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Idi i smotri (1985)
A landmark film that now is just another propaganda piece
The original title of Come and See (a NT Revelations quote) was Kill Hitler, 'and what we meant by that', says the director, 'was to kill the Hitler within yourself, because we all have our demons'. He makes it very clear in this interview that he had to do this project to exorcise his own demons, childhood memories of the War, and to keep faith with the many harrowing tales of survivors, that 'the subject was too sacred to allow any falsehood'.
Which is why it is hard to watch this film in 2024. The truth Elim Klimov was so committed to showing in 1985, is now, under the present russian regime, being used to justify the kidnapping and killing of their own former comrades in their neighboring country. The hypocritical perversion of this artist's vision, and the true stories that it is based on, has made a mockery of this film, that was a landmark in its time.
Saint Maud (2019)
Welcome to Planet Earth, Maud
Every tired characteristic of a religious fanatic was bundled into one in this movie: Death-obsessed mousy wallflower, check; epileptic seizures taken for religious ecstasy, check; schizophrenic hearing of voices, check; bug crawling on the wall, check. The film-making showed me nothing of interest either. Tawdry and depressing? Yes, well, welcome to Planet Earth, Maud!
Embers (2015)
Embers can either become ash, Or Be Reignited
Embers (2015)
This exploration of the mysteries and phenomenon of Memory is among the most intellectually and emotionally stimulating films seen this year; I won't synopsize, but rather express different facets or aspects of the film that occur, helped by many imdb comments.
In an Evolutionary or anthropological aspect, the 'Chaos' character displays life as raw animal Nature: Red in tooth, solitary, brutish and short (also primal and beautiful as in the horse). Next, fleeting human connections are made between the Guy and Girl; Fire is....marveled at...but that's all. The Dawn of Consciousness finally breaks in the former Teacher: Simple patterns of behavior reinforced through repetition; tool usage; purposeful sparking of Promethean Fire. Finally the end stage of full and perfect - and stultifying - memory in Miranda and her Father, where the past is clutched at, memories retained, turned over obsessively, but no new ones created, no destructive-creative Fire but only cool sterile halo-like circles of light in an underground Paradise - the Shakespearean Miranda knows Paradise has no place on Earth.
From a medical or psychological perspective, the filmmaker shows us the frustration and rage displayed in patients with neurological issues, the infantile mental squirrel cage of Woman In The Long Dress, the stunted growth and refusal to move past loss of the Father, the mute, direction-less Helen Keller-like child.
On a more philosophical bent, Order contends with Chaos, Freedom with Safety. This is an aimless, broken world at first glance. But there are glimmers....Human relationships - even Love - are possible with a touch of memory and inspiration: The Boy, mute and wandering from one dead-end encounter to another, shows he can be reached, can be taught, can extricate himself from the minotaurian maze, with a string and the guiding hand of a Teacher; the perfect circle of perfect safety can be cut, can be extended into an ascendant DNA-like spiral of fragile Hope.
And finally, we realize the gods' sad but kindly gift of Forgetting: For cleansing our pain and loss, and making room for new growth.
Tanin no kao (1966)
Keeping Up Appearances in Existential Post-War Japan
One of the most chilling horror movies I've ever seen -- not for the gore, there is none -- rather because it strikes at the psychological core of your humanity, especially in present day society, where people can and do increasingly live in isolation, the masks they wear just to function in society, and can they function without these masks?
I just finished a book on day-to-day life in Tudor England, where most everyone did manual labor sunrise to sunset, and you lived and died in one small town, and knew everyone in that small town. Just the polar opposite to today, where mobility and anonymity are the norm, a "world," as the movie's doctor envisions, "without family, friends or enemies. Loneliness and friendship would bleed into one another. Trust among people, now so richly prized, would become obsolete." Everyone wears a mask here, even (and especially) in marriage, where our anti-hero and his wife engage in an extended seduction role-play: "I have so many selves, I can't even contain them all," she tells him, while begging him to "respect appearances" and keep up the facade.
Every scene in the film abounds with suggestive images: Masks, makeup, body parts without bodies, gems polished and rough; the nurse/jealous-mistress/dutiful-wife floating creepily about the doctor's office; not to mention the sister and brother, and the highly artificial and angular 60's furniture and architecture and german bar. You can tease and examine every conversation and scene for meaning, it's quite amazing.
I have not read Kobo Abe's novel that FoA is based on, but have read Woman In the Dunes and The Ruined Map, both set in existential nightmares, examining what modern man's existence has become in today's cities of millions. Woman in the Dunes (and it's film adaptation) manages to find some dark humor and human solace in the midst of its sisyphean world, but there's little but despair to be found in The Face of Another.
La strada (1954)
I like Nights of Cabiria more
This early Fellini just did not affect me like Nights of Cabiria did, leaving me a little cold and unsatisfied. It has many of the same motifs: The same bleak post-war environment and poverty; predatory men abusing women, treating them as pets and playthings; musical processions; religious longing. Perhaps it was too predictable in it's plot, especially as I'd watched the Scorsese intro clip which gave away all the major story beats; perhaps I wasn't too impressed with Anthony Quinn, though he certainly has the looming brutishness to carry the part.
I think though the major reason is that Giulietta Masina feels shackled here: As an actress as subservient to Quinn's brooding loutishness as her character is, and barely given any speaking lines. I wanted more of her, as we were treated to in Cabiria, where her expressive face and personality fills the screen. The argument that the film is about the Zampano character's transformation in the ending scene falls utterly flat to me, and I almost feel like Cabiria was a 'make up' project for Giulietta being so secondary to Quinn in La Strada. The Italian studio dubbing I also found somewhat distracting.
But another reason is that La Strada does not feel as complex and layered as Nights of Cabiria. For example, the depth of despair, longing, and satire, shown in the church procession scene in Nights is just not present in this earlier film. However, I didn't get to re-watching with the commentary turned on, nor to the documentary on the 2nd Criterion disc. No doubt those will increase my appreciation.
A Monster Calls (2016)
Please read the book also !
This is the only book I've ever read where I felt a physical reaction -- Every chapter was emotionally exhausting, I had to stop after every story; felt a deep sense of dread even thinking about picking it up again, and was utterly drained at the end.
The movie captures a good measure of this, though some impact is lost in moving the monster from imagination to CGI. Please read the book, preferably the print version which has much better quality illustrations: The kindle version reproduces them poorly.
La dolce vita (1960)
Steiner, and stress in a rapidly changing Italy
This is a minutely examined film, and part of its attraction is the depth of references and allusions Fellini incorporates; I've seen mentions that many of the scenes were drawn from news stories and reworked, such as the children & madonna scene, Steiner's suicide, and others. The depth extends to other aspects such as camera work and the amazing costuming of the actresses. Just trying to make sense of all these seemingly scattered vignettes and allusions invites all sorts of varied interpretation.
I watched and read various reviews and interviews before watching the film -- the criterion disc itself has excellent ones -- including this interview by Studs Terkel soon after the 1960 release with Marcello Mastriani and a few other viewers or ancillary production figures (its on ytube) posing the question 'Why did Steiner kill himself and his kids?', putting it on a level with Citizen Kane's Rosebud mystery; their responses ran from 'he was too spiritual to live in Fellini's world and had to be destroyed', to 'he felt smothered and couldn't live coddled under a cradle-to-grave protective State', to Mastriani's 'he was too weak to reconcile his inner contradictions', to a muttered comment from Fellini that he was 'an angel living among the monkeys'.
But replaying the scene a few times, it became stunning clear to me what the real reason was for the tragedy. Steiner is a highly refined intellectual, an accomplished and wealthy Renaissance man, who plays Bach, consults Sanskrit grammar books, opens his home as a salon for international artists; yet he says while watching his children 'a phone call can end it all' and anything is better than living in 'a society where everything's organized and planned for and perfect'. In what society would everything be highly organized, yet where a phone call can bring down a man like Steiner? A totalitarian one.
Steiner kills himself and his kids because he lives in a fast-transforming Italian society which a short 15 years before was fascist, and showed signs of that same fascist tribalism rising once again to threaten both himself and his children's future, and he tries to lead Marcello away from 'writing for those semifascist rags'. Steiner is a Jew; in fact, the 'self-hating Jew' so familiar from Hannah Arendt's Origins of Totalitarianism and many pre-war novels. This one idea explains all his unexplainable actions, yet I've seen no hint of this possibility elsewhere so far.
A couple scenes later we meet those who might indeed make such a destroying phone call: The decadent remnants of the aristocracy, praising the laying of 'flowers on the tomb of their beloved leader', with a dozen statues of Caesar (familiar as a Mussolini symbol from early scenes in Roma) lining the walls of the set. I find it breathtaking that, on the one hand, Fellini would put such a searing piece of social criticism as the centerpiece and focal point of his film; and on the other, that viewers and even central figures in the production would be ignorant -- perhaps even *willfully ignorant* -- of this social criticism.
More interpretive confusion surrounds the 'sea monster' ending; Ebert calls it a Christ symbol, 'ugly but real'. My thinking is it's more akin to the stolid peasant life of wife and kids that his needy fiance wants from him, and which he rejects as boring (Mastriani relates talking to Fellini and his writer pre-production, asking for a script, and being handed a scrawled picture of floating men with massive dongs extending down into the depths to some feminine mermaid or monster -- I don't have the quote handy, it's in his Criterion interview). He also rejects the higher intellectual life from his beckoning good 'Umbrian angel', and we leave him wandering off on further Purgatorial fritterings. Yet even this could be subject to the whims of film-making; I've seen one comment that Fellini left it to Mastriani to decide whether to embrace the intellectual life, but Marcello just didn't want to cross the cold surf inlet that day and blew it off with a wave. Who knows! Shows you the power of editing I guess.
Bitter/Sweet (2009)
Way better than I had any expectation of
Syncretism: The amalgamation or attempted amalgamation of different religions, cultures, or schools of thought. Just what I wanted and needed to see on this particular night of viewing.
There was no lingering bad aftertaste. Throughout the movie are scenes of people briefly reflecting on, and then reconciling with and dismissing their old lives and actions, and starting completely anew. Landlocked, deep inside a continent, this attitude, way of life, world view, is so hard to relate to, that such a movie is a desperately needed breath of sea air.
Sure, there are minor weaknesses; the native (or not native? he looked like a pudgy Chinese mandarin) coffee buyer was badly handled; it doesn't effect the outcome. The efflorescence of the lush vegetation, culture and women from the sand and rain, that's what's important.
The simple production emphasizes the fragility of the relationship between the two cultures, and in a good way. Highly recommended.
Rogue Male (1976)
Excellent Rendering of the Novel
I wasn't expecting much, and the horrendous VHS-to-DVD transfer didn't help matters, but the close following of screenplay to novel, and the perfect casting of O'Toole as the vulnerable English aristocrat, makes this TV?!? adaptation a must see.
Much of the quality and suspense of the novel comes through, and the wordiness if you will of the script gave O'Toole the freedom to express his character and the political-vs-personal tensions Household filled _Rogue Male_ with.
This must have been an English production, I can't imagine an American one including the racial characterizations, 30's political details, or the quick repartee.
Constantine (2005)
Keanu Reeves in a successful Dark Comedy !
Some of the scathing comments for Constantine are laughably imperceptive, much worse than the movie.
People should take a step back and compare this to the likes of Van Helsing, and it will be apparent how much better it is. The plot is *much* richer, the special effects are equal, and the acting is certainly better.
Keanu in particular does an excellent job. His down-beat portrayal of the depressed, chain-smoking, wise-cracking, cynical tool-of-god character is spot on. This is meant to be tongue-in-cheek, people! Almost every scene has a touch of dark humor that makes it clear the movie (and Keanu) are not taking themselves too seriously. It appears reviewers have completely ignored this, and want to see it as a standard horror film, which it is not.
I was very pleasantly surprised at how watchable the film (DVD) was, chuckled many times at the dark Catholic humor, and enjoyed Keanu's performance. This is good stuff. Recommended.
Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004)
Superb, Brutal. Not to be missed. 8/10
I was at the first showing in town, with a mostly partisan democratic crowd.
My opinion is that there were very few false notes or 'wait a minute that sounds wrong or unfair' scenes in this movie, and as for me I went through the entire range of emotions in the course of watching, from chuckles and laughs, to silent empathy, to stunned outrage, to tears of sympathy, to determination to make a change.
The audience as a whole definitely was swept up in Moore's indictments, and we all applauded the ending. All of us were captivated start to finish, and you certainly won't be bored or uninvolved. I don't know about 'brilliant', but this film earned its Cannes award.
Like George says: "Fool me once, shame on....you. Fool me twice..."
The Blair Witch Project (1999)
Disappointed
Audience anticipation was high for this movie, and the ushers handed out barf-bags as (so they said) some 20 earlier viewers had thrown up from motion sickness. For me and my brother though, this movie was pretty much a shoulder-shrugger. I was simply not drawn into the action at all -- perhaps a teenage level of experience is required to identify with the characters -- and the camera movement had no effect on me, being an experienced 3D gamer. In any case, a yawner.
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