Archive for December, 2008

Autumn Tale (1998)

December 29, 2008 at 10:04 am · Filed under It's ok ·Tagged ,

“With him there is no intellectual complicity, no affinity, or real tenderness” So says girl to her ex (Philosophy tutor) about her soon to be ex younger boyfriend.

Like with all Rohmer films there’s a lot of “complicity” going on. The weaving of head talk into intricate tangles of complicity.

The frizzy brunette in this film “Magali”- Beatrice Romand – was the little 16 year old frizzy haired charmer in Claire’s Knee. And – 28 years later – she still hasn’t found a boyfriend. Needs matchmaking help from best friend Isabelle. Who puts personal ad in the paper and then goes on the date herself to check out whether Gerard the suitor might be suitable.

Once again – as in virtually every other Rohmer film i’ve watched – it’s all about desperately finding the right mate to mate with, your “type” to type into the next perfect chapter of your perfectable life. A whirligig of emotional insecurity is spun around all the main characters – as if it were all so terribly significant. It’s de rigeur in a Rohmer film to be affectedly self-regarding about “affairs of the heart”.

Magali acknowledges that she “needs to meet a man, but i refuse to do anything about it” Which means she’s either very shy – or very frightened, or stand-offishly fussy. Thinks abit too much of herself. And when she does finally meet Gerard gets into a moody strop with the poor bloke.

Personally, i’d have dropped her like a ton of bricks. But he comes back looking for her. And all gets to be forgiven.

For all the so-called “complicity” going on – the Rohmer film world is suprisingly facile.

Dir: Eric Rohmer, France

6.5/10

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Stalker (1979)

December 26, 2008 at 11:34 am · Filed under Tedious ·Tagged

Black dogs lurching about, a recurring motif in Tarkovsky. Part of the Tarkovsky trademark. As is wateriness. Wetness. When you watch a Tarkovsky film you feel like you ought to be under an umbrella. Or maybe wearing a black raincoat, zipped right up, hood pulled right over.

You won’t want to go anywhere cus it’s teeming with rain. You’ll have to stay put, be still, slow yourself right down, become snail-like. Yes, being snailish is definitely the way to be when watching Tarkovsky: slipping slowly, and sliding furtively about. Snails gorge themselves on rain.

I don’t think i like Tarkovsky’s films that much. They certainly don’t make you feel happy (he eschewed personal “happiness” apparently as being too self-indulgent, and preferred spiritual “seriousness”)

This film will make you miserable. What a miserable thing it is to be a wretched human life on this wretched earth, seems to be the gloom-laden message. Even when you are granted the fulfillment of your most cherished desire, “the desire that has made you suffer the most” it won’t give you ultimate fulfillment.

We have to suffer to be fully human : “If there were no sorrow in our life’s, it wouldn’t be better – it’d be worse. Because then there’d be no happiness either“.

You get to suffer a lot watching Tarkovsky. His films are one long sufferance. There’s no humour. No lightness of being. It’s all grave and weighed down by gloomy gravitas. There’s no sex. Not much romance. Not much warmth.

It’s a cinema of deprivation; all your usual expectations about films exciting your desires or pleasuring you are deliberately denied, thwarted, ended.

So this is how it goes in this film:

There’s black and white oppressive gloom to begin with. Then off to The Zone for 3 men: The Writer, The Scientist, The Stalker. To mooch and mope about in misty murkiness. The camera moves slowly from afar near to, coming towards. A cuckoo echos around. Palpable silencing going on in the green grass of meadow. More standing around. Talking in obscure abstract disconnecting ways. Straight ahead is no good. Going or getting anywhere is no good. The long way round is better.

“The Zone is at each moment just as we’ve made it by our state of mind. The Zone lets thro all those who’ve lost all hope, not good or bad – but the wretched“

Wretched and wet. Going thro long tunnels. The drip drip dripping of water. Raining inside. Flowing of, traipsing through, water. Maybe there’s a reason for so much water. Maybe it’s this:

“When a man is born, he is soft and pliable. When he dies he is strong and hard. When a tree grows it is soft and pliable. But when it’s dry and hard it dies. Hardness and strength are deaths companions. Flexibility and softness are the embodiment of life. That which has become hard will not triumph.”

This is probably the only idea i’ll take with from this film. To be as fluid and flexible, soft and yielding as water is to be life-giving. What we normally think as strong – hardness – is too fixed, too rigid. What makes you harder in life doesn’t give you life. It kills you.

The film goes on for 2 1/2  very long hours. Half way through you might feel like drowning yourself. I itched inside myself to get away from it, to be released from it’s interminable grimy grim grip. I thought to myself: this is definitely the last time i’ll watch this. No more. I’ve seen it 3 times now and each time it’s had the same effect: made me feel depressed.

Another Tarkovsky film I’ll be taping over. Thank God. Praise the Lord.

Dir: Andrei Tarkovsky, Russia

4/10

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Autumn Sonata (1978)

December 25, 2008 at 6:20 pm · Filed under Good

This is possibly a very good film. But unfortunately i’ve just been watching the inferior dubbed version.

Liv Ullmann has been deformed with a yickle baby-girl voice. (I think Ingrid Bergman might have over-dubbed hers) Dubbing displaces and disengages the watching experience. I don’t like it.

Anyway, Liv is having a profound encounter with her concert pianist mother (Ingrid Bergman) in a house by a lake.

They go into confrontation, revelation, break-down – a sudden cathartic outpouring of held in pain, held onto grief – but it doesn’t look like any lasting transformation in their relationship occurs.

At the beginning Ingrid Bergman does a lot of talking to herself (like a little old bag lady might – not a celebrated pianist. Altho, then again, Glen Gould probably had such a tendency)

There’s a lot of angst-ridden dialogue and anguished faces going on between the 2 of them:

“You’re hopelessly lost inside yourself, always standing in your own way”…”Is my grief your secret pleasure?” says Liv to Ingrid.

“I wonder whether some people enjoy a more special gift for living than others, or whether some people don’t really live – but just exist” says Ingrid to Liv.

All powerfully meaningful i’m sure, and could be pretty engrossing to watch and engage with – except the dubbed voices disassociate what is being said from how it’s being said, just enough to dislocate your experience of watching it into an odd feeling of disconnection.

I don’t know how Europeans watch dubbed films.

I’d like to watch this again one day. In Swedish.

Dir: Ingmar Bergmann, Sweden

7/10 for this, but probably 8/10 in it’s original version

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Thro the olive trees (1994)

December 24, 2008 at 12:30 am · Filed under Tedious ·Tagged

Already watched this film a couple of times. Didn’t think much of it. I’ll have to see if i can see some merit in it.

The title by itself, “Thro the olive trees” merits something good said about it.

@

The olive trees are swaying in the winds. That’s about the only memorable image in this film.

Grandmother won’t let boy marry her grand-daughter “You’ve got no house, you’re illiterate, you’re empty-headed“

Seems like the grand-daughter doesn’t want to marry him either. He tries cajoling and coaxing – but she never says a word. He follows her through the olive trees. Comes back with nothing.

I can’t find anything much to say about this film. Felt very little engagement with it. And I’ve tried watching enough now.

Time to put it into a plastic bag.

Dir: Abbas Kiarostami, Iran

4/10

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Where is my friends house? (1987)

December 23, 2008 at 9:16 pm · Filed under Tedious ·Tagged

He’s an appealing little lad. According to Kiarostami he was looking for a non-actor with the right kind of worried look – and this lad was picked out.

He – Ahmed – is worried. Concerned to return the school exercise book he mistakenly took back to Reza, his friend. Otherwise Reza will be in trouble with teacher. Shouted at again in front of the class. Not doing homework in your lesson book gets you told off. And if it happens once more – well, terrible things might happen.

You can see Ahmed is a good boy, a kind boy. He wants to do the right thing. So he’s run off over the hill, up the zig zag path to the neighbouring village. Doesn’t know where Reza lives. Searching and asking directions. It’s dark already. It might be that house – but a big dog is barking. Ahmed has to return home.

So he does what all good friends should do. Next morning, he slides in beside his friend, just as teacher is hovering, and hands Reza his book. With homework done.

It’s a well-intentioned little tale.

But not especially engaging. I was disappointed, expected more – but kind of felt i got less.

Dir: Abbas Kiarostami, Iran

5/10

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Lasse and Lena (1975)

December 22, 2008 at 12:44 pm · Filed under Good ·Tagged , ,

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This film is called “A Lover and his Lass” – but i prefer to call it “Lasse and Lena”.

There’s no reviews or pictures of it anywhere on the Internet. Doesn’t suprise me. One of Lasse Halstroms early efforts – it probably only ever gets seen on Swedish tv once in a blue moon to remind Swedes what their 1970’s Abba world was like.

And i’ve only got 69 of the 94 minutes running time (i taped from a friend’s tape, who’d missed the first 20 minutes – don’t think he realised he was taping it)

Doesn’t matter tho, cus what i have got i must have watched at least 10 times in the last 6 years. Why?!

I don’t know why. Well i do know why. But i can’t give good why reasons that justify watching it. It just touches me. Moves me. Warms me.

You’ve got Lasse (Brasse Brannstrom): he’s 26, and delivering morning newspapers instead of being a journalist. He backslides thro life on auto charm pilot, gets into women’s knickers by tickling their funny bones.

Lena (Mariann Rudberg) is charmed by him. And can’t stop laughing her head off.

But then he’s confessing to being a shitheap: “I just play along, that’s me. I’m afraid of everything…. afraid of not being the charmer one likes to imagine. You’ve met a real shit. So now you know – and i just bedded another girl“

Lena gets understandably upset: “Do you think your failings are so extraordinary? You’re just an ordinary man. Trying to shock me doesn’t make you more “interessant” (prefer the Swedish way of saying “interesting”)

She dumps him. Then forgives him. Takes him back. Cus he’s just too, well – lovable. A lovable loon. In a red bobble hat. With a tassle.

So he settles into his ordinary – by joining it to Lenas ordinary. Moves in with her (altho leaves his stereo behind in his flat – hasn’t fully comitted) He gets a regular job as an ordinary postman. They get a double bed.

Conflict starts occuring. Lovers tiffs: “Swedens a small country. Sometimes“.  That then escalate into arguments and eventually breakup. They’re on holiday in Tunisia. He’s becoming a pain in the arse about not being a tourist. “You don’t want to experience anything, you’re a coward about everything” she shouts at him (this in a Roman Ampitheatre) “Your humour lets you get away with anything, but there’s no real you. I’m fed up with your humour” (funny how what was endearing in a lover can become their most annoying characteristic – and vice versa)

He’s gonna have to do something to get her back. Comes back pleading: “I’ve changed haven’t i? A little?” (He’d been going thro a comedy routine on a park bench) She bursts out laughing. Can’t resist. He has to be forgiven – too much of a lovable lost little boy. Cue soppy Abba lovers theme (yes, theres a romantic Abba soundtrack) They’re back on again.

Final scene is a group photo of family and friends. Lena is running towards them to get herself in the picture – falls and stumbles against Lasse’s legs. She’s pregnant.

So, i’ve written 600 words about a Swedish rom-com from the 1970’s that nobody has ever heard of or will ever see, and – in all honesty – is cheesy cack.

It’s got all the usual rommy-commy cliches – altho it’s maybe abit more harder spun; Lasse’s self-loathing shitheap monologue comes across as desolate, despairing; and the break-up at the ampitheatre also punches your guts – with something painfully truthful. Truth always hurts.

I wish i’d seen it back in the 70’s. It was meant for me to watch it then. I could have grown up with it, and been grown up by it.

But i watch it now anyway. When i want a shot of feel-good, and be having love in existence – even if it’s only the out-dated flared trouser love of 1970’s Sweden.

Reckon this film will always have the charm to sweeten – and occasionally sadden – my smile. Making me feel nostalgic about something i don’t think i’ve ever really experienced.

Dir: Lasse Halstrom, Sweden

8/10

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Closely Observed Trains (1966)

December 21, 2008 at 10:48 am · Filed under Good ·Tagged , ,

Or “Closely Absurd Trains” would be my alternative title.

Wet behind the ears virgin Milos is the new Station guard. Fellow guard Hubicka (right in pic) is Milos’s subversive superviser into the world of closely observing trains and  – more importantly – the world of intimately seducing women.

There’s typical Bohumil Hrabalisms, his absurdist repetitions: “That clock has a lovely chime“… “The Germans are pigs“.

“Guard Hubicka’s cousin, you have such lovely ears” is the pigeon crapped Station Masters oily seduction routine. Doesn’t get him anywhere. Not like cheeky charlie Hubicka. He gets all the totty passing thro the station.

The steaming past of trains in the snow (lets start my own Hrabalism)

Milos isn’t get any either. Wilted like a lily. Not a man. He slits his wrists.

Hubicka is making “a mockery of German state language stamps” – on the young telegraphists bottom (great scene this, simultaneously comic and erotic – difficult to do) He’s even got a jaunty little mocking whistle. Great mockery going on.

The steaming past of trains in the snow.

“All women are easy, at the right moment” Hubicka sly advises Milos. And seems like he’s right, cus Milos finally gets his right moment -  unwilts his lily.

And then he gets his heroic moment. Which also happens to be his last moment.

The steaming past of trains in the snow, their thundering clatter – and then Boom!

Dir: Jiri Menzel, Czechoslovakia (as it then was)

7.5

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Homework (1991)

December 20, 2008 at 10:29 am · Filed under Tedious

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I’m getting thro all the films i’ve taped to video at a rate of knots lately. Re-watching some films makes me wonder why i copied them in the first place. This is one of them.

One set, one camera set-up (floor angle level) no cuts, no editor. Two actors. She’s a mature student wanting to secretly film herself having sex with an ex for a college homework assignment.

She’s set herself up in a tight red alligator dress and red stilletos. She wants to liberate herself from sexual inhibition, and shock her classmates.

He finds out, storms out. Returns. She says sorry. Eventually they end up having awkward looking sex in a white hammock.

Here comes the twist: they’re actually man and wife and the “homework” charade was just a spicy marital sex game.

Life has moved on since 1991 (when this film was made). Homemade porn is all over the Internet now. And probably better than this porno psuedo-ery. Amaetuers they are. In the worst sense of the word.

A lesson in how not to make a mucky video.

Dir: Jaime Humberto Hermosilla, Mexico

4/10

Had to take the pic myself. No images of this film exist on the Internet. Sunk without trace.

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Still Life (1974)

December 19, 2008 at 5:30 pm · Filed under Good

At the side of the railway crossing stands a little yellow signal box. Inside it sits – or more often than not sleeps – an old signalman (pic above) He’s been a signalman inside that grubby signal box for 33 years.

He winds the barrier down, he winds the barrier up. A train passes maybe 3 or 4 times a day. Time for him to sleep. And smoke. And go home for lunch.

Home is another bigger box. His tiny wife sits in there on a loom all day long weaving rugs. They cook their simple supper in a single pot on a small burner. They eat it with their fingers sat on the floor. When it’s time to sleep tiny wife rolls out a thin mat in the middle of the room. Old man takes the small single bed. No goodnight is said.

Mostly little is being said. So little to say.

There’s no tv (it’s 1960) No radio. No books or newspapers (they can’t read) There’s little in the way of conversation. Bare essentials, bare minimum.  No acting is necessary. No drama to enact.

Soldier son arrives. He sleeps. Eats. Drinks tea. Drinking tea Iranian style involves pouring tea from samovar into cup, placing a lump of sugar onto tongue, tipping black tea from cup into saucer – and then sipping off saucer through sugar into mouth.

Son soon leaves.

Letter arrives telling old signalman he’s “retired“. ” “What does that mean?” he says “Enjoy yourself for the rest of your life” is the glib reply.

He goes to complain. To the City. To the Boss. No good. Futile.

Sacked. No where to live. They must leave. Their few possessions strapped to a cart and horse.

Such a small life, a still life. So easily disposed of.

Minimalist documentary verite style film of minuscule, insignificant, meagre, impoverished, existence.

Slow. Stark.

Hopelessly sad.

Dir: Sohrab Shahid Saless, Iran

7.5/10

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Lemming (2005)

December 17, 2008 at 2:53 pm · Filed under It's ok ·Tagged , , ,

A lemming gets stuck in the pipes under the kitchen sink. Odd thing to happen. But even odder things are gonna happen soon.

Your model married life as Mr & Mrs Suburbia is going to go seriously – and psychotically – awry.

Enter Charlotte Rampling with sunglasses and frown; a very volatile dinner guest. Chucks red wine over suave hubbies face. He deserves it – cus he’s been dicking with whores again (apparently) And tried to kill her once – about 20 years ago. She didn’t leave him cus she wants to “see him die“.

Rampling broods with frozen menace and malevolence. Tries to cop off with Laurent Lucas – but he resists (this scene turns out to be pivotal in a lot of the machinations of what happens later on)

You’re fine, I’m fine, everything is fine. Lets try and carry on as if nothing has happened.  Only it isn’t fine. The norm is gonna get ripped out of the bourgeoise normality; Rampling has turned up again – and blown her brains out against their bedroom wall.

The 2nd half of the film careers dramatically into supernatural suspense thriller territory. The actors start losing the moorings of their characters. Understandable i suppose given what Charlottes done to them.

Laurent Lucas does what he did in Harry He’s Here to Help; slides from Mr Decent & Regular into Mr Shocked & Very Worried. If you want slack-jawed incredulity and sweaty panicky anguish – he’s your man. Charlotte Gainsbourg is good at being Mrs Calm & Phlegmatic in the first half; but running off and shagging Ramplings hubby doesn’t seem right or to fit her character.

And the lemming? Omen of self-destructive, displaced, desperate, vulnerability i guess. Nothing in your life ever goes according to plan. You never know. What might turn up next. It could be harmless. Or it could be very hurtful. Destroy you.

Lemming gets dumps in the bin at the end.

Superior suspense souffle is how i’d sum this film up.

Dir: Dominik Moll, France

6.5/10

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