Pan32 Reviews

The Summer House (2014)

familial implosion

[7/10 · 6 June 2016]

I would exclude moral judgment of what is presented as a portrait of sexual indulgence. What matters here is the effect such behavior has on the circle of related individuals. That the effect is uniformly negative is damming enough without the overlay of a moral code. Markus is the central character who has driven his wife to the edge of reason by his neglect, driven by his insatiable sex drive: he is bi-sexual and even a pedophile. The irony here is that Markus is both a hunter and the hunted, as the 12 year old Johannes, son of a business partner, has hatched a scheme to help his father with his debts, by seducing Markus in a blackmail scheme. Markus' daughter, Elisabeth, then proceeds to act in support of her father. Had the children been a few years older, this might seem at least plausible. As it is, the film fails to register as tragedy.

Paul Is Dead (2000)

Amusing Children's film

[9/10 · 30 July 2015]

The film revolves around an intense boy, Tobias, totally into the Beatles and music, involved in an attempt to solve the mystery of the supposed death of Paul McCartney. He follows clues he imagines found on a record sleeve cover of the Beatles and most tellingly, John Lennon's voice at the end of a record saying he buried Paul. Coincidentally, an English speaking stranger arrives in the small town in a 60s VW Beatle with a licence plate that matches one on a a Beetle record sleeve.

What follows is sleuthing in the well established genre of children amateur detectives in literature by Tobias and his friend Helmut.

It's delightful good fun mainly due to the talented boy, Sebastian Urzendowsky, who plays the part of Tobias to perfection at age 15. .

Berlin '36 (2009)

Free interpretation of historical event

[6/10 · 26 July 2015]

The year is 1936 in the Germany of Adolf Hitler and the '36 Olympics is to be held in Berlin. Germany's best high jumper is the Jewish Gretel Bergmann which creates a problem for the Nazi sports establishment. If they field a Jew and she wins a gold, Hitler would not be amused and this could have nasty repercussions for the officials in charge. Ergo the plan is to enter a ringer, a talented male jumper who has been masquerading as female jumper with success. Though that may sound improbable it actually happened. The jumper is identified as Marie Ketteler though his real name at the time was Dora Ratjen.

The main action begins at the training camp where Gretel and Marie are room mates. As a Jew, Gretel is subject to continuous slights and insults and Marie is portrayed as supportive.

The biggest deviation from reality was the scene in which Marie reveals himself to Gretel to be male. Gretel said she only found out about it years latter from an article in Time Magazine on males who competed as females.

Gretel is omitted from the competitors due to lack of performance. Marie competes and finishes fourth. The film suggests Marie intentionally performed poorly out of protest to the exclusion of Gretel and as Marie set a new world record in 1938 this does lend some credence to that portrayal.

The most interesting scenes are at the camp with the actors practicing their jumps. Thereafter the narrative gets lost in the machinations of Gretel's expulsion and the scenes at the Olympic village are too fakey.

Karoline Herfurth gives a credible performance as the embattled Gretel while Sebastian Urzendowsky performs heroically in dresses.

As a film its strongest point is the strangeness of the circumstances rather than any merit as a drama.

A Good Boy (2008 TV Movie)

Fatal attraction

[8/10 · 25 July 2015]

An intelligent depiction of a taboo theme: obsession with young boys.

Growing up I was aware of that situation but it was always the cuties that were propositioned so I never had to deal with it. But from the time of the ancient Greeks to today's Catholic Church, it is something that is part of human nature in some individuals. No one has ever explained it as far as I know. Germine Greer In her book "The Beautiful Boy" describes boy's beauty as supernatural. But she adds she is talking about the prepubescent: sans body hair, clear eyed and with a mane of hair. The Greeks viewed the male as the pinnacle of creation, but they were referring to young boys, their bodies still unblemished by age.

This film makes no attempt at psychological explication. We are presented with a handsome 17 year old, Sven, who is fatally attracted to younger boys. The boy in this case, Patrick, is well aware of his power over Sven and there are hints that Patrick's lack of a father and a careless home life might cause him to be drawn to Sven. Small boys frequently idolize older boys. We are never given evidence of any sexual acts. But such is the climate nowadays Sven must pay for his impulses.

Sebastian Urzendowsky does a fine job as Sven and Sandro Lohmann as Patrick is convincing as Sven's Siren.

Pingpong (2006)

Family drama

[9/10 · 25 July 2015]

What's at play here is infighting between relatives. Paul, a moppy haired teen, arrives at his uncle Stefan's summer home unexpectedly to the obvious annoyance of Stefan's wife Anna and their son Robert.

Paul's father has recently committed suicide and Paul is clearly in something of a daze. But he gradually begins to become a part of the household aided by communal walks in a nearby forest and games of pingpong with Robert.

Robert is a pianist of some skill preparing for an audition for a class of young students. What becomes clear is that Robert is chafing under his mother's insistence at keeping up with his practice routine and as a result perhaps drinks rum on the sly and takes breaks to play pingpong with Paul, to his mother's annoyance.

Paul is infatuated with Anna who clearly is aroused by the sight of him bare chested.

Cherchez la femme as it so often is but Anna is not really a bad sort. The intimacy she shares with Paul is a token of her affection, but she fails to realize how it would affect the impressionable 16 year old still reeling from the loss of his father.

Anna has understandably great ambitions for Robert but reacts in a very harsh way when he crumples under the stress.

Paul takes his revenge for what he sees as a betrayal by Anna by drowning Anna's cherished dog,Schumann.

Uncle Stefen is too busy with work to realize the self destruction going on in his household.

Sebastian Urzendowsky as Paul and Marion Mitterhammer as Anna give particularly fine performances in this interesting film.

The Day Will Come (2009)

Intense family drama

[9/10 · 25 July 2015]

It's impossible to write of this film without giving away the plot. A mysterious young lady arrives at a vineyard farm house after several incidents that show she is a tough cookie. Like letting a hitchhiker screw her and then ditching him beside the highway and then engaging in a most improbable drinking bout with some guys in a bar. Afterward she kisses one of the guys who it will be revealed is her step-brother Then she smashes her car into a tree to give her an excuse to ask the residents in the farm house to let her spend the night. The family consists of a couple and their two teenage children. The mother discovers the guest is using a false name by checking online and goes through her bag on the sly. She discovers the real identity of her guest but waits for the young lady to reveal her intentions. So it becomes a cat and mouse game between the two that gradually enfolds in a series of emotional exchanges. I will leave it at that after leaving one clue above. It's a fine film with excellent performance from all the cast.

Il Futuro (2013)

flatlining heist flick

[5/10 · 8 September 2014]

Somnolent tale of a low voltage heist plot that offers potential for excitement in an unusual twist but sputters to a limp conclusion still born. Rutger Hauer as Maciste. an aged hulk of a washed up body builder/B movie actor who now lives alone in a suitably rundown mansion. Enter Bianca and Tomas, lately orphaned by their parents traffic death, sleepwalking through life until Tomas hooks up with a couple of body builders who move in with the siblings and amazingly turn out to be excellent cooks and housekeepers in contrast to Tomas and his sister. The plot then unfolds (finally) as the guests have a plan to rob Maciste of his money stash with Bianca the interloper who is to locate the goods. But Bianca turns out to have a soft spot in her heart for the old geezer and bails on the deal. The would be thieves then meekly move out without a fuss. The anticipated sexuality never really jells as Maciste is blind and gets his kicks by rubbing down Bianca with oil--all over. Bianca does make herself available to one of the house guests in a strictly physical affair and in a brief moment sizes up her handsome brother as he lies asleep in his jockey shorts One interesting angle are the film clips of a younger Maciste playing the role of Hercules or Samson which Bianca watches and then dreams about as the film attempts to make some kind of psychological connection. What sinks the film is utter detachment all display and even the usual historical monuments of Rome are not enough to make the film worthwhile.

Satyricon (1969)

ducks main premise of novel

[8/10 · 23 August 2014]

Finally found a copy on You tube with English subs and a copy considerably better in the one I had. Polidoro includes much of what was in the novel by Petronius if somewhat juggled fashion but seems to have a problem with the central fictional narrative (as opposed to the observations on Roman life included in the novel) detailing extremely salacious doings of its heroes Encolpio and his slave boy Giton which carry the narrative along. Giton is a randy character ready for any sexual adventure while his master has been cursed by the god of fertility and is impotent insuring he will never consummate his love of the boy . Polidoro seems to have found this too hot to handle and has Giton masquerading as a girl whom Encolpio treats as a sister. If so it didn't prevent the watchdogs of Italian morality that jailed some of the cast and fined Polidoro for corruption of minors as the boy that played Giton was under age. Noteworthy is a jaunty score that includes a boy's choir.

Roberte (1979)

Comedic Brilliance

[10/10 · 23 March 2012]

Pierre Zucca directs this transcendent piece of loopiness adapted together with Pierre Klossowski from his novel of the same name ( and its companion the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes) that includes the philosopher himself as Octave and his wife the formidable Denise Morin- Sinclaire, one of the few survivors of the infamous SS women's prison at Ravensbrück, as Roberte playing in the title role, which, one assumes. is integral to K.'s Sadeian instructed philosophy, but without English subs, I had to rely on my knowledge of the English translation of the novels to follow the films action, which usefully featured the most engaging scenes. The score is intermittent and brief but equally inspired. This is a wrongly neglected masterpiece,that with subs would become a cult favorite, shown at midnight on, say, the Feast of the Assumption.

Genealogies of a Crime (1997)

Living a story

[7 November 2011]

Généalogies d'un crime (1997) Raoul Ruiz presents a whimsical comic send up of any number of Hollywood crime flicks from Hitchcock on down, shuffling the deck of stock situations and dealing a hand that parodies the psychiatric profession along with the infinity of detective fiction, reinvigorating the shopworn genre by seasoning it with oriental spice and pseudo physiological insight that, while making the head spin unraveling the scarlet threads, entertains chiefly with the wonderfully eccentric performances of Michel Piccoli as head of the barmy Franco- Belgium Psychiatric Society and Andrzej Seweryn as the clinical observer of their folly and curator of his museum Mnemosyne in which he preserves the record of the genealogies of crime and expounds on his theory that we all live a story, the story here reenacted, is the Chinese folk tale of the young man that after killing a woman takes shelter in the home of her ghost who finds her revenge, given in voice over at begriming and end of the film along with a view of a Go board shown from time to time displaying the movement of "stones" (here plastic chips). Great fun and entertainment.

A History Without Importance (1980)

coming of age

[1 November 2011]

Jacques Duron has written and filmed this brief ode to unrequited love between school boys (but no less worthy) living in a small central French town, Gannat, an ancient settlement tho' the film eschews establishment of a broader context than the narrow paths the boys regularly traverse, shuttling between school via rail, without any hint as to what location-- indeed of the school environment only what one must take as a school playground is shown-- and Philippe's home and a non-decrepit area of the town, nevertheless, showing evidence of its relative antiquity compared to structures from the epoch of the film, establishing thereby a contrast of youthful vitality existing in what must be considered drab surroundings doubtless exacerbated by the B&W film and autumnal season, but serving to emphasize the freshness of youth and the eternally recurring theme of sexual awaking and discovery, which Philippe, the older of the boys, and Claude the younger who initially sees Philippe as a roll model, proud to have his attention, eager to explore his stirrings with a more experience companion, while the older, perhaps confused by the strength of his passion and mindful of his supposed responsibilities only tentatively responds to the bold invitation for exploration, choosing to wait for slumber to worship at the altar of Kamadeva, supine before him, receiving encouragement , which proved ephemeral alas as Claude quickly progresses, matures, to a worship of Aphrodite leaving Philippe to his first experience of the despair of a jilted suitor, suffering all the pangs of rejection ,loss of his Ka one might conjecture, while finally willing to accept what Claude will grant him, at a price, in a surprising conclusion.

Oh, Woe Is Me (1993)

a rumination

[12 September 2011]

Hélas pour moi 1993 Jean-Luc Godard's rumination on the meaning of it all i.e. creation, it's fruits shown as lovely landscapes; its music with snatches of a variety of masterpieces: as a counterpoint to the inheritors of creation (by accident or design) a rather messy confused lot, as confused as the hybrid god of Zeus and the Christian god of the troika who appears in the body of Simon, wife of Rachael, to experience first hand sexual pleasure (surely anathema to the Christian deity if one is to believe his vicar) in defiance of the death of His belief or at any rate it's gradual dissolution and relegation to a curious relic. Best to enjoy the view and skim the weighty thoughts unless a keen sense of filmic histrionics exists.

The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970)

awful...just awful.

[3/10 · 29 April 2011]

The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970) A European film on paper with a virtually all British cast and written and directed by Billy Wilder and filmed in the UK but it's very much a Hollywood studio product which means it comes with a large dollop of hokum in this case the premise that Holmes is not gay and beneath the crusty exterior of a misogynists beats a heart just ripe for plucking by the right gal. The first 25 minutes or so first lay the ground work by demolishing any notion that Holmes and Watson have a thing: Holmes is offered a Strad violin to make a baby with a Russian ballerina in a post performance visit to her dressing room and he first demurs with the excuse he is English but when this doesn't do it he plays the homo card and rings in Watson. Meantime, Watson is backstage doing the can-can with a bevy of beauteous dancers and when word is passed the girls drop off one by one and are replaced by male dancers throwing Watson into a tantrum as he screeches his denials. So the scene is played for yucks and homos are always good for a laugh in the Hollywood of the period. It's not about PC it just wasn't funny and was irrelevant to the story that follows. But it does introduce Watson as a stooge and fall guy for Holmes and in fact he does several pratfalls, that is when he's not screeching at Holmes for something or other. So the story finally begins with a beautiful woman that Holmes must travel to Scotland with as husband and wife for security and at the end when she disappears he is suitably stricken. A lot of other stuff happens that's all good clean fun Hollywood style and done with great craftsmanship and flair but it's the old kid's stuff that you've seen over and over.

Enter the Void (2009)

Breakthrough film

[9/10 · 17 February 2011]

Enter the Void 2009 is Gaspar Noé's psychedelic rendering of the Tibetan Book of the Dead's predictions regarding the death experience, explained in a short lecture by Alex (Cyril Roy) to Oscar(Nathaniel Brown) early in the film.. Oscar is the films protagonist but his face is seen only as a reflection in a mirror or briefly, from above, as his lifeless body lies on the floor of a toilet stall, dead from a gunshot. Thereafter, we see the film from the point of view of Oscar, or rather his spirit, as he relives his past experiences in which case we see the back of Oscar's head as we follow behind, or we flit above the scenes that are ongoing after his death, and follow the travails of his sister, with whom he had lived. Their lives revolved around sex and drugs in Tokyo and Linda {Paz de la Huerta) is clearly at sea without her brother. Of sex there is plenty, but the lighting is always subdued and filtered removing its immediacy and transfiguring it. An engrossing exploration of the use of film in depicting dimensions of the imagination if one can accept its conventions.

The Edge of Heaven (2007)

The fog of life

[8/10 · 18 October 2010]

The Edge of Heaven, its English title, a film by Faith Akin, explores the difficulty of human connection beset by geographical, political, but mostly human voids acting in random fashion which at the end, dramatize the advice of the philosopher, follow your bliss. The central characters, an old man and his son and a pair of mothers and their daughters, stumble through their lives in a struggle to realize their bliss in our age of rootlessness and political chaos. The only center in this is affection and its tenuous nature. It is the sole verity. While the film seems loosely constructed, it nicely balances the characters with the daughters at the center and the others, despite the powerful presence of Hanna Schygulla, in a secondary role. Indeed it is the daughters Nurgül Yesilçay as Ayten and Patrycia Ziolkowska as Lotte that are at the emotional center of the film and it only becomes alive when they are on screen. Indeed their sulfurous embrace in a crowded, smoky club was breathtaking.

Criminal Lovers (1999)

Tongue in cheek horror film

[7/10 · 5 September 2010]

Les amants criminels (1999)is François Ozon's topsy turvey world of children's fairy tales and psychotic horror based primarily on Hansel and Gretal but with nods to other children's stories. But perhaps to, Ozon recognizes the frequently violent aspects of these tales and has recasts this one in modern terms with Alice and Luc as the high school students whose adventure is presaged by Alice's recitation (shown in flashback) of a fragment from a poem by Rimbaud: Hell cannot attack pagans I'm still alive! Later damnation's delights will be more profound Quick a crime! That I may fall into the void, by human law So the crime is murder, performed by willing dupe Luc, of unsure sexuality, under the spell of the psychotic Alice. The children retreat to a forest to dispose of the body and become lost, eventually taking refuge in a hut of an ogre who intends to fatten Luc and starve Alice. The ogre take a fancy to Luc and after some preliminaries partakes of Luc in a way that goes some way toward deciding his sexuality. But still loyal to Alice, Luc engineers an escape and the pair eventually attempt consummation of their love naked in a clearing under the benign gaze of the forest creatures in a bizarre nod to a Disney animation feature. It all ends badly however in a deviation from the living happily ever after coda of fairy tales. To heighten the sense of the incongruous, Ozon adds a score that include themes from such great love stories as Trastan und Isolde but he is intending to amuse here rather than chill as in his Regarde la mer An entertainment, definitely not a statement. Not for those offended by the homoerotic.

35 Shots of Rum (2008)

quiet parable on family life

[8/10 · 25 August 2010]

35 Shots of Rum (35 Rhums), Claire Denis, 2008, continues Denis' portrayal of Europeans of African ancestry with this quietly unfolding parable of a daughters deep love of her father and his pangs of guilt in accepting her companionship (he is a widower) which he comes to see is an unhealthy dependency preventing her from forming her own emotional life with her boyfriend. The scene is a Parisian apartment building in which Jo and her father Lionel share friendships with Noe, Jo's boyfriend, and Gabrielle, a single woman who drives her own taxi. The obvious parings are prevented from developing by Jo'e inertia brought on by her contentment with the arrangement and the resolution hinges on the death of Noe's cat and the discovery of by Jo of a note from Gabrielle to Lionel. The films attractions are the expected artistry of Cinematographer Agnes Godard and the deft direction of Denis in which emotions and attitudes are conveyed with great economy. Denis uses imagery of movement throughout the film as Lionel is a commuter train engineer who uses a motorcycle for personal transport; Gabrielle drives her taxi; and Jo rides trains to her classes. There is a brief moment of something like magic realism with Jo and her father on horse back galloping down the underground tracks. All this contrasts with the quiet lives at the apartment. One odd note is the depiction of Jo at classes where the subject of the monetary domination of the northern countries over the southern. The word revolution is mentioned and a brief scene of a protest is inserted art one point. This contrasts, consciously or not, with a decidedly up scale apartment with furnishings that suggest a background far different from a train engineer. Except for her film Chocolate, I never noticed any overt socio/ political agenda in her films.