, quite simply.
Tuesday 7 September 2010
Smultronstallet (Wild Strawberries)
Ingmar Bergman, 1957. This is a fine movie, in many ways traditional but also excellent beyond that. The screenplay is masterful, the images compelling, and it features a terrific ending.
First the look; again the sharp contrasts of the angular shadows, the strong blacks and whites, always very sharp. We have wonderful texturing in the by turns harsh and soft light of the lead female and lead male's faces, the grains. The dream sequence near the start is also, much copied so can appear a little hokey, a fascinatingly shot, exposed and scripted piece. Many copies have been over obvious, but Bergman does not give his secrets away so easily.
The story goes along nicely, deliberately not quite adding up to what we traditonally belive it may. The collision of past and present does not seem so much like a trick as the most realist possible evocation of our protagonist's head.
The script, as Bergman can, gets a little bit over-intellectualised and a little second year student, but is generally rescued before this becomes too much of a portentuous problem. Largely it is enjoyable mixed with undertones of wider truth.
And the ending too; refusing a fetish of a pastoral idyll, or laughable pessimism, or anything that we can express right here, really. Wonderful, powerful, and a rare example of that over-used word in relation to the movies, 'profound'.
First the look; again the sharp contrasts of the angular shadows, the strong blacks and whites, always very sharp. We have wonderful texturing in the by turns harsh and soft light of the lead female and lead male's faces, the grains. The dream sequence near the start is also, much copied so can appear a little hokey, a fascinatingly shot, exposed and scripted piece. Many copies have been over obvious, but Bergman does not give his secrets away so easily.
The story goes along nicely, deliberately not quite adding up to what we traditonally belive it may. The collision of past and present does not seem so much like a trick as the most realist possible evocation of our protagonist's head.
The script, as Bergman can, gets a little bit over-intellectualised and a little second year student, but is generally rescued before this becomes too much of a portentuous problem. Largely it is enjoyable mixed with undertones of wider truth.
And the ending too; refusing a fetish of a pastoral idyll, or laughable pessimism, or anything that we can express right here, really. Wonderful, powerful, and a rare example of that over-used word in relation to the movies, 'profound'.
Musik I Morker (Music In Darkness)
The Swedish master Ingmar Bergman's 1948 film was one of his first, it isn't particularly complex or ambitious. It is good enough to watch though, and one can tell the director behind it is not of the ordinary, is special.
The plot could be over traditional but is handled nice and grimly. We have a genuine sense of stasis and of the swampy afterglow of tragedy, this feeling never quite goes away, however conventional the plot could be written on paper (it is no doubt rather cliched, and a little irritating).
It is visually thought that we have our interest. Bergman is the master of the shadow, and he dresses sets, if books and faces, so to seem to enhance the way the light falls. Good quick exposure on this leads to sharp angular shadows, and terrific textures in the darkness. He uses contrast very strongly, giving a sharp and distinct look.
As far as mis-en-shot, Bergman studies the human face. Alongside techniques such as character-tracking, loong isolation shots, changing in a conversation between cutting between and both in frame (Bergman doesn't quite settle down on one style, it can be a little experimental in a understated way) Bergman always makes sure that we either have a good close up or at least keep the reactions of the non-speaking in shit, to understand. Teasing out wonderful, not emotionless but far from hysterical performances, we have a film that really preaches the dignity of its characters.
A bit cliched and hoary, a little hurdy gurdy Scandanavian, but a striking introduction to Bergman also, ina number of respects.
The plot could be over traditional but is handled nice and grimly. We have a genuine sense of stasis and of the swampy afterglow of tragedy, this feeling never quite goes away, however conventional the plot could be written on paper (it is no doubt rather cliched, and a little irritating).
It is visually thought that we have our interest. Bergman is the master of the shadow, and he dresses sets, if books and faces, so to seem to enhance the way the light falls. Good quick exposure on this leads to sharp angular shadows, and terrific textures in the darkness. He uses contrast very strongly, giving a sharp and distinct look.
As far as mis-en-shot, Bergman studies the human face. Alongside techniques such as character-tracking, loong isolation shots, changing in a conversation between cutting between and both in frame (Bergman doesn't quite settle down on one style, it can be a little experimental in a understated way) Bergman always makes sure that we either have a good close up or at least keep the reactions of the non-speaking in shit, to understand. Teasing out wonderful, not emotionless but far from hysterical performances, we have a film that really preaches the dignity of its characters.
A bit cliched and hoary, a little hurdy gurdy Scandanavian, but a striking introduction to Bergman also, ina number of respects.
Cet Obscur Objet Du Desir (That Obscure Object Of Desire)
Luis Bunuel's final film, made in 1977, this is really a terrific film, a good narrative offset, played with, and framed within the Bunuelean landscape of fetish and artifice.
Again, we have the traditional filming methods. The interesting framing device of the train also adds a certain postmodern interest, we wonder from then on about perspective. Why are we seeing the film from this angle? Is it sexist.
We make the embarrasing admission that, until alerted to the fact after the film, we didn't notice the lead female was played by two actors. This shows the success of the move; we have a genuine doubling of personality, but through the frame of the man who trya to pull all together we have a wonderful sense of fakery, of the very art of film that tries to connect the unconnected.
The story is an interesting meditation, often very entertaining (and marvellously acted) on what we desire, why we want it. Mystery is succesfully created through the almost noir-ish following of one character.
The final scenes are terrific, the sewing, the bombs. The terrorist, deadpanned sublots hints at something throughout nicely, perhaps it could be a little over obvious but it isn't thrust in the face too much.
It is too easy to read this film, which couldn't have been known to be Bunuel's last, as some kind of summary of his career, but it is tempting. The last shot is magnificent, powerful, nearly funny in its prescience.
A good tale of interesting themes, well told with Bunuel's distinctive style. He still had it.
Again, we have the traditional filming methods. The interesting framing device of the train also adds a certain postmodern interest, we wonder from then on about perspective. Why are we seeing the film from this angle? Is it sexist.
We make the embarrasing admission that, until alerted to the fact after the film, we didn't notice the lead female was played by two actors. This shows the success of the move; we have a genuine doubling of personality, but through the frame of the man who trya to pull all together we have a wonderful sense of fakery, of the very art of film that tries to connect the unconnected.
The story is an interesting meditation, often very entertaining (and marvellously acted) on what we desire, why we want it. Mystery is succesfully created through the almost noir-ish following of one character.
The final scenes are terrific, the sewing, the bombs. The terrorist, deadpanned sublots hints at something throughout nicely, perhaps it could be a little over obvious but it isn't thrust in the face too much.
It is too easy to read this film, which couldn't have been known to be Bunuel's last, as some kind of summary of his career, but it is tempting. The last shot is magnificent, powerful, nearly funny in its prescience.
A good tale of interesting themes, well told with Bunuel's distinctive style. He still had it.
Monday 6 September 2010
Le Fantome De La Liberte (The Phantom Of Liberty)
1974, so late Bunuel, a series of tenuously connected vignettes that is one of Bunuel's most genuinely surrealist films.
We have spoken about the camerawork, which is of course not entirely simple but remains largely just a way of framing the action in a simple manner. Let's talk about the rest of the movie.
The connections between the scenes are interesting, playing on our guesses of who we will follow and what we will stick with. Within the scenes themselves this also happens; we think we can see something coming, yet it fails to. This is genuine surrealism; confounding expectations, even if what does the confounding can in actualy fact be rather more mundane than what we are led to expect to happen. Sometimes nearly nothing can happen at all, but we are kept on edge as we expect, we expect something to.
Not to say that there aren't some pleasinginly wierd things going on here, the non-missing child perhaps the most fun, and the oddly ambiguous nephew and aunt the most succesful.
This isn't Bunuel's best, it is rather a game with the audience than anything particularly powerful or larger than that, and on occasion may appear a tiny bit inconsequential for that. This shouldn't be the case; Bunuel is always doing something, whether he chooses to make it around a central narrative or not. Perhaps it works better when it is, but this nice change of pace is fun enough.
We have spoken about the camerawork, which is of course not entirely simple but remains largely just a way of framing the action in a simple manner. Let's talk about the rest of the movie.
The connections between the scenes are interesting, playing on our guesses of who we will follow and what we will stick with. Within the scenes themselves this also happens; we think we can see something coming, yet it fails to. This is genuine surrealism; confounding expectations, even if what does the confounding can in actualy fact be rather more mundane than what we are led to expect to happen. Sometimes nearly nothing can happen at all, but we are kept on edge as we expect, we expect something to.
Not to say that there aren't some pleasinginly wierd things going on here, the non-missing child perhaps the most fun, and the oddly ambiguous nephew and aunt the most succesful.
This isn't Bunuel's best, it is rather a game with the audience than anything particularly powerful or larger than that, and on occasion may appear a tiny bit inconsequential for that. This shouldn't be the case; Bunuel is always doing something, whether he chooses to make it around a central narrative or not. Perhaps it works better when it is, but this nice change of pace is fun enough.
Les Quatre Cents Coups (The 400 Blows)
When one thinks 'nouvelle vague' one may, thanks to 'A Bout De Souffle', think quick jump cuts and jerky camerawork. Francois Truffaut's 1959 masterpiece does not use these tropes at all, yet manages to give us a new cinema. The dedication to Andre Bazin is generally a stylistic one, the long takes and the genuine respect for a realist image all very much there. Truffaut is just smart enough to realise that realism and auteur theory very much go together.
This long often wide angle takes mean we have a sense of a boy on the edge of proceedings, even as the narrative follows him (though notably the camera often does not when his parents are around). The story is a classic. It is funny, with diversions and frankly every scene being a joy in itself, loosely connected. There is also though here real thought and emotional depth, these never appearing heavy handed due partly to the stunning performance of our lead (the greatest child performance we can call to mind, he is a little man and a genuine boy) and a lightness of sound.
Paris looks terrific, shot with long long exposures to give us a real sense of texture, and for reasons that this film was made on the streets with natural light. The heavy grains give this a nice verite feel, whether or not this was Truffaut's intention.
The final scenes are of course remarkable, genuinely existential in the best possible way, beyond the Americanisms of the existentialists.
When we first saw this film we loved it. It was our favourite piece of cinema form the new wave. These two superlatives both still apply, this is truly, with its lightness and its thought, one of the great pieces of cinema. More than a classic, a masterpiece.
This long often wide angle takes mean we have a sense of a boy on the edge of proceedings, even as the narrative follows him (though notably the camera often does not when his parents are around). The story is a classic. It is funny, with diversions and frankly every scene being a joy in itself, loosely connected. There is also though here real thought and emotional depth, these never appearing heavy handed due partly to the stunning performance of our lead (the greatest child performance we can call to mind, he is a little man and a genuine boy) and a lightness of sound.
Paris looks terrific, shot with long long exposures to give us a real sense of texture, and for reasons that this film was made on the streets with natural light. The heavy grains give this a nice verite feel, whether or not this was Truffaut's intention.
The final scenes are of course remarkable, genuinely existential in the best possible way, beyond the Americanisms of the existentialists.
When we first saw this film we loved it. It was our favourite piece of cinema form the new wave. These two superlatives both still apply, this is truly, with its lightness and its thought, one of the great pieces of cinema. More than a classic, a masterpiece.
Holubice (The White Dove)
1960, Frantisek Vlacil's first film as director. There are a lot of rookie mistakes and annopyances, it isn't the greatest watch ever, but there's enough here to get us excited about a future career.
The manin problem is the plot or rather the lack of it. It is a very short film but still seems rather long, what movement there is is rather ponderous and telegraphs. The metaphors and allusions are fair enough, nice and ambitious, but come at you with something approaching the subtedly of a chainsaw to the face. It appears a bit portentous and, dare we say it, pretentious.
Where this film does point to better things is in the extremely distinctive visual element. We have wonderful differing uses of contrast, the simple black and whites, with few in between (caused by the mis-en-scene the longer exposures, the 'straighter' lighting) of the city, causing nice strong contasts of stubble etc, is nicely set with the manifold greys and side lit textures of the seaside. Scale is also nicely played with in the liftshaft, and in the way our people are at once humbled by monumental, vertical camerawork, while at once this is obviously a humanist filmaker in his almost Soviet focus on dignity and the momentous human face.
If Vlacil learns to use these images better, we're in a for a treat. This particular film though doesn't quite work, as the delivery is mawkish however much sincere truth there may be in the faceless child who releases the dove.
The manin problem is the plot or rather the lack of it. It is a very short film but still seems rather long, what movement there is is rather ponderous and telegraphs. The metaphors and allusions are fair enough, nice and ambitious, but come at you with something approaching the subtedly of a chainsaw to the face. It appears a bit portentous and, dare we say it, pretentious.
Where this film does point to better things is in the extremely distinctive visual element. We have wonderful differing uses of contrast, the simple black and whites, with few in between (caused by the mis-en-scene the longer exposures, the 'straighter' lighting) of the city, causing nice strong contasts of stubble etc, is nicely set with the manifold greys and side lit textures of the seaside. Scale is also nicely played with in the liftshaft, and in the way our people are at once humbled by monumental, vertical camerawork, while at once this is obviously a humanist filmaker in his almost Soviet focus on dignity and the momentous human face.
If Vlacil learns to use these images better, we're in a for a treat. This particular film though doesn't quite work, as the delivery is mawkish however much sincere truth there may be in the faceless child who releases the dove.
Sunday 5 September 2010
Le Charme Discret De La Bourgeoisie (The Discreet Charm Of The Bourgeoisie)
1972, genuinely surrealist piece from Luis Bunuel.
Again, the minimalist direction. Used here to heighten the distancing effect, the way that the characters seem to be following a disconnected script.
The plot, of the delayed meal, always stays on the side of the just about plausible. Bunuel has a funny habit of doing this; his partner in crime (late French period) Carriere talks of how they did not want to create anything too much, too grating, and indeed in a twisted way everything here could actually happen. The dream/wake could almost be a cliche now, but it is paced well enough to get away.
Our personal favourite moments? The rather matter of fact way that they turn out be cociane dealers, and also the almost sympathetic portrayal of the priest, that is if Bunuel could non-ironically see the value of a gardener.
This film is meant to be relatively sympathetic about the bourgeoisie, but there is little evidence of that really. These people come across as deluded, directionless. Not that anyone else is portrayed better, but they seem truly sightless.
Quite a one-dimensional film in a way, but what it does explore it does with wit and finesse. Another excellent piece.
Again, the minimalist direction. Used here to heighten the distancing effect, the way that the characters seem to be following a disconnected script.
The plot, of the delayed meal, always stays on the side of the just about plausible. Bunuel has a funny habit of doing this; his partner in crime (late French period) Carriere talks of how they did not want to create anything too much, too grating, and indeed in a twisted way everything here could actually happen. The dream/wake could almost be a cliche now, but it is paced well enough to get away.
Our personal favourite moments? The rather matter of fact way that they turn out be cociane dealers, and also the almost sympathetic portrayal of the priest, that is if Bunuel could non-ironically see the value of a gardener.
This film is meant to be relatively sympathetic about the bourgeoisie, but there is little evidence of that really. These people come across as deluded, directionless. Not that anyone else is portrayed better, but they seem truly sightless.
Quite a one-dimensional film in a way, but what it does explore it does with wit and finesse. Another excellent piece.
Sentiment
This 2003 kind-of-documentary about the late Czech director Frantisek Vlacil is simply a stunning experience to watch. It is a collection of reenacted interviews, stark shots of the old mans room, and various shots of the woods in his films.
The light contrast is fascinating. The black sillouhettes and the burnt out sunlight give a kind of organic eerieness, an intensity and a deolation. The small figures in the huge background, standing alone. The slow camera movement, a return to the love of the image which is let to speak for itself. One can read the inevitability of destruction, of pointlessness here; indeed, it is there. But there is a certain beauty and even humour, a certain noumenal quality.
The light really is fascinating. How the choice of light on the old man's face at once washes out texture, it covers half his face as black and the other in whites. Yet at times the texture of the various greys is allowed to show.
The conversation itself is at once utterly uninformative, parochial, and also intensely beautiful. In its' very process of inquisition it bursts its own pretension, an obvious feature. The messages, the unconnected senteces are indeed hillarious, but also wonderfully present a non-stylised picture of an actual human being, full of bullshit and fragility but also an epic, Ahab-esque character.
A short, stark, beautiful piece of filmaking.
The light contrast is fascinating. The black sillouhettes and the burnt out sunlight give a kind of organic eerieness, an intensity and a deolation. The small figures in the huge background, standing alone. The slow camera movement, a return to the love of the image which is let to speak for itself. One can read the inevitability of destruction, of pointlessness here; indeed, it is there. But there is a certain beauty and even humour, a certain noumenal quality.
The light really is fascinating. How the choice of light on the old man's face at once washes out texture, it covers half his face as black and the other in whites. Yet at times the texture of the various greys is allowed to show.
The conversation itself is at once utterly uninformative, parochial, and also intensely beautiful. In its' very process of inquisition it bursts its own pretension, an obvious feature. The messages, the unconnected senteces are indeed hillarious, but also wonderfully present a non-stylised picture of an actual human being, full of bullshit and fragility but also an epic, Ahab-esque character.
A short, stark, beautiful piece of filmaking.
Saturday 4 September 2010
Tristana
1970, Bunuel returns to Denueve. A story of old age and obsession. Also of youth, of compromises, of how love is twisted by the Church and by bourgeois values.
We won't rehearse the same lines about Bunuel using simple direction, pans to frame, and so on. A couple of comments only are necessary: Toledo is here shown more than some of Bunuel's other cities, we feel the atmosphere invades everywhere, everyone. Secondly, it would be wrong not to say that Bunuel is entirely simply, he does focus on certain things, objects. There is a wonderful story about Hitchcock describing one scene in this movie 'The camera pans from hands....to leg....to woman, and it is a different woman'. Although it is actually a cut, not a pan, the point stands. The picking out of in themselves nothing objects contains in it actually a whole world, a crazy world of constant changes. This requires an intelligence and sensitivity in the viewer that sometimes we feel we are not up to.
As for plot, we felt less sympathy towards the old man than perhaps many may. His belief in socialism, combined with his inability to take to his own 'personal' life, is mercilessly shown. Sympathy is hard to come by, unless one has perhaps lived a whole life themselves. This is a femininst film in many ways, even though we don't get to know Tristana too well. All men dissapoint. The scenes of Tristana clumping around, like the heartbeat of a conscious, are intense and angry.
As always, we have scenes and ambiguities (the mute/dumb?) that are hard to trace. We must learn not to try.
Like the films of Bresson, we appreciate watching Bunuel, but would be lying if we said we had quite achieved the point of love, or of understanding (not a facile diconstructive understanding, rather a 'letting be' embracal of the complexities of the piece). Maybe it'll take time. For now, simply a fascinating pleasure.
We won't rehearse the same lines about Bunuel using simple direction, pans to frame, and so on. A couple of comments only are necessary: Toledo is here shown more than some of Bunuel's other cities, we feel the atmosphere invades everywhere, everyone. Secondly, it would be wrong not to say that Bunuel is entirely simply, he does focus on certain things, objects. There is a wonderful story about Hitchcock describing one scene in this movie 'The camera pans from hands....to leg....to woman, and it is a different woman'. Although it is actually a cut, not a pan, the point stands. The picking out of in themselves nothing objects contains in it actually a whole world, a crazy world of constant changes. This requires an intelligence and sensitivity in the viewer that sometimes we feel we are not up to.
As for plot, we felt less sympathy towards the old man than perhaps many may. His belief in socialism, combined with his inability to take to his own 'personal' life, is mercilessly shown. Sympathy is hard to come by, unless one has perhaps lived a whole life themselves. This is a femininst film in many ways, even though we don't get to know Tristana too well. All men dissapoint. The scenes of Tristana clumping around, like the heartbeat of a conscious, are intense and angry.
As always, we have scenes and ambiguities (the mute/dumb?) that are hard to trace. We must learn not to try.
Like the films of Bresson, we appreciate watching Bunuel, but would be lying if we said we had quite achieved the point of love, or of understanding (not a facile diconstructive understanding, rather a 'letting be' embracal of the complexities of the piece). Maybe it'll take time. For now, simply a fascinating pleasure.
La Voie Lactee (The Milky Way)
1969, Luis Bunuel, a real delight to watch, on religion. More surrealist than the other Bunuel films we have seen.
Again, the direction is simple and fluid. Let's talk about Bresson; the same idea recurs here, of simplicity in form. Why is this? The suggestion is that when Bunuel wishes to express that which is inexpressible in interpretation and language, in the gap between thoughts and dreams, the conscious and sub/un, he does not do this by focussing on the image. Instead, his surrealist tropes in dialogue, plot, and characterisation somehow portray and grammar that is inaccesible to analysis. The use of the bizarre words of Christ, the religious epiphanies, the absurdities of dogma that are at once rather beautiful...it does something.
This is obviously a film rather scathing about the relation of Church and Heresy, (the Priest coming through the room like light through a pane....) but is also rather more sympathetic than what ne might immediately think. The simplicity of Mary is intriguing. This film is also genuinely funny.
Whether or not the words of the man at the beginning menat anything, whether or not any of it does, is not really the question to be asked. It is the lazy reviewer who reviews a film by saying 'Watch It', but what is going on here can only be described as what goes on, there is no other language to use around it.
It paces well, is entertaining, and has a beauty.
Again, the direction is simple and fluid. Let's talk about Bresson; the same idea recurs here, of simplicity in form. Why is this? The suggestion is that when Bunuel wishes to express that which is inexpressible in interpretation and language, in the gap between thoughts and dreams, the conscious and sub/un, he does not do this by focussing on the image. Instead, his surrealist tropes in dialogue, plot, and characterisation somehow portray and grammar that is inaccesible to analysis. The use of the bizarre words of Christ, the religious epiphanies, the absurdities of dogma that are at once rather beautiful...it does something.
This is obviously a film rather scathing about the relation of Church and Heresy, (the Priest coming through the room like light through a pane....) but is also rather more sympathetic than what ne might immediately think. The simplicity of Mary is intriguing. This film is also genuinely funny.
Whether or not the words of the man at the beginning menat anything, whether or not any of it does, is not really the question to be asked. It is the lazy reviewer who reviews a film by saying 'Watch It', but what is going on here can only be described as what goes on, there is no other language to use around it.
It paces well, is entertaining, and has a beauty.
Certified Copy
The new film from the modern master Abbas Kiarostami, surely not just a great modern director but a great director, full stop.
This is his first film outside Iran, and for this he has dived into the European intellectual scene. We have the long discourses of some Godard, Rohmer (more on that later) and various French and Italian traditions. This is a very European film, but made through the Iranian's viewpoint gives it so much more interest than a homage.
First, the acting. Binoche is terrific, the woman on the edge of the verge. Is she selfish? Her relation to sensuality is also fascinating. Both characters have obvious contradictions and weaknesses, yet we do indeed come to understand them, and even to like Binoche. A fine performance. Shimmell is stagey, which we shall charitably put down as deliberate rather than amateurish acting. The kind of pompous, slightly stilted and fake delivery of lines in fact works rather well. What may be ignored is that this piece is rather funny, and criticisms from a realist about the 'untrue' or 'fake' interactions, 'that people don't really act like that', misses the point. This is an exploration of a kind of reality, not of a classic realist one.
The plot is one of the most interesting discussions of relationships since, well, Eric Rohmer (rather more complex and colder, but not dissimilar, to Linlater's Before Sunrise/Sunset). We have the ideas of little compromises, of if memory matters, and of a huge amount more. It takes some digesting, the threads thrown out and weaved in. Ultimately, we have people not willing to follow there own thoughts to their limits, but wishing for the right thing. What is this?
Visually, it may seem a little dissapointing. Kiarostami, after the first shot, does not go in so much for the simple balance that made, say, 'The Wind Will Carry Us' so incredible. Perhaps he couldn't find this in the complex and neurotic Europe. But it turns out that this film is not so much visually neglected as developed. As always it is simple takes, quite close in this time. Perhaps as it is a character piece. The Ozu influences are still there, obviously in the near direct homage of the staroght to camera conversation and the slight side on takes. The classic Kiarostami tactic (not quite so well developed in this movie, due to its attempt to focus on two characters rather than one) of sticking on a face when being spoken to rather than speaking is fitfully present. We love this, and in this piece the balance struck again reminded us of Eric Rohmer. It is relationships in reactions, surely a much underplayed fulcrum.
Also Kiarostami plays with depth, visually, more than before, some wonderful and powerful reactions gained and suggested through the use of mirrors, and of persepctive from doorways. His failure to use deep focus in these scenes perhaps requires a good think to uncover the reasons.
There are a couple more things to mention visually, the car scene not just being a Kiarostami return but given a kind of transcendental quality with the reflecting lights, as though they have come to enter another world, hyperspace. Also, the final scenes are magnificent, Binoche going Renaissance on us, the lighting being used to give and take emphasis.
This film is certainly odd in its story, the lack of realsim and stilted delivery occsaionally meaning we wonder how seriously to take the piece, but overall we enjoyed it very much. Fascinating on relationships, always interesting visually, Kiarostami has not made the greatest work he has made, but he has made a film that rises about 95% of the rest of cinema.
This is his first film outside Iran, and for this he has dived into the European intellectual scene. We have the long discourses of some Godard, Rohmer (more on that later) and various French and Italian traditions. This is a very European film, but made through the Iranian's viewpoint gives it so much more interest than a homage.
First, the acting. Binoche is terrific, the woman on the edge of the verge. Is she selfish? Her relation to sensuality is also fascinating. Both characters have obvious contradictions and weaknesses, yet we do indeed come to understand them, and even to like Binoche. A fine performance. Shimmell is stagey, which we shall charitably put down as deliberate rather than amateurish acting. The kind of pompous, slightly stilted and fake delivery of lines in fact works rather well. What may be ignored is that this piece is rather funny, and criticisms from a realist about the 'untrue' or 'fake' interactions, 'that people don't really act like that', misses the point. This is an exploration of a kind of reality, not of a classic realist one.
The plot is one of the most interesting discussions of relationships since, well, Eric Rohmer (rather more complex and colder, but not dissimilar, to Linlater's Before Sunrise/Sunset). We have the ideas of little compromises, of if memory matters, and of a huge amount more. It takes some digesting, the threads thrown out and weaved in. Ultimately, we have people not willing to follow there own thoughts to their limits, but wishing for the right thing. What is this?
Visually, it may seem a little dissapointing. Kiarostami, after the first shot, does not go in so much for the simple balance that made, say, 'The Wind Will Carry Us' so incredible. Perhaps he couldn't find this in the complex and neurotic Europe. But it turns out that this film is not so much visually neglected as developed. As always it is simple takes, quite close in this time. Perhaps as it is a character piece. The Ozu influences are still there, obviously in the near direct homage of the staroght to camera conversation and the slight side on takes. The classic Kiarostami tactic (not quite so well developed in this movie, due to its attempt to focus on two characters rather than one) of sticking on a face when being spoken to rather than speaking is fitfully present. We love this, and in this piece the balance struck again reminded us of Eric Rohmer. It is relationships in reactions, surely a much underplayed fulcrum.
Also Kiarostami plays with depth, visually, more than before, some wonderful and powerful reactions gained and suggested through the use of mirrors, and of persepctive from doorways. His failure to use deep focus in these scenes perhaps requires a good think to uncover the reasons.
There are a couple more things to mention visually, the car scene not just being a Kiarostami return but given a kind of transcendental quality with the reflecting lights, as though they have come to enter another world, hyperspace. Also, the final scenes are magnificent, Binoche going Renaissance on us, the lighting being used to give and take emphasis.
This film is certainly odd in its story, the lack of realsim and stilted delivery occsaionally meaning we wonder how seriously to take the piece, but overall we enjoyed it very much. Fascinating on relationships, always interesting visually, Kiarostami has not made the greatest work he has made, but he has made a film that rises about 95% of the rest of cinema.
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