Dry Summer (1964)

Found this on The Auters website as a free download: a b/w film from 1964 “captured” by the Turkish Authorities but subsequently found, and restored with the help of the World Cinema Foundation.

A big (bad) man astride a small donkey rides through narrow streets of rural village. This is Osman who’s gonna be the Arch Villain in this film. He wants to cut the water supply to the villagers, keep it all for his selfish self. His weaker younger brother Hassan is protesting but semingly obliged to observe family loyalty. There’ll be trouble.

Hassan is bethrothed to Bahar but is coerced into pinching her away from mom by loudmouth Osman. Bahar becomes The Wife. Osmans idea of a joke is to throw a headless chicken at her: “A woman needs scaring every now and then” he chortles. Ho ho ho – yes, very funny Osman..

Is Hassan gonna be strong enough to stand up to his boorish bully brother you wonder.

Osman dams up the water. The villagers get it undammed. Osman gets it redammed.

Villagers are taking action; shoot Osmans dog (you see the shooting, there’s no averting the camera) It’s guns now. A couple of villagers creep up in the dark to dynamite the dam, are chased after and Hassan shoots one dead. Both brothers are arrested but Osman is coercing his sibling into taking the rap; Hassan gets 8 years.

Osman has got pretty Bahar all to himself now. He’s looking up her skirt with eyes like groping hands, perving after her through the slatted bedroom wall. She’s doing her best to resist his charms, but he’s at her persistently. She gets bitten by a snake and he’s greedily sucking the venom out of her leg. Then he’s sucking a cow in front of her, milking its teats into his gaping mouth, lasciviously stroking the cows leg. If he gets his dirty hands on Bahar he’ll….

She’s pining for news from her beloved husband but Osman rips up the letters; then he tells her Hassan has been murdered. Eventually – involuntarily really, and shamefully -  she capitulates to O’s lustful advances.

But Hassan isn’t dead; he’s been pardoned, and rushing back for a Final Showdown with Osman. In the ensuing melee Bahar gets shot – but not fatally (Thank Allah); the 2 bro’s grapple in the water and Hassan drowns the bad bastard (Thank Allah again) He tears down the dam and releases the “Earths blood” (water) back to where it should belong (That is: it should belong to Everyone – as Allah’s gift)

Apt end for the selfish man. A right Capitalist cunt (seems to be the message) Hassan is the good guy, wants to share the water with his neighbours – but he’s been far too weak. His motivation in taking the rap for Osman is barely credible; i mean, we know he’s weak – but willing to go to prison for 8 years, for a brother even he doesn’t particularly like?! Come on. That doesn’t work.

Seems like some of the final reel is missing and/or damaged, cus we get occasional black screens and odd jumps in scenes. Actually, the last 15 minutes is crudely realised, as if the director ran out of money, resources, time, patience.

But the final take of Osmans drowned body flushing out the opened dam down to the village is, well, is what he deserved. Good riddance. And good comeuppance!

Dir: Metin Erksan, Turkey

6.5/10 (can’t quite give it a 7 cus the characters are a bit too 2 dimensional)

But it was a treat really.

Ikiru (to live) (1952)

Mr Wantanabe, Chief of Citizens Section, has cancer; only he’s not aware of it yet. In about 20 minutes he will be.

“He just drifts through life. In fact he’s barely alive” informs the voice-over narrator.

In fact, Mr Wantanabe has only got 6 months to live. So what will he do or how will he be in this last bit of life left?

“It’s hard to die. I don’t know what i’ve been alive for” he’s sadly saying to writer-of-cheap-novels. They’re sat in a cheap bar. “I’m drinking this expensive sake as a protest against my life up to now” says Mr W.

Writer-of-cheap-novels takes him out for a night on the town, to help him – momentarily – make up for his wasted life. Playing slot-machines?! No, we’re gonna have more fun than that. We’re gonna get plastered. We’re gonna go to clubs and music halls. We’re gonna have dancing girls. You’re gonna buy a new loud hat Mr W. There’s gonna be jazz. You’re gonna sing a sad song and cry small tears about how “Life is so short“. What about picking up a couple of tarts and having some rumpy pumpy?.

No, that’s going  abit too far. But he does spent some fun time with a cheeky young girl from the office; she’s nicknamed him, “The Mummy“. Thankfully, he doesn’t slap her – he bursts out laughing, cus it’s true: he has been a Mummy. “Why do you run after me?” she wants to know, “I hope it’s not love”. “No it’s not” he says. And he’s not perving after her either. “Your energy amazes me. It fills me with envy. I’d like to live like you, for just one day before i die”.

“I want to do something. But i don’t know  what to do. Only you can show me” he’s saying.

And then he has an Epiphany, a miraculous moment of realisation (don’t quite know how this Awakening happens, I’ll have to watch it again more carefully) Spiritual Resolve has been born within: “It isn’t too late. I can accomplish something“.

He doesn’t die at the end; he dies about 45 minutes before the end. And then we have the Town Hall bureaucrats he worked with drunkenly arguing and puzzling over how Mr Wantanabe’s behaviour had changed in the last months of his life, perplexed by his “strange persistence“, his “fanatical zeal… how he wouldn’t take no for an answer” – and wondering whether his “humble attitude” was cus he knew he was gonna die.

Yes he knew. And the knowledge was driving him to go create a park for kids. And he dies in the park, happily swinging on the swings in the snow singing his sad little “Life is so short” song again. What a sweetheart. At last, he did something.

It’s an affecting film. Although it’s 2 hours 20 minutes running time could have been shortened (especially the final 45 minutes of those boring blokes in suits  sat around doing their drunken retrospections)

I was gonna bin this film. But i’m not now. Cus i expect to be watching this film again in the future. With interest.

Dir: Akira Kurosawa, Japan

7.5/10

What’s the reason Mr Wantanabe’s starey eyes, he hardly seems to blink. Well, it’s part of the ancient Noh theatre acting technique. It’s called the Noh Blink Method. Lol

An Education (2009)

I’ve just seen this off the Internet. It was only in the cinema a couple of weeks ago. I could have gone to see it. I usually give films the twice-over but i don’t feel too compelled to watch this film again – so this post might be more of a reaction than a review.

It’s pretty swish. Meaning it’s handsomely produced. But feels empty of – surprises, spontaneity, vitality. A film about growing up and coming of age in the 1960’s that made in the 1960’s might have made more sense.

Black and white films of the 60’s like “A Taste of Honey” or “Up the Junction” or “Blow Up”, although quaintly dated, do feel “actual”,  a real living document of the times they’re being filmed in. This film is more like a filmed facsimile, a faithful replication of the period but with a too tidy self-consciousness leaking through, betraying our more “knowing” half a century on sensibility.

All the critics have been wowing over Carey Mulligan’s performance as Jenny; and she is good, in that she’s very watchable; it’s a confident, self-assured performance, but too self-assured possibly? She’s too apt all the time, too controlled even when she’s falling apart, a bit too smooth with the sardonic repostes.  Sixteen year old schoolgirls in 1961 weren’t this self-possessed surely?

The film contrives charm but isn’t charming – not in a naive, unaffected way (like those 60’s films were); it’s more of a glossy, glittery, sophistry you see. No rough edges. Kind of nice, but not very engaging. Well, i wasn’t engaged.

I ought to be setting the scene, outline what happens, characterise how the performances unfold. But i think I’ll pass.

It’s all perfectly mannered, decently done, mildly diverting. But unremarkable.

I might see more merit in it on a second watch. But probably not.

Dir: Lone Scherfig, UK

6/10

The screenplay is an adaptation by Nick Hornby of a memoir by posh paper interviewer Lynn Barber.

Anvil: The Story of Anvil

In the picture above you’ve got 2 Jewish guys: drummer boy Robb (on the left) and lead singer/guitarist Lips. Best Buddies since adolescence they’ve stuck it out together, kept their band “Anvil” going for over 35 years. Both of them are now in their 50’s, losing their hair (Robb hides his bald patch under caps and hats), getting flabby-faced and belly-paunched; Lips teeth aren’t looking too great.

According to various heavy metal luminaries, back in the early 80’s Anvil were the “real deal”: combining great musicianship with outrageousness (Lips poked about his guitar with a dildo) and an immediately identifiable brand logo: the Anvil. “They were out there man, they took metal onto another level“.

Problem was: they were Canadian! Lol. Had crap management. Maybe the songs weren’t that great. Songs with Spinal Tap like titles “Thumb-hang” and “Toe-jam”: “Down with her fishnets/ Up with her skirt/Dig a little deeper/Till you hit pay-dirt”. Not grown up man. Juvenile.

Maybe Lips wasn’t sexy enough looking as lead singer. Maybe decades of copious toking on wacky baccy scrambled their head banger brains. Maybe they’re just a couple of terminal losers.

So they didn’t “make it”, the Big Time, Fame, Success. But they thrashed on. “Anvil give me the happiness you need to get through life” says Lips. Lips works at “Choice Childrens Catering“, as a delivery man. He has to wear a hair net.

The film is being a gentle mock mockery of Spinal Tap for the first half hour; Robb’s fat  sister Droid is interviewed. Then there’s the “Spaceball” Swiss-Italian tour-manager Tiziana with her eccentric English and the farcical European tour playing to 10 headbangers in little backstreet clubs. They make no money. Things get tense. Things get desperate. They’re sleeping overnight in airport lounges cus they can’t afford a hotel. “This fucking band man, i need it to rise man” complains Robb.

There’s gotta be a forward hoping narrative to all of this; otherwise it’s gonna be too sad, too pathetic. We gotta have some possibility man. So Lips’s angelic older sister fronts £13,000 to record new make or break album “This is Thirteen”

“We’re gonna be rock stars. It’s a fucking dream! But i’m gonna make it come true!!” shouts eternal optimist Lips. A determined Gonnabe. Or maybe a deluded Neverwas. The daft twat. Gonna be rock stars? At 51? Why?! Act your age man! Actually, come to think of it, he is acting his age. He’s about 14.

There’s something puppy-dog endearing about Lips: his boyish enthusiasm, his boyish naiveté, his boyish vulnerability. At heart he’s a big kid. With a big muppet-mouth wide-opened grin. I’ve warmed to him. Just as i’ve warmed to taciturn Robb. There’s something heart-warming about how brothered and buddied up they are together. Best mates for life man.

A couple of family guys. We’ll pass over their fucked-up pantomime outrageousness of  the past – that’s history, that’s gone. I mean, they’re still fucked up now – but in a nicer way.They’re good guys now. You’re rooting for them come the end of the film. You wish for something good to happen to them. And it does.

Lips might have seemed like a loser at the start of the film  but his winning philosophy has won through. You believe him when he says: “It’s about what you’re willing to settle for. It’s about being able to live with yourself. It’s about having a good time with my life, enjoying my life”.

And who could disagree with this sweet spin of home-spun: “The most valuable things in life are your relationships, the people that you know, the places you’ve been and the experiences that you’ve had”.

It’s what we’d all want. Even if we weren’t rock stars. Tears of boyish love are welling up in me dude!

A film about never giving up. Or growing up. It’s great man!

Dir: Sasha Gervasi, UK

8/10

I’ve downloaded some of their songs. A couple are ok.  They’re as good as heavy metal gets i guess. If head-bangery is your thing you’d get off on them.

Ugetsu Monogatari (1953)

“Tales of the pale and silver moon after the rain” it says on opening titles.

It’s got a lot of tale in it.

Set in 16 century when warlords vied for dominance.

“A man should have a dream, something to strive for“. Not just potting pots or farming farms – but aspirations for something better and bigger; more wealth and status, more love. And even humble peasants can be wannabe Samurai’s.

Comes rampaging pillaging pillagers. Frightened villagers have to scarper. Potter goes back to save his pots. And then off to market to make fortune selling pots with other potter and their wifes in a boat.

Off to court misfortune more like; and get caught up consorting with spirits, deluded into vaingloriousness, becoming a fallen woman (one of the wifes gets raped by those drunken maraunders, so becomes a fallen whore).

You have to watch it like you might watch a fairytale or a ghost fable – or a Western (only without Audie Murphy) I’m thinking to myself: what is there to learn – i mean really learn – in these simplistic melodramas any more? Just as i wouldn’t watch a Cowboy and Indian film to seriously engage psychologically with, so i’m not taken by morality tales like this – far too old fashioned and archaic to be illuminating my modern day consciousness.

It’s been tagged as one of the “Greatest films of all time” by some film buffs. I don’t see why. Maybe if you’re an old buff who is about 80 years old and you have to gush buffery over anything that reminds you of those good old black and white days of yore.

I don’t like films like fables or fairy tales much. I wasn’t read to as a child see.

Fast-forwarding a film means i’m not engaging. I fast-forwarded through this a lot.

Dir: Kenji Mizoguchi, Japan

4/10

Mizoguchi is meant to be a Master of Cinema too. But he didn’t master me.

Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll (2010)

Went to see the new biopic about Ian Dury. Biopics are usually crap. This wasn’t too bad – but still disappointing.

The film is all about Dury, with a secondary emphasis given to his relationship with Baxter (his son in the pic above)

Andy Serkis is commendable as Dury; he’s just been nominated for a Bafta. Pity that Ian Dury – as Ian Dury – isn’t as commendable. Or even likeable. “Pugnacious punk with bolshy anarchic spirit” might be a way to describe him if you were being kind. “Egotistical gobshite cum boorish bastard” if you were being honest.

Driven by anger and resentment at being a “spastic” to get himself known about, noticed; gotta flip that inferiority complex as the runty Bottom Dog around; come all over as the (Top) Dogs bollocks, the Clever Dick as a compensation mechanism. You don’t give a fuck about being a nice disabled person;  you don’t give a fuck about being a normal ordinary nobody. You’re gonna fuckin lap it up – the sex, the drugs, the booze – as much as you can grab hold of or get away with.

There didn’t seem to be any self-pity in Ian Dury. He didn’t want your sympathy, he wanted respect; which seems tantamount to not dissing him – in any way. And yet he treated the people around him like shit. Even though – creatively and emotionally – he needed them. But cus he needed them he used them, seemed mercilessly exploitative.

You can see by the way this review is panning out that i’ve got the “ump wiv Dury – the Blockhead!” Lol. I can’t say that i liked him that much when he was alive either. And his music? I downloaded some in the last couple of weeks to prime myself for watching this film; some of it’s amusing, in a sniggery laugh out the back of your hand kind of way; but mostly the lyrics sound like  “cleva” doggrel, the songs vaudevillian, to be heard in the music hall or dahn the booza, rambunctiously, salaciously, stompin abhat, shoutin rather than singin, slaggin everything off; Kenny Everett rolled into Madness wiv loads of fackin swearin to get people riled up.

What about the film though? (as a film) It’s noisy, racketty; visually off-kilter, there’s loads of fast cutting and nervy energetic jumping about with the editing. I suddenly realised something: i don’t go for this rat-a-tat-a-tat overload of visual stimulation. It’s for kids with playstations or ADHD or buzzed up on speed. I just want to say: stop, slow down, lets get back to a speed that feels like, well – feels like Life.

It’s a theatrical film, consciously mannered and stylised to be like a “performance”, as if Dury’s life was kind of  played out as a stage performance, he had his “act” going on the whole time.

Several times how “alone” he is and “alone we all are” comes up; he’s saying it to his son too: “But i’m here” says Baxter. That hit me (not with his rhythm stick) It was poignant. Ian Dury only ever seemed “here” for himself.

I doubt I’ll listen to those downloads that much (The songs are trite really) My opinion of  Ian “Spasticus” Blockhead is firmly thumbs down. Not an irascible rogue – but a right charmless cunt.

“There ain’t half been some narsty barstards” Yeah, and if this film is anything to go by, Ian Dury was one of them.

Dir: Mat Whitecross, England

5/10

Slumdog Millionaire

This isn’t a film i would normally review. But i’ve seen it twice now. So, may as well.

It didn’t get any better the second time around.

My objection to it is: it’s too slick. It’s kind of poverty porn. Too much over-egged, razzle-dazzle production to be taken that seriously as an authentic depiction of full on life on the heaving streets of Bombay.

It tries to be full-on. The pace is fast, the cutting and pasting of the film is hectically in your face. But there’s too much flashy camera work going on, too much noisy soundtrack. And the narrative structure with it’s start-and-stop flashbacking – feels overly contrived.

I didn’t really believe – in any of it. Especially not the central conceit re the millionaire game-show. Too many holes of “in-credible” inplausibility that kept me in film-watching mode rather than feeling-for the characters as “real” subjects of the world they were meant to be inhabiting.

Maybe a drama-documentary style would have suited my watching better. With slow essentials, and small details exposing the ugly stain of desperate, maybe even despairing, humanity underneath. With nothing much of hope happening. No glamorous uplift in a Slumdog shitty life. But i could feel some genuine empathy at least. My heart would be held fast in some kind of compassionate response.

This film comes across as a “film”. It’s predicated on a principle of wanting to be entertaining; a kind of modern day fairy tale, replete with old-fashioned phony uplift and facile redemption.

The “glorious” clap-happy dance-off over the end credits betrays what this film essentially is: a big feel-good slice of sickly simplistic sentiment; sugared up with gooey romantic lurv.

No wonder it won 8 Oscars.

Dir: Danny Boyle, UK/India

5/10

Rashomon (1950)

I’m watching a copy of a copy of a copy of this film. Which makes the film look like it was made in 1850

Toshiro Mifune plays a “famous bandit” who is dishonouring (raping) a fine lady in the woods while  murdering her husband. Or is it the contemptous husband who is murdered by the disgraced wife? Or does the husband end up killing himself?

We don’t know what to believe or who is telling the truth. The “facts” are distorted by psychological contaminations. “I don’t mind lies as long as the story is interesting” says the woodcutter.

So is the story interesting? I suppose so. Mifune keeps it interesting by jumping around like a mad monkey, grinning and gurning, baring his teeth, spitting and shouting, spinning and gamboling about, laughing like a lunatic. Apparently Kurosawa asked Mifune to model his movements like a lion, but he comes across more comic clown caricature. It’s all madcap theatrical.

“A woman should be won by the sword” says fine lady egging the 2 males to fight one another. So they roll about pantomiming fight gestures and postures.

There’s a lot of posturing and gesturing in this film. I’ll give Mifune a Best Gesturer and Top Gurner Lifetime Award.

I wasn’t especially engaged by this supposed film “classic”. Maybe my poor copied copy of a copy was too dishonoured. Or maybe the stories within stories, wthin lies, within tales, within fibs, within truths or half-truths etc got to feel too contrived and convoluted for me to be that bothered who had done what to whom.

Dir: Akira Kurosawa, Japan

5/10

Heart of Glass (1976)

The legend is that Herzog had the non-professional cast of 35 put into a trance during the film, repeating lines they had learnt under hypnosis. There’s certainly alot of glassy eyed staring going on, people sat oddly catatonic.

“Madness is rampant in the village” says herdsman Hias. And he should know. It appears he has apocalyptic visions that can clairvoyantly prophesize the hell thats going on.

All is falling and flying. All human striving is in vain. The village is doomed, the factory where the Ruby Glass is made is doomed, the earth is doomed, the world as we know it is doomed. Everybodys doomed!

According to herdsman Hias, “The time of the Giants is coming back“. To be followed, puzzlingly, by “The time of the Clearing of Benches”. Right.

Maybe what will save this desperate situation is if Hias could somehow find out what the secret of the ruby glass is. He gets called in from the forest by the effete son of the glass factory, who seems affected with melancholy malady: “The untidiness of the stars makes my head ache” he says, mopping at a fevered brow with a cuff. “You have a heart of glass ” he says to Hias. Right.

Hias has had enough. He buggers off back to his forest, there to fight with an imaginary bear. I don’t know what that’s meant to mean. Just like i don’t know what all the other soporific goings on are meant to mean either. Everybody walks about in their own peculiar stupor, not making much sense to one another either. God this gets tiresome!

Maybe the film is meant to be hypnotizing us – the viewers too. You do feel abit mesmerized after a while. But not in a good way. Stupefied. Into an unmagical and unenlightened state of Utter Boredom.

There’s some evocative imagery; clouds tumbling into rivers that fly into mists that then fall into seas…all made mistier and moodier by a Popol Vuh soundtrack (sounded abit like substandard Pink Floyd)

It’s time i sold this vid (it’s got that other tedious film “Woyzeck” too) on Ebay. Some serious film student is bound to love it.

Dir: Werner Herzog, Germany

4/10

Lake Tahoe (2008)

This film reminded me a bit of Argentinian film “Glue“; adolescents living in the middle of nowhere where not alot happens. Not much of a story. Not much dramatic impetus. A sense of waiting around inside wilfully static but artfully composed single-frames.

There’s stylistic gimmicks going on. A young director needing to make a splash perhaps, so wanting to make his way of filming look different. So you get lots of still camera and walking into shot, walking out of shot. The camera lingers about in stasis, not going anywhere. Just like the small-time characters in the small-time town.

Nothing to do but be waiting, sitting, watching. Not saying much. Or the talk is terse, as if people haven’t got the will or the wherewithal to articulate the ennui that seems to be emptying them inside.

Of course, teenagers can be taciturn at the best of times. Especially with or around adults. But Juan seems particularly uncommunicative. The reason seems to be unarticulated grief re the recent death of his father. He doesn’t know how to say how it hurts.

Mama is smoking, crying in the bath. She doesn’t want to talk.

Little brother is lost inside the bubble of his tent.

Juan gently bumps his dads red Nissan into a lamppost. Alot of looking, waiting, sitting on step has to be done for a part distributor harness to turn up.

The camera dawdles around sherbet-coloured houses and lemon streets. There’s a sterile turquoise horizon over there where nobody is going to.

It’s a shortish film (75 mins?) Which is more than long enough.

Dir: Fernando Eimbcke, Mexico

5/10