Oscar's Cinema Journal 2005

*Cleaning the disc only helps when the problem is dust or dirt, not when it's caused by scratches.
*The "nasty" reviews of Les Choristes came before the film's nomination by the Academy but after France designated it as the French submission to the Academy awards. Over 100 films are submitted, one per country.

Thursday March 3rd

Oriana, a Venezuela/France co-production won the Camera d'Or at the 1985 Cannes. It was directed, written and co-produced by Fina Torres (Celestial Clockwork, Woman on Top). I rented the dvd from my public library. Released by Facets video in May, 2004. IMdb (yet again) provides wrong info: the disc is not pan-and-scan but conserves the original aspect ratio of 1.85:1, and there is no dubbed English track. It's a very good transfer befitting such a glorious-looking film lensed by Jean Claude Larrieu. The framing and lighting of the scenes are reason enough to watch it. The cast is uniformly excellent. The plot has been labeled "latin Gothic" before. Maria's aunt Oriana dies and she inherits the hacienda she visited one summer when she was 12. Maria travels to Venezuela with her French husband intent on selling the place. As she walks through the rundown estate, memories of her visit are evoked. The film flashes back to Maria's visit and to Oriana's childhood and adolescence. A story of forbidden passion and tragic denouement emerges reluctantly, almost as if Ms. Torres was reticent to reveal Oriana's secrets. A solemn and oblique telling of a not unfamiliar story.

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IMdb (yet again) provides wrong info: the disc is not pan-and-scan but conserves the original aspect ratio of 1.85:1, and there is no dubbed English track.

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YOu can, of course, submit corrections to IMDb pages but may not think it worth the bother. I nonetheless despite your disappoval "yet again" think IMDb invaluable as a ready reference on movies and responses to them.

Friday March 4th

I just wish IMbd was better, that's all. The film I watched today on a PAL region 2 came out on NTSC region 1 three months ago. Not according to the "invaluable" IMdb. It was released by a company called Alpha Digital.

Quien Puede Matar a un Nino? (Spain, 1976)

Who Can Kill a Child? apparently had a limited release in the US under the title Island of the Damned. It's acquired cult status among horror film aficionados because it's simply outstanding in every respect. It was directed by Chicho Ibanez from Uruguay and lensed by the great Spanish DP Jose Luis Alcaine (Bad Education, Tasio, Belle Epoque, The Dancer Upstairs). The opening credits alternate with historical footage from Auschwitz, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Ethiopia and other places where millions of children have perished from hatred, war, famine and disease. Then we join Brits Tom and Evelyn on vacation on the coast of Spain. Two corpses are found mysteriously floating near the beach. Tom and Evelyn, who's expecting their third child, sail off to an island in the Mediterranean Sea. The small island is supposed to be tranquil but it seems deserted, except for kids who behave oddly. But, where have the grown-ups gone?
Who can kill a Child combines elements of The Birds and Village of the Damned (an inferior film) and adds subtext that doesn't detract one iota from purely horror genre pleasures. The pace escalates gradually as the film builds up tension. This film is now among my favorites in the horror genre, which include Nosferatu, Dr. Mabuse, Rosemary's Baby, Freaks, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Bride of Frankenstein (horror comedy actually), Vampyr, Kaidan, Audition...
By the way, the original version of this movie is mostly in English because most of the dialogue is between the British couple. The producer, against the director's wishes, released it in Spain with their dialogue dubbed into Spanish. The dvd includes both versions. Horror fans must to watch this film.

 Que Puede Matar a un Ni&ntildeo?

 Sounds very good. We can all become horror movie fans when there's an excellent example of the genre.

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I just wish IMbd was better, that's all. The film I watched today on a PAL region 2 came out on NTSC region 1 three months ago. Not according to the "invaluable" IMdb. It was released by a company called Alpha Digital.

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  I understand, about IMDb; I don't think you can rely on it for this sort of information. There is nobody to keep updating it. What I like about it is the ready availablity and cross referencing of large quantity of basic info about movies and movie people, and the highly unreliable but representative opinions of general viewers from all over the world.

   I saw Koreeda's Nobody Knows tonight (Mar. 4, 2005) and it made a strong impression. Was reminded of Do-des-ka-den; Ladri di biciclette; Clément's Jeux Interdits.

I agree with your comments about IMdb.

Saturday March 5th

Cachorro (Bear Cub) at SoBe Regal

This 2004 Spanish film returns for a commercial run eleven months after its American premiere at the Miami Gay and Lesbian Film Festival. Pedro and his friends are "bears", gay men who refuse to shave, diet or exercise. Pedro gladly agrees to care for his 9 year old nephew Bernardo while his hippie sister realizes her lifelong dream to visit India. Bernardo misses his affectionate, flaky mom but gets along splendidly with his uncle. Pedro learns that his sister got arrested in India on a serious drug offense. Suddenly he is forced by circumstance to parent the child and guide him through a difficult period. Complications arise when Bernardo's estranged grandmother, who's son died of a drug overdose when the boy was 4 years old, insists she'd be a more appropriate custodian. Sensitive, gay-positive drama with some very funny moments from director Miguel Albaladejo, fleshing out the short of the same title he directed in 1996. Just like the adult protagonist is not a stereotypical gay character, the issues and themes are developed from a fresh perspective.
Since Cachorro had its official US premiere in November 2004, it qualifies for inclusion in my 2004 Foreign Lang. film. Since, by personal rule, I cannot list over 30 films, this film's inclusion means Sokuro's Father and Son (the 30th film listed) will be edited out.

Sunday March 6th

Conrad Rooks's Siddhartha, his faithful adaptation of Nobel Prize winner Hermann Hesse's novel, is now available on dvd. Disc features a state of the art transfer of the widescreen film and an informative, recent interview with Mr. Rooks, who never directed another film after this 1972 release. The beautiful cinematography comes courtesy of Sven Nykvist, taking a break from lensing Ingmar Bergman's films. Siddhartha was a box office success in India, where it was filmed, but failed commercially in the USA. Shashi Kapoor plays the titular young man who abandons the privileged lifestyle he knows to search for enlightment and inner peace.

Also rare and I think more unusual than the 1972 Siddhartha is Rooks' 1966 Chappaqua, the drug story with Burroughs, Ginsberg, et al. I briefly compared them and wrote a review of Siddhartha on IMDb which you may find interesting:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070689/...mments?start=1

I liked Siddhartha more than you, Chris. I watched it when I was very young and read the book a couple of years after the film came out. It had a formative influence on me. Content-wise, it's a simplification and its vision is generalized, as you state, but it does convey some of the basic concepts of Buddhism. I found the experience of watching it intoxicating_the locales (some later destroyed during the Indian-Pakistan conflict), the music, the landscapes, the attractive actors, the use of color, the art direction in general. You also find the film "lovely" and "beautiful" but give these aspects less weight than I do.
What I didn't like about your post is the comparisons. I found most of them irrelevant. Basically I don't care that Steppenwolf is "trippier" or that Arabian Nights is more "exotic", because I don't value those attributes for their own sake, and because I don't think they relate to Siddhartha's aim and purpose. I also don't think Rooks was attempting rural naturalism a la Pather Panchali. I'd have to seek out Meetings with Remarkable Men, which you regard as a "more original depiction of a spiritual quest". Dave Kehr calls it "dull, hermetic and not fun" but I've disagreed with him before. The one film that seems more relevant to compare and contrast would be Why has Boddhi Dharma Left for the East?, a Korean film released in the late 80s. I'm currently watching it for the second time and will post about it tomorrow.

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(Originally posted by Oscar Jubis)
I liked Siddhartha more than you, Chris. I watched it when I was very young and read the book a couple of years after the film came out. It had a formative influence on me. Content-wise, it's a simplification and its vision is generalized, as you state, but it does convey some of the basic concepts of Buddhism....Basically I don't care that Steppenwolf is "trippier" or that Arabian Nights is more "exotic", because I don't value those attributes for their own sake, and because I don't think they relate to Siddhartha's aim and purpose. I also don't think Rooks was attempting rural naturalism a la Pather Panchali.

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Indeed you did like it more than me, and I don't want to spoil it for you by my, to you, off-the-wall comparisons that show I'm seeking something more that isn't there, but the few reviews I can find of the movie indicate those who weren't enchanted find it vapid and pretty rather than enlightening. Mind you, this review of mine is an earlier effort and I might have put my point accross better today. Of course Rooks may not have been seeking rural authenticity -- he probably couldn't -- but if he had achieved it, wouldn't that have made a better film? My feeling was and still is that the conditions under which Rooks worked in India had a neutralizing, standardizing effect on the very unique style and outlook he shows in his earier, rougher, but more unique film, Chappaqua. The Korean film (which I have seen) is another example, and certainly relevant. I'm glad that you enjoyed the filmed Siddhartha, which is worth watching for Nykvist's cinematography (I saw it in a theater by the way) and which faithfully evokes its literary source using authentic locations.

My review again http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070689...omments?start=1

Roger Ebert seems to express a not uncommon view in finding Saddhartha "too pretty" and "too long for the very thin material in the Hermann Hesse novel" and feeling that the actors act too much as if they know they're in a movie http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/...301010329/1023

*I didn't find it "enlightening" either,... perhaps instructive. I see that you find it "worth-watching", if only because of Nykvist. I think Ebert's 2 1/2 stars also translate to a mild "thumbs-up". I think you were already a good writer on cinema back in '02. We're just bound to disagree on form and/or content at times. Couldn't access your Bodhi Dharma comments.

Monday March 7th

Lorna Doone (1922) on TCM
Only the second film directed by Maurice Tourneur (Jacques' father) that I have watched. Recently restored to full length, about an aristocratic girl kidnapped and raised by a gang of thieves who falls in love with a country bumpkin. Not far below Tourneur's The Last of the Mohicans quality-wise. Makes me wonder about his numerous lost and unavailable films of the silent era.

Why Has Bodhi Dharma Left for the East? (South Korea, 1989) on dvd

Art teacher turned filmmaker Yong Kyun Bae did everything except act and compose the score of this film. It had a commercial run in NYC four years after playing at Cannes and Toronto in 1989. Bodhi Dharma had a long gestation period, reports vary between 5 and 10 years. A Zen fable about an old monk (Kiegok) living at an isolated temple in the mountains, the abandoned boy (Haejin) he picked up five years earlier (the last time he visited "the world"), and a young man (Kibong) who abandons his blind old mom to seek peace and enlightment. The languorous pace, the images, the evocative soundtrack, the skeletal narrative, and the riddles and pronouncements work together to induce a state of meditative contemplation and a search for meaning. Rosenbaum states that those looking for drama "will have to find it internally". Certainly your enjoyment of it will depend on what you bring into the experience and your willingness to interpret/translate the images into something of value to you. Plot-wise, we have an old monk making preparations for his death and ensuring his knowledge is passed on to the next generations: a young adult dealing with ambivalence about abandoning his mother for the sake of a personal quest, and a boy learning about life and death, and what to do with feelings of guilt caused by his killing a bird. You provide the rest.

First of all, have you seen Kim Ki-duk's Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring? If you have, couple of people have brought up Why Has Bodhi Dharma Left for the East? as the film Kim was possibly "inspired" by (although I don't believe that SSFW&S was simply a profound Buddhist tale if that's in fact what Bodhi is), do you see any similarities?

Yes, arsaib. I watched Spring, Summer... twice. I posted a review of it as part of my coverage of the 21st Miami IFF (Feb 2004). I watched it again three months later after both Chris and Howard posted negative reviews here. Howard called it "a bad movie about spirituality". Chris pointed out the director was raised Christian and doesn't "get" Buddhism. He stated that it was a movie about ideas but "the ideas are ersatz". I mounted my defense of the film (in two separate posts) as a reaction to this last comment. Some quotes from my posts:

"A neatly structured, messily ambigious but engaging story illustrating the tension between morals and instincts."

"The resolution seems to imply that isolation and estrangement from the world are not conducive to a good life"

Another central idea of the film is that "the animal within us is ancient and resistant (the power of instincts), especially if the pupil is to be taken as a representational character (representative of the human race)"

I can see how Ki Duk could have been inspired by Bodhi Dharma although perhaps tales about monks and their pupils isolated from the world in lush settings abound in Eastern folklore. The main difference would be the amount of narrative detail and specificity in Ki-duk's compared to the langurous, sketchy, mystical Bodhi Dharma.

Tuesday March 8th

Samuel Fuller's 40 Guns (1958) on rental dvd (PAL)

"This is direct cinema, uncritizable, unreproachable, given cinema, rather than assimilated, digested or reflected upon. I always come away from Samuel Fuller films both admiring and jealous. I like to take lessons in filmmaking"
Francois Truffaut, 1960.

Barbara Stanwyck stars as an authoritative rancher who rules an Arizona county with her private posse of hired guns, hence the title of this 80-minute western from the maverick director. A new marshall arrives, accompanied by his two brothers, to set things straight. The cattle queen develops passionate feelings for him, but her hothead brother and their differing purposes stand in the way.
What an exciting film to watch. Fuller knows how to utilize the CinemaScope frame for maximum artistic expression. Several scenes are unforgettable, such as the one in which the protagonists bond through a tornado. All the evidence needed to explain Nouvelle Vague directors' devotion for Fuller is here. I am convinced Sergio Leone copied his trademark widescreen close-up of a duelling man's eyes from 40 Guns. Fuller eschews voice-overs and expository scenes causing some viewers to feel temporarily "lost" or to feel Fuller favors style over narrative clarity. For instance, it's not immediately apparent that the men riding into town with the marshall in the opening scene are his brothers, and only mid-way through the film do we understand the extent of Stanwyck's control over what goes on in the town. This information is never spelled out and underlined for the viewer, but I don't mean to imply it's a puzzle or a head scratcher. I can't wait to watch The Big Red One at a theatre, and 10-12 other Fullers I have never watched.

I never even heard of this one. Again you didn't say how or where you watched it, rental or purchase at home I assume? Is The Big Red One actually coming your way? I don't know of a distribution schedule and thought it was gone from screens.

Yesterday on dvd I saw on dvd two movies you recommended and gave my reactions -- "Last Film You've Seen" thread p. 7, bottom.

Jean Genet's Un Chant d'Amour (1950) rental dvd (PAL)

Jean Genet was born in 1910 and abandoned by his mother. He lived with foster parents in a small rural village. His status was changed to "domestic servant" at age 13 and removed from school. He spent his adolescence in and out of prison and institutions. In his early 20s, he traveled through Europe living as a thief, beggar and prostitute. A crucial moment in his life and his artistic development was the support and patronage of Jean Cocteau, who proclaimed him a literary genius. Genet wrote many renowed plays and novels during the 40s and 50s. During the 60s and 70s he focused on political activism, including support of the Black Panthers and the Palestinian Liberation Organization. Several of his plays and novels have been adapted for film and television. Two notable films based on his works are Fassbinder's Querelle and Haynes' Poison.

Un Chant d'Amour is the only film written and directed by Genet. It's only 25 minutes long and packs a punch. It recapitulates some of his literary themes and symbols. The film takes place in a prison, each prisoner has his own cell and there is one guard. Un Chant d'Amour focuses on two prisoners: a young French one and an older Arab prisoner. In the opening scene, the Arab fails to pass flowers by attaching them to a cord and swinging it through the window. Each prisoner is seen exploring his body and finding pleasure in self-absorption, but the Arab one strives to make contact and succeeds by passing cigarette smoke through a straw into the young Frenchman's cell. These activities are turned into a peepshow for the guard who gets aroused. He opens the Arab's cell, points a gun at him, beats him with a belt and forces him to perform fellatio. This provokes the Arab to have a rather playful, romantic fantasy in the woods with the young prisoner. The guard's fantasy has a more violent quality to it. At the end, the Arab finally manages to pass flowers from his cell's window into the reaching hand of the younger man. A homoerotic poem stylistically indebted to Cocteau, but the content is Genet's own.

*This dvd was released in the UK (PAL region 2) by The British Film Institute. It includes biographical information about Genet and a running commentary.