Sergeiii Reviews

The 3 Worlds of Gulliver (1960)

tame, shallow and far from swift

[3 July 2003]

Frankly, I didn't even expect a serious treatment of the novel - I thought it would do to Swift what other movies were doing to Verne and Wells at the time. And I could have lived with that perfectly. Unfortunately, "The 3 Worlds of Gulliver" does not achieve this level of entertainment.

First of all, the actor playing Gulliver is a bore. Well, he probably would have gotten away with it hadn't his part been so badly written. The Gulliver character is not discovering anything in this movie - he is a patronizing and moralistic missionary man; basically just out there to explain the achievements of his 'modern' culture to the primitives. So, don't expect adventure, expect sermons.

Secondly, the jokes aren't funny. They are all about how stupid foreign cultures are and how much they need a lesson in democracy. The only really funny character is a young gothic girl who has a short appearance towards the end of the movie (and the actress is not even credited!).

Thirdly, the production values are poor. Ray Harryhausen worked on this - and it hardly shows. The cheesy special effects are OK with me, but the whole doesn't even look attractive in a nostalgic sort of way.

Check this out if you must, maybe your kids will like it. But if you have respect for your children, show them the Max Fleischer cartoon. It's ten times funnier and far less pretentious.

Brewster McCloud (1970)

the early bird was already choking on the worm

[22 June 2003]

"Brewster McCloud" is a fascinating mixture of (a) filmmaking as it was fashionable at the time and (b) of what Altman has been doing in the long run. Altman's cynical touch works especially well in the context of the American 'love' movement - once again.

As for (a) check out the unnecessary blatant zooms. They look like a parody of what a stupid director would have suggested at the time, and I think Altman ordered this on purpose. As for (b) check out the content, and start comparing it with - *sigh* - Alan Parker's "Birdy". The latter is about an individual, while "Brewster" is about a generation.

I'm not sure whether I would have liked "Brewster" had I seen it in 1970 (I was one year old at the time) - but in retrospective, it's a valuable and ironic commentary on the blurry thing that flower kids thought was the ultimate solution.

On the whole, it's a perfect blend of style and black humour, and even taken seriously, it's worth rediscovering.

DVD, please.

Broadway Bill (1934)

getting over a horse (spoilers and all)

[9 April 2003]

Frank Capra is a great favourite of mine and I thoroughly appreciate his system of values. However, I find the message of "Broadway Bill" questionable at least. Flogging a horse to death rather than accepting your parent's money doesn't sound like a clever rationale to me. The only sense I can make of it is to take the horse's name "Broadway Bill" literally. This way it's cynical, on all other levels it's just stupid. Now that I've got that out of my chest, there are several great Capra moments ("Dough Boy!") to be found throughout the film. But the whole doesn't add up to anything worth keeping in mind. What a shame.

Suicide Club (2001)

feel suicidal? see this and think again.

[5 July 2002]

Being told that this Japanese movie was about irrational suicides connected to an Internet homepage, I expected it to be something in the gloomy vein of Kiyoshi Kurosawa's "Kaïro" (which I adore).

Oops.

An opening sequence outdoing the blood shower in the first part of "Blade" quickly taught me better. Although the subject is the same as in "Kaïro" (Japanese youth losing track of the sense of their lives), this film has full shock value, a fast-moving plot and - best of all - tons of irony.

The director has primarily made this film because a friend of his committed suicide - and nobody understood why. However, instead of looking for possible reasons (as Westerners would do), Sono Sion has made a big show out of the senselessness and the state of confusion that go along with the suicidal act. And a show it is.

Sion states that his movie should prevent people from losing their lust for life, and in my opinion he achieves just that - because he is showing suicide in an overblown manner. "Jiatsu circle", in spite of its topic, is not a morose or macabre affair - it is deeply invigorating, and funny/funky at that.

Sounds sick? Just check your personal depressions after you've seen this.

The Bellboy (1960)

dated? (minor spoiler)

[20 March 2001]

It is with productions like "The Bellboy" that Jerry Lewis earned more and more hostility in the States and made his eventual reputation in Europe (i.e France, of course). This movie is stuck in a continental divide, but also in a temporal one. I have no idea whether Lewis did actually grasp the ideas of surrealism or the absurd movement at the time, but it looks pretty much so. The man somehow managed to mix his usual desperately anarchic slapstick routines with a very clear sense of not making the innate tragedy of the matter an issue at all - only to disclaim at the end that the character shown in the picture might be your neigbour. The achievement here is that Lewis behaves like a lost circus clown throughout the major feature film - never allowing himself to get halfway sentimental or plot-oriented. He is illogic, destructive and spastic; and he makes the whole movie obey his zany rules, thus saving the Sennett/Roach school into a time when people were heavily reflecting on the opportunities of physical humour. Maybe it took the MelBrookses, the Abraham-Zuckers and the Farrellys to make that kind of unromantic comedy truly popular again way later, but here's someone who tried in 1960. Today, it looks like Jim Carrey taking over a Bunuel movie - and that's as silly as it gets.

Promenons-nous dans les bois (2000)

Mildly satisfying attempt to make a French slasher movie

[19 June 2000]

Generally, horror films are a genre strongly based on conventions and therefore on tradition. France, however, has no such tradition, and this is probably why this "first" French attempt to make a classic slasher picture is sometimes a bit in trouble with finding its own place. The direcor's aim clearly was to have it "French" all the way and possibly not to imitate American, English or Italian horror productions; but still the influence of filmmakers like Dario Argento is more than visible. The script is an uneven mixture of comedy and horror, while it as hard to tell how much of it was actually ment to be funny. The main mistake is that the film starts on an ironic tone and then gradually turns the good humoured moments down - this shift from lighter tones to would-be scary moments could have worked, but unfortunately it doesn't. It would have made more sense to keep the gags coming as the plot gets increasingly moronic and implausible, but instead, the movie decides to go the full goth and starts taking itself far too serious. The abundant use of red colour and the odd camera movements never make up for insufficiently developed characters and a strong lack of suspense. Anyway, the director seems to be interested in showing off his technical skills more than in supporting the story he is telling; which is a minor defect of this movie, however, as there isn't much in the narrative that these effects could distract from. On the whole, "Promenons" is perfectly watchable, it is just very far from what it could have been, and even further from what it wanted to be.

Au hasard Balthazar (1966)

Erratic and fatalistic tale with Christian overtones

[19 June 2000]

Although I'm great admirer of this director's work, "Balthazar" is the one Bresson piece that I simply can't bring myself to like. The mechanical and monotonous uttering of text that works so well in "Pickpocket" and "Mouchette" just looks like bad acting on purpose here. If the camerawork of "Pickpocket" is easily as dexterous as its thieving protagonists, the motion of "Balthazar" is just about as stodgy as its central character - a young donkey. This donkey is being pushed around throughout the movie, and so is the audience with a number of fragmentary situations and the constant question of WHY the characters are doing whatever they are doing. Nothing is convincingly motivated here; things just turn to the worst as if this was a general rule of intellectual filmmaking. Another thing I strongly disliked about "Balthazar" is its overblown allegorical touch. The numerous religious implications do make sense, but they don't help the movie to become a more touching and a less strained affair. Bresson isn't Bergman, and a stronger accent on social topics instead of these biblical allusions would have made it more credible to me. Yes, there are very strong and even haunting moments in this movie, just as there are in any Bresson picture, and I admit I had wet eyes during the last scene, but I never came to care for it as much as I would have liked to. However, other people in the audience clearly seemed to do so, which is why my comments probably shouldn't be generalized.

The Convent (2000)

A horror flick that only wants to be mindless trash and even fails at that

[2 June 2000]

Never mind the plot; it's about a few American teenagers entering a haunted convent, getting killed one by one as a result, then instantly coming back in some undead form and henceforth killing each other a little bit more.

Well, it's supposed to be a splatter movie, so what kind of story do you expect. The problem is, it's a very bad and unoriginal splatter movie. The dialogue is not only abhorrently stupid (as you would expect), it's downright predictable from sentence to sentence. The acting is not only bad, it's simply not there at all. The in-jokes (which seem to be obligatory since "Creepshow" and even more so since "Scream") are annoyingly lame and far too many; and all the parts between the violent moments are too long and remind of a badly-written sitcom. There's nothing to be found here that a horror fan hasn't seen a million times before; and it's all been done better, scarier, funnier, whatever. "The Convent" would have been a forgivable popcorn exercise twenty years ago; today it's just late in coming and it stinks.

Renters of videos be warned, this movie really isn't any fun, not in any intentional nor in any unintentional way. It tries to be "fun to watch" so hard that every attempt to be entertaining falls flat instantly. And, as has been said before, it's not scary for a second - nothing that predictable could ever be scary.

Worse than that, "The Convent" doesn't even have a straight gorefest to offer. Instead, you get a few numbing and badly timed sequences, with some of the shots even used repeatedly; but then again it makes you feel glad that they didn't have any further money to waste on this hooey. It would have been better off as a video clip in the first place; and when I say video clip, I mean Backstreet Boys rather than Black Sabbath.

In short, expect nothing of the "From Dusk till Dawn" type, this is just a tame and uninspired rehash of what you already know.

Tuvalu (1999)

Brilliantly offbeat fairy tale around a swimming pool

[2 June 2000]

I have never been particularly fond of movies with taglines like "a poetic adventure" or "a journey into the land of dreams" stamped on their front, as this kind of advertising is usually nothing more than a weak excuse for the absence of a coherent plot or some in-depth characterization, leaving you in the guess why the filmmakers didn't stick to the painting of aquarelles in the first place. My expectations sank even lower when I understood that there wasn't going to be any dialogue in "Tuvalu", at least not in the proper sense of the term. So this couldn't be more than a soothing eye candy at best; hopefully free from the embarrassing "isn't our imagination a wonderful thing"-moments or the "why can't we all be children forever"-messages that tend to haunt this specific genre.

After a few moments into the film, I was entirely cured from that kind of prejudice. "Tuvalu" surprisingly brings across the magic that is promised on the poster - and it works well for a variety of reasons. First of all, despite the movie's innocent fairy tale character, it isn't coy about adult themes at all (like all good fairy tales, for that matter). We actually even have scenes of violence and nudity, but both are introduced in a very playful and witty manner; in a style which I should consider perfectly suitable for children.

Secondly, "Tuvalu" is hilariously funny, and at times, the humour is pretty far from being tongue-in-cheek... There is a lot of crude slapstick going on, and sometimes the whole movie is close to the coarseness of a Punch and Judy show; but most of the time one just laughs at the sheer originality and inventiveness of the production. Furthermore, the sparse use of words proves to be a great means of comedy as well - the effect is somewhat comparable to the quasi-absence of comprehensible language in Jacques Tati's films, or, for those who have seen it, in "Themroc".

Thirdly, there is always joy in watching talented and charismatic actors under the direction of a talented director and screenwiter. You can tell that everyone involved in the making was perfectly devoted to the project; and this justified euphoria of the makers comes across in almost every scene. They probably knew that they were doing something special, and this is indeed what they have achieved. Additionally, Helmer's use of light and colour is always original, but never distracting; every scene of this movie is simply beautiful to look at. Yes, I should say, imagination is a wonderful thing and it is an utter shame that we can't be children forever.

Water Drops on Burning Rocks (2000)

Engaging French version of a German quadrille

[18 April 2000]

Ozon certainly isn't the infant terrible of today's French cinema (try Philippe Grandrieux for that matter), but he has his own ways of pushing limits. On the one hand, his films are typically French in that they blend comedy with tragedy, and in that they offer cruelty, psychological extremes and sexual explicitness along with the intellectual treatment of it. But on the other hand, Ozon is refreshingly brilliant at avoiding the large number of pitfalls that usually make this kind of exercise indigestible - firstly, because his delivery of hard-to-take situations is incredibly disciplined and secondly, because his sense of humour, fundamentally caustic as it may be, is never blatant.

Fassbinder was a different artist altogether. If the man had any sense of humour at all, he hardly ever came out to share it with his audience. Well, sometimes the unfathomable pessimism of his works is on the verge of hilarity and his socio-critical message deliberately turns into bathos; but for intended jokes, look elsewhere. Fassbinder's recurrent theme was general disillusion, which of course strongly affected the entertainment value of his output.

So why would the former adapt a play of the latter? This question comes to a quick answer when you actually see "Gouttes d'eau". The topics and the mood of Fassbinder's play are nothing new to Ozon, all on the contrary. In fact, "Gouttes" looks like a cleverly restricted version of Ozon's last movie, "Sitcom". The scenery of "Sitcom" was limited to the walls of one house; in "Gouttes" it's the walls of one apartment. The character set of "Sitcom" consisted of a family, a housemaid and a few acquaintances; in "Gouttes" there's no-one but two men and two women (and saying more about this would be a classic spoiler). Both movies have an almost geometrical approach to sexual preferences; e.g. the introduction of every new character is basically an addition to further possible constellations. The main difference between the two movies is that "Sitcom" was a black comedy - a thing that "Gouttes d'eau" is definitely not. It's a dead serious conversation piece, a sexually oriented "huis clos"; and it never intends to be more than that. This said, "Gouttes d'eau" is not at all spectacular, but it is exceptionally well done. It is convincing; it works. Ozon has strongly adapted his style to the results of Fassbinder's film-making. The scenery is bluntly crammed with Seventies relics; and camera-work and lighting are fassbinderish as well. Besides, the characters have German names.

Finally, the actors here are a pure delight; especially Bernard Giraudeau is at his HelmutBergerian best. This aspect is in fact what stroke me most when seeing "Gouttes": If I liked this French homage better than any actual Fassbinder film I've seen, it was because of the tremendous acting, which is sadly absent from the original works.

Beresina or The Last Days of Switzerland (1999)

A political burlesque with a vengeance

[16 August 1999]

This is by far the funniest Swiss movie to hit the screens since decades, maybe with the sad exception of Thomas Koerfer's "Green Henry" - where all the puns were unintentional. The plot of "Beresina" is so original that no word should be lost about it in front of anyone who intends seeing the movie. The acting is superb throughout, with newcomer Elena Panova carrying the whole film on her shoulders with amazing ease. Still, this doesn't mean "Beresina" is a perfect satire. Schmid is not a comedy director by nature, and sometimes the film suffers from the maker's conviction that any kind of overstatement or repetition is funny in its own right. Furthermore, the strong focus on national themes will hardly allow the film to travel very far. However, what finally matters here is that Swiss cinema has been in need of a vital injection for a very long time, and that this movie is doubtlessly it.

No Time for Love (1943)

Punches and lines

[28 July 1999]

If not exactly sophisticated, this highly entertaining farce still has both leads at their physical best and will doubtlessly please all lovers of screwball fare. The plot may be a bit on the thin side, but the humour (including some rather crude slapstick violence) is always effective. A particularly hilarious dream sequence with Colbert floating through the air in a veil is quoted in Terry Gilliam's Brazil.