cmp4x Reviews

Personal Shopper (2016)

What if life was like texting ?

[8/10 · 16 February 2019]

Ever wonder if that person on the other side of your text messages who takes forever to respond to you may actually not even be there, and that you have all along been texting to the ghosts of meaning withheld within language? Then this is your movie.

This is the world as it would be if everything were a text message. We often have to project onto these inadequate, cryptic little communications the emotions and thoughts we would "like" to be there but that maybe aren't. The main character lives in a world that is similarly impoverished by incomplete contexts and information, which also means incomplete life in terms of experience. She has a boyfriend via Skype. Her boss interacts with her through short commands. She buys her boss's desires, not her own. Even when the boss is murdered we barely learn about it. And when the murderer meets the main character almost no details are forthcoming. When she dares to live via the things she has bought for her boss, she is not living her own life.

Seemingly in reaction to this impoverished reality, the main character fancies herself to be a medium in touch with numinous communications from the world of the dead. She begins to think the ghost of her brother is stalking her via text message. Or is it just some banal pervert who happens to have her number? The scenario is so impoverished because of the cryptic texted information that it's impossible to know. At the end of the movie, we really don't know, and that's the point. In an impoverished world, we are always projecting our own wishes and "ghosts" into it to give it at least some hint of meaning. Is that futile? Is it the real realm of ghosts? This is where the movie brings us.

Seventeen Moments of Spring (1973)

Psychologically Complex Battle of Wits

[10/10 · 2 December 2018]

10/10 Hands down the best miniseries I have ever seen. Clocking in at over 12 hours, this Soviet production demands commitment, but it is well worth it. Reputed to be the most popular Soviet series ever: Streets would be empty when it was broadcast and estimated 80,000,000 people would be watching. A surprising indication of its popularity: crime rates would drop because people wanted to see the show instead.

Follows the career of a Soviet spy who had infiltrated the Nazi regime at a high level in the waning days of World War II (partially based on a true story). In a way, not much happens, but this is what is so important: The series is intelligent and patient and follows the moods and tensions of a spy being in such a dangerous position fighting the Nazis from within their own hierarchy by pretending to be one of them. Much of the film is a slow and searching exploration of the battle of wits it took for the agent to maintain his position among the turmoils and suspicious of a rapidly decaying Nazi regime just as the war is about to end. The agent must show an outward loyalty to his Nazi superiors while all the time maintaining the secret spy agenda of overthrowing them, and there are many scenes that explore the psychological strength maintaining this position requires. The Germans are clearly villains, but they are not shown as caricatures.

There is so much intelligence in the way this is presented that it's remarkable. I cannot imagine many Americans even today who would have the patience to give up their easily touted slogans about patriotism to sit through a long and complex exposition like this series. Americans prefer "Hogan's Heroes" versions of WWII. Evidently it worked with a mass audience in the Soviet Union, however - perhaps a testament to a more patient and thinking population than one that is sated by soundbites and quick satisfactions.

The film includes a large amount of Soviet war-time newsreel footage to make the battle scenes and views of Berlin. Partly this footage was included by the censors to make it seem like the war was "not won just by a few spies," but it has the unintended effect of giving a very different view of the war than what we usually see through the American footage of the same period. The Soviet front was one of the greatest carnages in human history, and it is often forgotten that 20,000,000 Soviets died in the war. The very brutal footage gives a look at the devastation and disaster of WWII that is often obscured in more 'patriotic' American footage that focuses a lot on victories and chummy soldiers goofing around.

It is said that the main character of this film is so beloved by Russians that when they were looking for someone to overthrow Yeltsin, they wanted a man who resembled the character in this series because they knew the public would love anyone resembling that character. The person they found was Putin (himself an ex-German KGB agent), and a large part of Putin's popularity evidently derives from the resemblances he shares with the character in this film. The film was in fact produced under Andropov to improve the image of the KGB within the USSR.

It is enlightening to compare this series with the jingoistic and drum-thumping patriotic equivalents that the US was making at the same time. Whereas the US resorted to the crassest lowest-common-denominator propaganda about how the 'great generation' saved us from 'evil,' the Soviet series is far more complex and nuanced. In the end you get a sense that there were problems on many sides, and that the job of the secret agent is never easy, and never ending. What you are left with is a sense that a better world is not going to be 'won' simply by some fight but that it is an ongoing struggle that will repeat many times.

Lucas (1986)

A troubling movie in the teen genre

[5/10 · 2 November 2018]

A troubling movie in the teen genre that only "half" gets it, so I'm only giving it half the stars out if 10.

This lesser known entry in the brat pack oeuvre has early career performances from Winona Ryder, Charlie Sheen, and Jeremy Piven, among others. It tells the story of a sincerely likable dork, who falls in love with a class beauty. While she initially accepts him and shares in his bug collecting hobby over summer vacation, once school resumes in the fall she develops feeling for a football jock instead.

The film is unflinching in showing the anguish of the dorky kid as he comes to realize he just isn't (and never can be) attractive to this girl in the way the jock is. He even discusses this in hard terms as "natural selection." This hard fact is tragic, yet probably true: the film stresses the tragedy of falling in love with an unobtainable object and his having to realize that the fact he can't impress her is something to do with aspects of himself that he cannot and never will change.

About halfway through the film, I could not believe how honestly this difficulty was presented, with the main character considering suicide because he realizes that he doesn't have "what it takes" to be a football jock - physically diminutive and uncoordinated, he can't overcome these things. Even the adults in his world sanction the view of him as an outcast, and his home (in a trailer with an alcoholic father) offers no respite. At the halfway point it seemed like this could be a classic of cinema verité.

However, at this point ideology steps in. Rather than honestly dealing with this situation that could have pushed some kids over the brink to suicide or Columbine-type violence, the film takes a big turn into fantasy and avoids the searing critique it could have been. Via this fantasy, the boy "commits suicide" by instead joining the football team, and even after flubbing the game is awarded a letter jacket by his former jock tormentors (and gets the nerdy girl who was meant for him all along - Winona Ryder in her first screen appearance). Thus, supposedly accepting "his place" as the pet dork of these jocks and settling for a nerdy girlfriend is supposed to make him content. It's hard to believe that the boy, who has been presented as highly intelligent, would be satisfied with such superficial palliatives.

Clearly Hollywood could not face the ideological strife this film prompts at the halfway mark. Instead Hollywood applied the standard "solution" of all teen films: "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em." The strategy in all films about teen misfits is to convert the oddball back into something more normative and "acceptable" to dominant ideology - turn the nerd into some form of jock, or at least something acceptable to jocks.

Here, Lucas is defused by making him an "honorary jock" even though he didn't deserve it, as if somehow that gesture wipes away the pain and real difference that he experiences. It's as bad as the old sit-com "Saved By the Bell" in the end, which always performed the same recuperative move to make sure the dorks got reassigned to their "place" in the jock-dominated order by letting them be the jocks' token friends.

This film missed a big opportunity to be a powerful ideological exposé and instead became simply a vehicle for ideology.

While We're Young (2014)

A perfectly 'so-so' film (i.e., a perfect documentary)

[9/10 · 1 October 2018]

This is a comedy of manners exploring the difference between youth and age. An older couple with unfulfilled ambitions for family and career meet a younger couple who initially seem to embody a way to recapture a lost sense of potential for them. The older pair tends to think of the younger generation as having recaptured their own 'lost youth', and they see them enjoying things like vinyl records and VHS tapes that they had themselves tossed away for iPhones and mp3s. However, on second inspection it turns out that the 'integrity' of youth is really just seen by virtue of the aging couple's nostalgia. As the true facts of the situation start to emerge, and the young characters come to be seen as manipulative, cynical careerists, they are somewhat shaken from their pedestals.

Yet, this film is not that easy. Although many see this as a comedy aping Woody Allen's style, in the sense that it presents characters who ultimately are not easily understood, this film is far more Cassavetes than Woody Allen. The older couple are certainly not saints, and their final decision of seeming to retreat from trying to seem young and adopt a Haitian baby itself seems somewhat impetuous (and 'young') and comes from nowhere. Are they really settling into their 40s, or are they doing something very hip? Many of the film's viewers have complained about this ending seeming to come from nowhere. I will not make that complaint, even though the ending is somewhat arbitrary. But I see that arbitrariness as something pointing to the director's real goal, which is not to resolve this situation but rather to show that it is troubling because the couple's motivations are by no means clear. The last words of the couple are indicative: they say youth is 'evil' and yet are themselves about to bring more youth into the world. Is that not at least a partial contradiction? I think this is a question that the director actually wants to be uncomfortable for the audience, and it is with reason that many people have pointed out the inconsistencies of this ending. It is a so-so ending.

But what is good about this film is that it is perfectly 'so-so'. By that I mean that it doesn't have a point: it just follows two couples through some decisions that they make without offering a dogma or even much in the way of a resolution. This is the 'so-so quality' - that there is not a message being preached so much as there is a camera present in these people's lives (literally as they are documentary makers), and it registers what they are doing without bias. In a sense this film is the true documentary that is sought for but not found by the characters within the film. As a documentary, it shows what 'is' and does not try to arrange the facts to fit a preconceived plan for an outcome. Sometimes the figures in this 'documentary' make good decisions, other times we see them at their worst. There is no good guy or bad guy, and there is ultimately no point. It takes considerable maturity and reticence on the part of a director to refrain from making judgments and simply show without telling.

In other hands, this film could have been more ideological, either choosing to satirize hipsters or to sentimentalize the joys of aging. But neither of those outcomes happens here. Instead the film shows some aspects of reality that are sweet (it is possible for old dogs to learn new tricks) and others that are grim (people can be moved by selfish and sometimes anti-social impulses). There is no character in the film who is either a good example or a bad example: all of them are people, which means they are complex, sometimes contradict themselves, and contain a variety of impulses (some of which are character-driven whereas others arise just from situations in which they find themselves).

It is hard for a film to observe without editorializing - a director is constantly making decisions about what will be framed versus what not. Yet, in this film, we come about as close as possible to showing what 'is' without getting doctrinaire.

Papillon (1973)

Pure ideology

[1/10 · 30 August 2018]

I can see why this movie is so popular, and this is why it deserves no praise. It is the kind of easy-to-digest story that is a basic allegory of straight male capitalism, and therefore it is exactly in line with "normal" ideology. The "hero" (Steve McQueen) against all odds wins his freedom from a harsh prison colony in the islands. He has to accomplish this by a series of clever plots and exploits. It is exactly analogous to the way one would innovate, struggle, and push all the boundaries to succeed in a market, except in this case "success" in the market equates to gaining freedom from prison at all costs.

On the other hand, there is an interesting subtext in the movie having to do with homosocial affection between men - there is even a gay character who offers the way out, quite something for 1973! At one point, the possibility is raised that rather than struggle for this type of "freedom" they might develop true friendships, and their life in the all-male prison caring for one another starts to actually seem kinda "gay." But the main character in the end forsakes his "friends" for the solitude of freedom and "success." I think it would have been more interesting had the director explored how they might have grown to accept their fate in the prison, nonetheless developing a rich set of affections that made it irrelevant if they were "free" or not.

The other thing is that once he gains his elusive freedom, we only learn about it from a voice-over in the closing moments of the film, and no visualization of this sought-after state is provided. Despite the large amount of evidence from what we ARE shown that life can have satisfying moments of friendship and even interest - despite being in prison - the ultimate goal is left completely unpictured as a myth or fantasy. This is ideology at its purest. Maybe for distilling ideology so perfectly this film deserves more credit? Nah.

Wuthering Heights (1985)

The most interesting adaptation of Brontë I have seen

[10/10 · 8 August 2018]

The most interesting adaptation of Wuthering Heights I have seen. Rivette effectively blurs the boundary of psychological perception between what is real and what is imagined. This blurring is the point that is lost on the many people who question how this film can be part of Rivette's otherwise strikingly different oeuvre. This film is NOT the conventional adaptation of the novel it may seem to be at first glance.

Throughout the film we sense the "fate" of the characters who have been preordained by Brontë's text to their gloomy fates - and ... yet - throughout the film we have glimpses of ways they could have escaped: the beauty of nature all around them, carefully observed in the cinematography, is one of these hints that "fate" could be simply a construct and that a different way of relating to what is "given" could open at any moment if the right conditions are met. Other potential 'escapes' from their literary fates are suggested in dream sequences as well as in the glances characters give each other and their environment. In the sense of providing the anticipation and hint of that OPENING away from fate, the film is like "Celine and Julie Go Boating," but in its own subtler way. A masterpiece.

Witchfinder General (1968)

All the Hollywood formulas, but Made in Britain

[4/10 · 20 December 2012]

This was a pretty lousy film - one cliché after another repeated in the most predictable and boring fashion. It is one of those cases where the poster was better than the film (see the American release poster, where the film was titled The Conquering Worm - with its really great graphics and green/white design - if only things had lived up to the poster!). Aboutthe only thing really going for this was the lush cinematography - there are a lot of really lovely and well-composed shots of the English countryside - and the actors are very easy on the eyes. However, the story itself exceeds banality. I'm usually one who's OK with popular culture, but this was just schlock.

The Garage (1980)

good up to a point

[5/10 · 7 December 2011]

I found the debate over collective values quite compelling, as each person puts forward his/her own position with respect to the others'. How to decide who is in and who is out? The film cycles through a lot of different positions in trying to answer this question. But, ultimately, I found that the ending's satiric answer did not really satisfy the level of debate that one went through before getting to the end of the film. We are left with a simple joke at the expense of the lazy guy who slept through it all, but is that really enough to let us exit from the dramatic situation in which we have become involved? Perhaps in the futile atmosphere of a totalitarian state it seems the only gesture possible, but one is nevertheless left hoping for more.

Otto; or, Up with Dead People (2008)

A Zombie's Zombie-Film

[9/10 · 29 June 2011]

This IS a serious film. If you get past the gay porn and the expectation that this will be some zombie thriller (stumbling blocks that seem to have gotten in the way of many of the reviewers here), then it becomes quite clear that this is NOT primarily a gay politics film, and NOT a thriller.

For me, the relevance of this film comes through with full reference to Lacan and Zizek, who both discuss the different types of desire/drive that motivate the human subject. Most of us are stuck in the subjectivity of desire, pursuing our love objects--and losing them--but always in the grip of the idea that somehow we can have IT. The subject of desire is always motivated by 'lack' and the attempt to fill in the lack; but the subject of drive is motivated by excess and the weariness of always having 'too much'.

In the film, Otto had IT, but as is clear in the scene when he re-meets his old love, the guy really wasn't all that worth it. But this does not lead Otto to attempt to replace his lost love; instead he has the realization that his lost love is infinitely replaceable by any of the clones out there pursuing mindless connections. The scene with his lost love comes late in the film, but it suggests that some structural aspects of it were behind Otto's becoming a zombie in the first place. There is a realization that leads Otto to lose his 'desire' and become a zombie--he lives with the curse that the object of his desire is endlessly repeatable--he is condemned always to having this realization, which essentially makes him neither alive nor dead.

The end of the film suggests that Otto achieves a different kind of jouissance than that merely had by the 'subject of drive'--but it is only a suggestion, and Labruce goes no further with it than that. This is where I think the film falls short: it is an excellent expose of the emptiness of desire and of the flatness of desire's corollary, drive. But the film does not satisfactorily navigate what lies beyond the desire/drive deadlock.

Nevertheless, this film is far beyond most film-schlock of the moment that never even rises to a decent consciousness of the chains of desire. It is a great exploration of the subjectivity of displacement and intimates that that is an aspect of ALL of our understandings, whether we perceive it or not. I agree with the reviewer who calls this an "entirely original work of art."

Heißer Sommer (1968)

hidden agenda

[8/10 · 17 June 2011]

Spoilers: I don't think calling this one the "Grease" of East Germany does it justice. In fact, I was not sold on it until halfway through--at first it seemed to me totally unredeemed twaddle, until the scene when the glasses-wearing girl is trying to seduce the sailor boy with a conversation about Brecht and the V-effect (or what we'd call the alienation effect)--this comes hard on the heels of the most BANAL song number in the whole film, the beach guitar ballad sung by the love-struck second male lead with his unjustified emotions and even worse sentimental lyrics and melody--alienation indeed. At that point it all made sense to me that this movie is supposed to be a deadly uncanny parable about empty 'values.' But there is more than that: the girls and boys are from the outset in this strange bind where they are attracted and repulsed by one another at the same time. And the whole mise-en-scene is orchestrated by the near-lesbian lead girl who never gets with a boy, has her hair cropped, leads all the songs criticizing boys for not being 'men', and disapproves most strongly of all of Brit's 'success in the barn': "Love is not a piñata, you're not supposed to throw the pieces everywhere" (or something to that effect, she says). There is evidently a documentary of these socialist musicals called "East Side Story."