"Anaconda" is a blatant reworking of Creature/ Black Lagoon. The channel I caught it on even played them back-to-back. Its an essential piece of filmmaking as a clever camp deconstruction of a classic but largely dated film & as a pioneer of CGI effects. The FX in Anaconda aren't just wildly creative and eye-catching, but they are merged with live stunts giving the film a uniqueness. What has to be praised is Jon Voight's excellent over-the-top villain acting, the diverse cast of young stars like Ice Cube, Owen Wilson and J. Lo in very revealing performances. Its a largely by-the-numbers film but it doesn't have the woodenness of "Black Lagoon". Even though the racism is simmered down, its still there. How is Eric Stolz MIA throughout the entire conflict but gets the girl and rides into the sunset as the leader & main viewpoint for the audience? A good genre film for 1997, but its still behind the cultural evolution of today. A multi-million dollar exploitation film. At least it wasn't a remake.
"The Barefoot Contessa" is the best kind of 1954 Hollywood entertainment: A melodramatic Technicolor dream about Romantic women with a sly feminist/communist/leftwing edge. Yet totally supported by & amplifying the best of the conservative post-WW2 climate. Its somber and introspective as it is elevated & artificial. Painterly. Films like this feel painted by a modern master. Written & directed by the very successful Joseph L. Mankiewicz who is well-versed in creating a universally accepted product for what was then a booming economic upswing & prolonged patriotic pride.It seems like a tribute or farewell to a glorious but outdated style or genre. Also it feels inspired by the garish theatrical "prestige" films that brought in color. High in emotional characters, visual splendor & well-paced storytelling. It was a time where standards were changing on-screen positively, merging filmmaking with filmwatching in this great shared human experience of art & reality within it and without it. These films were usually about the sense of living wildly and vividly. That restored peace after tumultuous war and all its suffering and bitter victories. People were relieved but appreciated drama more than ever. I put over so much of the style because this film encapsulated that vibe strongly. It is so much style and commentary on style, but like a Gone With The Wind or even the black & white Casablanca, "Contessa" works because we love a film which delivers a message of substantial equality, justice, honesty and reality.
Its an honest work of smart entertainment from an early fan of cinema. But it does have holes and moral failings that may seem obvious in our far removed point in time.
There is the question if the film's plot is correct politically for being a tragic depiction of a Latin woman's sexuality, a longstanding and generalized knock against the spread of minorities in white cultures. I think it works for 1954, but today's young Latin women will find it either incredibly respectful & relating or supremely presumptuous, "damsel" victim-worshipping & unfairly sexualizing of this "ideal" women of color. It serves a very white racist agenda of "us Vs. them". But like the other great retro films of the earlier ages, it has aged, shown outdated rhetoric and social programming. Thats just a part of our collective race's slow development of unity and move against intolerance.
Like Hollywood's first superstar director D.W. Griffith, the major films of yesteryear (and the future films inspired by them) are very bogged down in offensive ideas, views and propaganda. LUCKILY, "Contessa" allows us enough vagueness and context that any mature viewer can handle and appreciate the story as a universal story of femme fatales, sexual victims, troubled women & feminist martyrs. Unfortunately this stereotyping typically cast "exotic" women, minority women and non-Aryan brunette actresses. Ex: Carmen Jones, Imitation of Life, Pandora's Box and most versions of Wedekind's Lulu.
It fulfills an almost Nazi post-WW2 complex through younger Americanized goggles, while masked in sophomoric cultural appropriation & subtle brownface. Its damned by all of these things, but they were the rule for popular entertainers and public conformity. The problematic and unevolved sentiment of this still-extravagant film is that it tried to be more sympathetic and liberating from its rigid origin, than other films of its ilk. And its inspired more learned and accepting fans to make art that finishes its sentences. This very infantilized work of modernism, pop culture & democratic morality will impress with its foresight even if its offensive in its dated-ness.
Mankiwicz crafts a film that relishes in the high standards of its day and embraces a less strict Conservatism that seems quaint, romantic and even a bit leftist in today's darkly radical political stratus. This is just a movie, but films like these pushed hard politics and now we must view it as a political tool to be tempered like steel into a universally benefiting social infrastructure for education, ever-evolving technological/artistic tradition and a public showcase of creative brilliance. "Contessa" is mostly that. A product of an offensive time with some marks to prove it, but a film with its heart in the right place and enough smarts to not be too irresponsible. The film shows much respect for women of color, you only wish it had input or education about the humanity and reality of them.
"Empire of the Sun" boosts Spielberg in my eyes even higher than he already was. His films always show a deep admiration for the forefathers of cinematic history, but he's always right on the cutting edge of thought-provoking and positive social healing. "Empire" comes from Spielberg's period of adult maturation and works a kind of re-affirmation of this "kid" director as a filmmaker with as much philosophical deepness & genius computation as you could ask for. Especially in comparison to every directors ever, save for Hitchcock & Kubrick. He capitalizes on his massive ego, power, talent and ability to give back as much as he can. His haters distrust this sense of love in his films. They cowardly write him off too easily as a lofty idealist, totally unrealistic and unwise on global messages or lacking some cynical scope to process real tragedy and grief. His earlier films dispute this and Empire flat-out refutes it. This is a film that is both an answer to critics and a darkly reflective journey for Spielberg. He faces so many recurring personal themes through a very specific historical text because he sees the universal ingredients to life.
He melts away division and cowardice to leave only the truth as best as he can show it. But he asks "Why not make it still funny and cool?". Every inch of the movie is an intelligent bit of serious drama that never bogs down in navel-gazing or pretentiousness. While his critics will snidely comment that his vision is too pre-conceptualized or pandering, they will miss that preparation and audience-pacification is the correct job of a major filmmaker. And to Spielberg's artistic credibility, he creates so much in-camera or in acting moments or with subtle inflections of tone, subtext, reference and respect. This is the exact kind of review Spielberg achieved the film for and I can't say he doesn't earn it. But I can admit it may be disheartening that he made these films for such a trivial prize as an Oscar or a glowing Ebert review. But he's avoids exploiting the audience or the subject matter for anything cheap, tasteless, unlikable or mean.
Maybe he cops out by making it a white male child's experience of what was a horrifying moment in specifically Chinese history, but that artistic choice draws the type of audience who needs to see it most. Spielberg is de-powering the over privileged and softening the most hard-hearted of Westerners. The guy is so tuned in to what film-directing encompasses and its astounding how he sustains so much taste and professionalism on such a grand scale with what feels like ease. Maybe he just loves cinema more than the other directors. Like his protagonist here, Steven accepts the responsibility and guilt of the privileged life he has within and before Hollywood and makes an extended hard journey to write the wrongs of the world with a smiling soul and commitment to quality work.
As I type this, America is experiencing the greatest federal investigation of an elected official ever. Our current president is morally bankrupt, sexually juvenile and essentially heartless warmonger who is escalating nuclear arms tension to apocalyptic levels without any management or contact with reality. Stanley Kubrick predicted these factors precisely in "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb" and its a haunting thrill to experience such a topical film with such relevancy. Unfortunately the circumstances have made our connection with the bleakest and most deadpan comedy imaginable.
Kubrick holds back nothing. It is a grotesque reflection of the artificial intelligence that amateurs to govern our cosmic fates, country to country. Kubrick doesn't have to make a cartoon out of his target. Only to present them factually and let the audience see the Emperor has no clothes. Kubrick sees the Cold War as the ultimate meltdown of the white male majority's neuroses and self-destructive psychosis. He knew then what every progressive knows now and what the politically bankrupt are slowing learning. We are heading to a Nazi's wet dream of destruction
Absolute power is lampooned and Kubrick laughs at this God complex that keeps us nothing but hilarious apes in nice suits. No other director could use the depressive, oppressive, "square", drab and ultimately sick in such a beautifully arranged design to say something profound in still simple visual and auditory terms. This film is a masterpiece, one of the first I ever watched, and it will continue to serve this world long after I'm gone (I hope).
Monday, October 30, 2017
Saturday, October 28, 2017
Hannah & Her Sisters 1986
Woody Allen married his ex wife's adopted daughter. This was my only knowledge of him as a child in the 1990s. In 2017, he's now infamous for allegations that he molested another adopted daughter when she was 7. And the case don't look good: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2014/02/woody-allen-sex-abuse-10-facts Honestly, there's still a shred of possibility that this is some misunderstanding that never should've gone public, but is it possible for his filmography to really shine light on this man's innocence or lack thereof?
Hannah & Her Sisters is an ambitious, warm and very successful Woody movie. Its a clever reworking of his dramatic film "Interiors", combing that film's Ingmar Bergman-esque angst with Allen's more popular comedic stylings. Of course he does it in a conceptually intellectual way: the film is told in 3 stories that flip-flop between mellow tragedy & mellow comedy. Allen had far outgrown his extreme comedy and wouldn't approach extreme tragedy again for a while. The combination was so influential that the film plays like an HBO series more than an Academy Award winner. From Tod Solondz' Happiness to Curb Your Enthusiam to Wes Anderson, many have expounded on Allen's vision of cinema.
And Allen's real genius is in creating a form of cinema so tied to dramatic theater, arthouse cinema, sitcom, vaudeville, standup, literature, poetry and even music. The stories are very grounded and would be boring in any one medium, but work in the context of this film. Allen is a director who understands film completely and has personalized the technology to suit his tastes & needs.
Exploring the narrative, Allen creates a dysfunctional family of males & females, Jews & gentiles, who all represent different parts of himself. He wants us to know that every character is him. He has Michael Caine & Max Von Sydow making Jewish references. They are Woody. And Mia Farrow's performances in Allen's films are always a female impression of Allen. I can't tell if thats stylized or if he really molded her into his image in their personal lives. The whole thing is a Freudian headtrip, with the audience as Woody's paying analyst. This sounds indulgent & morose, but the film is light & upbeat throughout. But there is a dark side of Woody Allen that is always beneath the surface. There is a joke about child molestation here, multiple references to his problems with Farrow and her adopted children & so much inappropriate sexual-romantic behavior that is just chalked up to "normal mid-life crisis". There's nothing damning in the text but it raises questions.
Is Allen the victim of circumstance? Or he a predator? Was Mia Farrow being overly protective of her adopted children or not protective enough? Is Dylan Farrow a victim or a very disturbed person? Maybe Farrow used her daughter's claim simply to win a divorce against the man who stole her other daughter. Judging from a film made YEARS before the scandal, you could argue the case for all of this contradictory stuff. But humans are contradictions, Allen being a textbook case. But being a mixed up, complex, dirty, weak-willed guy isn't an admission of guilt to a horrible, horrible act.
Whatever the truth is, Woody is still a pioneer and masterful artist/entertainer. He has helped our culture tremendously - as much as a film comedian can I suspect - and that much can't be argued. Because we don't know what happened, I still recommend this man's films. And if he turns out to be a real monster, he should have to suffer more than he has... but the films are still good.
Hannah & Her Sisters is an ambitious, warm and very successful Woody movie. Its a clever reworking of his dramatic film "Interiors", combing that film's Ingmar Bergman-esque angst with Allen's more popular comedic stylings. Of course he does it in a conceptually intellectual way: the film is told in 3 stories that flip-flop between mellow tragedy & mellow comedy. Allen had far outgrown his extreme comedy and wouldn't approach extreme tragedy again for a while. The combination was so influential that the film plays like an HBO series more than an Academy Award winner. From Tod Solondz' Happiness to Curb Your Enthusiam to Wes Anderson, many have expounded on Allen's vision of cinema.
And Allen's real genius is in creating a form of cinema so tied to dramatic theater, arthouse cinema, sitcom, vaudeville, standup, literature, poetry and even music. The stories are very grounded and would be boring in any one medium, but work in the context of this film. Allen is a director who understands film completely and has personalized the technology to suit his tastes & needs.
Exploring the narrative, Allen creates a dysfunctional family of males & females, Jews & gentiles, who all represent different parts of himself. He wants us to know that every character is him. He has Michael Caine & Max Von Sydow making Jewish references. They are Woody. And Mia Farrow's performances in Allen's films are always a female impression of Allen. I can't tell if thats stylized or if he really molded her into his image in their personal lives. The whole thing is a Freudian headtrip, with the audience as Woody's paying analyst. This sounds indulgent & morose, but the film is light & upbeat throughout. But there is a dark side of Woody Allen that is always beneath the surface. There is a joke about child molestation here, multiple references to his problems with Farrow and her adopted children & so much inappropriate sexual-romantic behavior that is just chalked up to "normal mid-life crisis". There's nothing damning in the text but it raises questions.
Is Allen the victim of circumstance? Or he a predator? Was Mia Farrow being overly protective of her adopted children or not protective enough? Is Dylan Farrow a victim or a very disturbed person? Maybe Farrow used her daughter's claim simply to win a divorce against the man who stole her other daughter. Judging from a film made YEARS before the scandal, you could argue the case for all of this contradictory stuff. But humans are contradictions, Allen being a textbook case. But being a mixed up, complex, dirty, weak-willed guy isn't an admission of guilt to a horrible, horrible act.
Whatever the truth is, Woody is still a pioneer and masterful artist/entertainer. He has helped our culture tremendously - as much as a film comedian can I suspect - and that much can't be argued. Because we don't know what happened, I still recommend this man's films. And if he turns out to be a real monster, he should have to suffer more than he has... but the films are still good.
Friday, October 27, 2017
THX 1138 (Director's Cut) / Urban Cowboy / Night of the Demon
Watched the good part of THX 1138, the re-edited version from the 2000s. I didn't like my experience but I'm intrigued by the original 70s footage. I haven't seen the original film (but I do like the short film that inspired it), but this seems like a warped experience of a decent esoteric "futurist" film. A lot of it is lost with too much deleted footage of nothingness and pretty shiny objects. Very Kenneth Anger. Obviously very similar to Lucas' student films of cars driving. He's a technician who writes about technology so he can film technology. Thankfully he writes about the dangers to be avoided. He tries to make some political statement. Its topical, generational and not evergreen humor or referencing, but the rest of the film is so innovative and oddly moving, that I give it a pass. Hopefully the 70s cut is more watchable and less ridiculous and pretentious. Like WB took the film from Lucas when they saw how extreme & crazed his vision was. So this new version is the matured, successful, commercialized Lucas trying to correct his old mistakes or insert new theories. He's a fascinating director. As experimental as can be, yet as commercial as can be. I might re-review the Lucas remix after watching the original.
Urban Cowboy was a bore for me because it too predictable in its wholesomeness. And its wholesomeness seemed a bit cheated and dishonest. It tries to be Earthy and only erects a Broadway style of artificiality that is aesthetically tranquil but also lifeless dramatically. The plot is low on conflict and the resolution is ambiguous, tame and not even hopeful. The concept of the plot is good: two people marry quickly and then wonder if they should get divorced. They both find the ideal partner they've always lusted, but realize its better to settle for less because they belong together.
Both characters are written as dumb, impulsive, naive, selfish, incompetent and unaware of love's meaning. But they find love together. Thats a warm romantic type plot of the 1950s. But its dressed up in the culture of honky tonk big city cowboy culture. It paints a picture of accepted hopelessness and insulated ignorance. But its never satirical or cruel to them for being so imperfect. The kinds of films Robert Evans and other Hollywood filmmakers were starting to make after Coppola's Godfather were based on the realism and post-structuralism of the arthouse. But few grasped the original Neorealist movement and interpreted badly, Urban Cowboy being one.
Its glossy, crafted simply and somewhat true to its sources. But its not provoking thought, addressing issues or mining for truth outside of its inherited tropes & cliches. There are lots of films like this where Judy Garland & Mickey Rooney types, "All-American kids" triumph over the complex, damaged, truly vulnerable figures explored in foreign films. This is rightwing propaganda made in reaction to true art of radicals who were fighting oppression and economic ruin elsewhere. Hollywood films like this are sour and it highlights the drastic decline of quality after the 70s boom. Where everything became dumbed down beer for the masses to sleep easier. Lets study films like these but not give them too much credit beyond "pretty, watchable pap".
My horror pick was Night of the Demon (Curse of the Demon in America because they still missed using the N-word). I've watched this film a few times as I've aged and it only grows bigger and better. This is a very, very classy, thoughtful, open-minded, fair study of the power of dark occult knowledge. Unfortunately, it was sold as a money-making popcorn horror film and the producer inserted some gratuitous, extremely dating monster footage in what was a pretty undated work of cinema from Jacques Tournier of "Cat People" fame. This truncated version isn't at all bad because of it, but you thirst for the original vision, especially when the significant edge of the final scene is lost because of too many dollars thrown at the screen. Check it out the UK version first and then move on to the U.S., trust me!
Urban Cowboy was a bore for me because it too predictable in its wholesomeness. And its wholesomeness seemed a bit cheated and dishonest. It tries to be Earthy and only erects a Broadway style of artificiality that is aesthetically tranquil but also lifeless dramatically. The plot is low on conflict and the resolution is ambiguous, tame and not even hopeful. The concept of the plot is good: two people marry quickly and then wonder if they should get divorced. They both find the ideal partner they've always lusted, but realize its better to settle for less because they belong together.
Both characters are written as dumb, impulsive, naive, selfish, incompetent and unaware of love's meaning. But they find love together. Thats a warm romantic type plot of the 1950s. But its dressed up in the culture of honky tonk big city cowboy culture. It paints a picture of accepted hopelessness and insulated ignorance. But its never satirical or cruel to them for being so imperfect. The kinds of films Robert Evans and other Hollywood filmmakers were starting to make after Coppola's Godfather were based on the realism and post-structuralism of the arthouse. But few grasped the original Neorealist movement and interpreted badly, Urban Cowboy being one.
Its glossy, crafted simply and somewhat true to its sources. But its not provoking thought, addressing issues or mining for truth outside of its inherited tropes & cliches. There are lots of films like this where Judy Garland & Mickey Rooney types, "All-American kids" triumph over the complex, damaged, truly vulnerable figures explored in foreign films. This is rightwing propaganda made in reaction to true art of radicals who were fighting oppression and economic ruin elsewhere. Hollywood films like this are sour and it highlights the drastic decline of quality after the 70s boom. Where everything became dumbed down beer for the masses to sleep easier. Lets study films like these but not give them too much credit beyond "pretty, watchable pap".
My horror pick was Night of the Demon (Curse of the Demon in America because they still missed using the N-word). I've watched this film a few times as I've aged and it only grows bigger and better. This is a very, very classy, thoughtful, open-minded, fair study of the power of dark occult knowledge. Unfortunately, it was sold as a money-making popcorn horror film and the producer inserted some gratuitous, extremely dating monster footage in what was a pretty undated work of cinema from Jacques Tournier of "Cat People" fame. This truncated version isn't at all bad because of it, but you thirst for the original vision, especially when the significant edge of the final scene is lost because of too many dollars thrown at the screen. Check it out the UK version first and then move on to the U.S., trust me!
Curse of the Cat People 1944
This review ties into my recent musings on sequels & reboots. Here is a sequel made 70 years ago that stands perfectly as its own film AND as an original continuation.
"Curse" was commissioned because Cat People was a massive low budget hit and producer Val Lewton saw a great opportunity to use the publicity of the first film to make something even more radical and personal. Its so far removed from the first Cat People in genre, structure, casting and message. Its the opposite of the carbon copy reboots we are subjected to now.
The original was an erotic thriller about "the were-cat" that kept its supernatural elements ambiguous. The sequel is a sentimental ghost story/character study about children that also keeps its supernatural elements ambiguous. Curse never contradicts or reduces or copies the original. The best way to look at it is an origin story told through another character. Both of these protagonists are damaged young women and while the first is an epic tragedy, the sequel is an epilogue that offers some redemption for our fallen heroine.
Ya know, factoring in Paul Schrader's remake from the 1980s, Cat People is the most artful and rewarding franchise in horror. All 3 films are delicious, respectful exercises in film poetry that redefine their expected place in canon. Its also one of the few franchises that has some basic aesthetic lineage throughout the films, probably because it takes a higher class of filmmaker to make them & we weren't bogged down in endless, exploitative entries.
Check this one out. Not your average horror film. Its flawlessly shot, lovingly produced, competently directed, etc etc. It fits in with The Godfather 2 & The Road Warrior as one of the most perfect sequels yet made.
"Curse" was commissioned because Cat People was a massive low budget hit and producer Val Lewton saw a great opportunity to use the publicity of the first film to make something even more radical and personal. Its so far removed from the first Cat People in genre, structure, casting and message. Its the opposite of the carbon copy reboots we are subjected to now.
The original was an erotic thriller about "the were-cat" that kept its supernatural elements ambiguous. The sequel is a sentimental ghost story/character study about children that also keeps its supernatural elements ambiguous. Curse never contradicts or reduces or copies the original. The best way to look at it is an origin story told through another character. Both of these protagonists are damaged young women and while the first is an epic tragedy, the sequel is an epilogue that offers some redemption for our fallen heroine.
Ya know, factoring in Paul Schrader's remake from the 1980s, Cat People is the most artful and rewarding franchise in horror. All 3 films are delicious, respectful exercises in film poetry that redefine their expected place in canon. Its also one of the few franchises that has some basic aesthetic lineage throughout the films, probably because it takes a higher class of filmmaker to make them & we weren't bogged down in endless, exploitative entries.
Check this one out. Not your average horror film. Its flawlessly shot, lovingly produced, competently directed, etc etc. It fits in with The Godfather 2 & The Road Warrior as one of the most perfect sequels yet made.
Leatherface 2017
I caught this last month and let it gel in my psyche a bit. The film was shot in 2015 and the anticipation was unbearable for me. I love the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre as much as I love any film and I have issues with all of its sequels/side-quels/requels/reboots/remakes/pre-boots. Can you believe this is TCM 8? Sigh.
So its an atmospheric, sadistic, kitschy, pretentious type of horror movie. Thats actually not that unusual these days. I actually wished they kept the uber-modern "popcorn" Saw vibe of TC3D, but no go. Stylistically this is the film that the franchise needed a few movies back. Its got way more teeth & class than the influential but numb 2003 remake. And its actually a psychological thriller unlike half the damn movies. Most important, Leatherface has the most original Chainsaw plot since the original. All of the other films are light remakes with varying degrees of original execution. LF fails on that front. It could've worked commercially or artistically if it had a more unusual approach instead of the "let's be 1970s! lets be as faithful as possible!" thing.
Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury are a pair of remodernist fanboy directors from France. They make Alexandre Aja style gore films (a Xerox of a Xerox of a Xerox...), each a take off of some great horror director. They made a really crappy Tobe Hooper-inspired film called Among the Living, so they got this job. If you've seen their Argento-inspired film "Inside" or the... Argento-inspired "Livid", you know these guys are great stylists who have no concept of realism, logic or storytelling. But they can light the Hell out of a scene and squirt blood everywhere. Oddly, even with a semi-Hollywood budget, this is not the bloodbath or visual feast I expected. Bummer.
Redeeming it is the script by some Millennial screenwriting teacher. Its more of a deconstruction of modern teen horror, backwoods slashers and "Badlands" style hostage films. Yeah, its basically a poor man's Devil's Rejects, which wasn't a good film itself. At least this film isn't so gimmicky. Or its gimmicks are more interesting. This is a very nasty film. Lots of gross setpieces and inexplicably evil or stupid cartoon characters everywhere. Maybe its just the lifeless interpretation of the directors tho. Apparently the film was supposed to end with an elaborate massacre inspired by Peter Jackson's Dead Alive. So it was supposed to be campy. The whole thing would've worked if it didn't try to make a serious film out of such a tired and illogical premise. Again, this is hardly based on TCM. You get the impression it was an original script that had Leatherface & fam shoehorned in. That actually worked with a couple Hellraiser sequels and could've worked here if the writer were more original and the directors camped it up.
Fanboy note, the origin given is hilariously lame but also effective in the sincerity of its "14 year old at Hot Topic" angst. This is going to become a bonehead classic to the next generation of horror fans and thats serviceable. Tobe Hooper died the week that this thing debuted which is meaningful in some way. Maybe this is the last Massacre. Eh, I'm cool with that.
*In retrospect, I'm quite fond of this modest low budget film. Mainly for its style and production, but also the hammy acting, the muddled occult references and a genuine obtuseness that shines compared to something like "Amityville: The Awakening". Leatherface is a mixed bag with some great parts and hopefully its enough to re-energize the franchise and get these directors some real work.
So its an atmospheric, sadistic, kitschy, pretentious type of horror movie. Thats actually not that unusual these days. I actually wished they kept the uber-modern "popcorn" Saw vibe of TC3D, but no go. Stylistically this is the film that the franchise needed a few movies back. Its got way more teeth & class than the influential but numb 2003 remake. And its actually a psychological thriller unlike half the damn movies. Most important, Leatherface has the most original Chainsaw plot since the original. All of the other films are light remakes with varying degrees of original execution. LF fails on that front. It could've worked commercially or artistically if it had a more unusual approach instead of the "let's be 1970s! lets be as faithful as possible!" thing.
Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury are a pair of remodernist fanboy directors from France. They make Alexandre Aja style gore films (a Xerox of a Xerox of a Xerox...), each a take off of some great horror director. They made a really crappy Tobe Hooper-inspired film called Among the Living, so they got this job. If you've seen their Argento-inspired film "Inside" or the... Argento-inspired "Livid", you know these guys are great stylists who have no concept of realism, logic or storytelling. But they can light the Hell out of a scene and squirt blood everywhere. Oddly, even with a semi-Hollywood budget, this is not the bloodbath or visual feast I expected. Bummer.
Redeeming it is the script by some Millennial screenwriting teacher. Its more of a deconstruction of modern teen horror, backwoods slashers and "Badlands" style hostage films. Yeah, its basically a poor man's Devil's Rejects, which wasn't a good film itself. At least this film isn't so gimmicky. Or its gimmicks are more interesting. This is a very nasty film. Lots of gross setpieces and inexplicably evil or stupid cartoon characters everywhere. Maybe its just the lifeless interpretation of the directors tho. Apparently the film was supposed to end with an elaborate massacre inspired by Peter Jackson's Dead Alive. So it was supposed to be campy. The whole thing would've worked if it didn't try to make a serious film out of such a tired and illogical premise. Again, this is hardly based on TCM. You get the impression it was an original script that had Leatherface & fam shoehorned in. That actually worked with a couple Hellraiser sequels and could've worked here if the writer were more original and the directors camped it up.
Fanboy note, the origin given is hilariously lame but also effective in the sincerity of its "14 year old at Hot Topic" angst. This is going to become a bonehead classic to the next generation of horror fans and thats serviceable. Tobe Hooper died the week that this thing debuted which is meaningful in some way. Maybe this is the last Massacre. Eh, I'm cool with that.
*In retrospect, I'm quite fond of this modest low budget film. Mainly for its style and production, but also the hammy acting, the muddled occult references and a genuine obtuseness that shines compared to something like "Amityville: The Awakening". Leatherface is a mixed bag with some great parts and hopefully its enough to re-energize the franchise and get these directors some real work.
Blow-Up 1966
Just watched this landmark of arthouse cinema for the first time. I'm deeply moved.
I've seen director Michelangelo Antonioni's "Il Grido" before and it had the same effect but this was a different, more open experience. I'm also a fan of De Palma's thematic sequel "Blow Out", so this fills in many dots but retains my love of that film in finding they are only related in minor plot details (though Blow Up is a much better film).
I already watched a great film essay detailing the narrative interpretation of the entire film as a juxtaposition of Modernism & Postmodernism, so I will link it here and then give my own interpretation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlzzfR23s4I
I agree that this film is a Coming-of-Age story; a "Kunstheroman" where an artist matures into his art. Its biographical in that sense as the character reaches Antonioni's worldview through an Antonioni scenario.
Our protagonist is a self-serving cad who doesn't really respect himself, others or his craft, only using it for sex, money and notoriety. But he wants to become a real artist. He photographs so much pain from his subjects and gets off on it rather than feels it himself. In his journey, the gravity of reality lands on him hard and gives him the sense of victimhood that he has given or dismissed in others. He learns that he is a part of an infinite network of things and identities & that his infinitesimal view on things is only personal to him and can never be properly interpreted by anyone else.
Thats what I gathered from the visual language which I think is clear enough. The film is enigmatic, subtle and very lyrical, so very open to interpretation. But the clues and metaphors throughout point to this spiritual outcome. Essentially, this is what De Palma's Blow Out is about, only told in a lurid, purposely lowbrow way. Blow Out is a feature-length re-interpretation/critique of Blow Up for the masses. That makes me love it less but also respect De Palma's ability to do such a thing with more originality and taste than a Tarantino or the more lazy stylists using postmodernism to get off the hook creatively. De Palma was a great stylist and technician who re-interpreted great text. He didn't add anything besides visuals or maybe more commercial plot points. They are not true postmodernists. They are remodernists who use postmodernists in a much less valiant but equally necessary way that the postmodernists use modernists. Its a cycle of creation. Blow Up is special because it is modern and postmodern, not owing gratitude to anything but itself cinematically.
Blow Up isn't a deconstruction of cinema as much as it is a deconstruction of a generation, a culture, a species. I guess all films attempt this but hardly to such a degree or to such an effect, with a clarity and sincerity no less. Antonioni's directing is so elegantly detailed. He explores the form leisurely and none of it seems gratuitous or distracting, thanks to expert pacing and tonality. One amazing game Antonioni plays is with relationships. Things that seem connected are not. Things that seem unrelated are not. Things disappear and reappear or don't. And it all has a rhyme or reason. I suppose this is a kind of simulation of structuralism. But he is also wrapped up in the story for the audience's sake, letting it gradually come into focus once enough seemingly innocuous pieces have stacked up. Its a solid enough plot but its profound in its restraint and rich character. The structure and dialogue are abstract realism. We are never sure if we are to take this film as a dream or something literal and thats the magic.
This was a haunting film and I want to keep it mysterious by not unpacking it too much. I will enjoy this on many future occasions.
I've seen director Michelangelo Antonioni's "Il Grido" before and it had the same effect but this was a different, more open experience. I'm also a fan of De Palma's thematic sequel "Blow Out", so this fills in many dots but retains my love of that film in finding they are only related in minor plot details (though Blow Up is a much better film).
I already watched a great film essay detailing the narrative interpretation of the entire film as a juxtaposition of Modernism & Postmodernism, so I will link it here and then give my own interpretation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlzzfR23s4I
I agree that this film is a Coming-of-Age story; a "Kunstheroman" where an artist matures into his art. Its biographical in that sense as the character reaches Antonioni's worldview through an Antonioni scenario.
Our protagonist is a self-serving cad who doesn't really respect himself, others or his craft, only using it for sex, money and notoriety. But he wants to become a real artist. He photographs so much pain from his subjects and gets off on it rather than feels it himself. In his journey, the gravity of reality lands on him hard and gives him the sense of victimhood that he has given or dismissed in others. He learns that he is a part of an infinite network of things and identities & that his infinitesimal view on things is only personal to him and can never be properly interpreted by anyone else.
Thats what I gathered from the visual language which I think is clear enough. The film is enigmatic, subtle and very lyrical, so very open to interpretation. But the clues and metaphors throughout point to this spiritual outcome. Essentially, this is what De Palma's Blow Out is about, only told in a lurid, purposely lowbrow way. Blow Out is a feature-length re-interpretation/critique of Blow Up for the masses. That makes me love it less but also respect De Palma's ability to do such a thing with more originality and taste than a Tarantino or the more lazy stylists using postmodernism to get off the hook creatively. De Palma was a great stylist and technician who re-interpreted great text. He didn't add anything besides visuals or maybe more commercial plot points. They are not true postmodernists. They are remodernists who use postmodernists in a much less valiant but equally necessary way that the postmodernists use modernists. Its a cycle of creation. Blow Up is special because it is modern and postmodern, not owing gratitude to anything but itself cinematically.
Blow Up isn't a deconstruction of cinema as much as it is a deconstruction of a generation, a culture, a species. I guess all films attempt this but hardly to such a degree or to such an effect, with a clarity and sincerity no less. Antonioni's directing is so elegantly detailed. He explores the form leisurely and none of it seems gratuitous or distracting, thanks to expert pacing and tonality. One amazing game Antonioni plays is with relationships. Things that seem connected are not. Things that seem unrelated are not. Things disappear and reappear or don't. And it all has a rhyme or reason. I suppose this is a kind of simulation of structuralism. But he is also wrapped up in the story for the audience's sake, letting it gradually come into focus once enough seemingly innocuous pieces have stacked up. Its a solid enough plot but its profound in its restraint and rich character. The structure and dialogue are abstract realism. We are never sure if we are to take this film as a dream or something literal and thats the magic.
This was a haunting film and I want to keep it mysterious by not unpacking it too much. I will enjoy this on many future occasions.
Thursday, October 26, 2017
Blade Runner 2049 - 2017
Here we go.
Who knows how this film will age with me, but I wasn't a big fan when I saw it earlier in the month. I felt a bit insulted and exploited honestly.
I'm not going to talk about the massive fanboy hype or push to give the DP an Oscar nod before the premiere. I'm going to try and avoid the fact that its a copy structurally, thematically and technically of the 1982 classic. Fuck that. Thats the problem.
The first film has to be covered briefly. Here is a landmark achievement in screen storytelling that went against the Lucas/Spielberg grain (love those guys btw) to present a cold, existential, cynical picture of our future post-corporate apocalypse and technical enslavement. Or is it technical apocalypse and corporate enslavement? Anyway, underneath its bleak noir deconstructionism was a radical existential question about "what is a soul?" Are souls only human? Can a machine have one? Where's the spirituality in a world where man is a machine and machine is a man?
It answers this (at least in Ridley Scott's original cut) with the theory that souls are attained/created by anyone who earns one. There are men without and machines/animals/objects with. In Blade Runner, Deckard finds out that he is a replicant, not "a real boy" in Pinocchio fashion. His entire life has been a lie orchestrated by his creators to hide the fact he isn't real. But he accepts it; that his dreams are pre-programmed and that his free will is an illusion. His guardian angel sets him free and assures him that he has attained his eternal reward. This deterministic view upsets people. "Don't tell us humans are the same as robots!" It upset Warner Bros execs and Harrison Ford, so they re-edited the film so Deckard is not an unconscious machine but a really boring, flat human with no spiritual journey... who just falls in love with a machine woman by random whim. They essentially eliminated the poetry, tragedy and transcendent spiritual victory in a metaphor about enlightenment. It was reduced to a "future cop vs cyborg" movie. Yawn!
Flash forward to the Reboot Era. "Mad Max: Fury Road" is a super success and 80s nostalgia is inescapable. So good ol' WB dusts off Blade Runner and create a franchise from this 80s commercial failure/critical touchstone. But Ridley Scott is only brought back as "executive producer", which means a humored consultant used for marketing. The directing job goes to Denis Villeneuve, director of many world cinema-influenced Hollywood thrillers and darling of new film criticism. I think they brought back one of the original screenwriters too. But this is the same WB that mangled Suicide Squad and ripped the nuts off Batman V Superman.
Watching BR2049 I couldn't resist the very spacious, digitally colored and expensively art-directed cinematography. The film is top notch eye candy. I have to say it fails to live up to the original Blade Runner in its lighting techniques, but almost no one would notice or care so I'll drop the point because visuals are not paramount to this film's impression on me.
Whereas Scott's film was so radically different from its class, Villeneuve's film is so radically the same: the same as the first Blade Runner and the same as every new "prestige" attempt at blockbuster cinema. Besides the effectively moody lighting, the sleek production design and frankly expected & redundant moments of replicants philosophizing "how human am I?", this is like Logan, Kong Island, Leatherface and the other 2017 genre films that are mimicking 70s/80s tropes and aesthetics. Sadly, none bring the originality, experimentation or storytelling craftsmanship of their influences.
We are in this moment where style equals substance to the wannabe cinephile because A. thats the easiest thing to identify about great older films on Criterion, and B. Bret Easton Ellis has incorrectly defined Hitchcock's theory of "Pure Cinema" to a generation of internet critics. What Hitchcock meant was film built around montage: the combination of shots to create a non-visual idea. Somehow Ellis has repeatedly defined Pure Cinema as the "visual over everything" and "aesthetics divorced from ideology". I understand how he could make this mistake. Hitchcock was more interested in visual narrative than audio or text. But he never meant visual storytelling as a singular expression. Thats just an easy cop-out calling card to identify Hitchcock. Hitch himself was sorry that he was known purely for his aesthetics by early critics. And to divorce aesthetics from ideology is to analyze half of the artwork & be a shallow critic. The aesthetics serve ideology. Cinema is intrinsically ideological, which is why its been used for propaganda since the beginning. This is why Bret hasn't become a success in filmmaking and his opinions on film are not taken too seriously. But he has a legion of fans, many pretentious, many alt-right, many ignorant on cinema. I think a lot of these people showed up to see 2049.
Now if we go by Ellis' standards, Blade Runner 2049 is a near-masterpiece. Lingering "dead time" shots of gorgeous but hollow visuals, creepily pampered actor faces in technicolor lights, every movement measured for a maximum textual impact. Its one of the widest visual palettes I've ever seen on a big screen. But there's nothing else under the hood. Its like a very gorgeous date who has nothing original to say but he/she took a philosophy class once. The original '82 masterpiece is like a date with a heroin chic model fluent in 12 languages who wants to argue about Foucault. Basically its a comparison between Sean Young and the 12-year-old-looking-20something who plays the hologram girlfriend. Style is nothing without substance.
2049 is a beginner's course on Blade Runner. It tries to boil down, paint by numbers & commercialize the original and like a pop star's mp3 cover of a David Bowie anthem on vinyl... it loses a lot in translation. It tries so hard to be taken seriously. It wants you to feel so much apathy, disillusion & wanderlust. "Damn, its hard being a Millennial!!!" But it doesn't illustrate any of this well. Essentially we should relate to this story as a sequel because there's another generation who gets it. Thats all. Just like Disney's Star Wars, the respect for the original text somehow grants a reward- except, nah. 2049 doesn't re-interpet the original worth a damn. It doesn't return to Philip K Dick's original novel for anything. Its a cash grab looking for hipster cool points only. And this is most of Ryan Gosling and Denis Villeneuve's history.
Best & worst of all, it retroactively canonizes Warner's shit version of the story where Deckard is just a man. Or does it? Deckard is neither, so 2049 is trying to be a sequel to both films, which is a cool touch, but also the only logical choice for a sequel to a film with 3 official versions. But either way you look at it, Deckard's return is very flat and wasted. The decades long ambiguity of whether Deckard is or isn't a replicant is expanded to... "is he the father of the first half-replicant or first full replicant child?" Neither is that interesting.
The only way you can arrive at 2049 surpassing Blade Runner is if you are talking about the awful Theatrical Version. This is the most pretentious, boring, frustrating action film I've ever seen. And thats not a knock. I love Godard, "The Brown Bunny" and the lesser films of Bergman, Kubrick & Tarkovsky. But 2049 is still a crappy story underneath. No amount of shoegazing actors or post-ironic sexism will change that. And its sad because Blade Runner avoided all of that. It was a genuinely spiritual, psychological, romantic, feminist, speculative and socially relevant work of commercial art. This is just a lifeless replicant that needs to be retired.
*Always wanted to write a cheesy critic closing line like that :)
Who knows how this film will age with me, but I wasn't a big fan when I saw it earlier in the month. I felt a bit insulted and exploited honestly.
I'm not going to talk about the massive fanboy hype or push to give the DP an Oscar nod before the premiere. I'm going to try and avoid the fact that its a copy structurally, thematically and technically of the 1982 classic. Fuck that. Thats the problem.
The first film has to be covered briefly. Here is a landmark achievement in screen storytelling that went against the Lucas/Spielberg grain (love those guys btw) to present a cold, existential, cynical picture of our future post-corporate apocalypse and technical enslavement. Or is it technical apocalypse and corporate enslavement? Anyway, underneath its bleak noir deconstructionism was a radical existential question about "what is a soul?" Are souls only human? Can a machine have one? Where's the spirituality in a world where man is a machine and machine is a man?
It answers this (at least in Ridley Scott's original cut) with the theory that souls are attained/created by anyone who earns one. There are men without and machines/animals/objects with. In Blade Runner, Deckard finds out that he is a replicant, not "a real boy" in Pinocchio fashion. His entire life has been a lie orchestrated by his creators to hide the fact he isn't real. But he accepts it; that his dreams are pre-programmed and that his free will is an illusion. His guardian angel sets him free and assures him that he has attained his eternal reward. This deterministic view upsets people. "Don't tell us humans are the same as robots!" It upset Warner Bros execs and Harrison Ford, so they re-edited the film so Deckard is not an unconscious machine but a really boring, flat human with no spiritual journey... who just falls in love with a machine woman by random whim. They essentially eliminated the poetry, tragedy and transcendent spiritual victory in a metaphor about enlightenment. It was reduced to a "future cop vs cyborg" movie. Yawn!
Flash forward to the Reboot Era. "Mad Max: Fury Road" is a super success and 80s nostalgia is inescapable. So good ol' WB dusts off Blade Runner and create a franchise from this 80s commercial failure/critical touchstone. But Ridley Scott is only brought back as "executive producer", which means a humored consultant used for marketing. The directing job goes to Denis Villeneuve, director of many world cinema-influenced Hollywood thrillers and darling of new film criticism. I think they brought back one of the original screenwriters too. But this is the same WB that mangled Suicide Squad and ripped the nuts off Batman V Superman.
Watching BR2049 I couldn't resist the very spacious, digitally colored and expensively art-directed cinematography. The film is top notch eye candy. I have to say it fails to live up to the original Blade Runner in its lighting techniques, but almost no one would notice or care so I'll drop the point because visuals are not paramount to this film's impression on me.
Whereas Scott's film was so radically different from its class, Villeneuve's film is so radically the same: the same as the first Blade Runner and the same as every new "prestige" attempt at blockbuster cinema. Besides the effectively moody lighting, the sleek production design and frankly expected & redundant moments of replicants philosophizing "how human am I?", this is like Logan, Kong Island, Leatherface and the other 2017 genre films that are mimicking 70s/80s tropes and aesthetics. Sadly, none bring the originality, experimentation or storytelling craftsmanship of their influences.
We are in this moment where style equals substance to the wannabe cinephile because A. thats the easiest thing to identify about great older films on Criterion, and B. Bret Easton Ellis has incorrectly defined Hitchcock's theory of "Pure Cinema" to a generation of internet critics. What Hitchcock meant was film built around montage: the combination of shots to create a non-visual idea. Somehow Ellis has repeatedly defined Pure Cinema as the "visual over everything" and "aesthetics divorced from ideology". I understand how he could make this mistake. Hitchcock was more interested in visual narrative than audio or text. But he never meant visual storytelling as a singular expression. Thats just an easy cop-out calling card to identify Hitchcock. Hitch himself was sorry that he was known purely for his aesthetics by early critics. And to divorce aesthetics from ideology is to analyze half of the artwork & be a shallow critic. The aesthetics serve ideology. Cinema is intrinsically ideological, which is why its been used for propaganda since the beginning. This is why Bret hasn't become a success in filmmaking and his opinions on film are not taken too seriously. But he has a legion of fans, many pretentious, many alt-right, many ignorant on cinema. I think a lot of these people showed up to see 2049.
Now if we go by Ellis' standards, Blade Runner 2049 is a near-masterpiece. Lingering "dead time" shots of gorgeous but hollow visuals, creepily pampered actor faces in technicolor lights, every movement measured for a maximum textual impact. Its one of the widest visual palettes I've ever seen on a big screen. But there's nothing else under the hood. Its like a very gorgeous date who has nothing original to say but he/she took a philosophy class once. The original '82 masterpiece is like a date with a heroin chic model fluent in 12 languages who wants to argue about Foucault. Basically its a comparison between Sean Young and the 12-year-old-looking-20something who plays the hologram girlfriend. Style is nothing without substance.
2049 is a beginner's course on Blade Runner. It tries to boil down, paint by numbers & commercialize the original and like a pop star's mp3 cover of a David Bowie anthem on vinyl... it loses a lot in translation. It tries so hard to be taken seriously. It wants you to feel so much apathy, disillusion & wanderlust. "Damn, its hard being a Millennial!!!" But it doesn't illustrate any of this well. Essentially we should relate to this story as a sequel because there's another generation who gets it. Thats all. Just like Disney's Star Wars, the respect for the original text somehow grants a reward- except, nah. 2049 doesn't re-interpet the original worth a damn. It doesn't return to Philip K Dick's original novel for anything. Its a cash grab looking for hipster cool points only. And this is most of Ryan Gosling and Denis Villeneuve's history.
Best & worst of all, it retroactively canonizes Warner's shit version of the story where Deckard is just a man. Or does it? Deckard is neither, so 2049 is trying to be a sequel to both films, which is a cool touch, but also the only logical choice for a sequel to a film with 3 official versions. But either way you look at it, Deckard's return is very flat and wasted. The decades long ambiguity of whether Deckard is or isn't a replicant is expanded to... "is he the father of the first half-replicant or first full replicant child?" Neither is that interesting.
The only way you can arrive at 2049 surpassing Blade Runner is if you are talking about the awful Theatrical Version. This is the most pretentious, boring, frustrating action film I've ever seen. And thats not a knock. I love Godard, "The Brown Bunny" and the lesser films of Bergman, Kubrick & Tarkovsky. But 2049 is still a crappy story underneath. No amount of shoegazing actors or post-ironic sexism will change that. And its sad because Blade Runner avoided all of that. It was a genuinely spiritual, psychological, romantic, feminist, speculative and socially relevant work of commercial art. This is just a lifeless replicant that needs to be retired.
*Always wanted to write a cheesy critic closing line like that :)
Monty Python's The Meaning of Life 1983
Paid this old fave a visit. 2017 has been dry on comedy, certainly anything as broad as this. And over the years I've come to accept that this final work by the Pythons was a bit flawed and undercooked, but its still a fine culmination and final bow by all of the members.
Whats impressive is how the boys followed diverse paths after their success but still found common ground. Each skit feels like a philosophical argument of wits but tied together by a common mantra, finally revealed in their last written scene together.
The unity is tense.
The whole thing has a sad finality to it. It must've been the reflecting on mortality and their showing age, but the spirit of the film is a farewell to fans. A bit of the writing is clunky but each member stretches more than they ever did. Its refreshing to see a film without any phoned in performances. I think some wanted this to be their magnum opus and others saw it as another check before another check. So there's a mix of seriousness with frivolity, which harms the consistency of the humor but also keeps it from becoming too much "Brian" or "Grail". This is a great summary of both hemispheres of their combined brain.
Skit by skit is the only way to cover the action.
Whats impressive is how the boys followed diverse paths after their success but still found common ground. Each skit feels like a philosophical argument of wits but tied together by a common mantra, finally revealed in their last written scene together.
The unity is tense.
- Eric Idle is of course interested in building a musical comedy franchise from the Python gimmick (and he would eventually succeed!)
- Terry Jones is trying to lend the film as much cinematic credibility as possible
- Terry Gilliam wants to keep it as absurd and infantile as can be
- John Cleese has an inner struggle to not be the scene-stealing ham he loves being
- Michael Palin just wants to be as funny as everyone else and keep them all friends
- and Graham Chapman is channeling the last of his rage against the WASPy machine as he can in what would be the final years of his life
The whole thing has a sad finality to it. It must've been the reflecting on mortality and their showing age, but the spirit of the film is a farewell to fans. A bit of the writing is clunky but each member stretches more than they ever did. Its refreshing to see a film without any phoned in performances. I think some wanted this to be their magnum opus and others saw it as another check before another check. So there's a mix of seriousness with frivolity, which harms the consistency of the humor but also keeps it from becoming too much "Brian" or "Grail". This is a great summary of both hemispheres of their combined brain.
Skit by skit is the only way to cover the action.
- The Crimson Permanent Assurance - A great opening. It ties in thematically with everything to come while remaining Gilliam's personal statement. Shows just how sympatico the whole team was when the most individualistic & unique member is echoing the sentiments of 5 others.
- Miracle of Birth Pt 1 - This is light lifting for John & Graham, but its spot-on. Philosophical, juvenile, mean, sympathetic, pissed off and hilarious. And of course a bit metaphysically romantic and heartbreaking. Its a great closer to John & Graham's troubled but true bromance.
- Miracle of Birth Pt 2 - Finally, Michael & Jonesy outdo John & Graham head-to-head with the thanks of Eric and Graham himself. Its pretty risky to take on Catholicism with such snarling jokes, but thats what they do best. Visually, this is probably the best part of the film and the succession of pointed, brilliant jokes gives ya goosebumps.
- Growth & Learning - Probably my favorite writing in the whole film. John Cleese fires on all cylinders and you just stew in how brutally witty this guy is at dismantling religion, sex, nationality and any social construct he can work into a skit about ejaculation.
- Fighting Each Other - 3-part skit that brings down the humor and action. My least favorite? The beginning and ending are kinda painfully predictable and dated topically, but the African skit is really some of the BEST stuff to involve multiple Pythons. Because its them doing what they do best: making fun of British history. The subtle deadpan from John, Eric & Graham is exquisite master class stuff.
- The Middle of the Film - Perfect. This was probably the most insane scene to play in theaters in the 1980s.
- Middle Age - Kinda dry and dumb but has a few good lines and Eric is fabulous as a woman for the 2nd of 3 times.
- Live Organ Transplants - John, Graham & Gilliam being weird, brutal and darkly satirical. This seems like a deleted scene from "Brazil". Doesn't fit but... it fits because the whole joke is that this has nothing to do with anything. But it does summarize middle age I fear.
- The Autumn Years - Despite John & Jonesy having the most trying friendship in the group, they play off each other so beautifully. They might have the best chemistry in the entire film. And this is the ultimate example of their extreme "Mutt & Jeff" S&M chess game. This is the most dazzling bit of comic directing and vaudeville acting in the whole film. And the way other members (even, Carol Cleveland) are incorporated is superb. Eric's epilogue is wonderful too.
- Death - 3 part sketch, all dazzling. Poetic, gorgeous black comedy. Each scene really is a tearjerker and gave me gooseflesh. There's so much closure in their collective career playing out and it mirrors the strange downfall of the 20th century and the end of the film itself. Its their most meta of meta moments and a PERFECT final sketch.
- The End of the Film - Cherry on top that ties 30 years of stupidity and genius back to their very first sketch on TV. You couldn't plan a better finale for a comedy troupe. It had to have been an intuitive choice that just happened to work.
Drowning by Numbers 1988
I followed the incredible experience of discovering Peter Greenaway's "The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover" with his preceding feature and its perhaps greater.
It would take too long to unpack the complexities of the plot alone (and spoil the fun), so I will describe the experience. Here is a film that revels in its artificiality AND hyperrealism
m to create a world with a syntax of dreams and a hard to summarize texture of reality. Sounds like empty word salad, but this film works on many planes. Greenway comes from painting as David Lynch does, but from the Baroque end. He doesn't bog you down in intellect-insulting fine artist jargon. He only wants to make you think between the plot turns and pretty camera shots. So much of the film unravels as a mystery but becomes crystal clear only in memory. He's giving you the sensation of studying a wide body of different work and calling attention to the field itself, the sum of its parts. Thats so hard to do and very rare to find in British "art films".
Because we are getting an authentic look at a local mindset, exploring the fringe thoughts of a society that has isolated its artists, thinkers and misfits. These characters represent the core of the unseen world by their madness from it. So little character is explained but they all ring true and familiar. These are the unique personas that we meet when we leave the masses. We love them but we're also afraid of and for them. In the end, they are all victims of a gray morality and they have a random gray way of policing it. Its unfair and cruel, but we come across this kind of brutal violence everyday. How Greenaway captured this abstract sense is astounding.
Its the blackest of black comedy and the most human of tragedies. I feel the story is universal thanks to its stripped down ingredients and its immersion in nature and timeless artifacts. Its so clearly from 1988 but if someone told me it was from 1968 or 2018, I'd buy it. This film is a dream. You forget its details but the message sticks.
It would take too long to unpack the complexities of the plot alone (and spoil the fun), so I will describe the experience. Here is a film that revels in its artificiality AND hyperrealism
m to create a world with a syntax of dreams and a hard to summarize texture of reality. Sounds like empty word salad, but this film works on many planes. Greenway comes from painting as David Lynch does, but from the Baroque end. He doesn't bog you down in intellect-insulting fine artist jargon. He only wants to make you think between the plot turns and pretty camera shots. So much of the film unravels as a mystery but becomes crystal clear only in memory. He's giving you the sensation of studying a wide body of different work and calling attention to the field itself, the sum of its parts. Thats so hard to do and very rare to find in British "art films".
Because we are getting an authentic look at a local mindset, exploring the fringe thoughts of a society that has isolated its artists, thinkers and misfits. These characters represent the core of the unseen world by their madness from it. So little character is explained but they all ring true and familiar. These are the unique personas that we meet when we leave the masses. We love them but we're also afraid of and for them. In the end, they are all victims of a gray morality and they have a random gray way of policing it. Its unfair and cruel, but we come across this kind of brutal violence everyday. How Greenaway captured this abstract sense is astounding.
Its the blackest of black comedy and the most human of tragedies. I feel the story is universal thanks to its stripped down ingredients and its immersion in nature and timeless artifacts. Its so clearly from 1988 but if someone told me it was from 1968 or 2018, I'd buy it. This film is a dream. You forget its details but the message sticks.
*I rewatched this special film and found more to appreciate. I still won't spoil the events of the plot in any way, but the influences are clearer to me and the themes resonate even more.
The overwhelming production, how it turns English hillside into an elaborate, living theatrical stage, integrates every element for the simple function of progression in numbers, progression period. I assume Greenaway was toying with the theatrical aesthetic of Gesamkuntwerk to set up his rejection of it in "The Cook, The Thief...", which is a pure work of Brectian "separation of the elements".
Greenaway must be a big fan of Bertolt Brecht (who I'm researching currently) as this film ascribes to his ideal of Epic "Dialectic" Theatre. We feel so removed from the action, which is never too realistic nor too surreal. This film is firmly moving towards full-on Epic theatre, but it has much more Naturalism than Greenaway's following films. It has an intricate, if small plot and doesn't veer too Romantic. I assume it was an experiment to merge these polar ideas of theatre and see which works better. Is it integrated successfully or does it work best deconstructed into material pieces?
Figure that Greenaway toyed with these aesthetic games while also rendering an ambitious study of the male horror of matriarchy in radical bluntness. Is it a feminist battle cry? A warning to patriarchy? Both? Or just a dark satire of the battle of the sexes?
**I have to add a 3rd section because this film has haunted me all year and I find new layers to meditate with. I think the central metaphors and title refer to the unique passive violence of women. The only way they can fight back is to slowly kill you. They lie, seduce, plot and frame men out of some gender-based structuralism society has left them in reaction to patriarchy. The male victims of the film never wrong the women in any fatal way, but they trigger that omnipresent Father Complex in all women. This is such a bold, ruthless and honest examination of the female problem of sex & violence. How is this film not more heralded?
checking in
I'm in a horror mood for October and have run through many films that are sufficiently covered quickly.
The Devil Rides Out 1968 - A well-made & lurid Hammer film about Satanists starring Christopher Lee and a film-stealing performance by the underrated Charles Gray (Blofeld! The Criminologist from Rocky Horror!). Its based on some pulp novel so it has good plot structure & some surprisingly accurate descriptions of magick, but its quaintly dated and a tad racist & dogmatic in its Protestant message of Christianity. This is kind of a running theme with Hammer films unfortunately.
The Witches/ The Devil's Own 1966 - This is the 2nd film I've reviewed named "The Devil's Own" and this one is probably better. A middle-age Joan Fontaine is spellbinding as always as a classy, lovable nymph being driven mad by conspiracy. These are the only roles I've seen her play and I could watch more. This time the antagonists are a coven of voodoo witches. This too is based on a novel that Joan bought the rights to and I guess it led to Hammer adapting Devil Rides Out two years later. This is better structured, better acted and a bit more radical (and much less racist though it could have been). Its essentially the same story about virgin sacrifice by bored English bourgeoisie, but the clever way in which its played for shock & psychological torture had to be an inspiration on a tiny 1967 novel called Rosemary's Baby.
20 Million Miles To Earth & Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers - Two rewarding, influential & deeply flawed sci-fi films from the post-War era. Very tempered, conservative, paranoid, military-worshiping pieces of pulp. Both are saved by the gorgeous vulnerability of Italian-American actress "Joan Taylor" and the genius FX work of Ray Harryhausen. I'd say "20 Million" is the more entertaining film as its a great showcase for Ray's marriage of animation & live-action that would eventually lead to modern digital effects, but "20 Million" also reeks because of its open eugenicist attack on Italians, stemming from some backwards post-War disgust. It reduces Taylor's part to a token bit of sexist nationalism. Speaking of which...
All 3 Creature from the Black Lagoon films - Another case of a cheap exploitative scifi monster movie built around McCarthyism, awesome FX and a beautifully glamorous young actress. Julie Adams is really about the most beautiful young woman of this genre and she does a great job being flirty, adorable & vulnerable as the next Fay Wray. But like King Kong, the film exists to question the humanity of some "lesser" minority & train white youth to see past their genetic monstrosity. Maybe I'm cynical and these films are equating the rights of animals with humans, but it draws a clear parallel between the Gill Man and the utilitarian use of the bumbling, animalistic Hispanic actors (and white men in brownface).
Interestingly, Creature is different from Kong & 20 Million Miles in that the male protagonist is a bit more liberal and the antagonist is a blond Nazi-shaded imperialist. The film has mixed messages, morals and politics, but its not the worst of its kind. The atmospheric and totally artificial Amazon set is quite surreal cinema too. The sequels are similar but much worse.
Dead Alive - I don't know why, but I accidentally picked another "ironic" racist piece of conservative genre filmmaking. This film is from the early 1990s but its even more profoundly Far Right, coming from New Zealand and the future director of the Lord of The Rings films (the troubling morals of that franchise is a "whole other beast"). I loved this film as a youth. Its a lot of Hitchcock and Sam Raimi emulation with more lowbrow slapstick, innuendo and pointlessly kinetic visuals. But it rings hollow now. Unfunny, mean, boring and extremely cynical. But still creative and well-read cinematically.
Get this: the film starts as a tie-in to King Kong (which Jackson would remake), drawing a simile between putting monkeys in the zoo & putting Africans in slavery. I hope this is some postmodern critique of Kong and not a coded agreement. The plot revolves around a Latin woman falling in love with a wimpy white hero (thanks to Tarot magick, feminists) and his avoiding her because his mother is an evil racist, classist bourgeois Freudian case. Jackson is trying to deconstruct a lot of disparate influences and separate the problematic themes from the credible aesthetics. I appreciate that he's one of the brave filmmakers to call Hitchock's mommy fetish what it is (so many docs sidestep this even though Hitchcock flat out gave us Norman Bates!) and he highlights the glaring, gross racism of "creature features", but I'm just not a fan of Jackson's screwball comedy because its so sympathetic to the conservative modernism its reflecting and really only playing to those who know it intimately. So its personal but not especially good, though ambitious.Too ambiguous. Blacks are moronic monkeys but Latins are poor mutts that are adorable in their ineptitude? White male egomania examined but decontructed with kiddie gloves, like... a racist white mother!
The Bad Seed 1956 - This is a film that made my childhood. A story about the guilt of a mother who suspects her child is a psychopath. Its played as implausible camp but it still manages to be as disturbing and emotional as it is entertaining. I totally see John Waters using this film to make Serial Mom, but its a no contest comparison. Bad Seed is so wickedly full of ideas. Many ideas are dumb or laughable, but that only enhances the experience as mid-20th century kitsch. It toys with Nature vs Nurture in the most childish of terms, but it was novel then. Its also a fine example of those kind of cheap theatre adaptations the major studios were making at the time. This lends it a very worked out sense of staging, acting and lighting. I still love this one as much as I did 20 years ago. Shoutout to Patty McCormack for playing the most believably spoiled child in cinema history. Her sense of innocence and fun makes this one of the truly evil performances in film, even if the film is light.
A Policewoman in New York 1981 - I took a break from the chills & thrills to enjoy some Italian slapstick. I've been dying to explore this genre. This kinda sucked, but it delivered as promised. Its a string of jokes about the female buttocks, penises, farts, ugly men, black people being scary/subservient and... people falling down. Its so primitive and thats the aim, to hark back to Roman clowns. There's an ancient quality to this kind of theatre, no matter how bad it is. And underneath it all, a joyous sense of community and play. These kinds of exploitative, rightwing films are opposed to the liberal Neorealists who saved Italian world cinema, but they are somewhat exploiting and conversing with them too. The nationalism, racism & sexism is sold as ironic. It pretends to be Blazing Saddles or Animal House. But there is way less shame in its bad behavior and tons of intellect missing in its self-reflection. Its purely a work of style over substance and turning off the brain. This kind of lowbrow art was explored by artists like Fellini & Argento because it is so moronic and evil, yet accepted, ingrained in the low-end of Italian cultural identity & inspirational in a Dadaist sense. I will accept that this is a middle-of-the-road kind of best of both worlds. A piece of "Naked Gun" style commercial trash with a bit of arthouse taste/guilt.
The Ring 2002 - Um... I'm floored at how influential this film has become. Mainly in its production-cinematography, but it also ushered in the current wave of female horror heroines. There's like a subgenre of Single Moms vs Supernatural Metaphors for Her Own Parental Insecurities (Fuck you, "The Babadook"). The Ring is severely watchable. The plot is still engaging, the pace is comfortable, the cast fits perfectly and the understated ending still satisfies. I'm amazed at how little action and horror is actually in this. Its a lot of stunning visuals and actors shoegazing, but nothing profound ever being said. And this was a massive hit globally! Its essentially what fanboys masturbate to with "Blade Runner 2049", but this is a much more balanced affair. But a lot of that has to do with the marketing and brilliant Japanese story concept. I have to say this is probably the best version of The Ring story even if its a bit too polished, stage-y and mild on chills. The director gave us 2017's similarly shallow but goofy "A Cure For Wellness" which is probably the best non-Ring Ring movie.
P.S. "Woman opens Pandora's Box and must save herself from vengeful demons, an ex-lover and help a psychic little girl"? The Ring totally feels like any of the Hellraiser movies. I'm not joking.
The Devil Rides Out 1968 - A well-made & lurid Hammer film about Satanists starring Christopher Lee and a film-stealing performance by the underrated Charles Gray (Blofeld! The Criminologist from Rocky Horror!). Its based on some pulp novel so it has good plot structure & some surprisingly accurate descriptions of magick, but its quaintly dated and a tad racist & dogmatic in its Protestant message of Christianity. This is kind of a running theme with Hammer films unfortunately.
The Witches/ The Devil's Own 1966 - This is the 2nd film I've reviewed named "The Devil's Own" and this one is probably better. A middle-age Joan Fontaine is spellbinding as always as a classy, lovable nymph being driven mad by conspiracy. These are the only roles I've seen her play and I could watch more. This time the antagonists are a coven of voodoo witches. This too is based on a novel that Joan bought the rights to and I guess it led to Hammer adapting Devil Rides Out two years later. This is better structured, better acted and a bit more radical (and much less racist though it could have been). Its essentially the same story about virgin sacrifice by bored English bourgeoisie, but the clever way in which its played for shock & psychological torture had to be an inspiration on a tiny 1967 novel called Rosemary's Baby.
20 Million Miles To Earth & Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers - Two rewarding, influential & deeply flawed sci-fi films from the post-War era. Very tempered, conservative, paranoid, military-worshiping pieces of pulp. Both are saved by the gorgeous vulnerability of Italian-American actress "Joan Taylor" and the genius FX work of Ray Harryhausen. I'd say "20 Million" is the more entertaining film as its a great showcase for Ray's marriage of animation & live-action that would eventually lead to modern digital effects, but "20 Million" also reeks because of its open eugenicist attack on Italians, stemming from some backwards post-War disgust. It reduces Taylor's part to a token bit of sexist nationalism. Speaking of which...
All 3 Creature from the Black Lagoon films - Another case of a cheap exploitative scifi monster movie built around McCarthyism, awesome FX and a beautifully glamorous young actress. Julie Adams is really about the most beautiful young woman of this genre and she does a great job being flirty, adorable & vulnerable as the next Fay Wray. But like King Kong, the film exists to question the humanity of some "lesser" minority & train white youth to see past their genetic monstrosity. Maybe I'm cynical and these films are equating the rights of animals with humans, but it draws a clear parallel between the Gill Man and the utilitarian use of the bumbling, animalistic Hispanic actors (and white men in brownface).
Interestingly, Creature is different from Kong & 20 Million Miles in that the male protagonist is a bit more liberal and the antagonist is a blond Nazi-shaded imperialist. The film has mixed messages, morals and politics, but its not the worst of its kind. The atmospheric and totally artificial Amazon set is quite surreal cinema too. The sequels are similar but much worse.
Dead Alive - I don't know why, but I accidentally picked another "ironic" racist piece of conservative genre filmmaking. This film is from the early 1990s but its even more profoundly Far Right, coming from New Zealand and the future director of the Lord of The Rings films (the troubling morals of that franchise is a "whole other beast"). I loved this film as a youth. Its a lot of Hitchcock and Sam Raimi emulation with more lowbrow slapstick, innuendo and pointlessly kinetic visuals. But it rings hollow now. Unfunny, mean, boring and extremely cynical. But still creative and well-read cinematically.
Get this: the film starts as a tie-in to King Kong (which Jackson would remake), drawing a simile between putting monkeys in the zoo & putting Africans in slavery. I hope this is some postmodern critique of Kong and not a coded agreement. The plot revolves around a Latin woman falling in love with a wimpy white hero (thanks to Tarot magick, feminists) and his avoiding her because his mother is an evil racist, classist bourgeois Freudian case. Jackson is trying to deconstruct a lot of disparate influences and separate the problematic themes from the credible aesthetics. I appreciate that he's one of the brave filmmakers to call Hitchock's mommy fetish what it is (so many docs sidestep this even though Hitchcock flat out gave us Norman Bates!) and he highlights the glaring, gross racism of "creature features", but I'm just not a fan of Jackson's screwball comedy because its so sympathetic to the conservative modernism its reflecting and really only playing to those who know it intimately. So its personal but not especially good, though ambitious.Too ambiguous. Blacks are moronic monkeys but Latins are poor mutts that are adorable in their ineptitude? White male egomania examined but decontructed with kiddie gloves, like... a racist white mother!
The Bad Seed 1956 - This is a film that made my childhood. A story about the guilt of a mother who suspects her child is a psychopath. Its played as implausible camp but it still manages to be as disturbing and emotional as it is entertaining. I totally see John Waters using this film to make Serial Mom, but its a no contest comparison. Bad Seed is so wickedly full of ideas. Many ideas are dumb or laughable, but that only enhances the experience as mid-20th century kitsch. It toys with Nature vs Nurture in the most childish of terms, but it was novel then. Its also a fine example of those kind of cheap theatre adaptations the major studios were making at the time. This lends it a very worked out sense of staging, acting and lighting. I still love this one as much as I did 20 years ago. Shoutout to Patty McCormack for playing the most believably spoiled child in cinema history. Her sense of innocence and fun makes this one of the truly evil performances in film, even if the film is light.
A Policewoman in New York 1981 - I took a break from the chills & thrills to enjoy some Italian slapstick. I've been dying to explore this genre. This kinda sucked, but it delivered as promised. Its a string of jokes about the female buttocks, penises, farts, ugly men, black people being scary/subservient and... people falling down. Its so primitive and thats the aim, to hark back to Roman clowns. There's an ancient quality to this kind of theatre, no matter how bad it is. And underneath it all, a joyous sense of community and play. These kinds of exploitative, rightwing films are opposed to the liberal Neorealists who saved Italian world cinema, but they are somewhat exploiting and conversing with them too. The nationalism, racism & sexism is sold as ironic. It pretends to be Blazing Saddles or Animal House. But there is way less shame in its bad behavior and tons of intellect missing in its self-reflection. Its purely a work of style over substance and turning off the brain. This kind of lowbrow art was explored by artists like Fellini & Argento because it is so moronic and evil, yet accepted, ingrained in the low-end of Italian cultural identity & inspirational in a Dadaist sense. I will accept that this is a middle-of-the-road kind of best of both worlds. A piece of "Naked Gun" style commercial trash with a bit of arthouse taste/guilt.
The Ring 2002 - Um... I'm floored at how influential this film has become. Mainly in its production-cinematography, but it also ushered in the current wave of female horror heroines. There's like a subgenre of Single Moms vs Supernatural Metaphors for Her Own Parental Insecurities (Fuck you, "The Babadook"). The Ring is severely watchable. The plot is still engaging, the pace is comfortable, the cast fits perfectly and the understated ending still satisfies. I'm amazed at how little action and horror is actually in this. Its a lot of stunning visuals and actors shoegazing, but nothing profound ever being said. And this was a massive hit globally! Its essentially what fanboys masturbate to with "Blade Runner 2049", but this is a much more balanced affair. But a lot of that has to do with the marketing and brilliant Japanese story concept. I have to say this is probably the best version of The Ring story even if its a bit too polished, stage-y and mild on chills. The director gave us 2017's similarly shallow but goofy "A Cure For Wellness" which is probably the best non-Ring Ring movie.
P.S. "Woman opens Pandora's Box and must save herself from vengeful demons, an ex-lover and help a psychic little girl"? The Ring totally feels like any of the Hellraiser movies. I'm not joking.
Carnival of Souls 1962
You could have a solid debate that "Carnival of Souls" is the first truly post-modern horror film, the most existentialist horror film & even the greatest horror film ever made.
Following in the wake of Antonioni's Neorealism in Italy, Godard's New Wave in France & Hitchcock's game-changer "Psycho" in 1960, a modest independent filmmaker Herb Harvey crafted a superb mixture of these and more ("Dr. Caligari" & Maya Deren for sure). Carnival of Souls is a lyrical, minimalist tone poem about the inescapable, universal journey we all must make in losing our life.
Candace Hilligoss plays a woman who is going mad as it dawns on her that her life is over. She is a ghost who doesn't know it. This might not be the first story to use this plot but its certainly the first in cinema. Half a century has passed and the experience is still chilling and eye-opening because of the poetic way the theme is explored.She is pursued by a ghostly man, an angel of death come to "take her back" to the world of the dead. Harvey implies that death is a return or awakening and only a loss of a superficial existence, beautifully mocking the religious, militaristic, conservative conformity of the '50s era. Is life but a dream? Is American life a modern nightmare?
Candace's main relationship outside of this horror is more grounded but just as profoundly disturbing: a self-serving, lecherous male predator in her building. Harvey draws parallels clearly between the feminist struggle for respect, independence & peace with the victimhood of horror damsels. Her cries of oppression are ignored or dismissed by her society. The director's empathy with her and her hopeless sexual struggle lends a gay interpretation of the film as well. Eventually she is pushed to conform, give in to Death and (what has to be a metaphor for suicide) return to her watery grave.
The film romanticizes death in a way that is shocking then & now. The ghost that follows her is a lonely man in a carousel of coupled ghost romances. She belongs with him but is terrified of this notion. She tries to choose the living man she hates over this dead man, but accepts the futility. Psychoanalysis fails her. Faith fails her. Her soul belongs elsewhere, but where? This is a spiritual journey of a woman who is all mind & body but missing her soul.
The film highlights the heroine's atheism and thankfully avoids condemning her for it. It is her lack of spirit that is her illness, not her lack of a religion. In the end, she finds completion in self-destruction. This is pure nihilist cinema and it had to shatter a lot of the programmed blue collar who saw it. It sells her acceptance of nothingness as a celebration. The ending is less tragic and more of an elaborate cosmic joke played on her and only Death laughs. And thats what life is, Harvey explains. This is the Buddhist concept that David Lynch & Terence Malick have arrived at in their darkly spiritualist work.
The "carnival of souls" is life. In the film, it is embodied by an abandoned, crumbling pavilion by the ocean. It is a grim reminder of the past and eventual decay. The architecture itself is a living ghost. After one of her Freudian check up's, Candace has a vision of ghosts emerging from the waters, like memories from her subconscious. The ghosts who follow her in life represent the oppressive force of death on life, past on the present and a violent loss of the future. I assume they are also symbolic of the radically conservative social politics of the time. Our protagonist is a non-conformist who is alienated and disturbed by the dated values, barbaric morals & drab sameness of the non-actors the camera captures.
The visual palette of the film is likewise drab, flat and mostly mediocre, which seems designed to match the existential crisis. This use of financial & stylistic economy thematically is what makes this film a work of genius. But when the film's emotion picks up, we enter a wildly expressionistic, noir mode of "Pure Cinema" (definitely in nod to Hitchcock). Throughout the film there is grim humor in the editing and abstract composition in the shots. Even when things are at their most static and normal, there's the eerie "offness" of the soundtrack. Its like jazz played by organ. This is the work of a master craftsman, but sadly he would not make another film.
This is a deeply personal film made commercially for no money. It survives as a tombstone for the life of a great cinematic poet. There is so much written about filmmakers who walk in Harvey's footsteps but much of that work is less crafty, sincere or original as this. "Carnival" is the best kind of deconstructionist cinema that works as a uniquely original work and a cynical but reverent commentary on its populist roots and a staggering mirror to the Modernism it exists in.
Call it a "masterpiece". Its a 10.
Following in the wake of Antonioni's Neorealism in Italy, Godard's New Wave in France & Hitchcock's game-changer "Psycho" in 1960, a modest independent filmmaker Herb Harvey crafted a superb mixture of these and more ("Dr. Caligari" & Maya Deren for sure). Carnival of Souls is a lyrical, minimalist tone poem about the inescapable, universal journey we all must make in losing our life.
Candace Hilligoss plays a woman who is going mad as it dawns on her that her life is over. She is a ghost who doesn't know it. This might not be the first story to use this plot but its certainly the first in cinema. Half a century has passed and the experience is still chilling and eye-opening because of the poetic way the theme is explored.She is pursued by a ghostly man, an angel of death come to "take her back" to the world of the dead. Harvey implies that death is a return or awakening and only a loss of a superficial existence, beautifully mocking the religious, militaristic, conservative conformity of the '50s era. Is life but a dream? Is American life a modern nightmare?
Candace's main relationship outside of this horror is more grounded but just as profoundly disturbing: a self-serving, lecherous male predator in her building. Harvey draws parallels clearly between the feminist struggle for respect, independence & peace with the victimhood of horror damsels. Her cries of oppression are ignored or dismissed by her society. The director's empathy with her and her hopeless sexual struggle lends a gay interpretation of the film as well. Eventually she is pushed to conform, give in to Death and (what has to be a metaphor for suicide) return to her watery grave.
The film romanticizes death in a way that is shocking then & now. The ghost that follows her is a lonely man in a carousel of coupled ghost romances. She belongs with him but is terrified of this notion. She tries to choose the living man she hates over this dead man, but accepts the futility. Psychoanalysis fails her. Faith fails her. Her soul belongs elsewhere, but where? This is a spiritual journey of a woman who is all mind & body but missing her soul.
The film highlights the heroine's atheism and thankfully avoids condemning her for it. It is her lack of spirit that is her illness, not her lack of a religion. In the end, she finds completion in self-destruction. This is pure nihilist cinema and it had to shatter a lot of the programmed blue collar who saw it. It sells her acceptance of nothingness as a celebration. The ending is less tragic and more of an elaborate cosmic joke played on her and only Death laughs. And thats what life is, Harvey explains. This is the Buddhist concept that David Lynch & Terence Malick have arrived at in their darkly spiritualist work.
The "carnival of souls" is life. In the film, it is embodied by an abandoned, crumbling pavilion by the ocean. It is a grim reminder of the past and eventual decay. The architecture itself is a living ghost. After one of her Freudian check up's, Candace has a vision of ghosts emerging from the waters, like memories from her subconscious. The ghosts who follow her in life represent the oppressive force of death on life, past on the present and a violent loss of the future. I assume they are also symbolic of the radically conservative social politics of the time. Our protagonist is a non-conformist who is alienated and disturbed by the dated values, barbaric morals & drab sameness of the non-actors the camera captures.
The visual palette of the film is likewise drab, flat and mostly mediocre, which seems designed to match the existential crisis. This use of financial & stylistic economy thematically is what makes this film a work of genius. But when the film's emotion picks up, we enter a wildly expressionistic, noir mode of "Pure Cinema" (definitely in nod to Hitchcock). Throughout the film there is grim humor in the editing and abstract composition in the shots. Even when things are at their most static and normal, there's the eerie "offness" of the soundtrack. Its like jazz played by organ. This is the work of a master craftsman, but sadly he would not make another film.
This is a deeply personal film made commercially for no money. It survives as a tombstone for the life of a great cinematic poet. There is so much written about filmmakers who walk in Harvey's footsteps but much of that work is less crafty, sincere or original as this. "Carnival" is the best kind of deconstructionist cinema that works as a uniquely original work and a cynical but reverent commentary on its populist roots and a staggering mirror to the Modernism it exists in.
Call it a "masterpiece". Its a 10.
Sunday, October 8, 2017
Silent Hill
This film impacted me upon its release but doesn't impress at all. Its an exercise in cinematographic painting and lighting experiments, but there is not enough story to tell. Instead of the images transferring narrative information (Pure Cinema), it is simply a carnival of eye candy graphics. Ironically, the video game it is based on is rich in story, character development and emotional theater. This has the same basic premise but only the basics, which leaves it existing only as a premise.
It is a soothing experience watching the beauty enhanced actresses float through cold pastel backgrounds as CGI monsters do ballet to gore setpieces, but it has a limited understanding of directing that bogs it down. On top of that is very poor, amateurish editing. And again the script is empty and devoid of interesting action. It wants to use a slowburn minimalism for style AND an excuse to be lazy and half-cocked. Another director or producer could've nailed this. I guess the studio execs who bought the rights are the ones to blame. They have such dwindled taste in movies. And they only put faith in the lowest common denominator works of art.
Silent Hill is at least unique and has a vision, if muddled and ultimately inane. It does hold a place in history as a big bridge towards CG-enhanced horror, Video Game cinema & Mother-Daughter horror stories. Together these very bland genres come off okay. I recommend it for some decent moments and a lot of ambition. Its a little gem from a time where horror was at its most unoriginal and sanitized. This is not as much. I wouldn't be surprised if its a favorite of younger audiences and influencing today's more solid popcorn fare. Not a good film but it has some good ideas.
It is a soothing experience watching the beauty enhanced actresses float through cold pastel backgrounds as CGI monsters do ballet to gore setpieces, but it has a limited understanding of directing that bogs it down. On top of that is very poor, amateurish editing. And again the script is empty and devoid of interesting action. It wants to use a slowburn minimalism for style AND an excuse to be lazy and half-cocked. Another director or producer could've nailed this. I guess the studio execs who bought the rights are the ones to blame. They have such dwindled taste in movies. And they only put faith in the lowest common denominator works of art.
Silent Hill is at least unique and has a vision, if muddled and ultimately inane. It does hold a place in history as a big bridge towards CG-enhanced horror, Video Game cinema & Mother-Daughter horror stories. Together these very bland genres come off okay. I recommend it for some decent moments and a lot of ambition. Its a little gem from a time where horror was at its most unoriginal and sanitized. This is not as much. I wouldn't be surprised if its a favorite of younger audiences and influencing today's more solid popcorn fare. Not a good film but it has some good ideas.
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