Oscar's Cinema Journal 2005

[oscar jubis]

I've a lot of catching up to do on this thread. Some entries will be rather short. Willing, as always, to get more specific. I'm surprised the long Weekend post got no replies.

Sun Sep 4th

An Amazing Couple aka Trilogy:Two (France/Belgium, 2003) dvd
Lucas Belvaux has come across a novel, cost-effective way of making movies: shooting a long, multi-layered story and cutting it into three films, each a different genre depending on which characters are principals and which are secondary. This is the "comedy of errors" film within a trilogy. Alain's secretive behavior causes wife Cecile (Ornella Muti, still hot at 48) to suspect infidelity. She hires a cop, her friend's husbanmd, to investigate. Alain's secretary and doctor figure prominently. Belvaux, an experienced actor recently turned director, shows extreme versatility in crafting this trilogy according to the genre requirements of the thriller, drama, and the comedy of errors. Each film can be thoroughly enjoyed without having seen the others. Quite a feat.

[Johann]

Originally posted by oscar jubis
I'm surprised the long Weekend post got no replies.

It will. Love it!

It's film-mania right now for me, so I'll have to respond when I get time.

[oscar jubis]

Thanks. You read it. That's all I need. Sorry to be begging for a reply, but it took a lot of time and effort to describe, rather than review, what may be Godard's most rebellious and best movie.

Monday September 5th

Shake Hands with the Devil: The Journey of Romeo Dallaire (Canada, 2004) at Cosford Cinema

Romeo Dallaire is the Canadian who served as Commander of the United Nations' peacekeeping force in Rwanda, and this doc directed by Peter Raymont is based on his autobiographical book. It's one of the best docs I've seen in recent years. It shouldn't surprise you that a doc provides more information than a film like Hotel Rwanda but, what's remarkable and unusual, is that Shake Hands also provides more drama and emotional impact than the Hollywood pic. Romeo Dallaire is an obvious film subject because of his being "the world's rep" at the site of the most horrible recent holocaust, the man who alerted the world powers about the horror to come. Romeo Dallaire is a wonderful film subject because he is extremely candid, frank, vulnerable, and principled.
Shake Hands with the Devil provides analysis of the roots of the animosity between Hutus and Tutsis, particularly the malevolent contribution of the Belgian colonialists in fomenting and stoking tribal divisions. It goes on to point a finger at the French government for sanctioning the Rwandan government's benign attitude towards extremist Hutus, and consequently the world's superpowers and the UN. The divergent reaction to similar events in Yugoslavia is highlighted.
At the personal level, the film features Dallaire's biography, with a focus on the months he spent in Rwanda in 1994, when 800,000 were massacred by extremist Hutus, and his 2004 return to participate in conferences and commemorations at the 10-year anniversary of the event. This return trip also serves as part of the therapeutic rehabilitation of Dellaire who became suicidal and alcoholic after returning to Canada, and continues to experience symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Shake Hands with the Devil is the time of film that will engage your thoughts and your feelings from the first frame and won't let go for days after you've seen it.

[Johann]

No worries- you've honored the French Pest, oscar.

I just gotta find a sweet color printer.
Nice work- I'm actually jealous of that. Wish I wrote it.

Best description of Weekend I've come across.
Find JLG's office in Paris and send it off, in an embossed folder.

He'd love that I think.

[oscar jubis]

Godard was certainly a pest around the time he made Weekend. Raoul Coutard, the DP, recalls how Godard was openly antagonistic to the producer and his leading actress, for no good reason. Godard was calling himself a "marxist-leninist" at the time and had decided to stop accepting commercial funding sources. Weekend is a brilliant summation of his "60s commercial" period and an introduction to what was to come. You know Johann, anger is a positive emotion if one knows how to channel it. One can sense Godard's anger and passion in every scene of this film.

Tuesday Sep 6th

Ray (USA, 2004) on HBO
Dylan (12) wanted to see it. Issues of drug abuse, infidelity, betrayal, racism (segregation included),etc. came up spontaneously in conversation after the film.

Baby Doll (USA, 1956) on TCM
Baby Doll (Carroll Baker) will turn 20 in two days. Her middle-aged husband Archie (Karl Malden) has kept a death-bed promise he made to her Dad to wait until she turned 20 to consummate the marriage. When they married, Archie was wealthy but now he's lost the cotton gin trade to the Syndicate Gin owned by the Sicilian Vaccaro (Eli Wallach's debut). After his furniture is repossesed for failing to make the payments, Archie gets drunk and burns down Syndicate Gin. Vaccaro suspects Archie but has no proof, until a conversation with Baby Doll yields some clues. Vaccaro vows to get revenge.
Baby Doll was directed by Elia Kazan from a screenplay by the great Tennessee Williams_based on two of his one-act plays. Kazan hired cinematographer Boris Kaufman, who was born in Poland but worked as a DP in France for two decades prior to WWII, including lensing all of Jean Vigo's films. Kazan and Williams had collaborated before in A Streetcar Named Desire and had worked with Kaufman in On the Waterfront. I like Baby Doll just as much as those two better-known, more famous films. Baby Doll was filmed on location in Benoit, Mississippi and features town's residents in several small speaking parts. It's a brilliant tragi-comedy that received four Oscar nominations despite wide condemnation from several groups including the League of Decency, the Catholic Church, etc. A future dvd release is a given.

[oscar jubis]

Wed September 7th

Junebug (USA, 2005) at SoBe Regal

[oscar jubis]

Thursday September 8th

Asylum (UK, 2005) at SoBe Regal
The asylum is for criminally insane inmates and it's located in the outskirts of London. It's 1959 when a doctor and his wife Stella (Natasha Richardson) move into a house on the grounds. Their marriage is clearly strained, and Stella develops a passionate attraction towards a handsome inmate. Stella learns from Doctor Cleave (Ian McKellen) that the inmate is a sculptor who suffers from "morbid jealousy" and that he killed and disfigured his wife.
Director David Mackenzie and cinematographer Giles Nuttgens collaborated in last year's excellent Young Adam. Both films have common thematic and formal elements_the same shallow-focus photography, slightly saturated colors, and precise placement and movement of the camera. The setup or premise will be familiar to many but the narrative takes some unexpected, not always entirely believable, turns. Asylum is based on a novel by Patrick McGrath, and adapted by Patrick Marber (Closer). I don't know, not having read the novel, who to credit for the excellent dialogue, particularly the lines written for the enigmatic character played by Mr. McKellen, who figures prominently in ways that are never obvious. A couple of scenes are poorly staged, and Asylum is not what you'd call original, but Richardson and McKellen are great to watch and Asylum is engaging, and visually nimble.

[Chris Knipp]

(I too liked Young Adam--see below.) I haven't seen Asylum and it hasn't sounded promising, though of course I can well understand why you as one in the field of psychotherapy would want to see it. Anthony Lane in The New Yorker had fun with it. You have covered your bases and hedged your bets so well that it's hard to tease a solid rating our of your remarks, but I guess what they add up to is a B-. Sounds like a disappointment after the quite innteresting and beautifully focused Young Adam which I reviewed McGrath wrote the book on which Cronenberg's Spider was based. The director seems to be unpredictable. Now I realize I should see this.

[oscar jubis]

Nice review of Young Adam, a better film than Asylum, which I'm glad I watched during its last theatrical screening here. We seem to be communicating well because a "B-" would accurately reflect my opinion of the film. I remember you experimented with letter grades for a period. If I ever decide to grade films I would definitely describe specifically what each grade means to me. Asylum is a flawed film with enough of merit to be worth-watching yet far from a must-see.

[oscar jubis]

Friday September 9th

Blind Beast (Japan, 1969) dvd
"What interests me is a conflict between expressions of naked desires which cannot be mitigated by environment. I want to create a mad person who expresses his or her desire without shame" (Yasuzu Masumura)
A blind sculptor and his mother kidnap a beautiful young model (Mako Midori) and take her to his studio, a converted warehouse on the city's outskirts. The sculptor is fascinated with the female body. His studio features walls lined with sculptures of body parts, with two giant naked female forms in the middle, one facing down and the other facing up. After several days of captivity and failed attempts to flee, the model starts to succumb to the sculptor's constant attention and touch and he discovers sex for the first time. Sculptor and model embark on a search for pleasure and sensation that knows no limits and leads to madness, murder and suicide. Watching Masumura deploy his camera around this set is worth the price of admission. This is one stylish, mature work from the prolific Japanese director Masumura (Manji), a favorite of Michelangelo Antonioni. The film is based on a story by Rampo Edogawa, whose life story became the subject of the film The Mystery of Rampo.

The Chicken (France, 1962) Cosford Cinema
A short written and directed by Claude Berri, which won an Oscar for Best Short Film. It's 15 minutes long and concerns a young boy trying to keep his parents from killing a chicken. Very funny and well-observed. It anticipates Berri's first feature, which was shown consequently.

The Two of Us aka The Old Man and the Boy (France, 1967) Cosford Cinema
Claude Berri's debut feature is largely autobiographical. The protagonist, an 8 year old boy, is named Claude Langmann, Berri's birth name. In 1942 Paris, the son of a Jewish tailor is sent to live in the country with the parents of a family friend. The old man, played by the great Michel Simon (Boudu Saved From Drowning, L'Atalante, La Chienne), is a fun-loving, affectionate old rascal who happens to be anti-semitic and a supporter of the Vichy government. The boy has been diligently coached on how to pass for Catholic until he can reunite with his parents. A black-and-white film about country life during wartime and the relationship that develops between the old man and the boy. Moving and inmensely entertaining. The Two of Us has been recently restored and was shown in a brand new 35 mm print. I predict a dvd release in the near future. A sure crowd-pleaser.

[oscar jubis]

Saturday Sep. 10th

El Inmortal (Nicaragua, 2005) at Cosford Cinema
Documentary directed by Mercedes Moncada Rodriguez and shown as part of the LatinBeat Film Festival. Ms. Moncada chose the extended Rivera family among several families interviewed for the purpose of illustrating how the civil war in Nicaragua divided families. El Inmortal deals with the conflict only as far as its impact on the Riveras, who live in the hill town of Waslala in Northern Nicaragua. The doc offers no informative intertitles, no archival material and no narration. Only interviews conducted in late 2003 and early 2004. Several teenage members of the Rivera family became war combatants in 1983, when their modest home was located in the crossfire of a battle between Sandinistas and Contras. The husband of the eldest and 15 year-old Emilio died during warfare but both the twins, who fought for different sides, and another sister survived.
The interviews are arranged so that a chronological story of their experiences from 1983 to 1990 emerges. El Inmortal is named after a Mack truck used to spread Evangelical Christianity to nearby towns. The doc most definitely does not take sides between Sandinistas and Contras, but it's extremely tendentious and agenda-driven with regards to Christianity. The repeated use of religious imagery and sermons in voice-over go way beyond the need to convey the importance of religion to three of the family members. Arty, "show-offy" breaks between interview segments, scored to loud, ponderous sounds and music by avant-garde songstress Diamanda Galas are superfluous and out-of-place. Some viewers may become frustrated by the lack of background information about the war, and many questions about the Riveras are left unanswered (Is Reina mentally ill, superstitious, or "divinely influenced"?). Almost incidentally, the film provides a rare glimpse into the life conditions and belief systems of the poor who live in rural areas of Latin America.

El Perro aka Bombon, the Dog (Argentina, 2005) at Cosford Cinema
All five of director Carlos Sorin's features are set in the desolate plains of Patagonia, even the one titled Eversmile, New Jersey. Only one of his films, Historias Minimas (2002) has been distributed in the USA. His latest is being shown around the country as part of a traveling series called LatinBeat Film Festival. It is, in my opinion, a better film than Historias Minimas, perhaps because of the thematic unity facilitated by the focus on a protagonist, a wonderful character played by the naturally expressive first-time actor Juan Villegas (also the name of the character). When the film opens, the affable, 50-something Juan has been let go by the new owners of the service station where he worked for 20 years. While looking for a permanent position, he drives around in his beaten van providing help to stranded motorists and trying to sell the artesanal knives he makes as a hobby. He visits his stressed-out daughter and goes to an employment agency where the sarcastic clerk offers little hope. He comes across a disabled Mercedes. He tows it 150 Kms. to "La Chienne", a farm whose widowed owner offers a white dogo (a highly sought out breed) as payment. The dog is a sort of people-magnet who puts Juan in contact with various individuals, including one who wants to train the dog for competition and hire him for breeding. Many new experiences await Juan, including a romantic interest. It's all handled deftly, with a light touch, with sensitivity and attention to character detail. Bombon the Dog is an emotional movie that avoids treacly sentimentality. The rare "crowd-pleaser" whose narrative turns never feel forced.I hope its commercial potential will be recognized by someone in a position to distribute it widely in this country.

[oscar jubis]

Sunday September 11th

Hurlevent aka Wuthering Heights (France, 1985) dvd
The great Jacques Rivette adapted the first part of Emily Bronte's Victorian-era classic by setting it in rural France in the 30s. Rivette's, like previous adaptations by Wyler and Bunuel, does not follow the novel's conceit of telling the story from the point of view of two outsiders. The result is a conventional yet effective melodrama. Good performances by Lucas Belvaux and Fabienne Babe in the principal roles.

Brief Encounter (UK, 1945) dvd
David Lean is most familiar to contemporary film buffs for expensive epics like Bridge on the River Kwai, Doctor Zhivago and Lawrence of Arabia, but in the 1940s, when Lean turned from editing to directing films, he was best known for his collaborations with playwright Noel Coward. Brief Encounter is perhaps the best from an impressive group that includes Blithe Spirit, This Happy Breed and In Which We Serve. It's an expansion of Coward's one-act play "Still Life", about the unconsumated love affair between a housewife (Celia Johnson) and a married doctor (Trevor Howard) who meet at a train station not far from London. The film was lensed by Robert Crasker, the cinematographer responsible for the wonderful The Third Man and Visconti's Senso. In fact, every aspect of this production is top quality, from the writing to the editing, to the sound design and the unique use of music (Rachmaninov's Second Piano Concerto figures prominently), to the excellent performances from Johnson and Howard. The film provides a glimpse into middle-class British mores of the period between the world wars. Brief Encounter has a similar emotional impact on the viewer as Kar Wai's In The Mood For Love.

[oscar jubis]

Monday September 12th

Anna Christie (USA, 1931) on TCM
Garbo Talks! screamed the headlines and marquees, referring to the English version of this adaptation of a Eugene O'Neill play. Greta Garbo preferred the German-language version so it's the one I watched. It features the same sets as the English one and of course, Garbo, but a different cast and crew. She plays a girl raised by her mother in rural Minnesota who, at age 20, comes to NY to reunite with her alcoholic, sailor father. They haven't seen each other for 15 years. Good but not essential, despite Garbo's "Presence".

Kwik Stop (USA, 2001) dvd
Having recently watched The Mad Songs of Fernanda Hussein and this low-budget indie, films that were rarely screened outside of film festivals, I'm beginning to question the wisdom of distributors regarding which Amerindies to distribute widely. Kwik Stop was made by a Chicago-based group headed by writer/director/actor Michael Gilio and featuring an outstanding performance by Lara Phillips. It has received a couple of festival awards. Roger Ebert gave it 3 1/2 stars and chose to screen it as part of his Overlooked Film Festival. Jonathan Rosenbaum listed Kwik Stop as a runner-up on his 10 Best Films of 2001 essay. A third of IMdb voters who've seen it rate it a "10". Yet the film was not distributed theatrically. At least it's out on dvd now, and the less you know about its surprising plot the better. I won't spoil it by saying that it's about a teen girl named Didi who meets a guy driving to Hollywood outside a convenience store and decides to tag along. It starts as a road movie/ romantic comedy but the film will soon confound and challenge expectations. Two others become prominent characters: the guy's ex-girlfriend and a bitter middle-aged widower. Kwik Stop is a movie full of magical coincidences, tone shifts, rhyming effects, well-written dialogue, satiric passages, stylistic flourishes and unpredictable twists. It seems to me that the indie films that get wide distribution are a more polished and calculated type of film that often don't differ substantially from Hollywood films. They may be quirky and offbeat on the surface but deep down they're safe as milk. Kwik Stop takes chances at every turn.

[oscar jubis]

Tuesday September 13th

Today I watched disc 1 of the The PAL dvd "The Complete Jean Vigo", which includes the three shorts ond one feature he completed before dying at age 29. It was enough to certify Vigo as one of the best filmmakers ever. I watched the two documentaries that comprise disc 2 of the set earlier this year. L'Atalante has been available on dvd in North America for years. It's only a matter of time until the masterful three shorts that preceded it also become available. All are absolutely essential viewing.

A Propos de Nice (France, 1930) 22 minutes
Overhead shots of the coastal resort city open the film, a portrait of the city in all its splendor, catching the rich at rest and play at casinos, hotels, cafes and beaches. But most importantly, Jean Vigo pays homage to the residents who make all the leisure and luxury possible: the waiters, the laundresses, the entertainers, the street cleaners, the vendors, the shoeshiners, etc. A Propos de Nice evidences documentary, surrealist, and avant-garde influences. The juxtaposition of shots creates comedic, dramatic and satiric effects throughout.

Swimming by Jean Taris (France, 1931) 10 minutes
A Master Class on swimming given by the great French, and Olympic, champion. Wonderful underwater photography and use of reverse and slowed time.

Zero in Conduct (France, 1933) 42 minutes
An anarchic masterpiece based on Jean Vigo's experiences at boarding school. The tyrants that run the school, including a dwarf with fake beard who is the principal, attempt to intimate the sensitive new kid. But he resists and joins three other pranksters in sabotaging the school's Commemoration festivities. The riotous pillow fight scene possibly the most representative of Jean Vigo's sensibility.

L'Atalante (France, 1934)
One of the best films ever made. The story of Juliette, a provincial girl who marries Jean, a barge skipper. Aboard, a cabin boy and the old sailor Pere Jules (an absolutely awesome performance by Michel Simon). The conflicts arise almost as soon as Juliette boards the barge and needs to get used to a new lifestyle and surroundings. Jean becomes irritated by her fast friendship with the wild and unpredictable old sailor. But when they dock in Paris, its the allure of the city to a first-time visitor and Jean's jealousy of a charming street peddler that causes their separation.
L'Atalante is as fresh and inventive today as 70 years ago. It's hilarious, whimsical, romantic, erotic, and quite moving. It's useless to talk about genres or categories to discuss L'Atalante because Vigo's vision is so seamless and organic. One could argue that several scenes are simultaneously realistic and magical or surrealist. This was my 4th or 5th viewing and there'll be many more.

[oscar jubis]

Wed Sep 14th

The Holy Girl (Argentina, 2004) A Must-See, now out on dvd.