the LAST FILM YOU'VE SEEN thread

[Chris Knipp]

This adds interest I must say, but after Cure I don't want to see anything that isn't as good as that.

[trevor826]

I haven't seen Cure so I wouldn't have a clue how that measures up.

Anyway, my latest:

Noce blanche (1989) White Wedding

Directed by Jean-Claude Brisseau

Starring Vanessa Paradis, Bruno Cremer


A middle aged philosophy teacher François Hainaut makes a connection with a 17 year old pupil Mathilde Tessier who although late for lessons when she bothers to turn up at all shows a real flair for philosophy and psychology but has a cynical attitude towards life. Mathilde is a problem case that most of the teachers want out of the school but thanks to the determination of François she is given a last chance.

François starts tutoring Mathilde at her home and the inevitable happens, he is seduced by her prodigous intelligence and then by her beauty and youth. Despite the fact that he’s married with a very attractive wife and that as her tutor he knows what they are doing is wrong she brings out the youth in him and he fails to resist.

Gradually François learns some frightening facts about Mathilde’s past and family, with this knowledge and his wife’s threats to leave him he tries to cool the affair down. Silent calls are made to his house day and night and the shop run by his wife is vandalised, Mathilde deliberately starts dating boys from her class just to make him jealous until he loses his temper, drags her into an empty classroom where he bawls her out for all the trouble she’s causing and they end up having sex.

They are caught, he is posted off to a school in Dunkirk, his wife leaves him and Mathilde rejoins her family in Paris, but a year or so later…………!

Convincing acting from the leads, you could understand him falling for this girl that he’s already put on a pedestal (plus of course it’s Vanessa Paradis). There are no sex scenes but I was surprised at the amount of nudity (not exploitative) because according to IMDB Vanessa Paradis was 17 when the film was made.

The story actually had more depth than I would have expected and thankfully didn’t turn into a bunny boiler type movie. This was Vanessa Paradis’s first leading role and luckily she was perfect for the part, she played a similar character in the film Eliza several years later but with a very different plot line and conclusion.

Recommended for the performances and interesting (although certainly not unique) story line.

Cheers Trev.

[arsaib4]

Originally posted by Chris Knipp
I may sound harsh, but I am convinced that it has major, major flaws in the writing and editing. It's worth watching the last segment with Nolte in it, though if you can, skip the rest. If you like a lengthy saga of suffering and misery leading to a low keyed resolution, it's a good ticket to buy. It can be considered "timely" and socially significant and from that the allowances begin. It has -- or attempts -- an epic quality -- and visually it has fine moments. A.O. Scott of the NYTimes notes "overwrought and underwritten" scenes and notes that the script repeatedly poses problems with expository speeches in broken English that the action can't back up. Peter Keogh of the Boston Phoenix speaks for me when he says "Charles Dickens would be embarrassed by the shameless melodrama indulged in this tract about human trafficking..." The word "Dickensian" came to mind for me from frame one. A Vietnamese writer in the Washington Diplomat, Ky Nguyen, says the film is "well intentioned, but the acting is stilted. It’s also stalled by awkward dialogue and a frequent lack of immediacy." He finds that the scenes of the more extreme suffering of the main charcacter seem unreal, as I do. Martin Tsai in blogspot notes that, "Regrettably, Sabrina Murray's well-meaning screenplay has serious flaws, and the most discernible is its contrivance." I could go on. No matter how socially significant the subject is deemed to be and how earnest the effort and lovely the photography, this is one of the worst movies I've seen in quite a while.

But, of course, if someone were to like the film, they’ll be able to find a few quotes also (perhaps from even more formidable sources). If you really feel that strongly against it then someone as natural as you should be able to come up with something. Wouldn’t you rather have a part of your review come up in a discussion rather than having someone discern what A.O. Scott really said (he likes the film, by the way) going up against an Ebert or an Atkinson. (Obviously, I’m just using this as an example since I haven’t seen the film myself.) And do we really need to have bloggers "speak" for us now? But from what you’ve written, "'timely' and socially significant," "an epic quality" etc. and then you end with the hyperbolic "this is one of the worst movies I’ve seen in quite a while," so it seems to me that you aren’t convinced yourself so that’s perhaps you required those quotes.

[arsaib4]

Originally posted by trevor826
Re: Dark Water (2005) and Dark Water (2002)

arsaib4 I wouldn't say our opinions differ by a huge amount on the two versions, neither are great films and certainly aren't essential but unlike you I have a preference for the original which I felt was far more ambiguous and was only let down by one scene towards the end. I know there is a huge cultural difference between the US and Japan and that definately comes across with these films, the US version is far more emotionally wrought, far more screaming, shouting and anger plus it makes far more of a subplot of the ex husband trying to drive his wife round the bend.

You're right, we've made similar points about both versions. There's certainly a huge cultural difference but I think if we were to pretend to see things from their perspective, we might be overcompensating their effort (same goes the other way around, of course). I just felt that the leading character in Nakata's film remained a little too bland considering what was happening around her. Scenes involving the ex-husband were definitely more convincing in the Japanese film.

The re-appearing bag which was an essential part of the Japanese film didn't have the same sense of menace in the remake just adding to the thoughts that someone was trying to drive the mother mad. I also felt everything was handed to you on a plate with the remake, at times they may have well as signposted everything, the camera would dwell on certain things such as the water tower at the top of the apartment block before they had even arrived there. On the plus side (if you can call it a plus) Roosevelt Island, what an ugly place, definitely added to the sense of dread. The cable car ride gave you a panoramic view of somewhere you really wouldn't want to live even if you had hit rock bottom. Another little thing that niggled me with the remake, where were the scenes from the trailer, they certainly weren't in the cinematic release?

Good point about the bag; Salles would've been better off without it. The overall milieu played a big part in why I consider his film watchable. I haven't seen the trailer so can't say if scenes were missing. What was missing was a third act!

[arsaib4]

Originally posted by trevor826
Noce blanche (1989) White Wedding

Directed by Jean-Claude Brisseau

Starring Vanessa Paradis, Bruno Cremer

Thanks for this. Brisseau is another neglected French filmmaker in this part of the world. His 2002 film Choses secrètes (Secret Things) made it here last year but that's about it. Is White Wedding available on DVD? I recall bidding for a vhs of it on Ebay a few months ago but didn't get it.

[Chris Knipp]

But, of course, if someone were to like the film, they’ll be able to find a few quotes also (perhaps from even more formidable sources). If you really feel that strongly against it then someone as natural as you should be able to come up with something.Wouldn’t you rather have a part of your review come up in a discussion rather than having someone discern what A.O. Scott really said (he likes the film, by the way) going up against an Ebert or an Atkinson. (Obviously, I’m just using this as an example since I haven’t seen the film myself.) And do we really need to have bloggers "speak" for us now?

You're perfectly right and I appreciate being called natural. I guess my argument would be that if anybody came up with those observations about the writing, which are rather extreme and not what you normally see in a review, then I'm not crazy and they have validity. Moreover I think Tsai is more than just a blogger and writes as good reviews as I do. And even if it's just a blog, he has a right to be heard as we all do here. But I didn't mean to write a review and this isn't one. If I do go on to write one, which I may now and perhaps am forced to, you'll see it, and you can forget about my hastily assembled quotes. As for Scott, I think he has all the same reservations and criticiams of the movie that I do; perhaps he's more impressed by the good intentions, but I would praise the final scenes even more than he does, so we come out about even, and I don't think I've distorted his position.

[wpqx]

Alfie (1966) - Lewis Gilbert

Well I thought I had all of 1966's best picture nominees done, but alas the Sand Pebbles still stands in my way.

Alfie had some charm to it, and I enjoyed the narrative quality to it, the monologues started early, and continued throughout. Granted a bit of an overdose of British slang from the 1960s, but followed the dialogue well enough. Michael Caine is always good and nice to see him not as a feeble old man but as a charming leading man. Of course this was remade, and I avoided that version, and have no desire whatsoever to see it in the course of my lifetime.

Alfie does take itself a little too seriously at times, and would probably function better as an all out comedy, but too often it tries to be more serious than it needs to be, and most of the moments of drama seem badly dated today. Wouldn't recommend the film, but I'm getting harsher these days in my judgements, or I'm just watching weaker movies.

[HorseradishTree]

March of the Penguins

The film was fantastic, aside from the obnoxious children surrounding me. However, I felt this was something I could have just seen on PBS. I understand the great lengths they made to make this film, but it just didn't seem cinema-necessary.

[oscar jubis]

Those amazing white-on-white vistas would lose their majesty and grandeur if seen in a small screen. Yes, the film IS fantastic. It seems somewhat surreal than any species would risk and sacrifice so much to propagate, to prolong its existence. Seen from a certain angle (the one taken by Freeman's narration), March of the Penguins is the love story of the year.
It's documentaries like the masterpiece The Corporation, an investigation of the world's leading institution, that lose nothing when viewed at home.

[trevor826]

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Originally posted by trevor826
Noce blanche (1989) White Wedding

Directed by Jean-Claude Brisseau

Starring Vanessa Paradis, Bruno Cremer


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

arsaib4

Thanks for this. Brisseau is another neglected French filmmaker in this part of the world. His 2002 film Choses secrètes (Secret Things) made it here last year but that's about it. Is White Wedding available on DVD? I recall bidding for a vhs of it on Ebay a few months ago but didn't get it.

---------------------------------------------------------------


I picked it up by pure chance on vhs from a sale in the library for just a few pence, I hadn't heard of it before but just grabbed it with a couple of other films, luckily the tape is in good condition and the film was a lot more enjoyable than I expected.

Choses secrètes didn't get any sort of release here but it will be released soon on DVD, I am looking forward to seeing it.

Cheers Trev.

[arsaib4]

From all accounts, since its rather unremarkable release in 1978, Fingers has slowly climbed up the ladder and is now considered a "cult classic." And it’s quite easy to see why: this emotional and sexually charged drama cogently portrays its self-contradictory protagonist without ever betraying him. Harvey Keitel is Jimmy, a man perhaps capable of perfecting the art of life under the right circumstances but internal and external pressures prevent him to do so. On one hand, his mother (only seen briefly), a pianist, wants him to follow her path even though he’s past the beginner’s age; while on the other, his father (Michael V. Gazzo), a loan-shark, often urges him to forget everything else in order to help collect his debts. We watch Jimmy doing both – brilliantly playing a Bach piece in the opening sequence, and not long after, expertly drawing the owed money from a restaurateur. But as this compulsive man starts to question himself and his manhood, things start going downhill (he even stops carrying his tape player everywhere like he used to). So, to prove himself capable in more ways than one, he tries to develop a relationship with an enigmatic sculptor (Tisa Farrow), but it turns out that she belongs to a local boxer-turned-pimp (Jim Brown). Directed by James Toback, Fingers, which was his debut feature, remarkably covers a lot of ground in its short running time. Much credit certainly goes to Keitel who might’ve won more accolades for his leading performance in Abel Ferrara’s Bad Lieutenant (1992), but he’s just as good here as a man incapable of getting rid of his demons which brings this tragedy full-circle in the classic Greek sense as the final sequence unfolds. Perhaps Toback was so enamored with his character that he didn’t quite flesh out the secondary ones, but then, he’s cut the film lean and raw, not the way everyone likes it.

________________________

*FINGERS is available on DVD from Warner.

[Chris Knipp]

I agree Toback does get in a lot in a short space of time, and it's a very interesting film with lots of stuff going on that it's a bit hard to imagine in an american picture today. I'm surprised you didn't relate Fingers to The Beat That My Heart Skipped. Did you do that earlier and I've just forgotten? My enthusiasm for the new Audiard was what led me to find Fingers and watch it. The Beat feels like a bigger film and a more resolved one, but it's interesting how much was lifted. Certain scenes like the gangster in the hotel swimming pool with his girlfriend and the father asking his son to pressure the restaurant guy to pay up and bringing in his new girlfriend, are quite closely followed, even the same kind of jacket, the little pice of paper with the address on it, and so on; it's more than just deriving from, it's alluding to, in a very familiar and affectionate way, and playing riffs on and expanding. Of course Keitel's character is crazier and more doomed than Romain Duris's Tom. I don't know if I've ever seen two films related in this way, both good, the second perhaps better, but a homage to the first, honoring it and making us sit up and recognize that Toback, by god, had something. Neither film detracts from the other when you watch both. Fingers is very original stuff. Keitel seems smaller than later on, strong but less mannered than he later became. I also thought of Bad Lieutenant after seeing Fingers -- it's a film that made a very strong impression on me, quite a go-for-broke performance by Keitel. A harrowing film. One of Ferrara's best. Also to be mentioned is that it's said and I assume truly that Fingers and Toback have always been much more highly regarded in France than in the US, hence the choice of Audiard to work from Fingers and make something serious and intense 18 years later, with Toback's enthusiastic blessing. Toback has been promoting the new Audiard, an interview showed. I wish you'd posted this on the "De Battre mon coeur s'est arreté" thread, but maybe you thought that would be unfair to Toback.

[arsaib4]

Originally posted by Chris Knipp
I agree Toback does get in a lot in a short space of time, and it's a very interesting film with lots of stuff going on that it's a bit hard to imagine in an american picture today.

Absolutely. There is a sex scene late in the film and it features more than a few "thrusts," so while watching it I was thinking that this film wouldn't have made it out of MPAA today w/out a few cuts. And, of course, the final violent confrontation. There's a great commentary track on the DVD and even Toback seems surprised about what he got away with in the 70's!

I'm surprised you didn't relate Fingers to The Beat That My Heart Skipped. Did you do that earlier and I've just forgotten? My enthusiasm for the new Audiard was what led me to find Fingers and watch it. The Beat feels like a bigger film and a more resolved one, but it's interesting how much was lifted.

I don't think I have, at least not here. Audiard's is bigger, slicker, better packaged but I wasn't able to locate the subversive... internal charge that Fingers had. Duris does the best he can and he's certainly the best thing about that film. I don't dislike the film as much as Atkinson but he's on to something when he says," As it is, Duris, capable and dull, is no Keitel, 2005 is no 1978, and The Beat That My Heart Skipped is no Fingers." Lower Manhattan of the 70's, that we so often see in films from that era plays a big part in them, and that can't be replaced.

Of course Keitel's character is crazier and more doomed than Romain Duris's Tom. I don't know if I've ever seen two films related in this way, both good, the second perhaps better, but a homage to the first, honoring it and making us sit up and recognize that Toback, by god, had something. Neither film detracts from the other when you watch both. Fingers is very original stuff.

I prefer that character as a "doomed" one. It just feels right with the rest of the proceedings. I can tell that you certainly like Fingers, but prefer the more upbeat remake.

Keitel seems smaller than later on, strong but less mannered than he later became. I also thought of Bad Lieutenant after seeing Fingers -- it's a film that made a very strong impression on me, quite a go-for-broke performance by Keitel. A harrowing film. One of Ferrara's best. Also to be mentioned is that it's said and I assume truly that Fingers and Toback have always been much more highly regarded in France than in the US, hence the choice of Audiard to work from Fingers and make something serious and intense 18 years later, with Toback's enthusiastic blessing. Toback has been promoting the new Audiard, an interview showed.

I think it was wpqx who recently mentioned that Keitel looks exactly the same in about everything he's done. I was just watching The Border (1982) with him and Nicholson where he plays a Texan and all the attempts made to have him look the part failed miserably. I did say somewhere that Toback (not to mention Ferrara) are more popular in France than here. Toback has actively promoted the remake but I did hear him say that part of the reason is to draw attention to his own film!

[Chris Knipp]

Now that I may be getting Netflix flicks regularly I'm going to have more and older films that I can't write reviews of. This is one. Directed by Volker Schlöndorff, in French, presumably with Jeremy Irons as Swann just moving his lips and somebody else's voice dubbed. Twenty years ago, Irons was a very good looking man, yet he also looks rather like Marcel Proust only taller, and he manages to look very ill toward the end when he seems to be turning from Swann into Marcel. The lady who plays Odette may be dubbed too, since her name is Italian -- Ornella Muti. It's interesting to see Alain Delon as the Baron Charlus after having seen John Malkovich do the role for Raoul Ruiz in Le temps retrouvé. Now there's a difference. I prefer Delon, though Charlus is an unsavory character, and there's some justification for making him seem as ugly as Malkovich, still, since he's gay, why shouldn't he be rather good looking, as he certainly would have made every effort to be? This is the way Delon plays him, aging and painted like Achenbach in Death in Venice, but still quite presentable. Lots of splendid clothes and settings and reacreations of period gatherings at Mme de Verdurin's and the Duchesse de Guermante's (Fanny Ardant, charming and noble, if not quite aristocratic), and lots of nice coach rides. I don't think you can take this entirely seriously as a recreation of Proust, but on the other hand it's not crude or philistine in its treatment of the material; it's just that 500 pages of the subtlest psychological analysis of love in 20th century literature can't be conveyed in a pretty historical film. But I wasn't distrubed by it, rather I got into the lushness of it. I've rarely seen a more elegant recreation of this period. A little too perfect, maybe, but it is like the paintings and photographs of the period. Something between Caillebotte and Renoir. The music is very interesting too -- it's "modern", i.e., modern for that period, as the theme of the two lovers should be since it's by a contemporary composer, Vinteuil. Sorry to keep referring to Proust's novel, but hey, they'd never have made this movie without it, nor tried so hard with such success. I'm not really comparing the two. It's just that if you've read a book and you see the movie, you do remember the book. Roger Ebert says something perfectly justified, but unfortunately he says it in a philistine way:

All of the reviews I've read of Volker Schlöndorff's SWANN IN LOVE treat it like a classroom assignment. The movie is described as a version of one of the stories that make up Remembrance of Things Past, the epic novel by Marcel Proust, and then the exercise becomes almost academic: "Compare and contrast Proust and Schlöndorff, with particular attention to the difference between fiction and the film." Imagine instead, that this is not a film based on a novel, but a new film from an original screenplay. It will immediately seem more lively and accessible. Because not one person in a hundred who sees the film will have read Proust, this is a sensible approach; it does away with the nagging feeling that one should really curl up with those twelve volumes before going to the theater.

That would be fine, but as a the most famous movie critic in America, he might have done a little research and found out that they're six volumes, not twelve, and this isn't "one of the stories that make up Remembrance of Things Past," but one of the novels. He doesn't have to read them; maybe his eyes are shot from all that time in the dark. But he can afford a fact-checker.

Or course the movie has to work on its own. I think it does; Ebert seems to understand it. But it means a lot more actually if you've read the novels. Different from Ruis's film, which I can't imagine making much sense at all to anybody who's unfamiliar with Proust; it just jumps in in medias res and throws tons of complex stuff at you. Swann in Love focuses on Swann and Odette, and anyone can understand it -- even Roger Ebert.

[Chris Knipp]

Indeed The Beat... has drawn attention to Fingers. I would rather not say one is better than the other, but I did. I love this new film, and I won't comment on your use of Michael Atkinson to bolster your "attack" (your assertion, not without justification, that Fingers has a special intensity The Beat... may lack). I've used Atkinson as a weapon myself....He's a bit of a heavy weapon to bring into any film discussion. I can see lovers of edgyness finding The Beat lacking, but I could find flaws in Fingers that I preferred not to mention. I think Duris has lots of edge -- especially since what I rememered him from was L'Auberge espagnole where he's just an average young French guy. This is an enormous leap forward and he carries it off and has I think been credited for dong so in France where they're more familiar with all the things he's done in movies for Klapsch, Gatflif, et al. Again, I would not want to say he or Keitel is better. The interest to me of comparing the two is to see how Audiard used the material, both thematically and in little details, and came up with something good this time. Adaptations are so often a failure.

Keitel is small and he did a lot of body building after Fingers and that's what I meant by saying he looked small then. Sure he looks otherwise the same. But he has more muscular bulk as he gets older, that's all.

As for being "doomed," that appeals to romantic young men. I'm neither. Audiard's film makes something positive out of the situation: Tom is trapped in the rut his father has created, and he wants to get out. He thinks music is the way, and once maybe it was. And it still is. But trying out for the agent is a false start, not the end of the road. Life is full of false starts, and we can move on and have a good life. Yet Audiard ingeniously works in the encournter with the gangster on the stairway (another scene that's quite closely followed in many details, including grabbing the balls and getting the upper hand, to coin a phrase) during the "two years later" sequence, continuing to play back and forth between dark and light. That sequence reminded me of Ripley's Game -- the way Malkovich as Ripley offs some people and then comes to his wife's harpsicord concert. This way, Audiard shows that his finale isn't pretty-pretty; the violent side and the sleazy past are still there.