The available, 85 minute long version of Welles 1942 tour
This film is magnificently elegant; it surely counts as one of Welles' least 'jarring' pictures, for all its wonderful images, there are few (though a few) of his sotospeak 'smashes' into the audience. Yes, there are close-ups, the wide angle, and a few jaw-dropping moments. But generally the form does not scream out at one; it rather creeps up, has the kind of melancholy elegance of the characters, with smart pans, creeping cranes, and restraint at showing action (what happens to Lucy at the drugstore? Her face, when we first see her, is also obscured).
Perhaps the film this runs most closely alongside is Resnais' 'L'Annee Derniere a Marienbad'. Obviously the decaying class, here given rather more analysis than Resnais, but also in many compostions. The use of two figures, standing in those huge open spaces. The Amberson house, like Resnais' hotel, is an incredible creation. Dappled, harsh lighting across wide open spaces, hangings and carpets and staircases all decaying. The staging here works with the camera; elegantly pushing them along. The stasis is presented with quite literal stillness; actors rooted to the spot. Yet the staging is wonderfully inventive; dead on 180' cuts pushing the action, tacks along that give a fluidity, the scene moving in one direction with the change to tableaus, the one actors move that cuts across everything (George crossing Eugene's eyeline on his last visit to Isabel). Their is, in classic Wellesean mood, some immense depth here; though conversations can well be had on one plane, something than then crop up in the background in a startling, but not 'in your face' way.
Welles does not pack his characters (in depth) on top of each other as much here as in 'Kane'. Their is more of a widescreen sense, of distance, of genuine balance of a horizontal space. He uses a variety of different compostions, long and portrait, all careful, changin, and, with the lighting, striking. Notable here is a scene of Isobel and George, side-on (as commonly done in this film), full does to each other, and slow movements. Time is witnessed.
Some scenes in this film are particularly special. An early one, as Eugene and Lucy leave the party, where Welles tracks slowly, creating different, moving tableaus, in half the frame, as in depth we have others leaving in the other section. Their is the famous long, long take, almost neo-realist, of Fanny and George's kitchen scene, before the intruder changes the callibration. This has the feature of contingency. Their are some remarkable camera movements, not shcoking but creeping; the pan to follow up the stairs, and around the rooms of the party.
What Welles exploits to a great extent in this film is lighting. It is often harsh, and constantly changes (even, unrealistically, in shot-reverse kind of schemas). Welles is not scared to plunge his leads into darkness, often with hard backlighting in perpendicular compostions. As they move, they move from one area of light to the other; the house if given physiogonomy as they burst into a patch of harsh light, striking dramatic moments. It can be hard, front on, to. The characters, alone in the emptying mansions rooms, are at once stuck in, part of it, like dust, but also stand out. This is often as they are the opposite; the light to the shade, the dark to the light, of the area they are in, but share a tone with the other side of the room (another feature of Welles' use of a wider screen).
The script here is explosive, and, with the few slightly out-of-character Welles' monologues, almost always perfect. Each line comes laced with historical and class truth, but at the same time speak directly to the situation. This comes surely from years spent devising the characters; maybe it's Tarkington's work, but then Welles' has the credit, and he can't have had so long.... it is subtle, but usually to the point.
The story proceeds, especially in the first half, with a wonderful sort of sliding-downhill momentum. It is a story of people caught in circumstances outside of them (more Eisenstein than classic Hollywood), and is a story about economics, but always through their lens. It jumps around near the end, and the last, non-Welles scene, is almost a joke. The themes of the decay, the new age where the children of the old, the crazy, obsessive, jealous bonds of family tie more than anything. This is no 'make way for the new'; it is a class rather than an age that is disintegrating with little dignity (Fanny surely has more than George). They are at once unsympathetic, and in a sense are trashed by Welles; yet we see their sheer inability, any kind of self-determination, so caught in a web, even those of a different class can recognise, and, if not quite sympathise, ask; 'why should we take pleasure in this boy's pain?'. It is attending a funeral.
The use of voiceover, the story at the start (breaking in diagetic/ non-diagetic) gives, (with camera angles) the critical distance needed. We are with this film, rather than in it. Yet we are inside the mind of someone, or something; Welles. And as the story breaks up to the studio edit (of course, this might not have been noticed if we hadn't known this before, but I'll continue my little story), we nearly take the film's side against itself; we are truer to the film more than the concrete film is true to itself. As the wonderful end credits, Welles, though always self-aggrandising, being peculiarly quiet, almost modest, one has the feeling that there is no position outside the dying we have seen so masterfully displayed; we too, the cinematic dreamer, who at least hopes to identify, who dreams of being on the same side as Welles; that side is dying too.
Saturday, 30 April 2011
Thursday, 28 April 2011
Gone With The Wind
David O Selznick's (Fleming, Wood, Cukor) 1939..... well, film
This film is pretty insane. Though the direction isn't. It is though elegantly and well done. In not much depth, staging or camera, we have shot-reverse, but also a lot of shots keeping the interlocurs close together. The general plan is flicking between this and much, much wider shots. Some of these are fine images (apart from the sets, even). The camera movements are often pans to the side, but there are also a few lovely flowing, presumably some kind of crane shots, down the ever present staircases. Mention should also go to some impressive, in not being overdone, track-ins (not zooms?) up to the face. This classic melodrama trick is really pulled off to perfection here; the trick itself, though obviously not the narrative, stays the right side of hokey.
And then there is the rest of the image. We have the absolutely mad technicolour, the mattes and backdrops, in their fiery colours. The reds, and the still terrific burning Georgia. We also have the wonderfully huge staircases, in the emptying mansions. Not only the sweeping moves down, but the general set-pieces. This couldn't help, at times, to make one think of Kane; the huge sweep of a life, the kind of alienation involved.
Lighting is generally the epitome of Hollywood golden age; soft to an absolutely unnaturalistic degree. Also not how many of the romantic scenes often to light from behind, so even with the fill what we actually see is largely in shadow.
The memorbale lines with the script add to a slight predictability about that part at times, though generally it is very good.
It is difficult not to, and has surely been done thousands of times, cross this film with 'Birth Of A Nation'. I would suggest the differences are largely cosmetic. The same atmosphere and structuring principles of domination, nastiness, and oppression stink up this film, for all its attempts to get out of it. 'Birth Of A Nation', in its vile character, foregrounds its racism. 'Gone With The Wind' lets it sink into the background; it makes the earlier film seem backward in that 'Birth...' hadn't yet had the amnesia, wasn't yet too under the thumb of a diseased consciousness to be able to completely forget its own roots in exploitation. One bizarre aspect of the race question here is how it keeps popping up, where it least 'should'. This film is right to be taken apart for ideological symptoms. The suggestion of the women as slaves is walked into, seemingly by accident, and this films relentless logic. Themes of oppression, domination, violence, are present throughout, always displaced.
While the first half to two thirds is directly comparable to 'Birth', it comes out as a melodrama, and a pretty insane one at that. The script, narrative structure, and acting is well done that this takes on a special sort of quality; ridiculous, silly, but in its deliriousness extremely powerful. It seems almost like a compilation, chucking on all the most extreme, 'turned to the max', emotional moments, one after the other, until they start dropping like flies. The themes don't stint; there is some nasty sexual violence from nearly all concerned, duplicity, a cyncialness about the central 'romance' (is it even a romance), and other miseries. These form the strangest multicoloured meal.
This film is so huge it contains many surprises (not least the end). The gothic element, the almost Soviet valoriaztion of the worker combined with a fascist soil-love, turns at one point into a strange Southern gothicism, shadows and all, and washed out greys of the land. The relations to everything, to the homestead, the concept of 'love', each other, are absolutely contradictory. This film's relentless logic, its refusal to compromise in any area, make it frankly pretty weird, as it accidentally displays the truth in so much that often seems opaque, shy.
Ultimately, I would take 'Birth' over this for the quality of filmmaking any day. The structure of that is better, the images frankly more exciting, varied, and simply more beautiful. The mis-en-scene here is a little wooden and staid in comparison. This film can be resisted, and I would say it must be ideologically; but it can't be denied as a kind of gazumping force, where so much of what is powerful turns into its opposite, and back into terror.
This film is pretty insane. Though the direction isn't. It is though elegantly and well done. In not much depth, staging or camera, we have shot-reverse, but also a lot of shots keeping the interlocurs close together. The general plan is flicking between this and much, much wider shots. Some of these are fine images (apart from the sets, even). The camera movements are often pans to the side, but there are also a few lovely flowing, presumably some kind of crane shots, down the ever present staircases. Mention should also go to some impressive, in not being overdone, track-ins (not zooms?) up to the face. This classic melodrama trick is really pulled off to perfection here; the trick itself, though obviously not the narrative, stays the right side of hokey.
And then there is the rest of the image. We have the absolutely mad technicolour, the mattes and backdrops, in their fiery colours. The reds, and the still terrific burning Georgia. We also have the wonderfully huge staircases, in the emptying mansions. Not only the sweeping moves down, but the general set-pieces. This couldn't help, at times, to make one think of Kane; the huge sweep of a life, the kind of alienation involved.
Lighting is generally the epitome of Hollywood golden age; soft to an absolutely unnaturalistic degree. Also not how many of the romantic scenes often to light from behind, so even with the fill what we actually see is largely in shadow.
The memorbale lines with the script add to a slight predictability about that part at times, though generally it is very good.
It is difficult not to, and has surely been done thousands of times, cross this film with 'Birth Of A Nation'. I would suggest the differences are largely cosmetic. The same atmosphere and structuring principles of domination, nastiness, and oppression stink up this film, for all its attempts to get out of it. 'Birth Of A Nation', in its vile character, foregrounds its racism. 'Gone With The Wind' lets it sink into the background; it makes the earlier film seem backward in that 'Birth...' hadn't yet had the amnesia, wasn't yet too under the thumb of a diseased consciousness to be able to completely forget its own roots in exploitation. One bizarre aspect of the race question here is how it keeps popping up, where it least 'should'. This film is right to be taken apart for ideological symptoms. The suggestion of the women as slaves is walked into, seemingly by accident, and this films relentless logic. Themes of oppression, domination, violence, are present throughout, always displaced.
While the first half to two thirds is directly comparable to 'Birth', it comes out as a melodrama, and a pretty insane one at that. The script, narrative structure, and acting is well done that this takes on a special sort of quality; ridiculous, silly, but in its deliriousness extremely powerful. It seems almost like a compilation, chucking on all the most extreme, 'turned to the max', emotional moments, one after the other, until they start dropping like flies. The themes don't stint; there is some nasty sexual violence from nearly all concerned, duplicity, a cyncialness about the central 'romance' (is it even a romance), and other miseries. These form the strangest multicoloured meal.
This film is so huge it contains many surprises (not least the end). The gothic element, the almost Soviet valoriaztion of the worker combined with a fascist soil-love, turns at one point into a strange Southern gothicism, shadows and all, and washed out greys of the land. The relations to everything, to the homestead, the concept of 'love', each other, are absolutely contradictory. This film's relentless logic, its refusal to compromise in any area, make it frankly pretty weird, as it accidentally displays the truth in so much that often seems opaque, shy.
Ultimately, I would take 'Birth' over this for the quality of filmmaking any day. The structure of that is better, the images frankly more exciting, varied, and simply more beautiful. The mis-en-scene here is a little wooden and staid in comparison. This film can be resisted, and I would say it must be ideologically; but it can't be denied as a kind of gazumping force, where so much of what is powerful turns into its opposite, and back into terror.
Wednesday, 27 April 2011
The Thin Red Line
Terrence Malick, 1998
Firstly, this is the most satisfying Terrence Malick movie in my experience, the one directed with the most assurance. The camera never is flustered; it never gets too close. 'Elegant' isn't really the word, but smooth and calm certainly are. The preffered framing is portraiture, but can be longer than that. Even the war scenes, though much faster cut and indeed going in close, have a certain calmness to them, in the edit as much as the image, that is rare. The moving camera does have this smoothness, the generally tracks. The 2.35:1 format is really terrically used, and entirely necessary. It allows these framings, which are relatively close, to still allow a wider picture, not to throw us too deeply in, to strike us.
They also crucially allow a stylistic feature of this film, the faces without speaking. Often edited from one to one, with a few off-screen voices, and available when two are in the frame, they add to this film's element of quiet, of stillness, along with the obvious psychology and acting ability (not overdone) allowed to be employed.
This film is entirely, seemingly, shot in the golden hour. Along with the magnificent 'scapes and the lush colour contrast (whatever film used), we have a soft feel, a rich and deeply beautiful feel. Malick does not mind allowing this landscape to intrude to the front, or often make up the content of, the frame.
For all the dialogue, which is poetic rather than naturalistic, silence is important here. Silent faces, even when their is a voiceover.
This is a good example of how much well-shot images can make up for the lack of traditional narrative, tension or surprise, in retainging interest. It is a case of an ensemble (not subjectless) cast, a sweeping undertow rathe than an explicit narrative.
As for the content; can one really make a war film? Does this film suffer from a lack of analysis? I'm not too sure this film has a lot to do with war; it nearly seems to have more to do with perception, the peacefulness of it, and the shocks that come to it. This combines with the film's equal nature-worship, and disgust at nature's brutality. This is an example of the film wishing to turn the tables on itself; nature is evil, the Japanese are real people (at times), the wife isn't perfect. I'm not sure this quite overcomes the sentimentality and wide-eyedness of the original set-ups; the 'home-front' parts are frankly ridiculous, even if justified as in the mind of the character. There is not so much an engagement with nature or companionship as a kind of yearning for 'oneness' that is at least self-reflexive, if not moving to much of a reasoned position beyond that.
Malick has well, and as I said assuredly, directed a fine picture. The images are rich, in colour and content (silence, width), the editing smartly and simply running us across the large cast, not snatching at people, letting them be in the background for a while.
Though I am far too underinformed to really comment, one almost wants to draw comparisons with Mizoguchi, even if Malick is obviously more commercial in his tighter framings and so on, and even with Kurosawa (whose 'shock' tendencies always seem to me secondary to the complex, always thoughtful shape of his images). These thoughts will only really be returnable too when I have seen a decent amount of Mizoguchi.
So, Malick is guilty, to a small degree, and with counterexamples and qualifications, to a slight wide-eyedness. This isn't so much a weakness as part of what makes him able to create such fine images, and develop them if never really progress them, otherwise. It would be unfair to say that this is anything less than an excellent work.
Firstly, this is the most satisfying Terrence Malick movie in my experience, the one directed with the most assurance. The camera never is flustered; it never gets too close. 'Elegant' isn't really the word, but smooth and calm certainly are. The preffered framing is portraiture, but can be longer than that. Even the war scenes, though much faster cut and indeed going in close, have a certain calmness to them, in the edit as much as the image, that is rare. The moving camera does have this smoothness, the generally tracks. The 2.35:1 format is really terrically used, and entirely necessary. It allows these framings, which are relatively close, to still allow a wider picture, not to throw us too deeply in, to strike us.
They also crucially allow a stylistic feature of this film, the faces without speaking. Often edited from one to one, with a few off-screen voices, and available when two are in the frame, they add to this film's element of quiet, of stillness, along with the obvious psychology and acting ability (not overdone) allowed to be employed.
This film is entirely, seemingly, shot in the golden hour. Along with the magnificent 'scapes and the lush colour contrast (whatever film used), we have a soft feel, a rich and deeply beautiful feel. Malick does not mind allowing this landscape to intrude to the front, or often make up the content of, the frame.
For all the dialogue, which is poetic rather than naturalistic, silence is important here. Silent faces, even when their is a voiceover.
This is a good example of how much well-shot images can make up for the lack of traditional narrative, tension or surprise, in retainging interest. It is a case of an ensemble (not subjectless) cast, a sweeping undertow rathe than an explicit narrative.
As for the content; can one really make a war film? Does this film suffer from a lack of analysis? I'm not too sure this film has a lot to do with war; it nearly seems to have more to do with perception, the peacefulness of it, and the shocks that come to it. This combines with the film's equal nature-worship, and disgust at nature's brutality. This is an example of the film wishing to turn the tables on itself; nature is evil, the Japanese are real people (at times), the wife isn't perfect. I'm not sure this quite overcomes the sentimentality and wide-eyedness of the original set-ups; the 'home-front' parts are frankly ridiculous, even if justified as in the mind of the character. There is not so much an engagement with nature or companionship as a kind of yearning for 'oneness' that is at least self-reflexive, if not moving to much of a reasoned position beyond that.
Malick has well, and as I said assuredly, directed a fine picture. The images are rich, in colour and content (silence, width), the editing smartly and simply running us across the large cast, not snatching at people, letting them be in the background for a while.
Though I am far too underinformed to really comment, one almost wants to draw comparisons with Mizoguchi, even if Malick is obviously more commercial in his tighter framings and so on, and even with Kurosawa (whose 'shock' tendencies always seem to me secondary to the complex, always thoughtful shape of his images). These thoughts will only really be returnable too when I have seen a decent amount of Mizoguchi.
So, Malick is guilty, to a small degree, and with counterexamples and qualifications, to a slight wide-eyedness. This isn't so much a weakness as part of what makes him able to create such fine images, and develop them if never really progress them, otherwise. It would be unfair to say that this is anything less than an excellent work.
Monday, 25 April 2011
Fantomas
Feuillade's great serial, his first major one. 1913
This uses greater depth, and noticeably a much greater depth, than certainly 'Judex', and perhaps 'Les Vampires'. Especially in the first two episodes we are taken outside much more often, which yields greater freedom to edit, that is, cut around each location to at least some degree. These outside locations are quite brilliant examples of photography. We have a real sense of Paris at the time, of people, with the long takes, going about their lives.
This use of depth is used to have characters watching each other, approaching each other, without the other knowing. This is Feuillade's great use of suspense. It is the classic use of time, waiting, as we can see that something 'terrible' approaches, and the duration draws it out. This is the key tactic of the mis-en-scene. As the entire locations begin to appear threatening, subject to villains bursting out, so that any long takes builds up suspense. This is how Feuillade is able to unbalance, when he wants, his mis-en-scene. Because we are always suspecting something to happen in the 'empty' part of the frame, suspense ensues.
If we have a central theme in Fantomas, it is surely something being in the wrong place, the location is found to be a place of horrors, bizarreness, that is 'out of place' in the everyday. It is most often people appearing from bizarre locations, but also unfortunate letters, even animals. This creates an atmosphere, electrifying every scene. Their is even the motif of the gas that comes in, the all pervading atmosphere of fear. This is a part of the remarkable use of the whole frame in Fantomas, a lesson still for today. Why not have the action, the heads, in the bottom corner? Why not have characters on the far side of the screen, if it balances the screen best. The incredibly intricate, brilliantly planned framing, compels this.
The gas also relates to how 'Fantomas' is, in being so interchangable, not really anyone, in fact everyone. The interchangability of the characters, Juve become Fantomas, being constantly mistaken, projects Fantomas as being as much each of the characters as his 'own'. Not that Fantomas is simply (though he is) the repressed desires; these desires are themselves subject to the law, themselves repressed (this reminds us most of 'Dr Mabuse', from Lang's first 'Mabuse' film).
The story moves on and on, in its wonderful winding, mysterious, manner, even with suspense, there is constant surprise, constant movement, simply a process of taking down logical paths to infinity. The finest example is perhaps the second segment, the first is also wonderful. These have the twistiest plots, and the finest images (Fantomas' final celebration, the snake, for example). Sensational images abound throughout however; the skin-glove, the blood in the wall.....
Feuillade creates worlds, uses the cinema in a still dynamic way, and is, in our opinion as in the official histories, a clear master of the cinema.
This uses greater depth, and noticeably a much greater depth, than certainly 'Judex', and perhaps 'Les Vampires'. Especially in the first two episodes we are taken outside much more often, which yields greater freedom to edit, that is, cut around each location to at least some degree. These outside locations are quite brilliant examples of photography. We have a real sense of Paris at the time, of people, with the long takes, going about their lives.
This use of depth is used to have characters watching each other, approaching each other, without the other knowing. This is Feuillade's great use of suspense. It is the classic use of time, waiting, as we can see that something 'terrible' approaches, and the duration draws it out. This is the key tactic of the mis-en-scene. As the entire locations begin to appear threatening, subject to villains bursting out, so that any long takes builds up suspense. This is how Feuillade is able to unbalance, when he wants, his mis-en-scene. Because we are always suspecting something to happen in the 'empty' part of the frame, suspense ensues.
If we have a central theme in Fantomas, it is surely something being in the wrong place, the location is found to be a place of horrors, bizarreness, that is 'out of place' in the everyday. It is most often people appearing from bizarre locations, but also unfortunate letters, even animals. This creates an atmosphere, electrifying every scene. Their is even the motif of the gas that comes in, the all pervading atmosphere of fear. This is a part of the remarkable use of the whole frame in Fantomas, a lesson still for today. Why not have the action, the heads, in the bottom corner? Why not have characters on the far side of the screen, if it balances the screen best. The incredibly intricate, brilliantly planned framing, compels this.
The gas also relates to how 'Fantomas' is, in being so interchangable, not really anyone, in fact everyone. The interchangability of the characters, Juve become Fantomas, being constantly mistaken, projects Fantomas as being as much each of the characters as his 'own'. Not that Fantomas is simply (though he is) the repressed desires; these desires are themselves subject to the law, themselves repressed (this reminds us most of 'Dr Mabuse', from Lang's first 'Mabuse' film).
The story moves on and on, in its wonderful winding, mysterious, manner, even with suspense, there is constant surprise, constant movement, simply a process of taking down logical paths to infinity. The finest example is perhaps the second segment, the first is also wonderful. These have the twistiest plots, and the finest images (Fantomas' final celebration, the snake, for example). Sensational images abound throughout however; the skin-glove, the blood in the wall.....
Feuillade creates worlds, uses the cinema in a still dynamic way, and is, in our opinion as in the official histories, a clear master of the cinema.
Millou en Mai
Malle, 1990
Occassionally, insufferable, though usually fine, Malle picture. Usual agile but quiet camera, long takes. It would be unfair to say this film has nothing to do with politics. There is a little debate, and we see the events from the eyes of those who are outside. It also says something about weak consciousnesses at the time; and about self-interest, about the ultimately reactionary consciuosness of many involved.
It is an interesting idea, and as always with Malle, neatly executed, to let us see this through the eyes of the older man (Piccoli, as always, is great).
We mentioned that in Varda's world there are no (evident) contradictions. Multiple this tenfold for Malle. Suspense is never really created, there is no misery, no sadness (perhaps due to the unreality; see 'Black Moon'). Maybe, as is voiced here, everything is just O.K. In Malle's films, this seems to be the case; everything is jsut going great, basically.
Occassionally, insufferable, though usually fine, Malle picture. Usual agile but quiet camera, long takes. It would be unfair to say this film has nothing to do with politics. There is a little debate, and we see the events from the eyes of those who are outside. It also says something about weak consciousnesses at the time; and about self-interest, about the ultimately reactionary consciuosness of many involved.
It is an interesting idea, and as always with Malle, neatly executed, to let us see this through the eyes of the older man (Piccoli, as always, is great).
We mentioned that in Varda's world there are no (evident) contradictions. Multiple this tenfold for Malle. Suspense is never really created, there is no misery, no sadness (perhaps due to the unreality; see 'Black Moon'). Maybe, as is voiced here, everything is just O.K. In Malle's films, this seems to be the case; everything is jsut going great, basically.
Au Revoir Les Enfants
1987 Louis Malle film
A run through a childhood, with impeccable period settings and some nicer long shots. Very crisply photographed, with a slightly washed out look. The story is similar ish to 'The Murmur...', except for the fact it's world war two. There isn't much here beyond the fact it's completely miserable ('Leon Marie...' had more to say about living under the occupation, really). That is, the time is. The film is just alright. Tradition of quakity bish-bash-bosh.
A run through a childhood, with impeccable period settings and some nicer long shots. Very crisply photographed, with a slightly washed out look. The story is similar ish to 'The Murmur...', except for the fact it's world war two. There isn't much here beyond the fact it's completely miserable ('Leon Marie...' had more to say about living under the occupation, really). That is, the time is. The film is just alright. Tradition of quakity bish-bash-bosh.
Sunday, 24 April 2011
Pretty Baby
1978 Louis Malle movie
It would be difficult to say one felt particular anger, or even any physical repugnance towards this picture; but, in the final analysis, for my mind this is morally pretty much unacceptable.
Shot with Malle's usual soft lights, he creates a detailed, as always high key and well lit, rich furnishings and look of the time. Their is also some nice shots of individual faces, alone against the pillows.
The problem here is that fact that, for all the way it clearly wishes to show the location as vile, it frankly takes far too much pleasure in it. It simply fails to show the grimness of the situation, and ends up because of that affirming it. What is disgusting, is presented more often as fun than as vile. Abuse is engaged with, but ultimately shied away from, and subordinated as one part of a classical romantic narrative. Racial discrimination, the atmosphere of oppression of the 'house', is taken as an aesthetic to be wallowed in. The wallow is undoubtedly pleasurable, this is well made narrative cinema.
I have no doubt Malle had nothing but good intentions, to show the misery of the situation, the comradeship that sprung up in that too (not at all to be ignored in an adequate film of the subject; but it must be better balanced...). But the from this film takes is simply not able to contain its content.
It would be difficult to say one felt particular anger, or even any physical repugnance towards this picture; but, in the final analysis, for my mind this is morally pretty much unacceptable.
Shot with Malle's usual soft lights, he creates a detailed, as always high key and well lit, rich furnishings and look of the time. Their is also some nice shots of individual faces, alone against the pillows.
The problem here is that fact that, for all the way it clearly wishes to show the location as vile, it frankly takes far too much pleasure in it. It simply fails to show the grimness of the situation, and ends up because of that affirming it. What is disgusting, is presented more often as fun than as vile. Abuse is engaged with, but ultimately shied away from, and subordinated as one part of a classical romantic narrative. Racial discrimination, the atmosphere of oppression of the 'house', is taken as an aesthetic to be wallowed in. The wallow is undoubtedly pleasurable, this is well made narrative cinema.
I have no doubt Malle had nothing but good intentions, to show the misery of the situation, the comradeship that sprung up in that too (not at all to be ignored in an adequate film of the subject; but it must be better balanced...). But the from this film takes is simply not able to contain its content.
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