the LAST FILM YOU'VE SEEN thread

I don't think I'm becoming a fan of French action films particularly. I'm just watching pretty much whatever recent French (language) films I haven't previously seen that are available on Netflix and seeing how I like them. The Siri film was nifty but not very memorable; Crimson Rivers sticks more in my mind maybe because of having both Jean Reno and Vincent Cassel and featuring a good commentary by them and Kassovitz as an extra. That was my first time watching a film commentary on a recent film in French, and I enjoyed that. They really went into a lot of detail about the circumstances, chronology, and techniques of the action sequences and the character's interactions and I got a sense of their camaraderie and involvement that was fun and appealing to me.

got to be brief seeing how I have no computer for the time being.

In theaters I saw Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, which imo is the best of the series so far. They do seem to get better as the characters get older, and Ralph Fiennes (this years Jude Law) makes a great appearance as Voldemort.

At home I watched Vera Drake (fantastic), A Very Long Engagement (pretty good), Office Space (I know finally), Kung Fu Hustle (everything I hoped it would be) and Hotel Rwanda (much better than I expected). Sorry for the quick and cheap reviews, but time is of the essence.

Lucile Hadzihalilovic: Innocence. French-only dvd bought in Paris in October.

Peter has created a space for this film in the "In Theaters Now" section; you might wanna post your review there.

I am very much looking forward to watching Innocence. Seems like it turned out to be a good selection for you from Paris.

Some of my good selections I couldn't buy because they were too expensive, but this one had a nice price at Fnac, €15.

Ilan Duran Cohen: Confusion of Genders/La Confusion des genres (2000) Netflix dvd

Dry French comedy doesn't always travel well

Confusion here means inability to choose, but also suggests profusion, plethora, -- a delirious embarrassment of riches (and choices). At the center of every scene is bisexual lawyer Alain (Pascal Greggory). Everybody wants him, or thinks he wants them -- handsome imprisoned murderer Marc (Vincent Martinez), cute gay boy Christophe (Cyrille Thouvenin), attractive and accomplished law partner Laurence (Nathalie Richard, who's more Alain's age); the prisoner's (former) girlfriend Babette (the beautiful Julie Gayet). Marc's cellmate Étienne (played by noted singer Alain Bashung) even gets involved toward the end in this dry celebration of indecision and randomness. Alain and his law partner are talking about marrying, and it's all practical and boring, except that it's impulsive too. And not utterly cold, because, though she is even more neurotically indecisive than he is, they are best friends.

Through it all Pascal Greggory has that bored, annoyed look he always has; but he registers a lot of other looks too -- he's a consumately adept movie actor and for good reason one of the busiest in France. This is very French, a sort of comedy of ill humor, sex, and indecision, a very comfortable and vernacular variation on very old themes. The hilariously grumpy and irritable haute bourgeoisie relatives of Laurence and Alain who come into play when wedding bells are in the offing include the great Bulle Ogier as Laurence's mother. The various nude scenes aren't just titillation; they're all skillfully and sometimes hilariously illustrative of characters and situations and of Alain's embarras du choix, in a film that shifts quickly from the droll to the ridiculous and back again. A scene where Alain and Christophe undress each other while Alain talks on a cell phone, Alain protesting, then acquiesing -- to give just one example -- is as funny as it is physically agile in the staging.

La Confusion des genres is quick-witted and fast-paced and has an excellent cast but it's very French, very dependent on style and tone and language, and you wouldn't necessarily expect it to go over well with Americans. US critics pretty much hated it. On Metacritic it got a 39. Many American viewers think it's pretentious and unfunny. They miss the witty but blunt dialogue (which all the French critics complement), and they don't appreciate Greggory, who's perfect here, or the delicately observed range of French social and personality types. This is as good a treatment of the pains and pleasures of the bisexual life as seen from the French 21st-century standpoint as, in its time, was John Schlesinger's very English (1971) Sunday Bloody Sunday as a treatment of that kind of life lived across the pond, though as a movie this newer one doesn't carry quite as much weight as Schlesinger's did -- and clearly, like some wines, does not travel well even now. Yet it's great fun to watch if you can even come close to keeping up with the French.

Three Frenchmen doing a voice-over commentary in English for an American DVD doesn't turn out very well either. Director Duran Cohen studied at NYU Film School and and is fluent, but he's paired with Greggory and Thouvenin, who come across as both tight-lipped and short on vocabulary, and the conversation never gets going. Why didn't they do it in French with subtitles as Kassovitz, Cassel, and Reno did so entertainingly for the US Crimson Rivers DVD? Then maybe they would have been relaxed and talkative, as the Crimson Rivers team was, and something more informative might have resulted.

Proof, one of the numerous delayed releases from the Weinsteins-owned Miramax, is a compact, gripping and highly-effective drama from Director John Madden (Shakespeare in Love [1998]). Based on a stage play by David Auburn (who co-wrote the film’s script with Rebecca Miller, director of films like Personal Velocity [2002] and The Ballad of Jack and Rose [2005]), Proof stars Gwyneth Paltrow as Catherine, an emotionally fragile woman whose mindset early on in the film is in just as much disarray as her domicile. The reason for her condition is that her father Robert (Anthony Hopkins), once a university professor and a mathematics mastermind, recently passed away after persistently suffering from a mental illness. Catherine, who had to drop out of school in order to take care of him, is unsure about her own mental health, even though she disagrees with her estranged older sister (Hope Davis, miscast as an insolent New Yorker), who now wants to take her for psychiatric help. But she gradually develops a relationship with Hal (Jake Gyllenhaal), Robert’s committed former student attempting to uncover any traces of genius in his mentor’s old notebooks (which he eventually does). While almost claustrophobic in nature, Proof is comprised with a surprise or two to jolt the proceedings, that are usually maintained at a steady pace throughout. The script beautifully incorporates Catherine’s relationship with her father via flashbacks, discerning the toll it gradually took on the young woman. And Paltrow’s performance, arguably the best of her career, not only enables us to relate to her anguish, but it also overcomes a few awkwardly directed moments to guide the film to its logical, understated conclusion.

Grade: B+

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*PROOF is currently in theaters. Its DVD release date is Feb 14th.

I thought I had posted a review of Proof on this site, but I can't find it. It can be found here; on Filmwurld the thread started earlier for Proof is here -- but nobody who actually saw the movie made a contribution there. My problems with Proof can be summed up as follows:

--artificiality of the action attributable to too-direct transfer from play to movie; dryness of the action for the same reason -- a possible danger noted by JustaFied in his opening of the Proof thread

Quote:

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With so much available to a filmmaker (i.e. use of background scenery, music, editing, special effects, lighting, etc.), is the filming of a play just plain boring?

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--lack of interest in the Robert (Anthony Hopkins) character compared to, for instance, the math genius in Beautiful Mind (a movie I find pernicious, but whose effectiveness I fully acknowledge)

--slowness of the flashbacks

--important casting weaknesses: as time goes on, Jake looks nuttier than Gwyneth, who's suppose to be possibly crazy; Hopkins convincing as an example of dementia but not as a genius (I did think there was some chemistry between Gweneth and Jake, though Hope Davis is good in her thanksless role of the bourgeois proper sister

--failure to drum up a sense of urgency over the "mystery" of who did the proof; lack of emotional punch

I concluded that the filmed Proof is "mildly entertaining, respectable, but uninspired." It rather astonishes me that you would rate it higher than Grizzly Man -- but there's no acounting for tastes!

I'm going to put this exchange over on the Proof thread.

Claude Chabrol: La rupture/The Breach (1970) Netflix DVD.

Study of upper bourgeois snottiness and the attempt to destroy and corrupt less fortunate people. Creepy, with a famously violent opening (before even the title), but somehow unconvincing and lacking in momentum. Stéphane Audran is immaculate and beautiful, the kind of "Ice Queen" the French liked at that time (a contrast to the slightly funkier beauties of today), Jean-Pierre Cassel is smarmy and oily, and the tireless Michel Bouquet is appropriately self-important and overstuffed as the rich in-law trying to crush Stèphane's character. But the best characters are really the minor ones, like the oddball inhabitants of the rooming house. And I'd have to say that Jean-Claude Drouot, as the ghoulish husband, is a really creepy "monstre."

But if you compare it to, say, Hitchcock or a Highsmith novel, doesn't it really just seem rather crude and odd, instead of masterful? And despite the learned commentators on the DVD saying Chabrol is period-neutral as to dress, etc., it also looked dated to me. I found it a bit hard to get through.

Mikael Håfström's Derailed, now in theaters, starring VIncent Cassel, Clive Owen, and Jennifer Aniston.

While subtlety isn’t a virtue associated with the recent works of British filmmaker Sally Potter (The Man Who Cried [2000], The Tango Lesson [1997]), she has consistently pushed-the-envelope when it comes to form and content. Her latest effort, Yes, an artful meditation on class, gender, religion, politics, love, etc. is an interesting, if not wholly successful, experiment which doesn’t quite have the depth to support its pragmatic themes. And so the experience ultimately is akin to interpreting an upscale magazine whose content only massages one’s intellect, instead of expanding it. The film opens fascinatingly enough: a housemaid (Shirley Henderson), who’s seen at various intervals, philosophizes (in iambic pentameter, no less) about her work while facing the camera. But then we’re in familiar territory as it turns out that the house belongs to our "She" (the ever-elegant Joan Allen’s name in the credits), an Irish-American biologist, and her uptight husband (Sam Neill), a British politician. Needless to say, the marriage is an unhappy one, and that’s where "He" (French actor Simon Abkarian), a Lebanese cook, comes in. Their relationship is fulfilling early on, but the differences between the duo eventually come to the forefront, especially after "He" gets involved with an argument with a few clichéd types at work. And Potter’s approach also starts to become heavy-handed. If she didn’t already have enough issues to deal with, she throws in a few sequences involving a teenager’s weight problems. Potter’s musical sense is impeccable as always, but her visual choices, while endearing at first, eventually become intrusive.


Yes - Grade: C

Mikael Håfström's Derailed

Based on this and a few other films you've recently reviewed, it seems like your agenda is to simply oppose whatever the critics seem to be saying. Not long ago, it used to be the exact opposite. What do you think? ;)

It may look that way for the moment, but I don't have an agenda, as should be obvious since you're basing your conclusion on this "and a few other" comments of mine, not all of them. But it is often interesting, and indeed necessary, as someone who comes in after press screenings, to point out what the general run of critics have not seen or said. It's not simple opposition -- a you say black I say white kind of thing. It's a corrective, and an attempt to develop nuances. You will find other critics who say what I say, unfortunately for me. There are several who pointed out in print that Derailed is quite enjoyable if you overlook its last segment, which is basically what I am also doing. I am not giving this movie a high rating. I'm just pointing out that it's enjoyable.

Arnaud Desplechin's Kings and Queen (2005)

Jacques Rivette's The Story of Marie and Julien (2005)

Joe Thomas's Pride and Prejudice (2005) in theaters now.

Originally posted by Chris Knipp
I concluded that the filmed Proof is "mildly entertaining, respectable, but uninspired." It rather astonishes me that you would rate it higher than Grizzly Man -- but there's no acounting for tastes!

I hope y'all don't find it redundant for me to reinstate my argument regarding the subjectivity of film appreciation. There's no accounting for taste, indeed. It's mostly about personal predilections, interests, values, biases, mood and level of attention while viewing, etc. I've had plenty of disagreements with Chris this year. Now arsaib4 gives a "C" to Yes, one of my candidates for Best Film of the year (definitely a Top 10, a second viewing will decide placement).

One either assumes one's taste/intellect/discernment/knowledge of the medium to be better or greater than "the other" or buys into the subjectivity argument. Once you do the latter, films become a way of helping you learn about your own biases/predilections/interests/values and those of others you find interesting. Writing and reading film reviews is a lot more fun and edifying when it stops being about who's right or wrong.

This is the reasoning behing my advocacy for a more personal type of criticism. Using the personal "I" rather than the royal "We", which presumes that others will have similar reactions or arrive at the same conclusions as the writer. It's not necessary for the critic to use many "I statements" (although it doesn't hurt, Georgia Brown used this approach effectively) but the criticism I prefer seems to incorporate awareness that criticism is mostly advocating for one's subjective opinion.

Apparently Oscar Jubis only has a problem when someone negatively reviews one of his "favorites." The quote he used to make his statement simply further proves his ignorance.

I would never say Oscar "proves his ignorance. " He's constantly proving and increasing his knowledge. But in his theory about reviewing he carries subjectivity too far and fails to recognize that some reviewers are better than others. He is lowering reviews in his definition to a mere subjective expression of opinion in which everybody is equal, but yet he gets upset when somebody's review fails to gibe with his. That's illogical.

I haven't seen Yes, but it got terrible reviews and sounded a bore. Hence it's more surprising, simply on a statistical basis, that Oscar counts it potentially among the year's best than that arsaib4 just gave it a "C."

"There's no accounting for taste" doesn't mean all reviewing is equally subjective and a mere personal outpouring. It means that once somebody's made a judgment about the meriitc of a film there's no way of convincing them otherwise. But as we respect each other's opinions, to that extent we may be moved to reconsider.

Thanks for the post, Chris.

I don’t like getting angry but his ignorance once again astounds me. I always speak confidently for myself and don’t make specific comments regarding how others will perceive a particular film; the words “we,” “one,” or “you,” don’t necessarily correlate to “others” in reviews. On the other hand, this quote certainly DOES: “It's just that Yes is the type of film that conjures up the sarcastic, jaded and Philistinic out of reviewers, particularly those employed by mainstream dailies.” That came from our champion of “I.” If I didn’t respect members like you, Chris, and especially our moderator, I truly would’ve ripped into this… person.

This member also tends to forget to use “I” when his reviews follow mine: The Constant Gardener (his post there is eerily similar to mine) and Sometimes in April are two of numerous examples.

He also misused your quote, Chris, to eventually come to something different altogether. I really can’t do anything about this, but I truly hope that people like him stay out of my threads.

Quote:

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One either assumes one's taste/intellect/discernment/knowledge of the medium to be better or greater than "the other" or buys into the subjectivity argument.

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No. It isn't a simple "either/or." That's the mistake in Oscar's argument. There's no need to make a choice between some sort of hubristic, egocentric conviction that one is invincible and "buying into the subjectivty argument." As I just wrote, some reviewers are better than others, but ultimately which ratings reviewers give to which films is unpredictable. Clearly some people do have more knowledge, taste, and discernment, but there's no one right opinion about a film.

I want to say I hope everybody gets into everybody else's threads. That's what this kind of site is for, a free exchange of ideas, information, and opinions. Let's not lose our cool, here. There wouldn't be much to Filmwurld without either Oscar or arsaib. Let's have dialgue, not standoffs. I'm obliged to both of you for bringing up this interesting topic for another look.

Carnet d'Ados -- la vie quand même/ Life after All. Olivier Péray 2000. (made for TV, in the US straight- to-DVD, netflix)

After their parents die in an accident, the older brother Vincent, 19 (Matthieu Tribes) wants to care for the younger one, Lucien (Maxime Monsimier) who's about 10. Somewhat reminiscent of The Cement Garden, because it's about kids trying to live on
after their parents die, and the smaller one retreats into an unhealthy fantasy world, while the older tries to escape his guilt through love-making.. The boy Lucien's playing with flowers is reminiscent of René Clément's Forbidden Games. For a TV movie, quiet and gracefully done; but the ending is too easy.

In Extremis/To the Extreme(Etienne Faure, 2000). US DVD.

Livelier treatment of a very similar theme can be found in another straight-to-DVD in US French film, about a wild bisexual guy, Thomas (Sébastien Roch) who seeks permission to raise the son of his girlfriend, Grégoire AKA Grég, Jérémie Sanguinetti) after she passes. In that one, more reality is confronted, much more happens, and the acting is fun to watch and includes Julie Depardieu and Jean-Claude Brialy. Far from bland TV stuff, In Extremis has other flaws such as pretension and a too-loose plot structure. Both movies seem to feel obliged to introduce more sex than their orphan theme needs. In Extremis is liberal in its male nudity, including the super-pretty boyfriend character, Aurélien Wiik (À travers le forêt), who's used to sell the DVD to the gay market.

The world of Jacques Demy/L'univers de Jacques Demy (Agnès Varda 1995). Netflix DVD.

By his wife. This is charming, and made me want to see Peau d'Ane (1970). Lola(1961) is by far my favorite of the few Demy films I've seen. Of course there are a lot I haven't seen.

Werner Herzog's The White Diamond (2005)

Tsai Ming-liang's The Wayward Cloud (TIFF)

Well The Squid and the Whale wasn't possible, so we had to go by what was playing at the time. So Pride and Prejudice, which I wasn't about watching. I'm suspicious of remakes, and extremely suspicious of costume drama crap designed to win awards. That said I found Pride and Prejudice a fantastic movie. I had no expectations for it, but it was much better than I could have imagined. I'll try and get a proper review later.

Also watched Eternal Sunshine again on DVD, nice film to watch in a group.

I guess with Domino I watched the wrong Keira Knightley movie.

L'univers de Jacques Demy / la vie quand même

Looks like your Netflix queue is getting a workout. That's how it was with me but I eventually got a little tired of it. Now I only subscribe every other month.

I didn't see Domino so can't comment, but she has gotten into something more arty no doubt with Pride and Prejudice, at least I guess it thinks it is. Netflix burnout coming? Maybe. This has been a time when I was in the Bay Area with not so many good movies to go to in theaters, but even so, it is a bit much, true. We'll see. I want to get through their recent French films that I haven't seen. There aren't really that many. Have you seen Téchiné's Barocco? Watching minor efforts is work. But there's always something to see, and to say. Visually it is stunning in many ways, and it shows T. has always liked those long horizontal tracking shots. I have Demy's Peau d'Ane and Baie des anges in my Netflix queue.

"Why is it that all the straight critics think BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN isn’t gay, or at least gay enough? Spit-lubed buttsex and onscreen kissing and, gee, two men falling desperately, tragically in love with each other? Sounds pretty gay to me, but then I don’t take for granted a corny Hollywood romance that reflects my sexuality since, uh, they don’t exist. I’ll concede that BROKEBACK is, with the exception of Ledger’s performance, mediocre filmmaking, but I wish all you hip, with-it heteros would stop running to the defense of us ill-served gays. Three cheers for middle-brow man-on-man masochistic romanticism, says I. I’ve been watching you straights wallow in it long enough."

Nathan Lee responding to Dave Kehr's rather "straight" review of BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN.

I'll be honest Brokeback Mountain looks rather awful, but I have no faith in Ang Lee whatsoever.

I did finally watch Murderball, which means that yes I have watched all of my dvd's. I either have to go out and get more or re-watch something. Hurrah for me. I realize though that if I'm actually going to get a top ten for this year done in any timely manner, I should really get out to the theater more, but damn it's FUCKING COLD OUTSIDE.

If I had a DVD burner I probably would use Netflix, but I'm a fan of renting a dozen films a weekend, whenever possible.

Nathan Lee's attitude toward both Dave Kehr and Ang Lee's new movie is understandable, not to say obligatory, for a hip young gay New York film critic. I haven't read Dave Kehr's interpretation, but I've already seen this approach, which is palliative: first of all, this is just a love story. Second, it is two men, but, hey, it's just a love story, so (Roeper) "get over it," people. As an older gay non-New Yorker (though I might like to be one, a New Yorker that is) who was deeply affected by the A. Annie Proulx story when it came out eight years ago, and someone who always hopes for the best when big budget, big names, and big screen come together to do something small and powerful, I'm very hopeful that Brokeback Mountain will turn out to be more than just a showplace for Heath Ledger's emerging talent as a major movie actor. I can understand wpqx's expecting the worst. He's I guess hip, young, and straight, and so in a position to say the movie "looks rather awful" without having seen it. I'll be seeing it in two days, and quite frankly to me it looks rather wonderful.

The San Francisco theater that's showing it started with a midnight showing Thursday night, and is showing it in three auditoriums. Does that tell you anything about how the distributors are expecting it to play with the average gay man in America's gayest city?

An open mind is a terrible thing to lose. But does any of us have one? Apart from my non-hip older gay enthusiasm for seeing two young near-superstar mainstream movie hunks playing in a glossy well-made gay love story, I will begin inevitably with the approach I always have when a film is closely based on a work that can conceivably qualify as literature, as just evidenced by my evaluation of the Joe Thomas Pride and Prejudice: I come in with a strong sense of the text they were working from, to see how well they did with it and when they depart from it, how well that works.

Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988) - Philip Kauffman

Took a damn long time to finally get this film, considering I wouldn't settle for anything short of the Criterion release. The resulting film was . . . long, really, really long. There was a lot of dead weight here, and Kauffman took a someone lean 2 hour film and milked another hour out of it. I will give Sven Nikvist credit for being the first person to ever make Czechoslovakia look beautiful, granted there were still scenes showing it as a repressive hell hole, the image most of us associate with that and all countries during their stay under the "Iron Curtain". The film is extremely sexual, but that's like saying Harry Potter is magical. I would like to applaud the acting, rather top notch as one could expect from this cast, I really admired the ridiculous amount of self confidence that Daniel Day Lewis was able to bring to his role.

André Téchiné: Barocco. (1976).

DVD bought in Paris, supplied with English subtitles. This is early and inferior Téchiné but not without any rewards. The noirish plot of an ex-prizefighter (Gérard Depardieu) who gets killed by a Mafia hireling (also played by Depardieu) when he fails to do what he's been paid by them to do, claim a homosexual affair with a political candidate they want to ruin, is surreal and without conviction. Neither Depardieu nor a young Isabelle Adjani, nor Jean-Claude Brialy (as a newspaper editor) and some other good actors, can save it. But for a Seventies movie it is surprisingly up to date in its elegant look, beautfiful color, stiking compositions, and typically Téchiné use of wide aspect ratio and long right-to-left pans. That doesn't make it a good movie, but it makes it a pleasure to look at. Depardieu was surprisingly lean and buff at this time, but Adjani looked better later when she got some more age and character in her face. As the prizefighter's girlfriend who then befriend's his killer, without noticing that he looks exactly the same (except for hair dyed dark brown), she has an impossible task.

The images are beautiful, but the soundtrack is rather murky.

I have seen Téchiné's Barocco but it's not very fresh in my mind. I think it's available on DVD here.

"But for a Seventies movie it is surprisingly up to date in its elegant look, beautfiful color, stiking compositions, and typically Téchiné use of wide aspect ratio and long right-to-left pans." I'm not sure what you mean. Why is the look surprising?

Nathan Lee should be a regular at the Times or the Voice.

Quote:

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"But for a Seventies movie it is surprisingly up to date in its elegant look, beautfiful color, striking compositions, and typically Téchiné use of wide aspect ratio and long right-to-left pans." I'm not sure what you mean. Why is the look surprising?

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I'm not sure what you mean. Why would this statement not be clear? I didn't say the look was surprisiing; I said it was surprisingly up to date in its look. A lot of Seventies movies look dated (obtrusive camera movement, excessive zooms, stuff like that) and the color often doesn't look very good. I'm sure you know what I mean about the emphasis on horizontality; you've probably noticed Téchiné loves long horizontal tracking shots over a landscape, a field, etc. Here he does it both with interiors and with streets. I'd have to watch the film with you to point out details of what I mean, I can't describe it in words here. It's just very fresh looking visually; I think Téchiné was very into giving the film a nice look. He has a lot of carefully composed, perhaps almost too studied shots with a lot of color, both in interiors, including the whore's room and the nightclub, especially the singer with the long stage and the tall dancer who comes up to join her, a very horizontal shot, and a number of outdoor street scenes that have long horizons, crowd compositions in which the eye picks out the principals. In terms of visual composition this is a film worth watching. The plot is silly and uninteresting so one focuses on the visual, and it's pretty clear that he did too.

Death by Hanging (1968) - Nagisa Oshima

Finally got some of those impossible to find Oshima films, or at least a film. From what I've read, he doesn't have any sort of style, and that no two films are really alike. Death by Hanging is nothing like his other films I've seen, and I'm not sure what to make of it, because it's not quite like any other film I've seen.

The story begins somewhat Japanese New Wave esque, with a description of an execution and then we witness one. Next thing we find out, the condemned man "R", didn't die. He winds up somewhat demented, and the executioners spend the rest of the film trying to remind him who he is so that he'll remember his guilt so they can hang him again. Yet before it gets to the end everyone's sanity is questioned, and I severely couldn't tell what the hell was real and surreal. Still a fascinating film, and I really hope to be able to find more of his nearly impossible to locate 60's films. This one certainly was intriguing enough.

I'd love to have a chance to watch Death by Hanging again, over 20 years after first viewing. The anti-death penalty subtext is strong. The fact that R is Korean and the executioners are Japanese is not coincidental. It's rather symbolic of the history between the two nations.

Paula Fouce: Naked in Ashes. Curently showing. Nice little documentary about Indian yogis focusing on one of them and his disciple and culminating in the festival of Kumbh Mela. Not particularly outstanding as a documentary film -- not very analytical, and a lot of English voiceovers are provided which may feel like a separation from the actual people -- but the raw material is extraordinary, and Fouce has followed the main yogi up into the mountain snows twice, when he went barefoot in nothing but a loin cloth. He has a great deal to say, and is thoroughly aware of issues like global warming.

Stephen Gaghan's much-anticipated Syriana.

Spare Parts (Rezervni Deli), the Slovenian entry for the foreign-language Academy Award a couple of years ago, is a competent and intermittently compelling drama which details the lives of a pair of traffickers smuggling illegal immigrants across their borders. Set in Krsko, a bleak industrial town in southern Slovenia which borders both Croatia and Italy, the film follows Ludvik (Peter Musevski) and his young assistant Rudi (Aljosa Kovacic) as they receive groups from the East heading towards Western Europe. Ludvik, a middle-aged man who often reminisces about his days as a national speedway champion, is a widower whose wife died of cancer, a disease said to be associated with the local nuclear power plant. His health is also deteriorating, but he doesn’t allow it to slow him down. Certainly a situation ripe to be exploited, but writer-director Damjan Kozole’s employs a detached approach which, at times, also works against him. To his credit, the mistreatment of immigrants early on, especially in the case of a young Macedonian girl, is presented rather matter-of-factly -- and he doesn’t allow the situation to become the central conflict after Rudi, unlike his counterparts, doesn’t take advantage of her. Also, the tentative relationship Rudi develops with a local girl (Aleksandra Balmazovic) is devoid of any melodrama. Having said that, other than a few glib musings from Ludvik regarding the current state of Europe, Kozole’s attempt to paint his protagonists as products of the system seems halfhearted, and thus the film never quite achieves the depth of similar efforts like La Promesse (1996) and Lichter (2003). The title refers to what becomes of the immigrants after they crossover to the west, as some are forced to sell their organs or are killed for them.


Grade: B
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*SPARE PARTS premiered at the Berlin Film Festival in 2003 (In-Competition).

*The film was released stateside by Film Movement in November.

Thanks arsaib4, I've had "Spare Parts" sitting around for a couple of weeks now along with a few others including Claire Denis's "The Intruder". Your comments have given me the incentive to see it asap, hopefully I'll be able to add my thoughts soon.

Cheers Trev.

Somewhere in the Night (1946) - Joseph L. Mankiewicz

Well in my years of watching movies I've seen a lot of Mankiewicz and a lot of noir. Some films are inspired, some are mediocre, and some are just plain bad. In the case of Something In the Night I remembered why I watch movies, to discover that one magnificent film in a completely unexpected place. I've been extremely hard on film noir in my time, rarely if ever handing out a perfect rating despite obvious greatness, I've been even harsher for Mankiewicz, I wouldn't even give All About Eve a 5 star rating. This film, considered a lesser Mankiewicz effort, and one of his earlier ventures into directing is in my opinion his clear masterpiece. A perfectly constructed, often brilliant, constantly compelling piece of film noir that desperately needs reevaluation, and the reputation of such gems as Laura, Double Indemnity, and Out of the Past.

Somewhere in the Night may have that chance. It recently appeared on DVD as part of Fox's amazing film noir collection. Every several months the studio puts out three of their classic noir films, and many of which, this film included, I had never heard of prior to it's release. Gems are being unearthed from the vaults, some of which hadn't even appeared on VHS. Watching Somewhere in the Night is like discovering a new piece of film history, a critical turning point in the career of Mankiewicz, and a complex and convoluted story that has a deeply satisfying pay off.

The reason for perhaps its being forgotten is the fact that the story seemed familiar at the time. There was a period when amnesia films were somewhat popular, and Somewhere deals with post war veterans, a subject that by 1946 was already starting to become overly familiar. I recall a short story by Ernest Hemmingway about a returning WWI veteran who took an extra two years to come home, which by that time no one wanted to hear his war stories, everyone was bored of "heroes". The American public may have felt the same way, after all what an easy gimmick, a grenade goes off, and bam amnesia, and there's your mystery. It's denser than that.

John Hodiak was nearly a bad choice for this role. His credits are sparse, he was one of the shipwrecked passengers in Lifeboat, but he works here. His one chance in a feature, and he shines. Makeup makes the film work. He was blown up by a grenade, and had a painful recovery. His face loses the bandage, but he comes equipped with an oh so subtle scar that makes him neither grotesque but reminds us that he was indeed a disabled veteran. This slight touch of realism works for the picture, in a world were people are still knocked out by one punch.

Richard Conte, a man who seemed to be in every Fox film in the 40's and 50's makes an appearance here, and delivers another perfect turn. He has that quality where he can both be a baffoon and a genius at the same time. A tough edge and a likeable quality if not somewhat flawed. He played this well in Jules Dassin's Thieves Highway, and shines here at his best, in a supporting role.

The love interest, as there must always be a love interest is Nancy Guild who has an instantly recognizable face despite never appearing in a movie I've seen. She has a look that works, and you can see rather early on that she is a girl to fall for, and her presence is neither as the "helpless girl" or the "tough dame". She is a real woman, a rare presence indeed in film noir, neither manipulative or gullible. I love her character, as I love nearly all other aspects of the film.

The mystery is one of identity. A similar theme was brought back in the Bourne Identity, but here was a man who didn't work for the government, but rather stole from them, or someone. A missing $2 million is enough to motivate any plot, especially when army pay at the time was $60 a month. You can see why everyone is going to such great lengths in this story for the money, and the identity of Larry Cravat, a man no one has either met nor heard from in 3 years. George Taylor is also a man with no past and no one to identify him, and his search for Cravat becomes his search for himself. A wonderful plot device that helps to unravell the story, and of course lead to much suspense, mystery, and intrigue.

I've ranted much longer on this film than most characteristic recently viewed movies, but I can't help it, I rarely feel this elation watching movies, especially American movies from the 40's considering I was convinced I saw everything great from Hollywood's golden era. Somewhere in the Night is out of DVD, and it's dirt cheap, buy it now!

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Originally posted by trevor826
Thanks arsaib4, I've had "Spare Parts" sitting around for a couple of weeks now along with a few others including Claire Denis's "The Intruder". Your comments have given me the incentive to see it asap, hopefully I'll be able to add my thoughts soon.

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Looking forward to your comments. I wish I had films like The Intruder sitting around. ;)

Good review, wpqx. It's been a while since I've seen any Mankiewicz.