Oscar's Cinema Journal 2005

You sort of "buried" (though you're getting plenty of hits over here) your comments on Sin City and I replied to them in part over on the Sin City thread, quoting what I thought was the key passage summarzing your response and repeating a bit what I said to that here earlier http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/show...155#post10155.

I have not seen Mouchette, and so maybe it's not surprising that I can't quite see what you mean by saying of her " her burden is heavier than the condemned man's imprisonment or the county priest's illness.." Why? Your remarks about this film are very general in nature using words like pain suffering innocent compassion piety hypocrisy grace….I don't get a feel for what's actually going on in the film as a film and a specific human document frame by frame, even though you do summarize her torments, also in general words -- humiliated beaten raped belittled burdened ostracized.. It seems to me that specific, dogged detail, rather than grand generalizations, are typical of Bresson's way of working in his later films, however symbolic the events may be meant to be. Apart from that, it is true as you yourself say that you haven't replied to every query I made, in fact you're just commented on Mouchette.

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I think it's possible to interpret the narrative arc of this film as a deterministic one, much more so than any of the other 9 Bressons I've seen_deterministic in the basic sense, a view that denies the importance and significance of free will. But I think it would be a mistake to make this generalization based one possible interpretation of one film.

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Well we don't have to restrict ourselves to one possible interpretation of one film because we've both seen a goodly sample of Bresson's oeurve, you nine (or is it ten?) and I seven of his films (with one, Au hazard Balthazar, lined up ready to watch and probably Mouchette in the offing if I honor this discussion). Maybe we could go through the films and rate them on a scale of …. Something or other … which is obviously silly… as to their degree of determinism. But I also asked some broader questions by implication about the role of determinism and pessimism in film and I'd like us to discuss those, with Bresson perhaps as a starting point.

Repeating and summarizing my queries:

--"It's too facile to say Bresson's world view is deterministic." Why? Can you enlarge on that point? If Bresson's "world view" isn't simply deterministic, what is it, then? Why can't one call it "deterministic"? What is the more subtle, complex, less "facile" way that you propose of describing his "world view"?

--Do you acknowledge that there are some filmmakers whose work is relentlessly pessimistic? If so, why should such filmmakers not be described as "deterministic"?

--Why emphasize the negative? . . .Why not be life-affirming, like Renoir?

--What's the relevence of American culture to this discussion? Does American culture in its essence rule out a sense of "unavoidable fate" that is beyond the reaches of "mere cause and effect"? Is such a world view really anathema in our American culture, and is it true that therefore any negative reaction to the tendencies in Bresson's films means we are helplessly acting out a pattern of cultural "determinism"? If so, why is Bresson so admired by American film lovers? Are they merely knee-jerk rejectionists of their own culture?

Originally posted by Chris Knipp
I have not seen Mouchette, and so maybe it's not surprising that I can't quite see what you mean by saying of her " her burden is heavier than the condemned man's imprisonment or the county priest's illness.."

My point is that Mouchette is the most hard to watch Bresson film and the one likely to be called "pessimistic" because of the concentration on a single character (as opposed to several human characters in Balthazar that Bresson focuses on), because she's still not grown (almost all of Bresson's "suffering" characters are adults), and because of the amount and variety of pain and humiliation she endures. This may lead some to call this film "pessimistic" and to generalize impressions based on it to the master's entire filmography and to his person. The film is not bleak in my opinion, as there are moments of joy and charity.

I also asked some broader questions by implication about the role of determinism and pessimism in film and I'd like us to discuss those.

To some extent, any film that proposes primarily to depict social injustice or man's inhumanity to man, any film that decries abuses of power in which the weak/victims fail to mount a credible defense can potentially be called "deterministic" or "pessimistic". Take Samira Makhmalbaf's At Five in the Afternoon and the Iranian film The Circle (which I bring up because I know you saw it), for instance. Makhmalbaf's defense against charges of "pessimism" boil down to "it's the truth as I saw it". In other words, to create consciousness and awareness, you've got to show the suffering (allowing for possible moments of joy and respite however brief and fleeting).

It's too facile to say Bresson's world view is deterministic." Why?

(Determinism: "the doctrine that everything, especifically one's choice of action, is determined by causes independent of one's free will")
My comment anticipated a reaction and subsequent generalization that a viewer of Mouchette could make. I would disagree with the generalization to Bresson's ouvre because Bresson grants his characters a considerable degree of free will, although several are suffering from conditions and circumstances imposed on them. There's certainly free will even in Mouchette, in the sense that the protagonist kills herself (like the protagonist of Un Femme Douce, which opens with her suicide).

Why emphasize the negative? . . .Why not be life-affirming, like Renoir?

Here's where Bresson unshakable faith in God and belief in the afterlife come into play. For him, suffering and struggling are natural aspects of our passing through our life on earth. They are not negative, suffering and struggling with one's lot as conduits to Grace. For Bresson, death is not the end. As one who tends toward agnosticism, I am challenged by his certainties.

What's the relevence of American culture to this discussion?

I know I'm generalizing but Americans, more than other peoples, believe that the individual has the power to raise above any obstacle. Americans are probably more likely to find Mouchette "pessimistic". American culture is also, perhaps, more enamored of escapist entertainment that European culture, and more individualistic. I wouldn't want to take this too far because these are obviously crude generalizations.

why is Bresson so admired by American film lovers? Are they merely knee-jerk rejectionists of their own culture?

Is he so admired by Americans? Hard to say, but my guess is the American film goers that watch foreign films admire Kurosawa, Fellini, Truffaut, Leone, Renoir, Bergman and many others more than Bresson. If the "average American" asks me: "I want to get into foreign films, would you recommend some?" I'd go with Amelie, Life is Beautiful, 7 Samurai, Once Upon a Time in the West, La Dolce Vita, Ikiru, Renoir's The River... not A Man Condemned or Mouchette.

Tuesday April 19th

Titicut Follies (1967) at the Cosford Cinema

Frederick Wiseman had to cancel his visit to Miami last fall because of a hurricane warning, but he kept his promise to return. He showed his first documentary, about conditions at the Hospital for the Criminally Insane at Bridgeport, Mass. Wiseman shot eight hours of film during 29 days in 1966 and spent 7 months editing the film by himself. The film shows the daily routine of the patients, how they are forced to conform to rules and regulations, the poor living conditions they face, the condescending and abusive treatment from some of the staff, admission and discharge procedures, etc. Titicut Follies, like all of Wiseman's documentaries, avoids any editorializing and commentary, except for the choice of material and the editing of it which constitutes a type of subtle editorializing. Anything that would lead to ready-made conclusions or force an emotional reaction is actively discouraged by Mr Wiseman. During Q&A, I asked him about the legal fight to get the film shown and he gave me "the short answer": a 15-minute account of how the film was banned by the Mass. Supreme Court for violating the patient's privacy, when in actuality it was all about the State of Mass. supressing information about the poor conditions at their Hospitals, and the use of the film as a political weapon during the race for Attorney Gral. of the State.

I feel there's some hedging on your part about whether Bresson is pessimistic or deterministic; sometimes you say he is, sometimes that he isn't. But what seems clear is that he isn't life-affirming, but afterlife-affirming. These generalizations about Americans are tricky. You may have a different take on this from being close to Spanish-speaking culture in family origins and Spanish-speaking yourself. I'd think most of the world likes what you call "escapist entertainment," it's just that the US is the chief manufacturer of it, film-wise. In saying Europeans are less that way, you may just be focusing on the products of a limited group for a limited audience, not on the general population, which likes things like The Chorus and Amélie just as we do. But Im admittedly no expert on that. You explained that Bresson is joyful in his view of lives that end in pathetic deaths, because he believes in the afterlife, but you yourself are an agnostic, so this troubles you. But if all you know for sure is this life, doesn't a cinema that celebrates life have a special appeal for you? And as a political liberal, are you not disturbed by the lack of free will in Bresson, as opposed, say, to the director of The Circle, who is surely seeking to make us feel rage at the wrong conditions to which women in Iran are subjected, and not celebrating the fact that they are being tested in this life to have a saintly existence in the Beyond, and sadly noting how difficult this life is, as is the case with Bresson? I still do think the serious American film buffs may revere Bresson more than you acknowledge, but I don't have any direct proof of that to offer you. I think it's very interesting to compare critical reactions to films and directors from country to country, partly with the aim of having a more detached perspective on our own admirations and criticisms and the value systems behind them.

Mouchette is certainly a tough to talk about impersonally which is perhaps the reason why not much has been written about it over the years especially compared to some of Bresson's other films. For me the film commemorates purity: Purity in thought, deed, appearance, sacrifice, along with in ruminations about other human beings, and, of course, cinema itself. How can one possibly "review" a film like Mouchette? Its various aspects can certainly be discussed though. I don’t find the ending pessimistic considering what else might’ve been in store. "Mouchette offers evidence of misery and cruelty. She is found everywhere: wars, concentration camps, tortures, assassinations." - Robert Bresson. This also reminds me of something Kiarostami said in reference to Taste of Cherry as he mentioned a philosopher who said to him that "Without the possibility of suicide, I would've killed myself long ago." As hard it is for some to accept, it is an option we have in life.

But we also have to acknowledge that we don’t actually see her death, we only see the process. Bresson always worked against our desire to witness or understand everything. The often discussed spirituality and the presense of a supreme being in his films I think is still rather opaque (?) and is based more on a feeling than an existance or a reflection.

Originally posted by arsaib4
I don’t find the ending pessimistic considering what else might’ve been in store. "Mouchette offers evidence of misery and cruelty. She is found everywhere: wars, concentration camps, tortures, assassinations." - Robert Bresson.

If we define "pessimism" as the tendency to expect the worst outcome in any circumstance, we need to consider that Bresson came of age during WWI, experienced the growing threat of Nazism, lived through the Occupation, spent a year or so as a p.o.w. during WWII (with its holocaust, and nuclear bombing of Japan), then came the Cold War and the imminent threat of a nuclear war. It can be argued he was more of a "realist", given what he experienced, than a "pessimist". Bresson was rather tight-lipped, so any comments like the one you provide are rare and valuable. (There never was a "Bresson on Bresson" or the equivalent of Tarkovsky's "Sculpting in Time", to my knowledge). Let's also take into account that both A Man Escaped and Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne have endings I'd call "happy". Yet another reason to resist attach the label "pessimist" to Robert Bresson.

This also reminds me of something Kiarostami said in reference to Taste of Cherry as he mentioned a philosopher who said to him that "Without the possibility of suicide, I would've killed myself long ago." As hard it is for some to accept, it is an option we have in life.

It's clear to me based on my viewings of his films, my research, and the unusual (for Bresson) addition of religious choral music to Mouchette's body disappearing under water that, for Bresson, she is passing to another stage in a state of Grace. And I'm not against calling it "afterlife-affirming" (as used by Chris). Then again, I can see the director proposing that suffering and pain are integral conditions of our existence, that to embrace them is "life-affirming".
I like this quote from Olaf Moeller: "The idea of society as a prison is the underlying connection between all of Bresson's films. We are all captives, immates, convicts".

Bresson always worked against our desire to witness or understand everything.

Yes, he both advanced certain points of view while leaving quite a bit open to interpretation. There's a mysterious quality that demands complete concentration and scrutiny.

*Your statement regarding his "spirituality" was not clear to me. I'm convinced the man had a deep faith in the Christian God, a belief in an afterlife, a distrust of institutions, and perhaps an attraction towards a predestinarian strain of Catholicism called Jansenism (after the teachings of Cornelius Jansen). As an answer to CK's query I'll say that I think there's evidence of "determinism" or "predestination" in the positions that Bresson's films advance. I sense a tone of resignation at times.

Wed. April 20th

I'll be brief due to time constraints. Today I attended a Master Class given by documentarian Fred Wiseman which included clips from his films Law and Order, Welfare, and others. He discussed his creative process and what he tries to communicate via images. It's remarkable that Wiseman does not do any research whatsoever before shooting, which is an expensive way to work.

Ca Twiste a Poponguine (Senegal, 1993) on vhs

Charming, coming-of-age film which uses a gregarious 12 y.o. boy to introduce the residents of Poponguine, a small seaside village in Senegal during 1964, just prior to independence from colonial rule. A melange of influences: American Pop culture, French culture, Christianity, Islam, and indigenous religions and practices are shown as alternatively complimentary and contrasting. A rather light, sometimes humorous, treatment of the subject.

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As an answer to CK's query I'll say that I think there's evidence of "determinism" or "predestination" in the positions that Bresson's films advance. I sense a tone of resignation at times.

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You're slipping back over to that; fine. I can't help feeling that if you'd been willing to take a more definite position on this we could also have had more of a discussion. I guess it's fair to say Bresson doesn't make his "position" really clear on anything, which is part of his unique charm, but you could have taken one of your own. My stand is that the downbeat mindset is a limited worldview, though some notable minds have adopted it, at least in their work. Bresson seems to about take the cake. The last word on Life Sucks and Then You Die. But: Not to Worry: There May be an Afterlife. The music tells us so.

I love the tautology, or whatever it is, that wihout the option of suicide the guy would've killed himself many times. A real riot, that.

I should perhaps mention that in the past I have been a great fan of the writings of Samuel Beckett, but they're not something that i want to spend a lot of time with. He and Bresson, two of a kind, both My Glass Is Half Empty kinds of guys. But Beckett was a lot wittier.

Bresson must be the ideal filmmaker for anyone who wants to make Cinema with a capital C be a very Serious Thing. There are other ways of looking at life, equally valid. Lots of fun stuff was happening in that century of WWI, WWII, and the Cold War. And we were around for some of it. You know, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..." like the French Revolution, according to Dickens.

Thursday April 21st

Head On at SoBe Regal
http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/show...0198#post10198

Sweet Movie (1974) on import dvd

Dusan Makavejev, the Belgrade-born director of The Coca-Cola Kid and W.R.:Mysteries of the Organism, directed this satire of totalitarianism and consumerism. An old woman who presides over the Chastity Belt Organization emcees a Miss World Virgin Contest. The winner gets to marry Mr. Kapital and his $50 billion. Priests escort the contestants onto a stage, a doctor performs a vaginal exam on each girl and names Miss Canada the winner. On her wedding bed, she is horrified by Mr. Kapital's gold-dipped penis and traumatized when he urinates on her. The energetic film grows increasingly bizarre and taboo-breaking. A woman performs a strip-tease for a bunch of 10 year-old boys and seduces one of them. Scenes of a gorgeous woman bathing in melted chocolate are intercut with scenes of Russian troops unearthing concentration camp corpses from a mass grave. There's a bizarre rendition of a mariachi song, a refugee from Battleship Potemkin makes an appearance, and the actual members of a French commune enact a gross-out Bacchanalia. Fans of Alejandro Jodorowsky, and Marco Ferreri's La Grande Bouffe must seek it out.

It certainly sounds bizarre, if not indigestible, though some of the titillating elements sound intriguing.

Sweet Movie would offend a lot of people. It was actually banned in English-speaking Canada, England and South Africa. It was best received in Italy where Pasolini was in charge of the dubbing process. Makavejev was named "persona-non-grata" in Yugoslavia because of it. (The film is as critical about communism as it is about anything else). But Sweet Movie, despite a high gross-out factor, is a pointed political satire I found easier to watch that Salo or Caligula, because it lacks the cruelty and mean-spiritedness of those films. Most of Makavejev's films are available on vhs from Facets Video. Those familiar with them seem to prefer W.R.: Mysteries of the Organism. I'll seek it out.

Friday April 22nd

Vodka Lemon at Cosford Cinema
Only the first film from Hiner Saleem to receive distribution in the US. That is, if a 2-screen opening can be called a commercial release in a large country. The distributor is New Yorker Films, which is either under financial strain or had no faith the film would develop a following. A miscalculation in my opinion. Vodka Lemon is set on a small village at the foot of the Armenian mountains during winter. Hamo, a widower of about 60, casually emerges as the protagonist. Like everybody else, he feels nostalgic about the era of Soviet subsidies because nothing has replaced it. Two of his sons live abroad but they send only letters and pictures, so Hamo is forced to sell his possessions. He visits his wife's grave daily and notices Nina, a widow living with her daughter. Through Hamo and Nina, we become acquainted with the rest of the residents, including a gruff-looking bus driver who fancies himself a balladeer. It won't surprise you that Hamo and Nina are drawn to each other, but the care taken by Saleem to depict the minutiae of their gradual relating, and the performances of the leads provide lasting pleasure. Saleem sustains a perfect tone throughout, comic yet melancholic, with surreal moments here and there. Vodka Lemon invites comparison with the films of Finland's Aki Kaurismaki and Georgia's Otar Iosseliani. Hope to get a chance some day to watch the earlier films directed by Mr. Saleem, an Iraqi Kurd who had to leave his beloved village in order to become a filmmaker. (His autobiography has been published in England under the title "My Father's Rifle").

Sat. April 23rd

Two films with historical themes from the Miami Latin Film Festival at the AMC theatre in Coconut Grove.

1809-1810 While the Day Arrives (Ecuador, 2005)
The day in this costume epic's title is Ecuador's Independence Day. The film, directed by Camilo Luzuriaga (Between Marx and a Naked Woman), concerns the events leading up to the massacre of 300 revolutionary Quitenos at the hands of Spanish troops in 1810. Luzuriaga's aim is to depict historical events with great authenticity by shooting at the locations where the events took place, costuming and ambientation based on historical records, and use of Indian dialects and Latin whenever appropriate. A love triangle between a mestiza (mixed blood), a rebel criollo (native, of Spanish parentage) and a Spanish colonel, plays second fiddle to events of socio-political import. A laudable effort, if somewhat uneven in execution.

Maria Querida aka Dearest Maria (Spain, 2004)
Kudos to the festival's programmers for including highbrow films when it's clear audiences flock to thrillers and romantic comedies.
Lola, a 30-something director shooting a film in Cuba, learns from her mother that poet/philosopher Maria Zambrano has died. Maria Querida flashes back 2 years to 1989, when Lola met Zambrano while working for a TV network. The legendary Zambrano was one of the most distinguished members of the generation of artists, thinkers and academics that were killed, imprisoned or exiled by dictator Franco. The recently divorced Lola is presented with the opportunity to direct a documentary on Zambrano (played in the film by Javier Bardem's mother Pilar). A special bond develops between the two as the poet's wisdom and consciousness is passed on to the younger woman, via recollections of her struggles against fascism and her difficult and exciting 45 years of globe-trotting exile, prior to returning to Spain. The documentary is being produced by Lola's ex-husband, perhaps in an attempt to win her back. News that Lola and her bi-sexual boyfriend are expecting a baby could cause him to withdraw his financial support.
Maria Querida was written by the great Rafael Azcona, who scripted the classic films of Berlanga and Saura. Most recently, Azcona received awards for his screenplays of Belle Epoque and Butterfly. The film was directed by J.L. Garcia Sanchez (Golden Bear for Las Truchas). Maria Botto, who was wonderful as the peg-legged Cinta in Aranda's Jealousy, is perfect here as Lola. Maria Querida dexterously mixes fiction and documentary. A highly edifying experience for the viewer, who learns quite a bit about the creative process in documentary filmmaking, becomes acquainted with the insightful Zambrano and the tumultuous history of her generation, and engaged by a fictional narrative about how a director's personal life impacts on her work.

Sunday April 24th

The Way to Murnau: Approaches to a Lonely Master (Germany, 2003)
Documentary short (35 Min.) about Friedrich Wilhem Murnau (1888-1931), perhaps the greatest director of the silent era. This exceedingly tall, quiet, melancholic German studied art history, served as a soldier and pilot in WWI, and directed plays in his teens. At about age 20, he changed his last name from Plumpe to Murnau most likely as a "break with a family that rejected his artistic ambitions and his homosexuality", and became a filmmaker. Most of his films prior to Nosferatu (1922) have been lost. He went on to direct some of the most enduring classics of the silent era, both in Germany and Hollywood: The Last Laugh, Sunrise, Tabu, Faust, Tartuff, City Girl. Most salient characteristics:
1) Compositions and lighting based on paintings (Vermeer, Rembrant, German Romantics, Modern, chiaroscuro art in general). The Way to Murnau matches scenes with the specific paintings that inspired them, leaving no doubt as to Murnau's influences.
2) Psychological approach to guiding performance. (The opposite of Bresson. Murnau stated: "I tell actors what to think not what to do")
3) He sought to liberate the camera from the tripod. Increasingly his films reveal more novel ways of moving the camera.
4) A couple's happiness threatened by an outsider was a recurring theme.

Tartuff (Germany, 1925) on dvd
Murnau's adaptation of Moliere's 17th century fable of religious hypocrisy, starring the great German actor Emil Jannings. Murnau uses a film-within-a-film device to make the content more relevant to his contemporaries. In one scene, a character directly address us (the viewers of Murnau's film). I remember some hailing Michael Haneke as an innovator for doing just that in Funny Games, more than 70 years later. Then again, Tartuff was not available for viewing until its restoration in late 2002.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (USA, 1920) on TCM
Robert Louis Stevenson's classic thriller has been adapted for the screen so many times it's no surprise there were two versions released in 1920. The best one was filmed at Paramount's Long Island studios, directed by John Robertson, and features an amazing, tour-de-force performance by John Barrymore. Not a faithful adaptation as it borrows a character from Oscar Wilde's "The Picture of Dorian Gray" and appropriates a few lines penned by Wilde.

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In one scene, a character directly address us (the viewers of Murnau's film). I remember some hailing Michael Haneke as an innovator for doing just that in Funny Games, more than 70 years later.

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Fielding does it in Tom Jones, and you can see that evoked amusingly in Tony Richardson's brilliant 1963 evolcation of the novel on film--I hope you've seen it? And Laurence Sterne did it a lot in Tristram Shandy; I think it was an 18th-century thing, but it's also something found in self-conscious, self-referential late 20th-century lit. like some of Nabokov's fiction. I am glad to learn that in movies it goes back at least to Murnau. I don't know that much about Murnau, but when I was at Berkeley I used to go to showings put on by "The F.W. Murnau Film Society," which were organized by Tom Luddy, who would give little introductions showing an amazing knowledge of film. He later became dirctor of the Pacific Film Archive.

Nice post, Chris. No, I haven't seen Tom Jones, probably because I haven't been impressed with Richardson's direction in other movies. Your recommendation has been noted. More Murnau coming up, as time permits.

Monday April 25th

Rue Cases Negres aka Sugar Cane Alley (Martinique, France/1983) on dvd

Tortilla came to ask Ma' Tine to help deliver her ma's baby but the baby was stillborn, like her last. Ma' Tine said: "Another kid saved from the white man's cane fields"

Euzhan Palcy (A Dry White Season)'s film is one of the best African diaspora films. It's based on a novel by Joseph Zobel set in 1931 Martinique. Jose, a bright 11 year old, lives in a tumbledown collection of huts with Ma' Tine (Darling Legitmus), the old woman who's raised him since his mother died. It's Jose's last summer of freespirited fun, since he has one year of schooling left before he adopts the punishing routine of the sugar cane worker. Ma' Tine vows not to let that happen, and Jose may be bright and lucky enough to be given a chance to further his education on the island's capital city. Sugar Cane Alley won Ms. Palcy a Cesar for Best First Work and a Silver Lion at Venice. This rags-to-riches story overcomes cliches by its uncanny evocation of time and place, and the specificity of its observations of the daily lives of the impoverished field hands. Certain images are unforgettable, such as a lingering close-up of Jose's ritualistic washing of Ma' Tine's dusty feet, and a wide-shot of a procession of torches descending a hill.

I don't know what your prejudice against Richardson is based upon; which were the movies of his you didn't like? But anyway you ought not to miss Tom Jones. Tom Jones was heralded at the time even by scholars of 18th century English literature as a superb adaptation of Henry Fielding's great novel, the most important one (novel, that is, not movie) of the century. It's also one of Albert Finney's great roles. A delight. It doesn't hurt to know a bit about the book and the period and its literature before you see the movie, but it should work on its own. Apart from his early Angry Young Man work, Look Back in Anger and The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, Richardson is notable for a considerable number of so-so but nonetheless very interesting literary adaptations. I should think it would be fun now to see Peter Firth cavorting with Ann-Margret in Joseph Andrews, which is another Fielding novel. I should have seen Laughter in the Dark because it's a Nabokov novel and I'm a big fan of VN, but it's true these didn't get good reviews and I didn't see them. The Entertainer was famous as a chance for Olivier to chew up the rug, and I have seen that. A Taste of Honey was a charming stage play that was made into a decent movie. Ned Kelly with Mick Jagger was a must see and may look dated today but still ought to be worth a look, perhaps to compare it with the more authentic-looking new one with Heath Ledger and Orlando Bloom, which seems to have been promptly forgotten in this country but not in Australia. The Loved One again is a so-so adaptation but of a priceless novel by Evelyn Waugh satirizing southern California. I should think that one as eager as you to have a comprehensive knowledge of cinema would need to see more Richardson to be up on what the Brits did in the second half of the 20th century...

*I forgot to mention that Sugar Cane Alley was dedicated to the great Jean Rouch, whose African films, shown at a retrospective I attended in February, are my major cinema discovery of the year.
*Chris, notice I stated "I haven't been impressed with Richardson's direction". Probably most of his films have redeeming features although I wouldn't want to watch Ned Kelly, A Taste of Honey, Nijinsky, or Hotel New Hampshire again. In my opinion, what makes Loneliness, Look Back in Anger and The Border superior is the protagonist's performance (Courtenay, Burton, Nicholson) and perhaps the source material. I don't know that I'd give Richardson credit for the performances of these wonderful actors, who were at career peaks at the time. I agree that I ought to watch Tom Jones, because of Fielding and Finney not because of Richardson.

Tuesday April 26th

Dear Frankie (Scotland, 2005) at SoBe Regal
The less you know about the plot of Shona Auerbach's movie the better. The premise alone won't spoil it: A single mom creates a fictional dad for her 9 year-old deaf son and hires a stranger to play the role for a day. Tailor-made for a weepie full of melodrama with a pat ending, I thought. Then the thing unfolds with restraint and grace, and you can't take your eyes off Emily Mortimer (as Mum), and what appeared to be a contrived premise suddenly makes logical sense, and there's a long silent moment that says more than words could convey, and a couple of tees are left uncrossed, and you realize you'd seen a better film than you expected. It's only my opinion. It's fair to say the range of critical response is as wide as possible (16 to 100 at metacritic) and you may not like it. Out on dvd on July 5th.

Ken Park on Pal dvd
Undistributed movie "based on stories and characters by Larry Clark", co-directed by Clark and cinematographer Lachman, with a script by Harmony Korine. Production values, performances and script are fine so let's get into the content and mise-en-scene to help you decide if you want to seek it out. It's a roundelay of transgressive vignettes of sex and violence in the lives of suburban teens and their dysfunctional parents. The number of characters, the short running time, and apparently, the auteur's intentions, guarantee that no character, especially grown-ups, will be depicted with any depth whatsoever. Clark has the red-headed titular character skateboard to a public park and blow his brains out within the first two minutes. A brutish, sadistic, alcoholic belittles his son, slaps him around, then comes into his room in the middle of the night and tries to fellate him. A bright kid masturbates to ejaculation for the camera while trying to asphixiate himself, then grabs a kitchen knife, goes to his grandparents' bedroom and stabs them to death. His voice-over explains he had an erection while doing this and that he killed grandpa because he cheated at Scrabble and Grandma because she's a "passive-aggressive bitch." A fanatically religious widower catches her daughter fellating a boy she's tied to her bed. Dad beats the shit out of the defenseless boy. Later, Dad stages a re-enactment of his wedding ceremony with her crying daughter in the wife role. There's a lengthy montage of girl-and-two-boys threesome. Two scenes involve a boy having sex with his girlfriend's mom. You can see her nipples enlarging as the boy learns proper oral sex technique (the sex and a beating or two are actually happening on-screen).
Clark would say all of this actually happens in American suburbia and I won't disagree. It's obvious Clark is not interested in grown-ups, only in the bad things they do to their children. But the almost complete absence of anything except sex, violence and drugs, and the repetitive close-ups of breasts, butts and genitals, leads me to believe he's not interested in kids either. Clark is only interested in kids' transgressive, taboo-breaking behaviors and their firm, almost-grown bodies. Ken Park is one of the worst movies I've seen this year.

Ken Park

I don't think it's fair what you say, but it's understandable, since no father of teenage children in his right mind would like this movie. I would advise you to take it in the context of Clark's work as a whole -- all his other movies, plus his considerable body of photographic work including those compiled into books such as Teenage Lust and his famous first one about speed freaks, Tulsa. You never mention them and you never mention Kids, Bully, or Another Day in Paradise either. They're all consistent and true to Clark's personal concerns and origins, and Kids in particular has been influential and brought him to a much larger audience. Some from that larger audience have yielded to the temptation to call Clark's films just exploitation and you're falling into the same fallacy, even if you're saying he's producing the exploitation for his own private consumption.

I can understand your mind being clouded by shock or disapproval, but your description's inaccurate even where you're being most positive:

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Production values, performances and script are fine so let's get into the content and mise-en-scene to help you decide if you want to seek it out. It's a roundelay of transgressive vignettes of sex and violence in the lives of suburban teens and their dysfunctional parents. The number of characters, the short running time, and apparently, the auteur's intentions, guarantee that no character, especially grown-ups, will be depicted with any depth whatsoever.

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Are they really "fine"? I don't think so. Clark's photographs notoriously were never technically well made, and neither is this movie. Your artificially detaching "production values, performances and script" from the rest is a mistake.

Otherwise your problem here is you're condemning the movie on the basis of its contents rather than its style and you say nothing about its authenticity as the work of an individual who, I'll keep pointing out, is both original and highly consistent in everything he's done in various media. You try to sound balanced, but you're really presenting the contents like one who puts a plate of food on the table and says, "This is poisoned, but you're all quite free to eat it if you like."

I think you're misreading the work, misinterpreting its origins. In my review (posted on my website), speaking as one who has followed Larry Clark's work from the early Seventies, I wrote:

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Clark is neither making exploitation nor being a moralist. He has obsessions, not agendas. He's simply doing what he does. But there is something moral about the fearlessness of his dedication to what he has seen and what he has dreamed. Roger Ebert has written: "I find Larry Clark one of the bravest of filmmakers, cutting close to the edge." If people think he cuts too close, that's because they aren't used to anyone this unique. A frequently heard criticism of the movie is that it reads as a series of unrelated segments saved and issued together arbitrarily. Not true: this is Clark's best film yet.

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Hopefully you'd have framed your remarks differently and made them more convincing if you'd seen Ken Park with me in a theater with an audience and we'd discussed it right afterward . Maybe you'd still conclude that it's all crap anyway, but you'd at least see the need to be more convincing, and perhaps even acknowledge that it isn't so much the "worst" film of the year as the one that you most disliked.

Just a few weeks ago I was walking through the major retrospective of Larry Clark's work at the International Center of Photography in New York curated by Brian Wallis (it runs from March 11 till JUne 5 -- the same day that the Brooklyn Museum Basquiat show ends), so I have a pretty clear mental picture of Clark's total oeuvre and the retrospective confirms what I'm saying: that he's one of the most original and consistent artist/filmmakers of our time.

P.s. In speaking of the religious fanatic widower you twice refer to him as "her."

__________________________

*I think you must have been having a bad day because you admit you're pre-judging Tom Jones and disregarding everything I said in my recommendation by saying you'll see it only for Finney's performance and not the direction. Could you be a little more open minded on this, please? It's really unfair to refuse to give Richardson any credit for making movies with great actors in them. Great actors don't exactly flock around lousy directors. Some directors are uneven, and the studio system can pull them down and get them involved in the wrong projects. I can assure you that Tom Jones is a great movie and not just because Finney's in it; he's just a part of it, though admittedly the titular character. Personally I'd like to see Ned Kelly and A Taste of Honey again, but not Hotel New Hampshire and NijinskyGive it a chance, don't pre-judge it on "principle."

*I imagine we do substantially agree on Los Muertos and I just reviewed it on the SFIFF thread here after seeing it on my own Tuesday, prompted by your comments and by Fan of Kubrick's infectious enthusiasm after seeing its first SFIFF showing. I loved it and found it the best of the three I've seen in the festival so far, though they've all (this, plus Desplechin's Kings and Queen and the Danish King's Game) been well worth watching.

P.s. Apropos of your calling Ken Park the "worst" you've seen this year: from your "Personal Disclosure" credo:

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*Subjectivity
I don't usually talk about "best" [worst] movies, only favorite ones.[/b]

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*Your attempt to explain away my judgement of Richardson as a film director by stating "you must be having a bad day" is undeserved. You should know by now I don't have a tendency towards rash, impulsive judgements. I never said he was a "lousy" director. I clarify for the second and last time that I stated: "I haven't been impressed with Richardson's direction in other movies" (meaning, other than Tom Jones, which I haven't seen but "I agree I ought to watch" it). My point is that, after watching about eight of his films, I don't see evidence of anything special that Richardson brings to the table as a visual artist. I don't see any evidence that I should seek out a film because he directed it.

*Indeed, I don't usually refer to films as "best" or, much less, "worst". I reserve them for instances when I feel so strongly about a movie that no other term would do. I repeat: "Ken Park is one of the worst movies I've seen this year". You (should) know I don't fake the passion. You've often characterized my comments as being "neutral", but I am very disappointed with Ken Park. Disappointed because I liked Clark's previous films, especially Kids and Bully, harrowing, cautionary tales about teens who behave badly, who make mistakes. There's a dimensionality to the characterizations. On the contrary, Ken Park is about the bad things that kids (and their parents) do, and the kids are repeatedly objectified via close-ups. For purposes of illustration, contrast the deflowering scene in Kids (at a party), which conveys all the information we need to know, with the sex scene in Ken Park involving Peaches and two boys. We repeatedly get close ups of breasts, butts and genitals and, what's worse, it's scored to the type of music one would find in a porn flick aimed at baby boomers, not the music teens would play. As shock cinema goes, and the masturbation-and-asphixiation scene is nothing but, Ken Park is not redeemed by an ulterior purpose such as the political satire in Sweet Movie and La Grande Bouffe. I'm glad Ken Park won't be seen in theatres here. I wouldn't want to deny access to it to Americans who enjoy this type of material so I'm not against a US video release.

Wed. April 27

Downfall at Sunset Place Theatres.
http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/show...0372#post10372

Tony Richardson
Sorry about my unduly flip comment about your "having a bad day." Probably I was the one having a bad day. I don't want to give you one! I always particularly enjoy discussing films with you. Do watch Tom Jones. It may make you wonder why you saw eight other Tony Richardson films and missed that, the most important one. You still say, "I don't see any evidence that I should seek out a film because he directed it." That certainly seems to be true based solely on your own experience. But isn't my advice new "evidence"? I hope so. What we may have here is an example of a director -- if your observations and mine are correct -- who has made a dozen or two competent films, and one great and delightful one.

Ken Park
I'm glad you described Clark's Ken Park in the context of his other movies this time, two of them out of the three others, anyway. That makes your position clearer, and more convincing. It's good that you also clarify your use of "worst," which is perhaps adivisable whenever you use it, since it's rather against your general principles to do so. I could debate your comparisons of Kids and Ken Park and the issues of dimensionality of characterizations, objectification via closeup vs. cautionary tales, redeeming ulterior purposes, etc., but you probably don't really want to go into more detail in discussing a movie you have found so objectionable. I don't want to drag you back over something you hated watching. There must be some people more appropriate for me to discuss it with, who find something to like in it, as I did and see it more favorably in the framework of Clark's entire career, as I do.

Apropos of all this, how "passion" vs. "neutrality" affect our discussions of film is a complicated matter. Certainly views expressed out of a lack of interest are themselves hardly of much interest; on the other hand in framing them, in expressing them, one needs a cool head, or nothing very convincing is likely to come out of the effort. Was I questioning your "passion"? No, I think I was hinting that you sometimes affect a façade of neutrality, when in fact your view is quite passionate; that you think it preferable not to reveal your opinion of a movie, when in fact that's just what we all want to hear. If I just want information, I can go to a website like IMDb. What delighted or amazed you, and what horrified or annoyed you -- those are what I want to know. And then we have material for discussion, provided that our emotion is "recollected in tranquility."

Armond White would be a current critic you may enjoy reading, Chris. I don't avoid controversy and I try to strike a balance between information and opinion. But my views tend towards the center, as I find very few truly bad movies and even fewer masterpieces. Giving my honest opinion is more important than being provocative. And information culled from a variety of sources is valuable. It's what I attempt to do: to combine opinion and information and present it clearly and concisely.

Thursday April 28th

The Philadelphia Story on 2-disc Special Edition dvd
http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/show...0409#post10409

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Armond White would be a current critic you may enjoy reading, Chris. . . Giving my honest opinion is more important than being provocative.

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Well maybe so; but why's it necessary to say so? Are you suggesting I do otherwise? The implication that I'd like to identify myself with a nut like White is itself provocative. His views can be stimulating, but they're unreliable.

I don't think you should worry so much about being provocative, since you yourself have said you want there to be more debate on this site. Be more direct, and don't hide your feelings behind a mask of friendly advice ("you may like. . .") -- which has the unfortunate side effect of seeming a bit condescending. I'm not suggesting you "might like" something. I'm asking you: Please be more forthright.

The fact that I'm supporting a challenging and provocative film may mean I'm willing to be provocative but it doesn't mean I want to be. Your supporting censorship of films (the repression of Ken Park) also is provocative -- and discouraging to young and risk-taking filmmakers.

Bolder statements can, as White as an extreme case does show, be stimulating to discussion, and "honest opinions" need to be stated with enthusiasm. Your first writup of Los Muertos is rather dry. One would hardly have known that it was one of your favorites of the past several years or that we should do everything we can not to miss it.

Indeed, Los Muertos is my favorite Latin American film since 2003. In the festival thread review, I used the term "powerfully effective" and my closing statement was Alonso is "the most original of the Argentinean filmmakers who've emerged in recent years". Given what's been posted about Martel, Trapero and Lerman, I thought I was being generous in heaping praise on Alonso. But if you didn't get the idea his film was a must-see then I have to take responsibility for a failure to communicate.

Friday April 29th

La Noire de... aka Black Girl (Senegal, 1965) at Florida International University

The first great film directed by an African (Ousmane Sembene) and the first film from Africa distributed in the United States. Sembene's first foray into the arts was his 1956 novel "Le Docker Noire", based on his decade working on the docks in Marseilles. He continued to write but this avid filmgoer decided that cinema was a more effective vehicle to reach a mass audience. In 1961, he traveled to Moscow to study filmmaking and worked at Gorky Studios. Upon his return to Senegal, he wrote and directed La Noire de..., based on a newspaper article about the tragic death of a young woman working as a domestic in the French Riviera.
The film opens with her arrival in France with a white family shortly after Senegal's independence from France. Then the film flashes back to her being selected by her white mistress from a labor pool to take care of children, we meet her family, observe a friendship with a young man blossom into romance, watch her interacting with the family that hired her, and her enthusiastic reaction to the offer to move to France with her employers. Back in France, Sembene depicts how the working conditions worsen, and her status and that of her employers changes in the new environment. In France, she is simply "la noire", a "nobody" to some, an "exotic object" to others.
Sembene gets a lot of powerful symbolism out of an African mask Diouna gives to her employers as a gift but insists on retrieving when she decides to quit. For her mistress, the mask comes to represent the life of privilege she could afford in the colonies. For Diouna, it's the African culture she was once willing to share which now the French insist on appropriating whenever convenient.
Following the screening, there was some very stimulating discussion involving academics, students and film buffs in attendance.

Saturday April 30th

The Charcoal People Os Carvoeiros (Brasil, 1999) on dvd
This documentary directed by Nigel Noble (Voices of Sarafina) depicts the process of turning rain forest trees into charcoal used in Brasil's steel industry by 60,000 migrant workers. There's no voice-over narration, only interviews with a wide range of workers regarding what they do and their living conditions. The Charcoal People is critical of the environmental damage caused by this industry and the exploitation of the workers, which range in age from 8 to 76 years old. They are often forced to lead nomadic lives by having to travel great distances to wherever they're needed. The film presents exclusively the workers' point of view without confronting industry reps the way a Michael Moore would. The dvd features a good transfer but squeezes a 1.66:1 film into a TV ratio (1.33:1) resulting in obvious loss of visual information.

Mr. Arkadin aka Confidential Report (1955) on PAL dvd
A Spanish/French co-production of a film written, edited, directed and starring Orson Welles. The film's plot mixes elements from Citizen Kane and Reed's The Third Man. It's a globetrotting mystery thriller filmed in exotic locations in Europe and Mexico featuring Welles's characteristic deep focus photography, baroque art direction, unusual camera angles, enigmatic characters, and elliptical narrative. Jonathan Rosenbaum has painstakingly documented the various versions of the film in his essay "The Seven Mr. Arkadins" (available in the book "Movies as Politics"). I've seen two versions and even the longer one has one scene that's obviously missing footage. Any version of Mr. Arkadin you may find is an absolute must-watch but I'm sad to say the dvd of the film available in the US is a definite must-avoid, not because its shorter cut but because of the terrible transfer and the putrid sound (one can barely make out what's being said). The PAL disc available in the UK under the title Confidential Report is a vast improvement. Eventually, the film will have a proper home video release here.

Yeah, I didn't get a sense of enthusiasm out of your writeup of Los Muertos, despite your high evaluation. I got more a sense of fun and excitement out of Fan of Kubrick's briefer writup. Sometimes it sounds to me like you're cataloguing rather than evaluating or emotionally responding, and how the film rates personally with you or how you persoonally respond to it doesn't come through as well as your description of the contents. I have somewhat the same problem as I've been told it's sometimes hard to tell what I really think or feel about a movie I review, and I'm working on that.

In the case of Mr Arkadin, you are simply warning people to stay away from this DVD because it's of lousy technical quality. With the Charcoal People documentary, it's hard to tell whether you think it's a good one or not. Is presenting just the workers' viewpoints sufficient to make it involving and good, or is the lack of Moore-ish confrontation with managers a real shortcoming, a sign that it's pretty limited? Also with Sembene's Black Girl you say the director "gets a lot of powerful symbolism out of an African mask," but I don't get any other idea of what's good about the movie; otherwise you just give some biography of Sembene and the plot of the movie.

Don't get the idea I'm just trying to tear you down. Your descriptions are informative and your tireless filmgoing and -viewing are inspiring. I'm just trying to suggest ways you can make what you say more engaging and useful.

This issue of the clarity of how much one likes or doesn't like a movie has forced writers to agree to using rating systems. I'm sure that if I wrote for a publication I'd have to devise one. I'm by no means implying that I write like J. Hoberman, but he's been a major influence. I react to his writing the way you're reacting to mine. Ideally I want to provide a mix of opinion and information that would help you make up your own mind whether a film is for you. What makes the approach more valid is the fact that I answer every follow-up question. These exchanges are the main reason why I'm posting my journal. Writing obviously is a reflection of one's personality and mine is not characterized by displays of emotion.

Another variable is the sheer volume of films (about 12 per week) and the percentage of my leisure time I'm willing to devote to writing vs. watching film and reading. Your questions about Arkadin, Charcoal People and Black Girl are reasonable and valid. You probably wouldn't have to ask them if I wrote longer reviews or had more time to write them. I appreciate you asking them and hope you continue to do so.

Charcoal People is a good doc that folks particularly interested in labor and environmental issues must watch, but it's not compelling enough for the general viewer. Even though one can likely predict the response from the employers of the "carvoeiros", I think their reaction to potential inquiries from the filmmakers would add to the doc's emotional impact. You must watch Mr. Arkadin and La Noire de.... Actually, a film lover must watch everything directed by Welles and Sembene, in my opinion. The former is available on dvd but it's such a bad presentation of the film that I think one needs to either seek out the PAL disc from the UK or wait until a decent region 1 disc is released.

What makes La Noire de... such a singular achievement is Sembene's ability to create a fictional narrative that illustrates with great nuance and economy a) the status and conditions of the colonist and the colonized and their relationship, b) how environment (Senegal and France) alters and impacts on race and class issues, and c) the appropriation and commodification of aspects of black culture by Europeans/whites.

Sunday May 1st

Lost Boys of Sudan (USA, 2004) on dvd
This doc directed by Megan Mylan and Jon Shenk documents the immigrant experience of two teenagers orphaned by the civil war in Sudan. Titles provide basic information about the conflict between the Muslin government in the North and the Christian and animist South, which has resulted in over 2 million deaths. We meet Peter and Santino in the UN refugee camp in Kenya where they've lived for over ten years. Both in their late teens, they discuss the attack on their village and their lives in the camp. The filmmakers allow enough time for the viewer to become acquainted with the lives they lead in Africa, their culture and customs. The doc covers their journey to Houston, Texas, their acculturation, and their experience as immigrants in America. Lost Boys of Sudan sidesteps conventional voice-over narration in favor of real-time, close-quarters coverage of significant events in the lives of Peter and Santino. The picture of America that emerges is relatively bening and hopeful, but the immigrant experience is almost by definition bittersweet and characterized by obvious cultural dislocation.

Jour de Fete (France, 1949/1995) on PAL dvd (UK)
The great Jacques Tati couldn't realize in full his personal vision for his debut feature. The laboratory was unable to cope with the experimental Thomascolor process. Tati knew there could be problems so he shot the film with two cameras, one with b & w film. Jour de Fete was released in 1949, in black and white, to great acclaim. Finally, in 1995, under the direction of Tati's daughter, the film was released in France, as intended, and what a revelation it is. The colors in this film look unlike those of any film I've ever seen. It's been said the film "looks like the 1940s, not like the color films made then". Tati directed, co-wrote and starred as Francois, the cycling postman of the village of St. Severe-sur-Indre. Tati's observations of village life are based on the year he lived there during the occupation. His intimate familiarity with the terrain and the residents of the village shows in every frame. The brilliant comedic gags recall the best of Keaton, although Tati's are more subdued and require more attention on the part of the viewer. The interplay between background and foreground action provides the film with riches that cannot be fully grasped in one viewing. The film takes place the day villagers prepare and set up a fair/carnival; "fair day", in which an itinerant cinema shows a short about the technologically advanced and efficient mail-delivery system in America; and the next day, as Francois attempts to speed-up and modernize his delivery methods while the town returns to normal. There's plenty of subtext about the complex and ambivalent feelings the French had about the USA and its influence during the late 1940s. There's no doubt the film's impact is somewhat diminished when viewed at home. Either way, a wonderful experience.

The issue of the rating system does come up. I don't think it's necessary. All you have to do is express some emotion in what you say and use a phrase like "worth watching" or "terrific" or "don't waste your time." If you see too many movies to be able to do that then maybe you see too many movies. I can imagine your being in too much of a hurry to decide; or, not having much time to spend, don't want to make a negative judgement, so just give a kind of neutral catalog description. I don't know what you mean about Hoberman when you say "I react to his writing the way you react to mine." How do you khow, and what do you mean? If you mean what you seem to mean, I wasn't aware there was any trouble telling whether he likes a movie or not. I don't think you're much like Hoberman and, of course, neither am I, though we both like his writing.

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What makes La Noire de... such a singular achievement is Sembene's ability to create a fictional narrative that illustrates with great nuance and economy a) the status and conditions of the colonist and the colonized and their relationship, b) how environment (Senegal and France) alters and impacts on race and class issues, and c) the appropriation and commodification of aspects of black culture by Europeans/whites.

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I don't get any sense of an emotional reaction or is this what you'd call pure intellectual pleasure? How would this be different from just reading a book? How is this different from Charcoal People of which you say it "is a good doc that folks particularly interested in labor and environmental issues must watch, but it's not compelling enough for the general viewer"? Again, I'm not trying to get on your case, just to help you put more emotional punch into your movie journal-writing so it's really a journal and not just a descriptive list.

Hoberman always makes interesting obsevations but I often have difficulty figuring out whether he recommends a film or not, and also figuring out how he "feels" about certain films. What's important is that I always learn from him .
La Noire was clearly intellectually stimulating (in a non-didactic way) but also had great emotional impact (without being melodramatic). To reveal more would spoil the experience of would-be viewers.

Monday May 2nd

Arizona Dream (USA/France, 1993) on PAL dvd
Bosnian director Emir Kusturica made two great movies prior to Arizona Dream (When Father Was Away On Business and Time of the Gipsies) and two after (Underground and White Cat, Black Cat), but I was disappointed with this English-language film. Kusturica has assembled a very attractive cast lead by the always-charming Johnny Depp as a fish-counter conned by his movie-obsessed friend (Vincent Gallo) to travel to Arizona to attend uncle Sweetie (Jerry Lewis)'s wedding to a young East European girl with a crying habit. They meet some very strange people, most notably, a widow fascinated with home-made flying machines played by Faye Dunaway and her suicidal step-daughter played Lili Taylor. These characters are defined by their unique quirks and obsessions, which drive the action. Other than Depp's, the other characters are eccentric caricatures. There are inspired moments, including a very funny scene in which Taylor attempts suicide by trying to hang herself with a pair of pantyhose, and some striking images, but overall this uneven film lacks a sense of purpose. It's interesting to note that most of the main characters either consider, attempt, or commit suicide because Kusturica's own deep depression caused shooting to be interrupted for three months.
Arizona Dream is only available in the US on a vhs version that's 23 minutes shorter than the original version (European Version I guess). This version I watched is the complete 142-minute version available on dvd in the UK.
It's only fair to share that mine is a minority opinion. For instance, 66% of IMdb voters rate this film "8" of higher. It's not without merits but, in my opinion, it's not worth watching unless you are a big fan of Depp.

Tuesday May 3rd

Walk on Water at SoBe Regal
http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/show...0471#post10471

Wed. May 4th

Elephant (USA, 2003) on dvd
Not much to add to the comments made after 1st viewing on the film's thread http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/show...=&threadid=684 except to highlight the important contribution of cinematographer Harry Savides (Gerry, Birth), specifically the gliding, cruise-controlled camera movements and the expressive use of (out of) focus.

Thursday May 5th

Demonlover (France, 2003) on dvd
A multi-lingual thriller of corporate espionage written and directed by a true film artist, Oliver Assayas (Irma Vep) and starring Connie Nielsen, Chloe Sevigny and Charles Berling. A modern thriller with the requisite chases, break-ins, shootings, car bombs, and hand-to-hand combat, this time mostly executed by female executives who are technologically savvy and ruthless. But not for a moment do any of the characters seem to acknowledge the moral implications of their actions. Every character lost his or, especially, her soul by the time we meet them so it's hard to care. The performances, particularly Connie Nielsen in the central role, are rather flat. No surprise both Ms. Nielsen and Chloe Sevigny state in interviews included on the dvd that "there was no input from him, like maybe the acting wasn't important at all" (Sevigny). What I enjoyed very much were the images crafted by Mr. Assayas and his crew, which are often disorienting and always interesting, and the disonant score by the American band Sonic Youth which matches and accentuates the visuals perfectly.

Nazarin (Mexico, 1959) on TCM
Turner Classic Movies is showing an excellent selection of Golden Era Mexican films every thursday during the month of May. Nazarin is one of the last films Luis Bunuel directed in Mexico prior to his return to Europe. It won the International Prize at Cannes and the Ecumenical Prize from the International Catholic Cinema Office. The latter would be surprising for a filmmaker with a reputation of being an anti-clerical. This is the film that can serve as strong evidence that Bunuel's anti-establishment and anti-institutional stance never meant a repudiation of Christian values. Nazarin stars Francisco Rabal as Father Nazario, a priest who truly attempts to lead a life modeled after Christ's but the greed, envy and hypocrisy of people and institutions (particularly Church and State) result in his being humiliated, beaten and jailed. Nazario's efforts to improve the lives of the thiefs, beggars and prostitutes he encounters are continuously sabotaged. Several surreal moments and grotesque presentations peppered throughout the linear narrative are pure Bunuel. Not to be missed.

You will find strong opposition to your dismissal of demonlover from Assayas devotees, but not from me. I much like you found it incoherent and uninvolving, and your note on the actors reporting no input from the director is telling. As usual your evaulation is balanced, perhaps more than mine would be, since I find the overall effect unsatisfying, but you are no doubt right to offer favorable comment on the images and sound track.

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Originally posted by oscar jubis
Yes, JustaFied, Decline is a prequel of sorts to Barbarian. Yes, it's worth checking out but it's not as memorable as Barbarian (although it won 9 Canadian Academy awards and a FIPRESCI award at Cannes).
Barbarian is more expansive both visually and thematically. As you've pointed out, the dichotomy between the boomers and the next generation is particularly interesting, and you won't find that in Decline. My recollection is that the prequel is just as funny and perhaps just as sad. It takes place on a single day and it's even more dialogue-driven than Barbarian. The basic thesis is that the boomers obsession with hedonistic pursuits at the expense of everything else is indicative of a society in decline. There are three set ups: the men at Remy's lakeside house, the women at the health club, and a gender clash over dinner. The main topic is sex and the game of choice is intellectual oneupmanship.
Please share your opinions if you decide to watch it.

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I've since seen "Decline of the American Empire", so I'll briefly respond to your comments from some time ago. I liked "Decline" but found it less reflective and more narrow in scope than "Barbarian". This is probably a reflection of the mindset of the characters in each film. The subject matter in "Barbarian", being broader in scope, made the film more interesting to me, and its story had a greater emotional impact. The story in "Barbarian" is multifaceted, touching on issues as wide ranging as the relationships between generations, the aging of the Boomer generation, the State-sponsored "war on drugs", and the inefficiencies of the Canadian health care system. How can one be bored watching this film! The story in "Decline" primarily revolves around the rather selfish, insular world of the characters involved. Minor correction, however: I believe the name of the film (Decline of the American Empire) as described refers to a society's proven decline once its populace attains sufficient time and freedom to seek self-happiness. Such happiness is not necessarily limited to hedonistic pursuits, though that seems to be the primary focus in the film. I don't think the original intent of the expression was necessarily a moral one.

*"Uninvolving" would certainly describe my reaction to demonlover, the first film from Assayas I don't want to watch again and the first one I can't recommend.
*JustaFied, obviously we agree on both Decline and the wonderful Barbarian Invasions. Your comments are insightful.

Saturday May 7th

Off the Map at Regal Avenues in Jacksonville, FL.

Campbell Scott returns to the director's chair to adapt Joan Ackermann's play about a family living in a remote area of New Mexico in 1974. As the film opens, a woman, Bo, played by Amy Brenneman examines mementos from her childhood. A dissolve flashes back thirty years to Jo as a verbose, energetic girl of about 11 years old. "That was the summer of my father's depression" she says in voice-over, and indeed, Charley (Sam Elliott) appears almost catatonic during the early scenes. Bo, Charley and his wife Arlene live miles from the nearest road, in an adobe house devoid of modern conveniences. They live off the land and Charley's veteran's pension check. Reasonably happy, self-contained lives until Charley is stricken by a deep depression of unknown etiology. Going into town to see a psychiatrist is out of the question, but eventually Charley's close friend (and sole visitor) George gives in to Arlene's request to fake being depressed to get anti-depressants for Charley. In the meantime, William, a young, insecure IRS man finally locates their home. We learn the Grodens haven't filed for seven years. William's visit becomes longer, much longer than anyone could anticipate, a catalyst for change for the whole family.
Off The Map is one of those earnest American independent films with a strong regional flavor and an unhurried pace that's box-office poison. More character-based than action-driven thus an actor's showcase. Though the performances are uniformly good, it's Joan Allen who shines as the complex, force-of-nature Arlene. Campbell Scott is very careful here not to overuse voice-over and the film as a whole is extremely "quiet", as befits its desert-and-mountains landscape, with sporadic use of a vaguely percussive music score. A modest film perhaps, entirely observed from a child's p.o.v., with occasional, probably ill-advised detours into whimsy near the end. Still, this well-observed, beautiful, graceful, well-acted, coming-of-age Amerindie is full of heart.

Off the Map--I wanted to see this but now it's gone.

Assayas--admittedly I have only seen six of his 20-some films, but I still don't see what all the fuss is about.

Assayas has directed 10 fiction features. The first five were not distributed in the USA. They are: Disorder, Winter's Child, Paris Awakens, A New Life, and Cold Water, a wonderful film about a teenage couple set in the 70s which had a special screening here in '95, sponsored by the French Consulate. I'd love to watch it again. Then came Irma Vep, a film I consider a masterpiece and my favorite film about movie-making (yes, I like it more than Godard's Contempt and Truffaut's Day For Night), followed by Late August, Early September, Les Destinees, demonlover, and Clean, which you've seen but won't open comercially in the US until September.

Sunday May 8th

The Kid (1921) on TCM
Thr Tramp raises a child abandoned by an unwed mother in this very personal project for Charlie Chaplin and his first feature film. Chaplin himself had suffered a traumatic separation from a mother he idolized, and he started working on The Kid ten days after the death of his son Norman Spencer Chaplin, who lived for only three days. Besides Chaplin's established genius as a creator of visual gags, what makes The Kid such a delight is the chemistry between Chaplin and 4 year-old vaudeville performer Jackie Coogan.

I didn't get Irma Vep at all. It all seemed hype to me. Cold Water has sounded good to me.

Irma Vep is too rich to discuss in brief and has too many facets to absorb in one viewing. The premise is a crew's quixotic attempt to remake my favorite French silent, Louis Feuillade's Les Vampires, starring a Hong Kong actress, the future Mrs. Assayas Maggie Cheung (playing herself). It's great fun to watch the rivalry that develops between a has-been director played by Truffaut's alter-ego Jean Pierre Leaud and a female costume designer, both attempting to seduce the iconic Cheung. But actually, like in choice Altman, every single character is complex and nuanced. One learns a lot about filmmaking as a creative enterprise and about the issues that arise in international shoots. It's very interesting how each character creates an image of Cheung based on his/her needs and prejudices. The integration of image and soundtrack is masterful, most especially the use of music.

Monday May 9th

Wanda (USA, 1970) on PAL dvd (French)

Winner of the Critics Prize at the 1970 Venice Film Festival, received great reviews during its commercial run at the Cinema II in Manhattan, and then erased from memory. At least in the USA. Europeans, particularly the French, wouldn't let it disappear. This independent feature, the only one directed by Barbara Loden before she died at age 48, was re-released in France in 2003, and then on dvd last year. What a revelation it is! An honest, cliche-free character study of a drifter lost in the coal towns of western Pennsylvania. A feminist film perhaps, yet free of dogma and didacticism. An improvisational film to a great extent yet not a moment seems superfluous. Shot in 16 mm, mostly with handheld cameras, yet never amateurish or crude. Wanda is a woman whose aimlessness and good figure make her particularly vulnerable, but she is not a "victim". Wanda can perhaps be described as a person who is not a good fit for the roles available within her milieu. She ellicits our sympathy even though she seems to have little interest in her two children, whom she admits are "better off" with her ex-husband. Tony-award winner Barbara Loden wrote, directed and played the main role in a film that deserves a place of honor amongst the great American Independent films. Wanda is every bit as good as Cassavetes' Shadows, Kastle's The Honeymoon Killers, or Biberman's Salt of the Earth. It's simply too good to remain in obscurity.