Je vous salue, Marie [1985)

Jean-Luc Godard has, in my opinion, made five perfect films. Chronologically, this is the second of those five.

The first was 23 years earlier. In 1962, Vivre sa vie let a 22-year-old Anna Karina shine as never before. After a proverbial 40 days in the deserts of Varèse-like experimentation, Godard emerged to string together a series of films which paved the way for the style in which he continues to direct till this day. Nevertheless, Je vous salue, Marie towers above the “middle quartets” which precede it. Truly, this is one of the finest films ever to be made.

It is also a particularly difficult film to review as its history is laden with controversy. Godard, ever the rebel, chose to retell the story of the Virgin Mary in a modern setting. No doubt the sincerity of Godard was misinterpreted by many Catholics as blasphemy.

The key to understanding this film is watching the whole thing. If you are offended, try to make it to the end. Perhaps the method of storytelling will then make more sense.

It must, however, be admitted that Godard’s take on the Annunciation and birth of Jesus is highly mystical. It is like the music of Olivier Messiaen. Dissonance is a gift from God. To hear the works of Messiaen is to hear devotion expressed in a highly unique way. My guess is that the great French Catholic composer might have appreciated Godard’s timeless creation under review. Perhaps even the current Pope Francis might sympathize with the heartfelt offering of Godard.

In 1985, this film was positively scandalous. What a shame…

Continuing with our musical history lesson, one must only consider the great Handel (composer of Messiah). Handel was reputedly able to curse proficiently in German, Italian, and English. Handel was not a saint, yet he composed a tremendous amount of sublime religious music (including the aforementioned oratorio).

It makes me wonder about the great artists like Michelangelo (whose Creation of Adam graces the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel). Was Michelangelo a particularly pious man? I have no clue. But it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that he was colorful in ways other than with his palette.

But Godard committed the greatest sin. He let life enter his art. God forbid that life and praise for the divine coexist in a single creation!

But let us return. This was Myriem Roussel’s film. It is the finest performance by an actress not named Anamaria Marinca or Dorotheea Petre ever committed to film. Saoirse Ronan is still waiting for the right vehicle. Hanna was frighteningly close. Going back further I would nominate Lauren Bacall, but her range was curtailed somewhat by typecasting.

And so Myriem Roussel. Godard. The sublime. Every shot in this film is perfect. Every element is precisely placed. It is intelligent design embodied.

I cannot begin to scratch the surface of this gem. My lead is no match for this diamond. No matter how much I scribble, it will not be enough.

This film will endure long after everything is gone. Je vous salue, Jean-Luc.

-PD

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How I Live Now [2013)

I have a keen eye for bullshit. But only in certain areas.

We all have our specialties. We all have our areas of knowledge.

Just to be clear, this film is not bullshit. This is quite a good film.

But there is an element of this film which is pure propaganda bollocks.

I’m very sensitive to propaganda. Allergic, you might say.

On the one hand, I can sniff out a false-flag a mile off.

On the other, I make a habit of rewatching James Bond films.

No one is totally immune to propaganda.

It takes a deep understanding of the self to assess what is really going on.

Movies, music, literature, painting…all of these arts play on the emotions.

Artists are ALL emotionally intelligent insofar as their lexicon of emotional triggers is robust and bursting at the seams.

This does not mean that artists are well-adjusted. Rather, the reality is often quite the contrary.

In this film, our heroine Saoirse Ronan is not at all well-adjusted.

Upon first seeing her arrive at the airport (our film’s first scene) we assume she might be some kind of pop star.

The reality is that she’s merely a spoiled brat from America who’s pilfered Devendra Banhart’s stylist.

Yes, Daisy (Ronan) has quite a look here. She oozes “hip” from the outset. She also oozes the angst of conflict.

An angry girl. Never knew her mother. Voices in her head. On psychotropic medication. Hypochondriac.

It is hard to confront this film without knowing that it is “post-apocalyptic” (such a buzzword in the less-talented cadres of Hollywood).

Being so informed, we notice as Daisy’s plane lands in scene #1 that Paris has been bombed. It looks serious.

Daisy seemingly couldn’t care less.

And just where has she landed? Somewhere in England or Great Britain.

And so off to the country to stay with cousins for the summer. Not her usual routine. First time to visit these relatives.

The story is powerful. The story is lovely. The acting is tremendous.

But slowly the bullshit creeps in and cannot be ignored.

And just what bullshit of propaganda has this film swallowed to then spit out at us?

Terrorism. The oogly-boogly bogeyman of hidden hand terrorism.

It is all very unimaginative. There is nothing here to indicate that the writers or directors have ever gotten their news from

anyplace other than the BBC or CNN.

Though they never say “Islamic terrorists,” the frightfully dumb premise is advanced with absolutely no critical thinking evident.

In other words, if this film was a religion, its Bible would be the 9/11 Commission Report (the layman’s title).

And so these terrorists with magical powers somehow invade an otherwise fine movie.

It is like the Red Scare. The terrorists are everywhere. They’re unstoppable. Ha…

It is really sad when such hackneyed brainwashing passes for erudition.

And so, in some ways this film is no better than Fox News. Sure, films are allowed to take poetic license and “play” on our fears.

But in our current world, the stakes are too high to sink millions of dollars into vehicles such as this which merely reinforce the lies of the fraudulent global war ON terror.

How many times must it be repeated that terror cannot be fought with more terror?

That is like aiming to eliminate the scourge of forest fires by burning the flames themselves. Ludicrous.

But we do not simply refer to the error of approach.

The fundamental truth is that the war on terror is a charade.

There is big money to be made by blaming Islam for all the world’s evils.

And as Islamic countries are plundered we see the cowed world populace let their brothers and sisters in the Middle East be sacrificed for an inhuman system which needs total control to expand.

It really is, then, a joke to talk about free markets.

And so, to put it succinctly, we have many intelligence agencies to “thank” for our current imbroglio.

The American CIA must certainly take a bow. The NSA likewise should be recognized for their part in the global reign of terror.

But let us not leave out Mossad. Cui bono?

But really, it takes a village of intelligence agencies to raise the demonic child known as ISIS. And so we must thank James Bond’s MI6. We should likewise not leave out the Saudis and Pakistan’s ISI.

The artist formerly known as al-Qaeda (now rebranded as ISIS) has been very useful to the Western powers.

Russia and China had the opportunity to call bullshit long ago, but they squandered that moment. And now the world really is closer to WWIII.

It is not easy to pay attention to a film which gives credence to fake terrorism. Fake terror. Synthetic terrorism. False-flag terrorism.

But all is not lost.

Someone (perhaps director Kevin Macdonald) has at least read his Orwell. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, things go very badly for all involved when lies become truth. When self-inflicted attacks precipitate martial law…

And so the British troops in this film are not portrayed in a propagandistic light. Quite the contrary, they display the insolence of misplaced power. Power upon which there are no checks…

The government troops in this film are paranoiacs with automatic weapons. Sound familiar? Yes. We are told that such types are a menace to society (and they are). Unfortunately, your tax dollars are paying their salaries.

But this is not about military bashing. To extrapolate from the statements of NSA whistleblower Wiliam Binney, it’s only in the upper 15% where you see the real hardcore corruption. What do we mean “corrupt”???

Those who would sell their own country out. The moles in the FBI and CIA who allowed and facilitated (respectively) 9/11. The high-ranking military and government officials who were likewise moles. The highest level.

And so we have great sympathy for our military men and women knowing that their corrupt leaders (at the very top) have no real allegiance to country or fellow soldier. There are exceptions, but consider the words of Binney. The top 15%…that is where the real culprits are. They are among the good leaders.

But this begs a question: does one have to be a scumbag to advance to such echelons of power? I’m afraid the answer may very well be a resounding “yes”… And so, at the upper level of governments, intelligence agencies, militaries, etc. we are faced with finding the lesser of evils. We would much prefer adulterers, drug addicts, etc. to psychopathic criminals.

I will be the first to admit that my diatribe is not really fair to this film.

This is quite an excellent film. But artists cannot play with gelatinous archetypes like “terrorism” and expect a free pass.

There is glorious acting in this film (for Christ’s sake).

It pains me to write so much about the premise.

For fuck’s sake, don’t copy the fear-mongering of Fox News. Those “journalists” will have their Nuremberg. They will have no press passes. They’ll be on the stand.

Don’t sully yourself in that stream. Look at your box office. $60,213. Sixty-thousand measly dollars! If you had put Ronan and George MacKay in a room together with no script they would have surpassed the trite constraints laid upon them (presumably) by Meg Rosoff’s novel. Dear Rosoff: whatever paper you read, cancel the subscription.

-PD

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Prenom Carmen [1983)

If Jean-Luc Godard had never made another film after 1983, this one would have been his best ever. It is that good. But perhaps you doubt? Let me tell you why I believe this to be the case.

This may have been the film where Godard really nailed down his mature style. Really, there is no putting a date on such things. He has continued to progress to the current day.

But let us focus on a few salient elements.

Beethoven.

The sea.

One might expect a French (Swiss) director to pick Debussy and call the elements connected (we refer here to the orchestral piece La Mer). But Godard was always very analytical. And so Beethoven is a more natural choice.

But what Beethoven? Which Beethoven? It is the string quartets.

Must it be? It must be. It must be.

Godard began (continued?) to make films more like a composer than a movie director.

The art film genre allowed him to do this. And in many ways he formed and shaped this genre from the beginning.

To call art films a genre is generally not in keeping with standard film criticism practice.

But I don’t care.

If it helps to call it a genre here, then so be it.

But does it help?

It makes no difference (as Rick Danko sang).

But let us not neglect the ocean…the sea.

“I salute you, old ocean,” as Lautreamont said in Maldoror.

Indeed, Godard has some of that proto-Dadaist perversion in this movie. Perverse, as opposed to perverted. Both.

What is remarkable beyond Beethoven and the sea is Godard as an actor.

That’s right, Godard himself plays a prominent role as (what else?) himself.

It is really a caricature of himself. Or is it?

To wit, Godard plays a director who has gone crazy.

Early on we see him in an insane asylum.

There is something slightly frightening and menacing about him from time to time, but generally he is hilarious.

Humor.

This film is replete with humor.

But it is not a comedy.

Sometimes a comedy of errors.

And so, Carmen? Yes, like Bizet. We remember Brahms being so taken with this opera.

Was it the music or was there perhaps an attractive alto in the production?

Alto. Viola in French is alto.

And who is our alto? Only one of the greatest actresses to ever live: Myriem Roussel.

I must at this point beg forgiveness from the universe for not even mentioning her in my review of Passion.

I blame Wikipedia (as I always do).

I admit laziness (as per usual).

Frankly, I knew it was her in Passion by the poolside. It is a small-but-striking role. Mainly because she is nude.

It is all very artistic, yet I see why Godard would cast the beautiful Roussel in revealing roles over the course of several films.

Yet here, Myriem is merely a violist. The viola in my life. Morton Feldman.

But it is neither Godard nor Roussel who carry the bulk of the dramatic action here.

For that we must credit Maruschka Detmers and Jacques Bonnaffé. The acting from these two players is outstanding!

Detmers plays the titular Carmen. Indeed (keeping with the hanging sonority), it is Detmers who spends a fair portion of this movie nude. But, to Godard’s credit, so does Bonnaffé.

But this is not just a gratuitous European pseudo-art film. This is the real thing.

The most beautiful moment occurs during a bank robbery.

A struggle for a gun. A man and a woman. Carmen. She has robbed the bank with a band of professional thieves.

And Joseph (Bonnaffé)…the gendarme responding to the violent robbery.

He leaves his post in front of the bank and exchanges gunfire with the trigger-happy gang.

And so it is that Carmen and Jo (Joseph) struggle for an automatic weapon. Both having been shot.

They crawl over each other. Win at all costs. To lose is death. High stakes now.

And climbing over each other in spurts of faint energy, they abruptly stop and begin passionately kissing.

They give up.

It is the moral.

Ah, but they DON’T give up! They join forces.

And so Joseph goes from cop to thief. All for love.

Lust. Love.

Oh no, I’ve said too much (as Michael Stipe once intoned).

But no…

Carmen needs to pee. Joseph has tied her wrist to his using his necktie. [What kind of gendarme doesn’t have handcuffs?]

And so they stop at a shitty roadside gas station.

The moral of the stop: even France and Switzerland have shitty roadside gas stations.

Away from the tourists. Off the beaten path. Where people actually work for a living.

And we have the most poignant scene. The most bizarre. A fat man has pocketed a jar of baby food (?) and proceeded to the restroom to eat it lustily with his fingers. Put another way, here’s a poor schmuck whose life at this moment (for one reason or another) has been reduced to shoplifting to sustain his life force.

And the poor schmuck gets a treat. Carmen needs to pee. So does Joseph. Joseph won’t untie her. And so she uses a urinal. And the shoplifter continues to make slobbery sounds as he licks his fingers while eating baby food in front of the bathroom mirror…nonplussed by the action. But he sneaks a peak…ah, whatever. He is entirely involved in his “meal.” Somehow this scene makes sense of the whole universe. It is hilarious, disgusting, and believable. The mark of genius is on this film throughout.

I must add one last thing. Just when the strains of Beethoven have become commonplace–just when the crossfaded splosh of waves has been drowned out by our psyches…it is at this point which Godard throws us the most gut-wrenching curveball: “Ruby’s Arms” by Tom Waits. Bonnaffé hugs the TV…resting his weight on the crappy 80s hotel console…and the screen is tuned to snow…static…fuzz…phasing lines of nothingness. Between channels. And as the song plays, Bonnaffé caresses the screen…caresses what might have been.

It is a most touching evocation of lovesickness.

Carmen is fond of repeating the line from the American movie, “If I love you, then that’s the end of you.” She may not work at a cigarette factory nor dance the habanera, but she is still the prototypical femme fatale. Yes, Jo…love is a rebellious bird.

-PD

8 Comments

里見八犬伝 [1983)

[LEGEND OF THE EIGHT SAMURAI (1983)]

Woof. I really got my years mixed up. Not by much, but a few years in technological terms is quite meaningful nowadays. And it started really exploding in the 80s.

In some respects we have Japan to thank. And while we might think strictly of Atari when remembering the techno 80s there were other advances outside of home entertainment.

But yes. I thought I was watching a movie from 1979. I misread the box.

I missed the fine print (Made on Mars).

We have previously seen Sonny Chiba as an ass-kicking karate expert, but here the name of the game is swordplay.

Yet that is just the tip of the iceberg.

Really, this film makes my recent proclamation of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly as being a weird film almost completely meaningless.

THIS is a weird film!

It is weird even when it’s not weird, and when it’s actually weird? This is some far-out David Icke kind of stuff.

But first a word about the atrocious title.

For all I know there may actually be a story of seven samurai in Japanese history, but the reference (and plot) to eight samurai is to Kurosawa what 14 Minute Abs would be to 15 Minute Abs. Put differently, “If you liked The Seven Samurai, then you’ll LOVE The Eight Samurai.” Or, “Purchase admission to Seven Samurai and receive an additional samurai at no extra cost.”

But wait…there’s more!

Director Kenji Fukasaku really had a dodgy band of art directors/set designers to work with. It’s not that they don’t have the chops…it’s their taste which we question. And the music supervisor should absolutely be made to sit in the corner and listen to John O’Banion for all eternity.

Plain and simple: this film is as cheesy as a Velveeta milkshake. Indeed. Bottoms up.

And yet, for all of that maudlin naivete it still passes muster as not only a watchable film but (dare I say?) a good film. Not great, good…

Why? Mostly the acting. Yes, amidst this candy store of sugary-sweet special effects and fantasy costumes there are moments of real, inspired acting with actual technical proficiency.

Hiroko Yakushimaru is really pretty good as the princess (always has to be a princess in these kinds of stories).

Hiroyuki Sanada plays what for perceptive Western audiences would be the Han Solo character (though Solo’s precedent is almost certainly in the older, classic samurai films).

Sadly, Sonny Chiba doesn’t really get a chance to shine here. There are all sorts of ridiculous hand-weapon battles, but not much in the way of empty-fist war ballet.

As with the ubiquitous princess, we also have lots of crystals…glowing crystals.

If it seems I’m making fun of this film, that’s because I am. But the truth is that I really liked it.

Would I watch it again? Sober? Probably not.

But am I disappointed to have sat through it? Absolutely not. It was entertaining and, in its own way, touchingly artful.

One last note. Mari Natsuki is one bad bitch. Ever wanted to see a smoking-hot undead person (reptilian?) bathe in a pool of blood before lasciviously kissing her grown son? Me neither. But I saw it. And in some strange way my life is richer for having had that experience. Happy viewing!

-PD

5 Comments

Passion [1982)

All you need is the first word. The first sentence to get you going.

You can meditate. Think too hard.

And now that it’s started it is gloriously ruined. Like Kind of Blue.

Miles Davis would tell his players…one take.

Perhaps there were caveats. But Bill Evans was ready. Coltrane…

It is the same with “Sister Ray” by The Velvet Underground.

One take. Make it count.

Everything proceeds from the first word. But don’t take it too seriously.

It is like many other first words. “Once upon a time…”

From a mist rises Beethoven’s 9th Symphony. Bruckner would use the same device many times (no doubt in honor of Ludwig van).

Yes. We say Ludwig Van in honor of Mauricio Kagel. And the entire spirit of everything here might be compared to Joseph Beuys.

And just like that <bam> we go over-budget.

Jerzy Radziwilowicz plays the Jean-Luc Godard character here (with the wardrobe ostensibly taken right off the back of Jacques Dutronc). Thus Godard still creates a distance between his story and THE story. The whole bit about Poland is made to throw us off the scent (a bit like the glorious obfuscation of Joyce in Finnegans Wake).

We find Godard to be right. The available forms are too mundane. The audience stops thinking when they are comfortable. So we must disorient them a bit–prod like a brainiac Hitchcock.

You see, the most important thing is not who acted in this film. Rather, the crucial component is the juxtaposition which allows for revelation.

We see the most perfectly-placed tableaux of human paintings. Come to life. The proper term is tableau vivant. Maybe you see them at Christmas. Perhaps a manger and the Christian genesis.

Ah, but with Godard it is Delacroix and Rubens and Rembrandt etc. I assume Ingmar Bergman missed this Godard film because the former had already made up his mind regarding the latter. And thus the admiration flowed in one direction alone. We see the delicacy of Bergman–that technique of the long shot (temporally speaking). You can almost imagine Godard telling his cast of thousands in this mini-epic to have no expression at all.

There is a connection to Stravinsky. Neoclassicism, but really a radical belief in the purity of music. To paraphrase Igor, “Music doesn’t have meaning. A note is a note.” Perhaps I have done the great composer an injustice with my memory. Yet, a paraphrase is a paraphrase.

We humans are not computers. No matter how many books we have. No matter how steel-trap our memory. No matter how fast our Internet.

And thus, that which is juxtaposed against the meticulous composition of the tableaux vivants? Everyday life. Careless shots. The beauty of the sky. The natural sway of a handheld camera. The sun as it burns up the lens upon peeking through the bare trees. Hanna Schygulla running through the snow with a lavender umbrella.

Real life. Labor. A factory. And who is the real star? Isabelle Huppert. Her character in Sauve qui peut (la vie) was not a sympathetic one. Can we say? WE had no sympathy for her. Very little. Not none.

Yet here…she is the lamb of God (of which she speaks). Huppert is the labor element. Workers’ rights. It is intimated that her monotonous job has caused her to stutter. Why? Because it is not easy to talk about the factory.

And why, she asks, are people in films never shown working? It is not allowed. Filming in factories. Indeed, I believe there is a specifically French meaning here. [And Swiss, as the film is shot in Switzerland.] But the real shocker? Work and sex (“pornography”) are equally prohibited on the screen.

Only Godard would find this fascinating link. And that is why we love him.

But mostly it is another thing.

Life is so much richer in the films of Godard. Sure, there are some exceptions, but the exceptions themselves are merely the process being revealed. It is “the thinking life” to paraphrase Henry Miller.

Once you have been there, you don’t want to go back. Or you can’t go back. But we do go back. Thinking is hard work.

And as the world bemoans what havoc Europe has wrought, let it be noted…the Beethovens, Mozarts, Dvoraks…

This is the humanism which little by little comes to occupy the mature films of Jean-Luc Godard.

Most importantly, he never stopped being a critic.

And his film reviews? They are his films themselves.

-PD

7 Comments

Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo [1966)

This movie’s reputation does not precede it in one key sense. Namely, this is a bizarre film. Of all the far out stuff I watch it therefore takes something special for me to proclaim such. Maybe, if we are well-informed, we expect weird when we sit down to view Holy Mountain. With The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly we probably just expect another Spaghetti Western.

Not only does the film under review perhaps epitomize the genre, but it also sets itself apart with a story which must be seen to be truly appreciated. I will, of course, try to avoid spoiling the drama by giving away too much.

It will suffice to discuss a few general points. Why do I say this film is bizarre? We can start with the title(s). If we translate directly, we would get The Good, The Ugly, The Bad. Not quite an arresting turn-of-phrase. Therefore, we ponder the usual translation: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

There are several important concepts wrapped up in this title alone. First, the direct translation and the “axiomatic” translation (respectively) transpose the word order. If we were thoughtless, we would ignore this minor detail. But since this film relies so heavily on a strange (subversion of?) moralizing, we cannot pass over even this aspect.

The literal translation would (literally) have us place “ugly” somewhere between good and bad (or good and evil if we are feeling particularly Nietzschean).

For those of us who root for the underdog (myself included), we might start off rooting for “ugly” (or “the ugly one”).

In the axiomatic translation, “ugly” is an afterthought (so to speak). It is last in order.

I’m not sure if the Sermon on the Mount was in the back of the minds of the producers of the film (wow…), but we wonder whether the first will be last and the last will be first.

One thing is certain: the greyscale of life is fully on display in this Technicolor teaching piece. What is weird (bizarre) is the lesson being taught. It is horribly (gloriously?) muddied.

The good is not good. The ugly is also bad (above and beyond ugly). The bad is, well, bad…

But if bad is only bad in relation to good (Hegel?), then the bad isn’t so bad…

In other words, it doesn’t take a whole hell of a lot to be good in this world.

And so…presented with this trio of characters, we are unsure who will “win”…indeed, has anyone really excelled in their typecast?

I should mention that, in my opinion, ugly is not so ugly. All three of these mugs are a little rough around the edges.

In fact, the first face we see in the movie is the one we might assume to be Ugly. He is not. The real Ugly is merely not-traditionally-handsome (I suppose). We should also consider the mannerist interpretation: an ugly manner vs. a refined sensibility. It could be argued that Bad (here) is much more refined (though he tortures Ugly…literally). Ah, but NOT literally. Rather, he has someone do it for him. Now, isn’t that the height of refinement???

I will give away one thing. Good is really Good at least once in this film. A dying soldier…bleeding to death…and Good gives him his coat. But not only that. No. Good gives him a few puffs on a cigar (which, as it turns out, helps him transition more peacefully to the next world). It is the most touching moment of the film. To be sure, this is not a Hallmark movie. It’s a rough, win-at-all-costs affair. A bit like real life.

And who is the real STAR of this film? As fate would have it, the most interesting and entertaining character is Ugly (Eli Wallach). Eastwood is great as always. Lee Van Cleef is great. But Wallach is beyond great! He’s disgusting. He’s hilarious. He’s endearing. He’s vicious. He’s cruel. He’s greedy. He’s human.

Sergio Leone once again outdid himself. Greed may have never been portrayed in all of its dizzying rush better than when Wallach goes sprinting with joy and anticipation in search of a grave (a long story…). Morricone’s music is at least another order of magnitude better here than in his previous collaboration with Leone and Eastwood.

This is a damn good film. Happy viewing!

-PD

6 Comments

Sauve qui peut /la vie/ [1980)

12 seconds. 5 minutes. 2 fortnights. a jiffy.

Really, I shouldn’t have to comment on the commodification of time. Is that not the essence of capitalism?

Into your busy lives cram another blog post. Another sloppy film review. A film.

A more professional critic would start by alluding to the copious literature which points to this film as Godard’s return to form.

A strange phrase. Which form?

Because really, for me, Godard begins here. The known Godard is Parisian Godard…la nouvelle vague.

The unknown Godard is everything else. As an American consumer it is rather inconvenient to obtain all but the classic films from our auteur. After Week-end (1967), the DVDs become exponentially harder to come by.

But, as a rule, I digress. Liberally. Often. Without fail.

This, then, would seem to be Godard emerging from the black forest of political filmmaking and ethical soul-searching to find the inklings of his mature style.

It is not an original thought. The English-language biographies cover this thoroughly. The device in question is (for lack of a more exact term) slow-motion.

It is the playful wonder of a man who still has the curiosity of a boy.

Technology changing. New idiosyncrasies to each bit of gear on the market.

It is the same now. Stash your camera on the top shelf and soon you will not know how to make films.

Your equipment will be obsolete and your knowledge outdated.

But that is all tertiary (tertiary?) in importance.

To our film.

We have characters; plot. A walk in the wilderness and Godard (with the indispensable Anne-Marie Miéville) returned to a somewhat recognizable form. As always, however, the form is highly subverted. One might even say perverted in this particular instance. It is a strange beauty. Incomparable. A triumph. A mere glimpse of things to come.

Always playing on archetypes, Godard casts singer Jacques Dutronc as Paul Godard. There can be little doubt that this character is meant to represent the filmmaker himself. Every marker is there: the ubiquitous cigar, the glasses, the mannerisms, the disheveled college professor sartorial ensembles…

The stunning Nathalie Baye plays Denise Rimbaud. Here is where the ark types. Arc-en-ciel. A panorama of wispy clouds. Yes, Arthur is never far…nor Baudelaire…nor Sartre and Duras. And Marguerite? Faust. Your soul for a job.

Yes, prostitution returns. The grand Godardian theme. Isabelle Huppert plays the role of the sex worker Isabelle Rivière.

The setting? Switzerland. We see the signs at the station. Nyon. Not Lyon, Nyon. It brings us back to that area we visited in Godard’s second film (though it was banned and thus delayed in release) Le Petit Soldat.

The famous scenes are of Baye on a bicycle–of Dutronc in a classroom before a chalkboard reading “Cain et Abel” and “Film et video.”

Yes, the sexual aspects of this film are heavy. This perhaps proves that Godard’s return to mainstream filmmaking was not the end of his rebellious period.

Though there is a plot and there are discernible characters, it is not always clear what is going on. What cannot be disputed is the sadness which Godard brings to light with yet another exposé of whoring. Likewise, it might be gathered that the filmmaker is commenting on the perception of rural Switzerland as pristine and bucolic. The perverse element of our film echoes previous erotic episodes of Pasolini and Buñuel.

Finally, one can’t help wondering whether the film in question had a formative effect on the Iranian director Kiarostami. As in the later Taste of Cherry, Godard has one last trick up his sleeve to end out Sauve qui peut (la vie).

Indeed, Jean-Luc Godard was starting to find his magic touch again with this film…and its traces attested to a talent which was richer and better than ever before.

-PD

5 Comments

Napoleon Dynamite [2004)

If this film makes you cry, then you have problems. Welcome to my world. Hopefully this will be the best thing I have ever written.

There are a couple of times. Laugh out loud. But those parts which pass by like strange quirks. The space in between laughs. That is the pathos of marginalia.

People. Marginalized. What the hell am I talking about?

There’s awkward and aw-kward. It is the latter with which we are concerned. A whole new level of pariah.

But also mundane. And not to be forgotten…endearingly strange.

Preston, Idaho. It’s real. Really exists.

Napoleon and his brother Kip. Lots of weird mustaches here. But Napoleon is just the geeky gawky gangly guy growing up.

As Kip shows, some of us never grow up. And Uncle Rico…whoa mama. All regrets and what-ifs.

Grandmother was at the dunes and broke her coccyx. Tailbone.

Riding the four-wheeler.

Grandma’s got a boyfriend. Or a girlfriend. Or something.

This is one time when some Wikipedia contributor has actually done a loving portrait of a film.

Perusing.

Rico is our campervan Beethoven. A real jerk. But not without his humorous (humerus?) moments. Funny bone.

Fortunately LaFawnduh’s cousin is apparently Jamiroquai (they being a band and not a person).

Whoa…aw-kward. Writing.

Jon Heder approaches the greatness of Peter Sellers in this film. Heder is our lead…our anti-Bond (James). Not cool. Never was cool. Painfully existing.

Tina Majorino brings an indispensable side ponytail grace to this story. Such a beautiful girl. A real person. This film succeeds by employing a sort of Robert Bresson technique. It also is the laughing equivalent of the Romanian New Wave. To wit, Jared Hess made one of the most important American movies of recent decades. Kudos to Fox Searchlight Pictures for giving this the distribution it deserved. We know they later picked up Beasts of the Southern Wild. Nice job Fox Searchlight!

And why do we cry? Part of it is Efren Ramirez as Pedro. Down here in San Antonio. People living for their Spurs. I know. Me too. Small victories seem so big. El Presidente. He builds her a cake. The vacuous Summer. No!!! (little hearts beneath the exclamation points)

It’s hot. Pedro doesn’t have air conditioning. Napoleon’s top-loading VCR comes in handy after he scores a sweet Kid ‘n’ Play video at the thrift store. Kip backs over the Tupperware in a failed Ginsu demonstration. “Dang it!”

Pedro from Juarez. In Idaho. That’s like a Martian in Indiana or Iowa. It’s real. We all end up someplace. For some reason. And the cousins with the sweet low-rider. The cousins with the hookups. A short segment about banding together. People with odds stacked against them helping other people with odds stacked against them.

A very humble project.

And someday Napoleon’s ligers will hang in the MoMA…and his portrait of Trisha (with the deftly-shaded upper lip) will fetch $100 million at Sotheby’s.

And LaFawnduh from Detroit. Definitely AOL-era. No cellphones in this movie. Deb (Majorino) has to go to a payphone to tactfully reprimand Napoleon. But it was all Rico’s fault. Uncle Rico. Hell, Napoleon even got a job moving chickens…for $1 an hour. And they had big talons! Just drink the raw eggs and mingle with the farmers. The old people have good stories. About Shoshone arrowheads in the creek bed. White-bread sandwiches. I don’t understand a word I just said.

It’s that I don’t have any skills. Nunchuk skills. Computer hacking skills. Cage fighting skills. Rex kwon do skills.

Oops. Yeah, I dress like Peter Pan. Forever the butt of a joke.

Napoleon runs like Forrest Gump…with Trisha’s corsage. But it’s lonelier. It’s stranger. Like Peter Sellers doing Camus. Chaplin and Sartre. Les Temps modernes.

So when the antihero finally succeeds it elicits an honest firestorm of support. Lots of people with nothing to live for. A little saint for the hallway. A prayer has been answered. They already tore down my high school. Same name, different building. I pass it everyday. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Some might say. I know there’s a place for me somewhere.

It’s not all about tetherball. It’s the determination. A solitary game. A clueless dork. Thanks be to god. THis movie.

-PD

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The Ring [1927)

In the movies. What happens? Life is lived for us. We live vicariously. And so, does this art/entertainment mirror life? Yes and no. It is a continuum.

With Alfred Hitchcock we know to expect the unexpected. His career was built on bold stories and breakthrough storytelling. Yet, this is a silent film. 1927. Early Hitchcock.

This was not the mature filmmaker who would subvert expectations to thrill audiences by sneaking up on them. This is a much more traditional film.

Indeed, it is (believe it or not) a sports film. The sport? Boxing. Hence the title. But Hitchcock was ever the astute bringer of details so we might well expect that the title will have, at the least, a double meaning.

What is truly Hitchcockean is the psychological thriller aspect of this film. This is mostly embodied in the character of “One Round” Jack Sanders (Carl Brisson).

The plot then is driven by motives of redemption, revenge (of a sort), and vindication. It would make sense that a sporting story should have as its ostensible goal a victory for the hero.

It should be noted that, despite the relatively mundane silent film trappings, this is actually an incredibly odd story. The elevator pitch would go something like this…boxer’s wife obsessed with another boxer. Yes, obsessed. Like, pictures on the piano…staring dreamily at glossy portraits. A very weird premise. You’ll have to see the film to know just how Lillian Hall-Davis becomes enthralled with Bob Corby (Ian Hunter). It should also be noted that Hitchcock (or some clueless front-office dork) managed to credit Lillian Hall-Davis as playing the character of (wait for it) Lillian Hall-Davis.

It is a weird birth-of-film aspect. In fact, the copy of the film I have is off center to the left…such that the character names at the beginning of the film (not what we are used to nowadays with end credits) are cut off by the encroaching margin of a misaligned aspect ratio. But the point is that when Ms. Hall-Davis makes her entrance in the film, there is an intertitle (and it was this to which I referred) which explicitly says “The Girl” and lower “Lillian Hall-Davis.” It is as if Brecht (or Artaud) somehow got a hold of the film and decided to engage in a bit of narrative fuckery.

As for Ian Hunter (who actually has a full character name: Bob Corby), we must remember the date (1927) and do our best to put Mott the Hoople out of our heads. Likewise, I couldn’t forgive myself if I didn’t mention the immense talents of Gordon Harker (who plays Jack’s trainer).

While this film seems hundred of years removed from North by Northwest (for example), it is another integral glimpse into the mind of perhaps the greatest director of them all.

-PD

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Game of Death II [1981)

And now we ostensibly enter the schlock of true B-movie Brucespoitation. Eight years after his death, producer Raymond Chow and distributor Golden Harvest were still trying to milk money from the cutting-floor scraps of their cash cow. But someone kept things fairly interesting: director See-Yuen Ng.

Though there is little to no continuity between Game of Death and Game of Death II, both films share a watchable quality which teeters on the edge of this viewer’s incredulous ennui. Put simply, this film is better than it has any right to be. Which is not to say this is a great (or even good) film.

The most hilarious midnight movie aspects are the contrasts between film fidelity and definition circa 1973 (the actual footage of Lee) and 1981 (the footage of everyone else). I almost feel sorry for director Ng for the sleight-of-hand editing and shooting necessary to even attempt this picture. Back to the film stocks not matching…much of that is also evident in the lack of deft color correction. Occasionally a background matches and we must hand it to the technicians who found just the right shade of puke green to provide a shred of matching in the shot-reverse-shots.

Fortunately for all involved, Lee’s character meets his demise about halfway through the film. It’s smooth sailing from there regarding the different eras of film stock.

This film is not without messages. Some, apparently, have not been interpreted the same by all viewers. Whereas I distinctly heard the Ginza district of Tokyo mentioned as Lee’s (and his on-screen brother’s) destination, English Wikipedia tells us that the action moves to Korea. Of course, the astute spectator who added this bit of plot synopsis to the aforementioned site seems to have been oblivious that another contributor has Lee active before the end of the paragraph (the initial contributor giving away Lee’s character’s death along with the Korea location). So to clarify, Lee does not resurrect during the course of the film.

Roy Horan plays a significant role as a raw-venison-eating, deer’s-blood-drinking, bearded kung fu nut. As the name implies, Horan’s character is of white European lineage (not Chinese). There is a subtle undercurrent which implies that Lee’s friend (and consequently his own character as well) died for teaching kung fu to non-Chinese. This, of course, has some parallels in Lee’s actual life story.

For all of the professional attributes in this film, the “lion” attack (obviously a human in a lion costume) does not pass muster. It is, again, the stuff of midnight movies. Perhaps they were over budget by that point…

Tong Lung is actually pretty darn good as Lee’s brother (the hero of the film) Bobby Lo.

I won’t give away the ending, but suffice it to say that a multinational organization turns out to be the ultimate culprit of the two film murders in question. There are all sorts of strange strings waiting to be pulled here…fake deaths, the aforementioned cartel (this particular multinational is illegal in nature), etc.

The most interesting takeaway (take out?) was the revelation (somehow…perhaps due to the less than enthralling screen drama) that one political entity would have stood to gain from the actual Lee’s real life death. That entity would be China. Made before Hong Kong rejoined the PRC, Bruce Lee’s films and fame might have posed a significant threat to China in that (had he lived) he might well have been a unifying figure which could have fired the flames of revolution for those residents of HK not particularly excited about joining a country with such a totalitarian approach to dissent. But then again, any country which blocks the Internet (not counting Hong Kong and Macau) has far less to worry about. No information dissemination, no 21st-century speed of dissent. And it would just happen that today was July 4th…

-PD